We are lucky to live well, have a happy life, others don't, children are always the most vulnerable and easily exploited by people who are the most despicable of mankind. They do not care at all how they make money; if possible always on the back of others.
Tell Nintendo Slavery is Not a Game;
Conflict minerals are mined by prisoners of war and child slaves.
Nintendo doesn't seem to think this matters.
Electronics like laptops, cell phones, and game consoles contain minerals that are often mined by people in the Congo forced to perform this labor under threat of violence or death. This is why they are often called 'conflict minerals.'
Companies like HP, Apple and Microsoft have taken steps to make their products conflict-free, but not Nintendo.
The very first step for Nintendo to rid its products of conflict minerals is to audit its supply chain and make the information public.
The violence and slavery associated with the production of minerals in the Congo is devastating. There is absolutely no excuse for a company with so much money and power to turn a blind eye to this human rights tragedy.
Freakish, flowering now, the Hippeastrum flowers generally in spring, October, November, depending on the weather into December.
Wayward; cherry tree flowering now towards end of summer; it should flower in spring!
Fickle; Lichen are choosy, Lichens and mosses only grow in areas where the air is clean and will not flourish in gardens in polluted inner-city suburbs.
Whimsical; Lovely moth, saw it in the morning on the fence. Moth and Lichens are some of my favourites.
There is something about them, interesting in all aspects and absolutely beautiful.
The Appenzeller tobacco pipe, called a Lindauerli is part the
Alpine national costume, still worn today for social occasions.
The tobacco pipes are still produced today in the same way and style as in earlier times. Generally they are produced from wood of the pear tree and varnished very dark brown or black and decorated
with stylized Edelweiss, Alpen flora and cows from silver or tin.
This one is a tobacco pipe with a swan neck!
This is also a Lindauerli, I should have pointed the head down wards, that's how it is smoked'
A folks song; Myn Vater isch en Appenzeller,
der isst de' Chäs mitsamt'em Teller.
My father is a born Appenzeller he eats his cheese and the plate, which means, in earlier time they served the cheese on a thick piece of bread, so he eats the cheese and the plate!
Still a very traditional bringing the animals up to the Alps in early summer and also celebrating when they are returning at the end of summer.
The canton Appenzell, situated in the north-east of Switzerland, was from 1513 to 1597 one single cantons (1597 the canton was divided into the Catholic Innerrhoden and the reformed Ausserrhoden).
This morning it was raining and I went grocery shopping. I left at 8 am and was back at 10:30. I usually go to a smaller shopping centre not to far to drive. I quickly went to the library to pick up some books. I read now a lot from my Sony reader, but from time to time it is nice to hold a REAL book!
The books I borrowed are BAND OF SISTERS by Gathy Gohlke;
AND WHEN SHE WAS GOOD by Laura Lippman; I don't know about this one THE SINS OF THE MOTHER; Danielle Steel, perhaps I read it perhaps not. Anyway some blissful hours are waiting.
When I returned home I found a small parcel waiting for me; a beautiful present;
Exquisite bangles made from Buffalo horn. Artisans in North Vietnam make them. The colours are very beautiful and they are feather-light to wear.
Today I send a green smilebox to my friends in the cold climate to cheer them up!
I have lots to do in the garden after the rain, not only what I want grows like crazy, this means hat, gloves and boots until it gets to hot out there.
Cannas make wonderful statements, with their bold, elegantly straight demeanour in the gardens.
My favourite is this one. Its flower is quite insignificant in regard to the others. The flower is small, deep red on a tall stem, quite out of proportion. What I like about this Canna are its leaves which are a delight and make up completely for the lack of flower power.
St. Moritz is a resort town in the Engadine valley in Switzerland. It is a municipality in the district of Maloja in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. The highest summit in the Eastern Alps, the Piz Bernina, lies a few kilometres south of the town.
Population: 5,148 (2008)
Elevation: 1,822 m
Area: 28.69 km²
Weather: -13°C, Wind N at 32 km/h, 52% Humidity
Local time: Friday 9:02 pm on 09/02/2013
Australian time 06/07 am, +21°C
Votive offerings, swords, and needles from the Bronze Age, were found at the base of the springs in St. Moritz, which indicate that the Celts had already discovered them.
St. Moritz is first mentioned around 1137-39 as ad sanctum Mauricium. The town was named after Saint Maurice, a Coptic Orthodox, and Roman Catholic saint.
Pilgrims travelled to Saint Mauritius, the church of the springs, where they drank from the blessed, bubbling waters of the Mauritius springs in the hopes of being healed. In 1519, the Medici pope, Leo X, promised full absolution to anyone making a pilgrimage to the church of the springs. In the 16th century, the first scientific treatises about the St. Moritz mineral springs were written. In 1535, Paracelsus, the great practitioner of nature cures, spent some time in St. Moritz.
1931
Though St. Moritz received visitors during the summer, the origins of the winter resort only date back to September 1864, when St. Moritz hotel pioneer, Johannes Badrutt, made a wager with four British summer guests: that they should return in winter and if it was not to their liking, he would pay for the cost of their journey from London and back. If they found St. Moritz attractive in winter, he would invite them to stay as his guests for as long as they wished.
This marked not only the start of winter tourism in St. Moritz but the start of winter tourism in the whole of the Alps. The first tourist office in Switzerland was established the same year in the town. St. Moritz developed rapidly in the late nineteenth century and the first electric light in Switzerland was installed in 1878 at the Kulm Hotel and the first curling tournament on the continent held in 1880.
The first European Ice-Skating Championships were held at St. Moritz in 1882 and first golf tournament in the Alps held in 1889. The first bob run and bob race was held in 1890 and by 1896 St. Moritz became the first town in the Alps to install electric trams and opened the Palace Hotel. In 1906, a horse race was held on snow (1906) and on the frozen lake (1907). The first ski school in Switzerland was established in St. Moritz in 1929.
In 1928 St. Moritz hosted the 1928 Winter Olympic Games and the stadium still stands today. It later hosted the 1948 Winter Olympic Games
Sonja Henie
Sonja Henie was a Norwegian figure skater and film star. She was a three-time Olympic Champion in Ladies Singles, a ten-time World Champion and a six-time European Champion. Wikipedia
Born: April 8, 1912, Oslo
Died: October 12, 1969, Oslo
Height: 1.60 m
The Segantini Museum: dedicated to Giovanni Segantini, a painter that lived the last five years of his life in Engadine. The Segantini Museum is listed as a Swiss heritage site of national significance.
The bobsled run: a very rare natural bob sleigh typically running by mid December each year
Viewing the glacier landscape: there are a number of notable vistas. Much can be seen by descending from Diavolezza to the Morteratsch Glacier.
The 3300 metres high Piz Corvatsch with its ice cave and its eight-kilometer long ski slope down to St.Moritz-Bad.
Returning from the Forest, 1890
In the last evening light a farmwoman, bent over from exertion, returns with a load of wood to the village at the foot of the mountains, where the first lights are already lit. Here, homecoming is a symbol of the loneliness and allegory of death. Segantini’s imagery is programatically determined by the
cycle of the seasons and human life.
St.Moritz today, playground to the rich and famous!!
Mankind's infatuation with money, has not chosen the best medium to buy happiness. Titania
Yesterday I read this quote;"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too." -- Somerset Maugham,
I remembered reading his book. “Of Human Bondage",
at a time I started to think about life and death and the inbetween.
I was mostly impressed when Philip found out the plot about religion, his uncle, a clergyman, very pious and religious, was dying and he he was terribly frightened about it. He did not find solace in his believes. Philip questioned, why would he be so afraid to die when he was ready to meet his maker an all forgiving god…and then he understood“
There was no meaning in life, and man by living served no end. It was immaterial whether he was born or not born, whether he lived or ceased to live. Life was insignificant and death without consequence.
Philip exulted, as he had exulted in his boyhood when the weight of a belief in God was lifted from his shoulders:
it seemed to him that the last burden of responsibility was taken from him; and for the first time he was utterly free.
His insignificance was turned to power, and he felt himself suddenly equal with the cruel fate which had seemed to persecute him; for, if life was meaningless, the world was robbed of its cruelty. What he did or left undone did not matter. Failure was unimportant and success amounted to nothing. He was the most inconsiderate creature in that swarming mass of mankind which for a brief space occupied the surface of the earth; and he was almighty because he had wrenched from chaos the secret of its nothingness. Thoughts came tumbling over one another in Philip's eager fancy, and he took long breaths of joyous satisfaction. He felt inclined to leap and sing. He had not been so happy for months.
Most people never arrive at this freedom, they are shackled all their life to this secret slavery, obeisance and homage to a god. Titania
Of Human Bondage (1915) a novel by W. Somerset Maugham. It is generally agreed to be his masterpiece and to be strongly autobiographical in nature, although Maugham stated, "This is a novel, not an autobiography, though much in it is autobiographical, more is pure inventionMaugham, who had originally planned to call his novel Beauty from Ashes, finally settled on a title taken from a section of Spinoza's Ethics.. Of Human Bondage is ranked one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
A few quotes from the book
Cronshaw, the sceptical and bohemian poet in Paris, shows Philip he has to think for himself.
“Faith had been forced upon him from the outside . . . A new environment and a new example gave him the opportunity to find himself. He put off the faith of his childhood quite simply, like a cloak that he no longer needed”
Philip has had a wretched youth growing up with Christian ideals in a harsh and cruel environment. When he begins to travel, he begins his journey to finding his own truth.
“From old habit, unconsciously he thanked God that he no longer believed in Him.”
Monday was not a good day for me. I broke one of my front teeth, the left lateral incisor. It hurt and I was very upset about it. I mean if one looses a molar, it can not be seen that a tooth is missing but in front is a different matter.
Tuesday I went to the dentist to assess the damage. Jessica my dentist was able to do a passable temporary job on it until we have figured out the best solution. Today I went to make the X-rays and after all this hassle my daughter and I went yo see the movie QUARTET.
It is a wonderfully funny movie with beautiful music. We enjoyed it so much and If you have never seen it GO and watch it!!
This little corner of the Currumbin valley is well protected.We have never experienced the Cyclonic winds which can lash the Gold Coast and Currumbin beach or hill. The last two days we could hear the roar of the ocean.
We had a picnic at Lake Muntz and dessert was a luscious Pavlova.
A concoction of Merengue, whipped chantilly cream and fresh fruit, here with Mangoes, blueberries and strawberries.
The Pavlova dessert is believed to have been created in honour of the dancer either during or after one of her tours to Australia and New Zealand in the 1920s. The nationality of its creator has been a source of argument between the two nations for many years.
Anna Pavlova, ca. 1905.
Born
February 12, 1881
Ligovo, Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire
Died
January 23, 1931 (aged 49)
The Hague, Netherlands
Nationality
Russian
Pavlova is perhaps most renowned for creating the role of The Dying Swan, a solo choreographed for her by Michel Fokine. The ballet, created in 1905, is danced to Le cygne from The Carnival of the Animals by
Camille Saint-Saëns
Anna Pavlova was a Russian Empire ballerina of the late 19th and the early 20th century. She is widely regarded as one of the finest classical ballet dancers in history and was most noted as a principal artist of the Imperial Russian Ballet and the Ballets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev. Pavlova is most recognised for the creation of the role The Dying Swan and, with her own company, became the first ballerina to tour ballet around the world.
A McDonnell Douglas MD-11 of the Dutch airlines "KLM - Royal Dutch Airlines", built at 1995-8-31, with the registration "PH-KCH" carries her name.
A few things are happening in the background here at the Praco do Comercio in Lisbon in the Year of 1777
most of them not as significant as the announcement in the Portugal daily view, that King Jose the first wants to trade his Kingdom for a horse...before he died !!
The "Bikini girls" mosaic showing women exercising, first quarter of the 4th century AD. Villa Romana del Casale, Sicily
Predecessors of the bikini date to antiquity, in Çatalhöyük and the Greco-Roman world, Art dating from the Diocletian period (286–305 AD) in Villa Romana del Casale, Sicily depicts women in garments resembling bikinis in mosaics on the floor. The images of ten women, dubbed the "Bikini Girls", exercising in clothing that would pass as bikinis today are the most replicated mosaic among the 37 million colored tiles at the site.
Micheline Bernardini modeling the first modern bikini The groundwork for the modern bikini began to be laid in 1907, when Australian swimmer and performer Annette Kellerman was arrested on a Boston beach for wearing a form-fitting one-piece swimsuit, which became an accepted beach attire for women by 1910. In 1913, inspired by the introduction of women into Olympic swimming, designer Carl Jantzen made the first functional two-piece swimwear, a close-fitting one-piece with shorts on the bottom and short sleeves on top. By the 1930s, necklines plunged at the back, sleeves disappeared and sides were cut away. Hollywood endorsed the new glamour with films such as Neptune's Daughter in which Esther Williams wore provocatively named costumes such as "Double Entendre" and "Honey Child". With new materials like latex and nylon, by 1934 the swimsuit started hugging the body and had shoulder straps to lower for tanning. Finally, the modern bikini was introduced by French engineer Louis Réard and fashion designer Jacques Heim in Paris in 1946. Réard was a car engineer but by 1946 he was running his mother's lingerie boutique near Les Folies Bergères in Paris. Heim was working on a new kind of beach costume. It comprised two pieces, the bottom large enough to cover its wearer's navel. In May 1946, he advertised the bathing suit, known as the "Atome," as the world's "smallest bathing suit". Réard named his swimsuit the "bikini".
Brigitte Bardot is recognized for popularizing bikini swimwear in early films. Bikinis gradually became briefer and lower with narrower sides in the 1970s, and by the late 70s/early 80s very low hipster bottoms with string sides and ties became the fashion. By the 1990s however, fashionschanged and high-cut bottoms and bandeau tops were in vogue. Bikinis went brief again in the early 2000s as they followed the trend for everything hipster. Despite the high popularity of skimpy thongs and g-strings as underwear from 1998-2006, thong bikinis never made it into high street fashion. Low rise bikinis with string and tie-sides are currently fairly standard, reminiscent of late-70's designs but not so low cut.
In 1996, when the Miss World contest was held in Bangalore, India, dozens of Indian groups opposed the event claiming that the contest degraded women by featuring them in bikinis. Social activist Subhashini Ali commented, "It's not an IQ test. Neither is it a charity show. It's a beauty contest in which these things have been added on as sops." The protests were so intense that the organizers were finally compelled to shift the venue of the "Swimsuit Round" to Seychelles.
Afghan Miss Earth 2003 contestant Vida Samadzai (born in Afghanistan, raised in USA and living in India was severely condemned by the both the Afghan authority and community.
The Afghan Supreme Court, banning such contests, said that appearing naked in beauty contests is totally un-Islamic, and is against Afghan tradition, human honour and dignity. Afghan women affairs minister, Habiba Sarabi, said her semi-naked appearance "is not women's freedom but in my opinion is to entertain men".
Bikini related wardrobe malfunctions including wedgies, whale tails or bikini tops falling off have also stirred controversies.
In April 2004, a bikini line with images of Buddha printed on it was withdrawn by Victoria's Secret, the manufacturer, in the face of protest by followers of Buddhism. Buddhists were upset again when organizers of Miss Universe 2005 shot photographs of contestants in bikini in front of Buddhist religious sites.
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