The Dakota 38

Dakota Indians and their supporters commemorated the largest mass execution in United States history in Minnesota yesterday:http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/12/27/dakota-38-photos/

The Mayan Magic of Mexico

Enjoyable travelblog in today's Daily Mail: http://travelblog.dailymail.co.uk/2012/12/the-end-of-the-world-maya-magic-in-mexico.html

The war against too much of everything

Photo of Kalle Lasn by Grant Harder

I wish I'd read this New York Times article BEFORE I did all my Christmas shopping this year. I've spent the past month agonizing over what to buy - or not buy - for friends and family and so this article struck a chord! http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/business/adbusters-war-against-too-much-of-everything.html?_r=0&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1356200187-nBgjASbsjqsEm4tDhvxbfQ

So says Kalle Lasn, 70, maestro of the proudly radical magazine Adbusters, published in Vancouver, British Columbia. Mr. Lasn takes gleeful pleasure in lobbing provocations at global corporations — and his latest salvo is “Buy Nothing Christmas.” “As our planet gets warmer, as animals go extinct, as the humans get sicker, as our economies bail and our politicians grow ever more twisted, Americans just go shopping", Adbusters says on its Web site. Overconsumption is destroying us, yet shopping is “our solace, our sedative: consumerism is the opiate of the masses.We’ve got to break the habit,” Mr. Lasn said in a telephone interview. “It will be a shock, but we’ve got to shift to a new paradigm. Otherwise, I’m afraid we will be facing a new Dark Age.”

Winter Solstice Art

Above:Picasso's etching of a blind minotaur led by a little girl in the night. Photograph: British Museum/PA.  From Caravaggio to Picasso, artists have always been drawn to the darkness of deep midwinter: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2012/dec/21/winter-solstice-art-dark-night

Mayan apocalypse looms

I haven't had access to this blog for weeks due to being overseas. This Friday - December 21 - marks the conclusion of the "Long Count" Mayan calendar. Panic buying of candles and essentials has been reported in China and Russia, along with an explosion in sales of survival shelters in America. In France believers were preparing to converge on a mountain where they believe aliens will rescue them. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/dec/16/mayan-apocalypse-looms-week-ahead

Photo: AFP/Getty Images

Lincoln

I love it when I see a movie and come out thinking "wow, I really did learn something from that". Couldn't face the Mongolian hordes at the shops on "Black Friday" and so we saw the new Steven Spielberg movie "Lincoln", with the formidable Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role.  As a naturalized American citizen, I enjoyed the useful lesson in American history, particularly the tumultuous period between January 1865 and the conclusion of the Civil War on April 9 and Lincoln's assassination five days later, on Good Friday. The movie documents the fight between the anti-abolitionist Democrats, Lincoln's moderates and the more zealous anti-slavery radicals of the young Republican Party. Good supporting cast including Sally Field as Mrs. Mary Todd Lincoln, James Spader as a rascally/roguish 19th-century lobbyist, and Tommy Lee Jones as a Republican abolitionist.

Stem cell research reverses paralysis in a dachshund

http://www.theworld.org/2012/11/jasper-the-dog-whos-walking-again-after-cell-therapy/

As the owner of two dachshunds, this story made my day! A ten-year-old dachshund has helped scientists achieve a medical breakthrough that could help treat paralysis in humans too. Injecting cells from the dog’s nose into the injured part of his spine helped repair the damage. After the treatment, Jasper the dachshund was able to move his previously paralysed hind legs and coordinate movement with his front limbs. The dog is now ‘whizzing around’ unassisted and can also swim. Early trials involving humans have taken place, and Professor Robin Franklin, co-author of the study from the Wellcome Trust-MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, said: ‘Our findings are extremely exciting because they show for the first time that transplanting these types of cell into a severely damaged spinal cord can bring about significant improvement'. [Daily Mail].