Hello Cruel World
Monday, June 30, 2008
 
A Century of Tunguska

Monday, June 30, 2008 — One hundred years ago today, something exploded over Siberia
At a little after seven in the morning, settlers near the north end of Lake Baikal saw something bright appear in the sky, crossing to the northwest leaving a trail behind it. As it touched the horizon, it was transformed into a column of black smoke in which flames could be seen. Soon after, they felt a thump in the ground and heard a series of bangs that they compared to artillery in the distance. Other villagers to the west of them gave similar descriptions. Later scientific expeditions would locate the ground zero of the explosion in a remote area among the tributaries of the Podkamennaya (Stony or Lower) Tunguska River. Seismic stations around the world recorded the ground movement and set the time at precisely 07:17:11 AM.
(An excellent telling of the history in the 'Archy' blog)

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[permalink][comment] - posted by Mez @ 6/30/2008 10:04:00 pm
Thursday, June 26, 2008
 
Time: slow, slow, quick, quick, slow?

Have been thinking again — dangerous, that — Chris and I were together some 6 years (after knowing each other about a year); he's been dead a bit more than 6 years now. (I'll be coming up to being 'widowed' longer than knowing him pretty soon.) He's been one of the most important things in much of my life for coming up to 13 years. It seems a long time, getting close to a quarter of my life.

And it's a quarterday — six months to Christmas is St John's Day, the traditional midsummer celebrations in Europe. Here we're just past the shortest day/longest night, heading into the depths of cold, but looking forward to light gradually incrementing.

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[permalink][comment] - posted by Mez @ 6/26/2008 12:26:00 am
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
 
USA Presidential Election statistics

Nixonland - Rick Perlstein - Book Review - New York Times

Bring Us Apart
by George F. Will
Published: May 11, 2008
"Perlstein considers it significant that before the 1972 election, in which Nixon carried 49 states, James Reston wrote that “barely over one in four adult Americans will have voted for the winner in 1972. ... The consequences of that kind of a minority presidency are hard to foretell.” Actually, such “minority” presidents are not unusual. In 1980, when Ronald Reagan carried 44 states and defeated President Jimmy Carter 489-49 in electoral votes, Reagan won the votes of 26.9 percent of American adults. The winners of the 1996, 2000 and 2004 elections received 24 percent, 24.1 percent and 28.2 percent, respectively."
…
Perlstein’s thesis is that America became Nixonland because of “the rise of two American identities” in the 1960s — actually between 1964, when Johnson won 61.1 percent of the vote, and 1968, when the combined votes for Nixon and George Wallace were 56.9 percent. Perlstein says Nixon’s legacy is the “notion that there are two kinds of Americans. …”

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[permalink][comment] - posted by Mez @ 6/24/2008 11:54:00 pm
Saturday, June 07, 2008
 
Magpie Telegraph Alert System

My Tormenting Temptress, Elysian One, has had a bit of an unpleasant time and setback recently. She's started a special sudden June Shiny Sale of her jewellery to help recover. It's fascinating, captivating, intriguing, sometimes glorious, stuff. Or pretty and shiny, if you will. Maybe you'll like it.

The names of the pieces — are there many makers who give names to their jewels? — can send your imagination spiraling in all sorts of ways. Contemplation has inspired different people to other creative endeavours, and they've put together a chapbook with stories, poems, essays matched with their Muse-in-Artifact: “Glass Bead Games”. That's up for pre-order at the moment too. Two of my small obsessions intertwined in a nefarious snare! <makes dramatic 'suffering' gesture>

Go therefore! Feast your eyes and imagination; remove (curse you; bless you) temptations!

And if you're coming on this entry sometime in futurity when the sale & so forth is past, still go thou, and check out what's happening at 'Honor Your Inner Magpie', or what was happening back in the day …

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[permalink][comment] - posted by Mez @ 6/07/2008 05:12:00 pm
Monday, June 02, 2008
 
Xeloda (Capecitabine) - Side Effects of Chemotherapy

Xeloda and Capecitabine - Side Effects of Xeloda - Chemotherapy Drugs: "Xeloda �
Generic Name:�Capecitabine"
www.chemocare.com/ bio/ xeloda.asp

Hand-Foot Syndrome






Xeloda (Capecitabine) cancer treatment, side-effect: Hand-foot syndrome (Palmar-plantar erythrodysesthesia or PPE) Skin rash, swelling, redness, pain and/or peeling of the skin on the palms of hands and soles of feet.
(see also www.chemocare.com/ bio/ xeloda.asp)

A mild version, the reddness doesn't show up very well. On the hands it is on the last joint of the fingers and thumb, with another patch where the thumb joins the palm. On the feet, it's on the bottom of toes and mostly the ball and non-arch middle section of the soles. Skin is peeling on some of the left (lymphodeomic) hand, the balls of both feet and some toes.

Xeloda belongs to the category of chemotherapy drugs called antimetabolites, subcategory "Pyrimidine antagonist". It is prescribed to treat Metastatic breast, colon or rectal cancer.

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[permalink][comment] - posted by Mez @ 6/02/2008 01:16:00 pm

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/ . Lives in Australia/New South Wales/Sydney, speaks English. Eye color is hazel. I am what my mother calls unique. My interests are photography, reading, natural history/land use, town planning, sustainability.

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Australia, New South Wales, Sydney, English, photography, reading, natural history, land use, town planning, sustainability.