I had spent most of high school dreaming of my departure from that tourist-trap peninsula; but as the bridge became visible in the distance, I was flooded with feelings of nostalgia, hit with memories. Not specific memories I had actually experienced, but a montage of images that suddenly felt like ''home'': summer days on the beach, excursions on some anonymous sailboat, dusky evenings at the drive-in; my friends and I salty, tanned, and passing around a bottle of Jack.

Flash forward a few days later, and my friends and I are outside of Mobil, sitting among blue bottles of anti-freeze and old cases of Snapple faded by the sun. We watch the stoned high-schoolers move in and out of the store, carrying bags of Twinkies and Hot Pockets and slurping on half-melted green cherry Icees. A kid with long black hair is strumming a noiseless electric guitar, his ivory forearms straining under the tedium of being twenty-something on Cape Cod.

Tourism is an epidemic on the Cape, and the locals’ abhorrence of summer traffic is often used as an icebreaker to bond with other locals. And there is a sense of exile that goes a bit deeper than traffic. With high prices and the amount of police harassment that goes on, there is nowhere for the kids to go. And with more and more out-of-staters jacking up real estate prices by buying million-dollar summer houses, there soon will be nowhere for the middle class to go.

The majority of sociological research suggests that an influx of tourism increases individualization among a community, but in certain instances, it will have the opposite effect, and citizens will come together to spite unwelcome guests, creating group solidarity.¹

My own research and experience suggest that, despite a widespread dissatisfaction of the Cape among its native youth, many engage in collective fantasies of the “true Cape Codder” to distinguish themselves from the tourist, recalling with fervor non-specific collective memories of their homeland.²

We, the Banished Locals

On her facebook page, under the “About Me” section, my sixteen-year-old sister has written, “I’m getting off this sandbar as soon as school’s over;” the same exact words that came from the mouths of my friends and I when we were her age. And yet, also on her facebook is a photo album titled “Lovely Cape Cod” teeming with snapshots of burnt-orange sunsets, cobalt seas, and her smiling friends.³

But where did she find herself most nights on lovely Cape Cod during my first summer back from college? In parking lots with my friend Caity and I, trying to spend as little time in our then-turbulent house as possible.

As we lay on the pavement, our bodies forming a triangle, we looked up at the slate of black sky, with chinks of starlight and a jet or two, and, like any teenagers stuck on a sandbar that shuts down every day at six, wondered what to do next. Being bored with your friends, Caity remarked with sarcasm, is soooo much better than being bored alone.

During the summer days, the traffic is terrible; the tourists crowd up the beaches with their oversized umbrellas and obnoxious, sticky-handed children; and there they are again in our favorite coffee shop, sun-burned and aggravated that it has been five minutes since they’ve ordered their milkshakes (with a hundred ritualized special requests: extra syrup in one, the other made with soymilk, another with chocolate ice cream and no syrup, etc) and they’re not ready yet. And so we, the banished locals, migrate outside to drink our coffee and read, write, or talk to our friends.

Over the last several years, the Chocolate Sparrow has become the hotspot of the lower Cape among the high-school and college crowd. And ironically, we are the unwelcome ones.

Bob Sparrow, the psychotic husband of owner Marjorie Sparrow, has a vendetta against anyone between the ages of thirteen and twenty-five, believing we will deter the tourists. He wants to create a family atmosphere, and to do so, he must rid the area of the local youth. To illustrate: three kids are sitting on a bench outside the Sparrow. Bob spots them. His eyes grow red. He descends into the garage and emerges with a leaf blower. “Okay, get outta here! I have to leaf blow!!!” he exclaims, turning on the blower. The kids look confusedly at the leafless ground and step away from the bench and the madman with the leaf blower.

A few summers ago, Bob installed a device called the Mosquito on the roof of the coffee shop. It is a black box that emits an unpleasant, high-frequency buzzing sound audible only to those in their teens and early twenties.

The Juice Bar, a student-run center where high-schoolers came to see bands play, was bought out by Cuffy’s, a local chain souvenir shop; Movie theaters and ice-cream shops are too expensive for most teens; and the police tend to be strict about loitering laws.

In a 2001 Boston Globe article, Judith Gaines, a staff writer, interviews Cape teens. She writes,

Wherever they go, they say, they feel unwelcome.

‘That’s why we hate the police,’ Brittany [Vogel, 15] says. ‘We could be the goodest kids, and still they’d make us move. It doesn’t matter where we are, we get harassed.’ …[Abbey Gregory, 15], too, has been harassed by police. ‘They just assume that any time three or more kids get together, we’re up to no good, like carrying drugs or alcohol—when we’re not breaking any rules at all.’

Gaines lists the many amenities of Orleans, a lower Cape town—beaches, marshes, museums, art galleries, theaters, skating rinks—but reports that many of these are only available during the summer, cost money, and are individual or family oriented. “The teenagers say they prefer the company of others their own age,” she writes. “They like to move in packs.”

But with the price of Cape real estate shooting upwards, teenagers aren’t the only ones being exiled—the middle and lower classes are slowly being pushed out. I once waited tables with a single mother who worked three jobs to support herself and her son. Another girl waited tables all throughout her pregnancy and was back to work within a week—she just couldn’t afford to take time off.

A 2000 Boston Globe article reveals that a single adult with no children must make about $40,000 a year to live on the Cape, and that only five percent of housing is listed as affordable by the Cape Cod Commission. In 1999, 989 people sought help from the Interfaith Council for the Homeless; in 2000, officials say, there were about thirty more than the previous year.⁴ David Arnold writes:

New owners with money to spare are demolishing those houses [available for year-round rental], building what around here are known as ‘starter castles,’ then leaving them vacant during the off-season. Meanwhile, a seasonal rental for less than $1,500 a week is considered a steal. ‘What we’ve got here is a classic case of the rich getting richer, while the poor suck air,’ said Todd Holland, treasurer of the Orleans Housing Authority.

…As one fisherman put it, drawing on an image of his trade, ‘the Cape is being gutted of the middle class.’

‘People who grew up here, work here, and make the Cape what it is, simply can’t afford to live here anymore,’ said Roger Cahoon, owner of the 7 Cs Fish Market in West Yarmouth. ‘So what? So you’re losing the soul of the place, not to mention the hands that feed it.’

“Fucking WASPs from Connecticut,” my friend Sam laments over the phone, “The Cape is being eaten up by money. I want to be a dog groomer and you want to be a writer—do you really think either of us will be able to live here as adults?”

“Not counting on it,” I sigh.

Cape Cod Boredom to Cape Cod Zealotry

Summertime is apt to bring, along with the traffic, the tourists, and the sunshine, a primal surge of ownership among the locals.⁵ We roll our eyes at the shiny-faced families sporting pastel “CAPE COD” sweatshirts; we slap a sticker on our car that says My Life is Not Your Vacation; we clench our jaws when summer residents insist that they are “from the Cape.”

Still, in the face of all of the frustration, the local youth have managed to speak of the Cape as if it were the holy land, and we, its pantheon.

“This is Rock City!” yells Mike, a friend back from college. But Cape Cod is no city and no one here plays rock—only salt-and-pepper bluegrass and the kind of jazz that has the aftertaste of failed dreams. But I smile because this is my home too and I love it and it would be nice if we lived in Rock City. Mike loves it more than anyone I know; the mainland stays with him always: its outline is tattooed across his back. He loves coming home to the crash of the tides despite the swell of tourists; he loves getting trashed at the beach, he loves midnight bonfires, he says, his big black boots digging in the sand. He is up there making a pit for the fire tonight, and I’m down by the water trying to coax out whatever it is in me that goes hiding when I’m far from the ocean.

Last winter, after a rather uneventful New Year’s Eve party on the Cape—drinking beer from blue plastic cups in somebody’s basement—someone created an album on facebook called, “New Years! Cape Cod Style Bitchessss!” with the tagline, “Our Life is Your Vacation.”

A search for facebook groups with “Cape Cod” in the title turned out over 500 results. To name a few: Cape Cod Represent!; Cape Cod 4 Life; We’re the Shit, That’s Why People Come Here: CAPE CODDAHS; I’m From Cape Cod but 40 hr Work Weeks Prevent Me From Getting a Decent Tan; I Live on Cape Cod Year Round and I Hate Tourists!; There are TOO MANY New Yorkers on Cape Cod!!!; Surfers Who Don’t Live on Cape Shouldn’t Harass Local Surfers.

Many of these groups attempt to define what constitutes a “true Cape Codder.”  A group called Cape Cod Girls—Best in the World, has 611 members and describes Cape girls as a unique breed of young women like no other. They are born and raised to swim, drink, play in the sand, and live life to the fullest like it's always summer. …They know every beach there is and have partied on all of them. …always at the beach, but most likely working, not comparing tans to the stupid summer girls that come down causing traffic and other major hazards.

The description for Cape Cod at Heart, with 716 members, reads: Some of us were sooo eager to leave the Cape after growing up there... but after venturing off it didn't take us long to realize what we had taken for granted all along... pieces of our hearts will ALWAYS remain there.

You Know You’re From Cape Cod When… has 3,178 members and boasts an extensive lists of features and experiences locals believe they share, such as You hate tourists with a passion, Driving over the bridge by yourself for the first time is a major accomplishment, You curse at piping plovers for closing down the outer beach, You refer to most of the world as “Off-Cape,” You work more than 40 hours a week in the summer when you’re 14, and You realize it’s sometimes faster to go places by boat.

Out of the dregs of the Cape Cod tourist industry, the native youths have emerged territorial, determined to piece together stable, local community and collective memory from the summer seas of ever-changing faces. For them, the land is not beautiful because of the swaying beach grass or the epic sand dunes; it is beautiful because, as they like to assert, it is their land, it is their childhood, it is their Rock City.

CITATIONS

Arnold, D. (2000) “Cape Fear: No Housing Jobs are Plentiful, But High Rents Leave  Workers Scrambling.” The Boston Globe. May 28, p. A1.

Bombardieri, M. (2001) “Trying to be a Townie, Not a Tourist on Cape.” The Boston

Globe. June 17, p. B1.

Cohen, Erik. “The Sociology of Tourism: Approaches, Issues, and Findings.” Annual

Review of Sociology, Vol. 10. (1984), pp. 373-392.

Facebook. 10 December 2007. Online. Internet. 7, 8, and 9 December 2007.

www.facebook.com

Gaines, J. (2001) “Boredom in Paradise: Many Think the Cape is Heaven on Earth, but

Resident Teenagers Say it’s More Like Being in Limbo.” The Boston Globe

Magazine. June 24, p. 18.

Halbwachs, Maurice. On Collective Memory, trans. Lewis A. Coser. University of  Chicago: Chicago, 1992.

McGregory, B. (2001) “Pretty in Pink.” The Boston Globe. July 10, p. B1

Tussing, J. (2006) “Call Me Local.” The New York Times. August 10, section A; column

1; Editorial Desk; p. 23

Mosquito perigoso está sem controlo

A população dos mosquitos que causam as doenças da dengue e a febre amarela está a alastrar-se pela ilha da Madeira de forma alarmante. Especialistas dizem que é uma questão de tempo até chegar ao Continente – através de produtos importados por via aérea ou marítima – e surgirem os primeiros casos de pessoas infectadas. É uma questão de dias ou de meses.

Por enquanto, não há registo da doença porque os insectos não têm o vírus, mas basta entrar no País uma pessoa infectada, por exemplo vinda de um país da América Latina, como o Brasil, onde surgem epidemias, para dar origem a casos de infecção não controlados na Madeira ou no Continente.

Os mosquitos aedes aegypti surgiram há três anos na freguesia de Santa Luzia, no Funchal, Madeira. Rapidamente se espalharam pelos concelhos de Machico e Câmara de Lobos.

HélderSpínola, presidente da associaçãoambientalista Quercus,dizaoCM queoaparecimento da doença é inevitável."Osmosquitos terão vindo em algum produto fresco, planta – foram importadas palmeiras doBrasil – ou nos pneus dos barcos, onde fica água estagnada, local ideal para a reprodução das larvas. Terão vindo insectos ou ovos que depois eclodiram.Para já, não há notícia da doença, mas basta vir do Brasil uma pessoa infectada e ser picada por um mosquito para que o mesmo insecto infecte outras pessoas."

Hélder Spínola é crítico à fiscalização alfandegária: "Nos aeroportos não há grande controlo. As autoridades preocupam-se com o tráfico de drogas e armas e não com a passagem de um produto que possa estar contaminado. Só quando surgirem casos graves é que serão activados procedimentos especiais." As autoridades madeirenses já procederam a desinfestações, mas problemas financeiros e burocráticos com o Tribunal de Contas terão interrompido novas intervenções químicas nas cidades atingidas pelos aedes aegypti.

AUTORIDADES PROMETEM FISCALIZAÇÃO

O director-geral da Saúde, Francisco George, afirmou ao CM que a situação ainda "não é alarmante" e que as autoridades estão "muito atentas" ao caso na Madeira. Estão previstas acções de fiscalização junto dos meios de transporte marítimos e aéreos, caso haja agravamento da situação. Quanto a um impedimento da entrada do mosquito no Continente, aquele responsável disse: "As medidas de combate passam pela redução da população dos mosquitos, com intervenções químicas e bacteriológicas [insecticidas e larvicidas] e pela inexistência de águas estagnadas nos pratos de vasos, latas [onde as fêmeas reproduzem]. As companhias marítimas e aéreas estão atentas à necessidade de não transportar nada que possa conter os mosquitos, ovos ou larvas em águas estagnadas." 

AUTARCA DE PORTIMÃO ESTÁ PREOCUPADO

O presidente da Câmara de Portimão está preocupado. "Os contactos que fiz [ontem] não me deixam tranquilo", disse Manuel da Luz, a propósito da carreira marítima semanal que desde Julho liga a cidade algarvia à capital da Madeira. Segundo o autarca, que tomou conhecimento do perigo através do nosso jornal, "não há prevenção, sendo apenas possível identificar um eventual portador da doença". Para um caso desses existe já uma sala de quarentena no porto, mas nada pode evitar a chegada do mosquito. Cerca de 15 mil pessoas já fizeram a viagem e está previsto um segundo ferry para 2009.

APONTAMENTOS

PICADA INFECCIOSA

A dengue transmite-se pela picadela de um mosquito infectado. Não é transmissível de pessoa para pessoa.

CASOS EM PORTUGAL

Portugal regista uma média de quinze casos por ano de pessoas infectadas pelo vírus da dengue. Não houve mortes.

SINTOMAS

Os sintomas surgem três a 14 dias após a picada do mosquito infectado: febre, náuseas, vómitos, dores nos ossos e possibilidade de hemorragias.

Fujam do mosquito da dengue... esse especime, ou especimen, designa um exemplar "raro" é encontrado no longínquo norte da África . O destruidor de playgrounds... :D conhecido carinhosamente "por algumas apaixonadas como o Pica pontuda".

Fearsome shadow in the night

Tiny devil of the day

Searching out immensest prey

Animal with no remorse

Dying hoards with little force

Are your own doing

Your own bringing of death

With little warning and little fear

Your tiny body is very near

The blood you drink the blood of life

Is yours to kill and your flesh to knife

Mosquito mosquito burning bright

Beneath the sheets in the night

Noiseless killing, maiming and death

Drawn upon my living breath

What great hands and what great heart

Did blast you from creation's start

What blasted brain and rotten mind

Did create your demon shape and

Evil flying devil kind?

© Denis Materna, 2008.

© http://buddymaterna.wordpress.com 2008.

Price : USD 41.99 , MYR 142.80

FREE Shipping WORLWIDE 1 - 10 Business Day

(Flies around for a while)

-Ok, I’ve got it. You go buzz around his ear and distract him, then I’ll fly in and sneak a quick taste?
-Brilliant.
-Alright, let’s do this.

(Shortly after)

-You know, I didn’t believe you, but that stuff was really good.
-I know. I’m still buzzed.
-And look at him, scratching away. That shit never gets old. You know who would love this? Jerry. We should go get him.

The scrappy little mosquitofish, the pit bull of ichthyology and the region's leading defense against West Nile virus, is a savior to insect-infested waters.

Unless you're a frog.

Yes, the fish dines on larval mosquitoes, as intended. But scientists have learned it also has an appetite for the tadpoles of frogs, toads and other amphibians — including the threatened red-legged frog and the endangered Santa Cruz long-toed salamander.

But some simple research into the matter led me to this statement located at mosquito.org: "In general, mosquitoes that bite humans prefer to fly at heights of less than 25 ft. Asian Tiger Mosquitoes have been found breeding in treeholes over 40 feet above ground. In Singapore, they have been found in apartments 21 stories above ground. Mosquitoes have been found breeding up to 8,000 feet in the Himalayas and 2000 feet underground in mines in India. "

And here's a picture of a swarm of mosquitoes flying about a hundred feet above Lake Malawi in Chitimba, Malawi.

So there you go folks. Mosquitoes can fly as high as they damn well please, as long as something doesn't kill them.

The season of Fests has arrived in the college and so have the exams down poured. As if the last one wasn't enough for my abysmal performa, this one promises to bring in more challenges. Apart from these hiccups, the one thats quite worrying is that Navratri starts from tonight and we aren't getting into the groove this year !!!!! I wish not to show my disappointment further.

But today's topic revolves around the latest buzz. Every seventh person i see or talk to has fallen a prey to the tricks of Hygieia. Well i mean so many people around are getting sick. I remember my mother telling me on every other call to take care of food and health. The strange thing is you realise its true when either you or some dear one makes the Medicines a best friend. Well I got to know the other day i was having some junk in the canteen that Shivani had just procured Chicken Pox. I thought, Hmm.. wait a minute, "Sure !? I mean that's .. Shock..  ". She said,"You think its a Joke ?". Then sometime later after I had some insight into what happened, I realized what once someone said about keeping your surroundings clean and taking care of the diet. And i said in my mind, "Hmm.. Is it fine? " :)

Back at home during the weekend, it was kind of funny when also saw my Papa(Grandfather) having viral and listening to the whole vocab of Maa(Grandmother), which he normally allows to transmit through the ears to and fro with an efficiency of 100%. It was still awkward eating street sold food. Hmm.. Yeah, Its fine !!

Coming back to college i came to know that Sharmin too had been a guest to the doctor from a day due to one of our most vivid, agile and multipersonality companion MOSQUITO. She was down with Malaria and almost half the College had asked her health. Lolz... This had honestly created quite a buzz. Seventh Day Adventist hospital has now officially become a place where no. of SVNIT visitors are highest than any !! One more hangout place in the list of few illustrated places in Surat. Hmm.. Yeah, that's fine !!

As the day passes Papa and both my friends are by God's grace recovering quickly. I wish them good Health as well. But the panic of the season and health care has got into the minds of all. Someone came to my room and told last night, "Hey please tell them to do Fogging !! Who knows machchar ki Jaat ka.. ?!! ".While some including myself are taking care to take proper bath and wear pants in place of normal shorts and boxers, i wonder the Hostel Office to come up another seminar on Health care and the Hon. College authorities putting up strict rules for students like the walkers. Its quite a possibility till the season becomes awry but till then we have no option but to say, "Hmm... Yeah I'm FINE !! "

MUST YOU GET THE SHOT?: There are different answers to the question must you get it or not? I just had our family doctor call the ministry and ask if my my husband needs the shot because he is flying from Japan through US. They said no. On the other hand I spoke to the nurse this morning and they said everyone needs them. We choose for the moment to listen to the doctor. I suspect it is a good idea to get it anyway since until they are clear on who needs them or not, it will give you peace of mind.

Please do not take my opinion as the rule because today I got 2 different answers.

Panamanian Ministry of Health (MINSA) issued a notification 089-DE/0091-DGS/MS stating that they will begin to enforce the requirement on Wednesday, 1 October 2008.

This is the Machine Translation of the article from La Crticia:
All travellers coming from countries in risk of transmission of yellow fever will have to be properly vaccinated. The measurement adopted by the governmental, aeroportuarias authorities and of health will begin to prevail to divide the next Wednesday first of October. In a document of the World-wide Organization of the Health one notices that in " case of appearing a passenger without such accreditation, will be given back to the country from where it comes by the airline company that transportó". The vaccine that can be applied free in the aerial and terrestrial terminals of Colombia has a use of 10 years and will have to be applied at least 10 days before arriving at Panama.

Spanish Version
Panamá exigirá certificado de vacuna contra fiebre amarilla

Redaccíón | Crítica en Línea
Todo viajero procedente de países en riesgo de transmisión de fiebre amarilla deberá estar debidamente vacunado.

La medida adoptada por las autoridades gubernamentales, aeroportuarias y de salud empezará a regir a partir el próximo miércoles primero de octubre.

En un documento de la Organización Mundial de la Salud se advierte que en "caso de presentarse un pasajero sin tal acreditación, será devuelto al país de donde procede por la compañía aérea que lo transportó".

La vacuna que se puede aplicar de forma gratuita en los terminales aéreos y terrestres de Colombia tiene una vigencia de 10 años y deberá ser aplicada al menos 10 días antes de llegar a Panamá.

Who is on the list? What countries require Yellow Fever inoculation certificates?
In the list with Panama, there are quite a number of countries (check this website for the list: List of countries where yellow fever is required) with Yellow Fever Vaccination requirements. Once you get the vaccination it is good for 10 years, and when traveling to any countries which require that you have the shots you must carry your vaccination booklet.

Here is the map and list of countries where Yellow Fever is present (this is not an official Panama Government list; I will try to get one): http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/yellowfever/YF_GlobalMap.html

About Yellow Fever
Yellow fever is a mosquito born virus, carried by the Aedes and Haemagogus species of mosquito which is prevalent during daylight hours. It is recommended that you protect yourself by having a vaccination and using mosquito lotion regularly. In Panamanian cities and towns there are regular inspections by the Department of Health for mosquito breeding areas, and they also spray often especially during rainy season.

Getting Your Shot
The nurses told me that the Department of Health offers a FREE Yellow Fever vaccination program for everyone. That´s right FREE. That includes Panamanians, foreign residents, and visitors. You do have to pay $5, that is for your registration of the shot and your vaccination booklet.

I was inoculated and impressed with the speed of service (there were no other patients there), cleanliness, and the nurses were helpful, knowledgeable and kind. The health facility itself was a basic tropical clinic but it was clean and organized.

This is not a new program but has been offered for some time now and I just did not have the time to get out to the clinic.

Yellow Fever Vaccinations are available at the Department of Health (Salud) Regional Health Center - “International Immunization Center” Clinic in Clayton (Corozal), look for the IDAAN sign on the right on the street just before the Crossroads Church (if you see the church you have gone too far) on the way to the Miraflores Locks.

First: Why we were there.

We were there for a 'senior citizens round-up.' Basically, we sangs fifties songs for the seniors.

Second: What is the animal game?

Well, let me tell you. It's fun when done right. There's a beat to it (kind of like stomp-stomp-clap, only you slap your knees instead of stomp...I think that's the correct terminology), and the first three people are always (in this order) an elephant, a mosquito, and a giraffe. The last person in the circle is always pregnant bear. Everyone else has other animals, but those ones are always in that order.

The whole goal is to get the elephant out. Basically, with the beat, the elephant starts by making their sign, then doing someone else's sign. That someone else does their sign, then someone else's...ect. There's mini 'wars' sometimes where it goes back and forth between two people, but you really never know who the person is going to pick next. If you miss your sign or sign out of turn (it does happen as the game picks up pace) then you go to the end and become the pregnant bear. Like I said, the whole goal is to get the elphant out. But it's still fun no matter who gets out.

So instead of sitting in classes learning today, we learned how to concentrate. It was a very, VERY productive day.

Love Always,

Miss Cami

See Mab in the forest, in her shack. The shack is overgrown, wrought with morning glories and yagé, the twining vines of introspection, and a musk of cinnamon and jasmine and vanilla suffuses the wet air. Honeybees bumble about those flowers and parcel dizzying properties to their hives. Dilapidation reigns in the warped beams and crooked flue and the flapping eaves, but this is a ramshackle farce, for entering the house finds oneself in a cozy space, hearth warm in the winter, cool as stone in the hottest summer.

A cast iron pan hangs above the cast iron stove. Stainless steel kettle. Embroidered rug. A hempen hammock dangling from the rafters. Various herbs drying in bunches on the walls. Glass bottles of all sizes and colors on shelves along one wall, also hung on hooks and roped to the rafters. Mab herself is seated in a burnished rocking chair sipping tea from a finely rolled spliff. Through the artful smoke rings that litter her atmosphere, her hair is brown shot with gray, and she moves with slow lithe grace. She puts down the smoldering roach and putters about her abode. Now, Mab needs to go to the market.

As soon as she left her door she affected a humpbacked gait, held a cackle at the ready in her throat, and for measure, gave her eyes a good roll. It was a ways before she entered the perimeter of the town, marked by the rough translation of rutted dried mud to a relatively smooth pane of dusty road. She rolled her eyes at the beastly children who ran up to her to throw rocks and sometimes eggs. When Mab passed storefronts, the townspeople's chatter ceased to stony silence, starting up when she was well behind them. Nevertheless, she had hawk ears and heard their prejudices from afar. The General Store lay ahead.

Cruel children hid and sniggered from the shadows of alleys, rags of light moving across their faces. She slipped into the stuffy heat of the General Store and ordered flour, eggs, nails, and dried fish strips. She paid, cackling and rolling her eyes, reveled in the alarm flashing under the shopkeeper's bushy brows. That one, he had hives whenever he glimpsed women's underclothings. He came to her one blustery night bloated with hives on his hives. He couldn't see through one eye and his words were slurred. Apparently he had deviated with his proper and prim route and passed by the whorehouse. She had him kill a toad and smear its innards on his badonkadonk. It must have worked. The Madame was now part owner of his General Store.

The folk of this town feared her but that never stopped them from going up to Mab in the deep of night to knock tentatively at her splintery door, secrets of pains and curses heavy in their mouth spilling like blood from a pig's slit neck. The cobbler beating at his leather averted his gaze, him she helped rid with a powder the sores inside his underwear. She cackled and rolled her eyes at him, saw he had blushed. The piemaker flashed her lashes with demure shame. Her husband was frigid so Mab showed her how to rub the button special to make her gush. She had concocted a bullshit potion for the Mayor's wife who wanted to curse her husband for running around with his filly; it was bullshit in more ways than one for the mayor's wife's ill wishes were all it took for the filly to fall off her horse and break her back. It was sublime pleasure watching the high off noble borne quaff rancid steaming crap and daintily dabbing the corners of her lips with a kerchief, utterly trusting Mab. She had cackled high and long.

Mab walked through town without much trouble but for the infernal children. She shot a dart from her sleeve, small as a rose's thorn, and it caught a red-haired brat in the neck. He slapped at it, probably thinking it was a skeeter. She cackled at them and they scattered like pestilent rats. The boy would have interesting dreams tonight. His mother would be stunned at the aftermath and burn the shamed boy's sheets.

Mab had a bag stashed away with her essentials. If worse came to shove, as it often did with a constellation of burning torches in the night, she would small rose thorns dipped in quick acting hallucinogenics inside her sleeve spray, disappear in a swirl of purpleblack smoke and leave the cottage a night bloom of flame at her back. Once she had made the Slavs think her house run away on feet of chicken.

She cackled all the way to her rickety cabin.

[caption id="attachment_101" align="aligncenter" width="319" caption="YES"][/caption] ]]> http://brownmastodon.wordpress.com/?p=93 Tue, 23 Sep 2008 09:56:09 +0000 Blastodon http://brownmastodon.com/2008/09/23/mosquitoes-a-rant/ [/caption]

Scientists talk about the circle of life or whatever; this like giant interconnected web of organisms worldwide that rely on each other because they feed on each other, and this web – this world wide ecosystem of eat and be eaten critters (naturally including us humans) – is the most important factor of how Life on Earth works and how beautiful our planet is and how amazing life is. About how, because of the mutant frogs and the disappearing and confused honey bees and the dying turtles, which are all a result of human pollution and global warming, we are totally fucking up this delicate balance of nature, perhaps irreversibly, and this is such a terrific tragedy.

Well ostensibly mosquitoes fit somewhere in this circle of life. They are eaten by frogs and lizards and birds, but right now there is this mosquito in my apartment – maybe more than one – and I have bites all over my feet and legs and I can hear this little fucker buzzing around my head but I just can’t seem to find it to kill it. My legs are bleeding from scratching and somehow even with my hyper-vigilant mosquito killing abilities (usually top-form, I am) it has already been three hours now since this asshole exoskeletal vimpiric little shit has infiltrated my abode and if I catch it I’m going to pull one leg off at a time and watch it writhe in agony (if agony isn’t some form of sick pleasure for these little hell-beast sado-masochistic shits, these little spawns of Satan).

My point is that if mosquitoes were somehow the lynch pin of this great worldwide ecosystem of life and beauty – if Gaea herself, Mother Earth incarnate – begged me on her knees, if all of those nice little frogs and harmless lizards and beautiful little blue jays would drop dead in a matter of days, I would still kill every last fucking mosquito on Earth to get to get this little fucker who has been biting me.

They've already shipped over 2 million nets. Their goal is to ultimately reach every country in Africa. One of the best things about the organization is that 100% of the donation contribute to the distribution of nets; not a single penny will go toward administrative costs. $10 covers the cost of producing, shipping, and installing a net for a family in need. That's a remarkable gift at the cost of about two or three drinks from Starbucks; take a second to consider that: a life for a couple cups of coffee. If you prefer to get something tangible for your donation, you can buy a Buzzkill T-shirt for $20, the profit from which will send a net where it's needed.

Jalandhar Top 5 of week ended 21 Sept 2008

by jalandhari 9/22/2008 7:02:00 PM

1 – Mosquito

A maioria de suas picadas apenas te dão coceira. Mas alguns mosquitos podem carregar e transmitir parasitas causadores da malária. Como resultado estas pequenas pestes são responsáveis pela morte de mais de dois milhões de pessoas por ano.

 2 – Cobras Naja

Elas não tem o título de cobras mais venenosas, mas fazem o máximo que podem com o que têm. De todas as 50 mil mortes por mordidas de cobras por ano, as cobras Naja (ou cobras-capelo) são responsáveis pela maior parte.

3 – Cubomedusas Australianas

Também conhecido como vespa do mar, esta tigela de salada pode chegar a ter até 60 tentáculos com 4,7 metros cada. Cada tentáculo possui cinco mil células espinhosas com toxina suficiente para matar 60 humanos.

4 – Tubarão Branco

O sangue na água pode excitar estes tubarões a um frenesi de fome, onde eles usarão todos os seus três mil dentes para morder qualquer coisa que se mova.

5 – Leão Africano

Presas gigantes? Sim. Ataque instantâneo? Também. Garras afiadas como lâminas? Pode apostar. Faminto? Para o seu bem é melhor que não. Esses gatos tamanho família são praticamente os caçadores perfeitos.

6 – Crocodilo australiano de água salgada

Não confunda este crocodilo com um tronco! Ele pode ficar parado na água aguardando por passantes. Então, em um piscar de olhos, irá estocar a presa, puxá-la para baixo d´água para afogá-la e desmembrá-la.

7 – Elefante

Nem todos os elefantes são amigáveis como o Dumbo. Elefantes matam mais do que 500 pessoas por ano no mundo. Elefantes africanos geralmente pesam mais do que 7 toneladas, sem mencionar suas presas afiadas.

8 – Urso Polar

É claro que eles parecem fofinhos no zoológico, mas na natureza eles comem elefantes marinhos no café da manhã. Fique entre um destes e sua cria e facilmente ele poderá arrancar sua cabeça com apenas um golpe de sua pata gigante.

9 – Búfalo Selvagem

Quando em face de um predador os búfalos atacam diretamente. É uma besta de quase 700 kg armada com dois enormes e afiados chifres. Você terá sorte se for apenas um deles, o perigo real é quando o rebanho desembesta em sua direção.

10 – Rãs de dardo venenoso

Estes sapos não são para beijar. Suas costas secretam uma espessa neurotoxina que tem o propósito de manter os predadores afastados. Cada sapo produz toxina suficiente para matar 10 pessoas.

Then the sun rises. The world awakens. Sounds of the wildlife of Hawk Dreaming fills your ears. I feel almost embarrassed to mix in the loud shutter sound from my camera. Sounds like a gun in this natural soundscape. There is nothing to distract you; nothing to remind you that the year is 2008. It might as well be 10,000 years ago and you really expect a family from the Bunitj clan to be there as you sit in their home and their shelter and watch the sun rise.

I have blogged about Big Bill Neidjie and Hawk Dreaming before and first visited this magical place in 2007. I wanted to return this year and further explore and photograph this area as I cannot image a more special and powerful sacred place in all of Australia. Nowhere else will you find a place with amazing floodplain landscapes and one of the highest concentrations of aboriginal art sites in Australia. Certainly no place with access to as there are probably more places like this in Arnhem Land but they are totally off-limits. Hawk Dreaming has it all.

I hired a private charter for 3 days (from now on this is the only way I'll go on tours!) from the only company allowed to bring people into Hawk Dreaming - the super good Aussie Adventures. Les Thorne - known as "the white aboriginal" to his friends for his deep love and knowledge of aboriginal culture and history - was my brilliant guide and teacher. My aim was to shoot landscapes at Hawk Dreaming and see and learn as much as I could about the aboriginal art and history. I am extremely fascinated by and feel connected to aboriginal culture though I only know just a tiny bit about the incredible 60,000 years of history.

The 3 days were absolute magic and spectacular. With my own guide, teacher, mate and 4WD I got all the landscapes I wanted with 2 sunrises and 2 sunsets at Hawk Dreaming. I got to see the roughly 15-20 art sites that we were allowed to go to and Les kindly shared his deep knowledge. A personal highlight for me was sitting in Bill Neidjie's cave where he lived from 1975 when the land was finally given back to the Bunitj people - Bill played a huge part in this - almost up to his death in 2002. In Bill's cave you will see rock art and that is 10,20,30 thousands years old - and rock art that is perhaps 20 years old! Bill's children and grandchildren would paint rock art and paint things they learned in school in the Oenpelli community such as the British alphabet and an image of Sydney Harbour Bridge! A strong and powerful place; an experience burned in my memory forever.

Adding to the magic; I was actually sort of on assignment. Every commercial photo from Hawk Dreaming has to be approved by Jonathon Neidjie, Bill's son and the current custodian of Hawk Dreaming. Of course no art shots can be sold; not that I would ever do that anyway - that is not my art to sell! Les got me in touch with Dwane Baker, manager from the Djabulukgu Association, at the Bowali Visitor Center in Kakadu. Dwane had Jonathon on the phone and I showed a few of my shots from Hawk Dreaming last year (fortunate I had these in my bag). Dwane seemed to really like them and quickly asked if I would supply them with copies of the landscape files I shot and also help shoot and document the art sites? If so I could shoot and sell all the landscapes I wanted. They really wanted some landscape shots from Hawk Dreaming and also the art documented and I was more than happy to agree; I get my landscapes and I help Dwane, Jonathan Neidjie and Hawk Dreaming. Making a small contribution that way is an honour. Thanks to Dwane and Jonathon for all the help and setting up an agreement so smoothly and quickly in 15 minutes, something that I know from Les can usually take a long time. Very much appreciated, I know I was very very lucky and fortunate. Must be my amazing photography skills and country boy charm :D

So I was on a mission and shot photos from dawn till dusk. Landscapes and art sites, rock climbed with tripod etc. to get pristine shots of the art sites for Dwane and Jonathan. I had a fantastic time; absolutely loved it! I have enough photos (the two featured here are quick and dirty previews) and stories from Hawk Dreaming to last a year so stay tuned on this blog.

I'll end with my ongoing relationship with mosquitoes. Me and Mossies. We go way back. I donated quite a few liters of blood to the mossie community in the Kimberleys and continued my contribution in Hawk Dreaming to the fantazillion of mossies that call the East Alligator river (brilliant name you white folks; there are no alligators in Australia!) at Hawk Dreaming home. Standing by the river at dawn ready for sunrise and a wall, an armada of mossies attack me and Les. I empty a full can of toxic and highly flammable but effective Bushman mossie repellant on my body and clothes. Had I still been smoking and lit a ciggy I would have exploded, I was that saturated in chemicals. The repellant helps some. Little bit cheeky them mossies though. Climb under my shirt and get fresh blood! Les escapes to the Landcruiser leaving my blood as the only food source. So as you watch this sunrise shot from Sunday morning; know that I payed for it in blood!

Hawk Dreaming. home of the Bunitj clan.
I will return.
Feels little bit like your country is now a part of me!

Bill Neidjie

Rock stays, Earth stays.
I die and put my bones in cave or earth.
Soon my bones become earth, all the same.
My spirit has gone back to my country, my mother.
This story is important.
It won't change, it is law.
It is like this earth, it won't move.
Ground and rock, he can't move.
Cave, he never move.
No-one can shift that cave, because it dream.
It story.
It law.
This law, this country,this people,
no matter what people,
red, yellow, black or white,
the blood is the same.
Lingo little bit different,
but no matter.

Country, you in other place.
But the same feeling.
Blood, bone, all the same.
This story,
this is true story.
My people
all dead.
We only got few left.
That's all, not many.
We getting too old.
Young people.
I don't know if they can hang onto this story.
But, now you know this story,
and you'll be coming to earth.
You'll be part of earth when you die.
You responsible now.
You got to go with us.
To earth.
Might be you can hang on.
Hang on to this story.
To this earth.
You got children,
grandson.
Might be your grandson will get this story,
keep going,
hang on like I done.

- Bill Neidjie

Karena keisengan setelah sholat taraweh dan tadarus Al Qur’an, mata ini terpaku pada film “Mosquito man” yang dilayangkan oleh stasiun AN TV. Film yang sudah setengah main itu, menceritakan tentang seorang narapidana laki-laki yang terpapar sebuah zat kimia hasil percobaan sebuah laboratorium yang kemudian bereaksi dengan radiasi sinar yang tidak dapat saya ketahui, karena tidak menyimak secara detail film ini. Acara menonton itu dilakukan sambil membantu anakku tercinta untuk menyusun schedul belajar selama liburan dalam rangka menghadapi ujian tengah yang akan dilaksanakan setelah liburan lebaran nanti.

Akibat proses tadi, (kembali kecerita filmnya), maka sang tahanan tersebut berubah menjadi nyamuk raksasa yang kemudian menyerang siapa saja untuk kemudian menyedot darahnya sampai habis. Dalam dialog film tersebut dinyatakan bahwa menyedot darah tadi adalah suatu proses makan bagi sang mahluk tadi.

Nah ini yang menarik, karena berdasarkan data literatur Ilmu pengetahuan yang pernah saya baca (milik anak saya), menyatakan hal yang bertentangan dengan yang dijelaskan dalam film tersebut. Yang menarik bagi diri ini adalah 2 hal, yaitu : berdasarkan buku tadi dinyatakan bahwa :

1. yang menghisap dari kita adalah nyamuk jenis kelamin betina.
2. nyamuk menghisap darah bukanlah untuk makan, tetapi merupakan sarana untuk berkembang biak. Jadi darah yang di hisap merupakan suatu mediator untuk berkembang biak.

Mungkin gak banyak yang mengetahui hal ini diantara kita ? ( coba yang gak tahu tentang hal ini ngacung tangan )... tuh kan banyak......

Moral dari tulisan ini adalah, bahwa tidak semua produk yang dari Amerika atau luar negeri itu merupakan sesuatu yang bagus dan luar biasa. Mereka juga melakukan kesalahan-kesalahan yang konyol seperti hal tersebut. Oleh karena itu, kita sebagai bangsa harus memiliki rasa percaya diri, bahwa kita juga memiliki ilmu pengetahuan yang mungkin lebih daripada mereka. Buktinya film yang tentu saja sudah go internasional tersebut memiliki kebodohan konyol yang seharusnya tidak ditampilkan secara sembrono.

Nah,  hal ini tentu saja juga berkaitan dengan semua kebijaksanaan yang ada dinegara ini, baik tentang HAM, Ekonomi, tentang hukum, kesamaan gender dan sistem kepemerintahan, serta isu-isu lain yang sering diangkat oleh bangsa asing tersebut. Kita masih cenderung berkiblat pada mereka. Sistem ekonomi indonesia yang nunut katut kepada teori-teori kapitalisme yang sebenarnya tidak sesuai dengan kultur baik kita sebagai seorang bangsa indonesia, maupun kita sebagai seorang muslim. Dan masih banyak hal lain yang seringkali kita membenarkan hal-hal yang datang dari negeri barat tersebut.

Oleh karena itu, kita harus bangkit dengan rasa percaya diri tinggi, bahwa produk yang dimiliki bangsa ini tidaklah lebih buruk dari yang diproduk oleh bangsa lain didunia.

Mari kita bangkit.