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Philosophy
Monday, August 29, 2022
Sunday, August 28, 2022
Modern Automata Museum - 1 - Motorized Automata Collection w/plexiglass ...
The automata of this collection are exhibited in a stable manner in the Museum. They are made of cardboard, wood or metal, and have been designed by various artists. The automata are motorized, and are set in motion through an infrared sensor, which is activated by visitors.
Artists: Paul Spooner, Peter Markey, Walter Ruffler, Neil Hardy, Keisuke Saka, Rennie Orsi, Luca de Pascalis, Keith Newstead, Eric Williamson, Marc Horovitz, Rob Ives, Susie Stolpe, C.M.T., Carlos Zapata, Guido Accascina, Malcolm Brook.
Video by Luca Cusella
Saturday, August 20, 2022
The Benefit of Living With No Purpose - Alan Watts
The Benefit of Living With No Purpose - Alan Watts
https://youtu.be/dx4yW0mjezw
Tuesday, August 16, 2022
The deadliest place on earth: Snake Island
Snake Island
https://youtu.be/oa1Tu6BRFxU
Ilha de Queimada Grande, better known as ‘Snake Island,’ is a tiny pocket of land off the coast of Brazil.
Home to 4000 Golden Lancehead Vipers, one of the deadliest snakes in the world, the island is considered the most dangerous acreage on the planet.
Humans are banned from visiting unless given special clearance.
But on 60 Minutes, reporter Tara Brown journeys to the island with Australian molecular biologist and self-confessed snake geek, Bryan Fry as part of a research project studying the potential medical benefits of the snakes’ venom.
Sunday, August 14, 2022
Ray Wylie Hubbard Revisits the Snake Farm That Inspired His Famous Song
Ray Wylie Hubbard Revisits the Snake Farm That Inspired His Famous Song
More than 500 species of critters live at the Animal World & Snake Farm Zoo in New Braunfels
Written by:
Joe Nick Patoski
Photos by:
Kenny Braun
Published: October 31, 2018
Ray Wylie Hubbard with Hercules, a 14-foot-long albino Burmese python at the Animal World & Snake Farm Zoo in New Braunfels. Photo by Kenny Braun.
Ray Wylie Hubbard with Hercules, a 14-foot-long albino Burmese python at the Animal World & Snake Farm Zoo in New Braunfels. Photo by Kenny Braun.
Any good songwriter knows when the muse strikes, write it down. For Ray Wylie Hubbard, it was maybe the 10,000th time he was driving southbound on Interstate 35 from New Braunfels toward San Antonio, passing Exit 182 at Engel Road and the so-big-you-can’t-miss-it sign that screamed “SNAKE FARM” in red and black letters. The words, meant to entice drivers to stop at the long-running roadside attraction, conjured the image of a farm full of snakes, and Hubbard physically shuddered.
“Actually, I went ‘Uggggghhhhhhh,’” he says, recalling the moment. Then inspiration struck. He thought to himself, “Just sounds nasty.” Why? “Because it’s a reptile house, not a cathedral,” he rationalized. “Yeah, pretty much is.”
His mind started racing. “Then it came to me: It’s a love song. It’s about a man who doesn’t like snakes, but he loves the woman who works at the Snake Farm,” says Hubbard, a resident of Wimberley, where all four venemous snakes found in Texas also reside.
His mind started racing. “Then it came to me: It’s a love song. It’s about a man who doesn’t like snakes, but he loves the woman who works at the Snake Farm,” says Hubbard, a resident of Wimberley, where all four venomous snakes found in Texas also reside.
Any good songwriter knows when the muse strikes, write it down. For Ray Wylie Hubbard, it was maybe the 10,000th time he was driving southbound on Interstate 35 from New Braunfels toward San Antonio, passing Exit 182 at Engel Road and the so-big-you-can’t-miss-it sign that screamed “SNAKE FARM” in red and black letters. The words, meant to entice drivers to stop at the long-running roadside attraction, conjured the image of a farm full of snakes, and Hubbard physically shuddered.
“Actually, I went ‘Uggggghhhhhhh,’” he says, recalling the moment. Then inspiration struck. He thought to himself, “Just sounds nasty.” Why? “Because it’s a reptile house, not a cathedral,” he rationalized. “Yeah, pretty much is.”
His mind started racing. “Then it came to me: It’s a love song. It’s about a man who doesn’t like snakes, but he loves the woman who works at the Snake Farm,” says Hubbard, a resident of Wimberley, where all four venemous snakes found in Texas also reside.
His mind started racing. “Then it came to me: It’s a love song. It’s about a man who doesn’t like snakes, but he loves the woman who works at the Snake Farm,” says Hubbard, a resident of Wimberley, where all four venemous snakes found in Texas also reside.
“That’s true love,” he said. “So I thought, ‘What kind of woman would work at the Snake Farm?’ She’d dance like Little Egypt. She’d drink malt liquor. Have a tattoo of a python, probably eating a mouse. One of them would have a sailor hat that said Snake Farm.” As the song developed, he named her Ramona. “How come she works there? It’s got its charm. Nothing to do in the winter because the snakes are hibernating. And every once in a while, a kid gets bit.
“How do I end it?” Hubbard mused. “If he really loved her, and she sa
id come on down here, he would go.”
“It all fell into place. I came home and wrote it down in about 15 minutes.” He dreamed up a snaky blues groove for the words and had himself a song.
“It’s a love song. It’s about a man who doesn’t like snakes, but he loves the woman who works at the
Snake Farm.”
That initial guttural response driving down I-35 turned out to be the hook to one of the hookiest songs Hubbard has ever written, and the punch line to the singalong chant “snake farm.” He recorded the song and released it on the album of the same name in 2006, and it has been part of his repertoire ever since—much like another song he wrote back in the 1970s, “Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother.”
Hubbard is no wannabe herpetologist, though. “I guess I’m not a snake fanatic, but they don’t bother me,” he allows. His only real-life connections are his free-range Medusa mane of hair and a rattlesnake tail that came with his old Gibson guitar. “It’s like a humidifier thing. Good mojo, too. I do have a pair of snake boots, but they’re pretty wore out.”
He had never been to the real Snake Farm before he wrote the song. Hubbard had heard the legend dating back to the ’60s—ask for change for a $100 bill at the counter, and you’ll be directed to trailers out back where a woman of ill repute awaits—but he didn’t put stock in the story. “Even if the legend was true, no way in hell was I going there,” he says.
The real Animal World & Snake Farm Zoo, as it is formally known, is a far cry from the Snake Farm of legend. The roadside attraction dates to 1967, before there was an interstate highway. It has grown since then—and grown up. Ramona, the trailers, and lingering reptile odor are nowhere to be found. The year after Hubbard released the album Snake Farm, the real version was purchased by Eric Trager, who updated and expanded the attraction.
Today, it’s a sprawling private zoo with over 500 species of animals and state-of-the-art features including hands-on exhibitions scheduled throughout the day and week
(in summertime, the gator feedings on Sundays at 3 p.m. are particularly exciting). The core cinderblock-wall snake room remains, with 200 species on display.
“The first time I went in there, I realized the people were really nice, that they really cared about the snakes and the animals, that it wasn’t some kind of tourist trap,” Hubbard says. “I thought it was going to be a carny sideshow act.” Well, there is the rattlesnake pit, and don’t forget the cheesy Snake Farm T-shirts proudly worn by the New York punk band the Ramones.
A farm full of snakes didn’t tempt singer-songwriter
Stopping in for a visit this summer, Hubbard is greeted by snake wranglers Jarrod Forthman, the director of zoo development, and Alex England. “Are we doing Apollo?” Hubbard asks, anticipating a photo shoot with the farm’s star python.
“Apollo is in snake heaven,” Forthman informs him. “He lived a very good life. Today we’re bringing out his little brother Hercules.”
“Whatever you want to do,” Hubbard says with a slight air of resignation that seems to imply, “Be careful what you write.”
He gamely allows Hercules to be wrapped around his shoulders, while a small child is brought in to pose with Hubbard. But the kid starts to cry and drops out of the scene. Hubbard may have posed with 14-foot-long, 90-pound albino Burmese pythons enough to know them by name, but he hasn’t developed much of a kinship. “Snakes have a bad reputation because of Genesis, you know?” he says. “They’re hypnotizing. They can stare you down.”
“Then there are us reptile nuts: ‘Babe, you go to the zoo; I’m going to see the snakes.’”
Forthman acknowledges the image issue and explains that’s why the place is called Animal World & Snake Farm Zoo. “There are too many people who come here who don’t want to see snakes, so we made it a zoo,” Forthman says. “They come to see the cute fluffy stuff. Then there are us reptile nuts—‘Babe, you go to the zoo; I’m going to see the snakes.’”
“We’ll never get rid of Snake Farm,” he adds. “We’re going to have a new entrance and gift shop building, but there will always be these old pictures, that rattlesnake pit back there, a museum quality to it showing old-school stuff.”
While Hubbard poses with Hercules, a voice calls out, “My girlfriend told me to tell you she loves you.”
“Tell her to raise her standards,” Hubbard replies, not missing a beat. “Yeah boy, show business is my life,” he mutters to no one in particular.
Outside, in the Animal World zoo behind the snake house, Hubbard looks a whole lot more relaxed, suggesting that he’d much rather pet an Australian dingo or hold a baby monkey than wrap another monster snake around his neck. A family of four from Sherman asks if they can take a photograph with him. Mom and dad are huge fans. Hubbard smiles accommodatingly and engages the couple in small talk. He then announces to one and all that he’d hang longer, but he’s got an appointment at a guitar shop in Austin, and if there’s anything Hubbard loves more than his wife-and-manager, Judy, and six-stringed instruments, he hasn’t let on.
If the music thing doesn’t work out, Hubbard could ride it out being a greeter and posing for pictures at the Snake Farm. But with a co-writing
credit on country superstar Eric Church’s “Desperate Man”—released this year—plus a cameo in Church’s music video, he’s most likely going to stick with what he knows and keep writing and performing songs—“Snake Farm” included.
“At least it’s not ‘Feelings,’” Hubbard deadpans. “Can you imagine playing ‘Feelings’ for 40 years?”
Animal World & Snake Farm Zoo
5640 N. Interstate 35 in New Braunfels
Open daily 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
(10 a.m.-7 p.m. Memorial Day-Labor Day).
Admission is $12.75 with discounts for seniors, military, and children.
830-608-9270
awsfzoo.com
Tuesday, November 2, 2021
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Finally the correct answer about the cat going up or down...http://goo.gl/6FO6ku
Medieval Reactions @MedievalReacts Oct 20 Hoes be taking selfies in the club toilets like
Finally the correct answer about the cat going up or down...http://goo.gl/6FO6ku
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Dirge Magazine @DirgeMagazine Krampus - Ancient Bad Guy, Classic Muse http://buff.ly/1XuUci4 #holidays #culture #dark #folklore #horror pic.twitter.com/zLEjMbVFDL
Chris Skaife @ravenmaster1 Meet Raven Jubilee in his new enclosure. A 3yr old male raven and he's a big boy
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Death and the Maiden @deadmaidens Dec 1 The New Faces Of Death: Interview with Megan Rosenbloom http://buff.ly/1YxnE46 #death #culture
Morbid Anatomy @morbidanatomy 17h17 hours ago From Miscellanea curiosa medico-physica academiae naturae curiosum, 1671. via @BioDivLibrary http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/150750#page/7/mode/1up …
Dr. Gemma Angel @Gemma_Angel Dec 2 Romany Reagan (@msromany) on one of my favourite subjects: death & eroticism #MarginalDeath
Death and the Maiden @deadmaidens Syphilis...so hot right now. #histmed http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/12/the-return-of-syphilis/418170/ …
Marco Maldera @marcomaldera 
Sarah Troop @wunderkamercast Dec 2 The skull of St Benedictus in Muri, Switzerland. Photo by Paul Koudounaris
Sarah Troop @wunderkamercast Dec 2 November’s done w/. The blown leaves make bat-shapes, web-winged & furious Sylvia Plath, Dialogue Over A Ouija Board
NEW BLOG POST! "Hold the Salt: A Brief History of Gorging" for #Thanksgiving - http://ow.ly/V6CR0 Please RT! pic.twitter.com/AyE1oJKIKJ
This dude. pic.twitter.com/VmnquF7WmX
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Sending heartfelt condolences to @AdeTeal, who lost a friend in his cat tonight. They are so much more than pets. pic.twitter.com/d6PuGLICxo
cinnamon_carter @cinnamon_carter RT @PublicDomainRev: Eerie mezzotints by Gautier D’Agoty of 18th-century human dissections: http://buff.ly/1QeaUN6
Lindsey Fitzharris @DrLindseyFitz 10h10 hours ago Victorian mermaid. Disney lied to us, people. More info here: http://ow.ly/SlsZB
Lindsey Fitzharris @DrLindseyFitz 9h9 hours ago Allegory of the Transience of Life (c.1480).
So excited to announce my new book deal for THE BUTCHERING ART with @fsgbooks! Details here: http://ow.ly/TfZCg
Friday, January 10, 2020
No smoking in Oroville's ashtray museum | Bartell's Backroads
No smoking in Oroville's ashtray museum | Bartell's Backroads
It's all about smoking, but there's no smoking allowed. The collection started in the mid-1990's. After retiring as Oroville’s Postmaster, Dean Lantrip went on a nationwide tour to collect and preserve any and all relics of tobacco’s past.
Wednesday, December 25, 2019
A quack doctor selling remedies from his caravan
A quack doctor selling remedies from his caravan; satirizing, by Tom Merry, 1889
Credit: Wellcome Collection
THE WELLCOME COLLECTION HOLDS A WONDERFUL TROVE OF IMAGES FOR ARTISTS AND CREATORS TO USE AS AN INSPIRATIONAL RESOURCE. THE WELLCOME TEAM ARE IN THE PROCESS OF DIGITISING A SIGNIFICANT PORTION OF THEIR HOLDINGS AND MAKING THE CONTENT FREELY AVAILABLE UNDER CC-BY LICENSE STANDARDS.
Bruce Conner, 'Fame, October 18', 1989
Credit: Wellcome Collection
Gramin Arts Yam Darbar Litho Print Oleograph Vintage Collection
by GRAMIN ARTS
183 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BE, United Kingdom
Wednesday, November 20, 2019
Humphry Osmond, The Man Who Coined “Psychedelic”
Humphry Osmond, The Man Who Coined “Psychedelic”
Work with psychedelics[edit]
See also: Psychedelic drug
After the war, Osmond joined the psychiatric unit at St George's Hospital, London where he rose to become senior registrar. His time at the hospital was to prove pivotal in three respects, firstly it was where he met his wife Amy "Jane" Roffey who was working there as a nurse, secondly he met Dr John Smythies who was to become one of his major collaborators, and thirdly he first encountered the drugs that would become associated with his name (and his with theirs): LSD and mescaline. While researching the drugs at St George's, Osmond noticed that they produced similar effects to schizophrenia and he became convinced that the disease was caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. These ideas were not well received amongst the psychiatric community in London at the time.[2][3][4] In 1951, Osmond and Smythies moved to Saskatchewan, Canada to join the staff of the Weyburn Mental Hospital in the southeastern city of Weyburn, Saskatchewan.
At Weyburn, Osmond recruited a group of research psychologists to turn the hospital into a design-research laboratory. There, he conducted a wide variety of patient studies and observations using hallucinogenic drugs, collaborating with Abram Hoffer and others. In 1952, Osmond related the similarity of mescaline to adrenaline molecules, in a theory which implied that schizophrenia might be a form of self-intoxication caused by one's own body. He collected the biographies of recovered schizophrenics, and he held that psychiatrists can only understand the schizophrenic by understanding the rational way the mind makes sense of distorted perceptions. He pursued this idea with passion, exploring all avenues to gain insight into the shattered perceptions of schizophrenia, holding that the illness arises primarily from distortions of perception. Yet during the same period, Osmond became aware of the potential of psychedelics to foster mind-expanding and mystical experiences.
In 1953, English-born Aldous Huxley was long-since a renowned poet and playwright who, in his twenties, had gone on to achieve success and acclaim as a novelist and widely published essayist. He had lived in the U.S. for well over a decade and gained some experience screenwriting for Hollywood films. Huxley had initiated a correspondence with Osmond. In one letter, Huxley lamented that contemporary education seemed typically to have the unintended consequence of constricting the minds of the educated—close the minds of students, that is, to inspiration and to many things other than material success and consumerism. In their exchange of letters, Huxley asked Osmond if he would be kind enough to supply a dose of mescaline.[5]
In May of that year, Osmond traveled to the Los Angeles area for a conference and, while there, provided Huxley with the requested dose of mescaline and supervised the ensuing experience in the author's home neighborhood.[6] As a result of his experience, Huxley produced an enthusiastic book called The Doors of Perception, describing the look of the Hollywood Hills and his responses to artwork while under the influence. Osmond's name appears in four footnotes in the early pages of the book (in references to articles Osmond had written regarding medicinal use of hallucinogenic drugs).
Osmond was respected and trusted enough that in 1955 he was approached by Christopher Mayhew (later, Baron Mayhew), an English politician, and guided Mayhew through a mescaline trip that was filmed for broadcast by the BBC.[7]
Osmond and Abram Hoffer were taught a way to "maximize the LSD experience" by the influential layman Al Hubbard, who came to Weyburn. Thereafter they adopted some of Hubbard's methods.[8]
Humphry Osmond first proposed the term "psychedelic" at a meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences in 1956.[9] He said the word meant "mind manifesting" (from "mind", ψυχή (psyche), and "manifest", δήλος (delos)) and called it "clear, euphonious and uncontaminated by other associations." Huxley had sent Osmond a rhyme containing his own suggested invented word: "To make this trivial world sublime, take half a gram of phanerothyme" (θυμός (thymos) meaning 'spiritedness' in Ancient Greek.) Osmond countered with "To fathom Hell or soar angelic, just take a pinch of psychedelic"[10][11] (Alternative version: To fall in Hell or soar angelic / You'll need a pinch of psychedelic.).[12]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphry_Osmond
BMJ. 2004 Mar 20; 328(7441): 713.
PMCID: PMC381240
Humphry Osmond
Janice Hopkins Tanne
Copyright and License information Disclaimer
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Short abstract
Psychiatrist who investigated LSD, “turned on” Aldous Huxley, and coined the word “psychedelic”
Humphry Osmond was at the cutting edge of psychiatric research in the 1950s. He believed that hallucinogenic drugs might be useful in treating mental illness and he studied the effects of LSD on people with alcohol dependency. His investigations led to his association with the novelist Aldous Huxley and to involvement with the CIA and MI6, which were interested in LSD as a possible “truth drug” to make enemy agents reveal secrets.
Was Osmond ahead of his time? His work was cut short by the 1960s drugs backlash, and only now is his work with hallucinogens being looked at with new interest.
Humphry Osmond was born in Surrey in 1917 and graduated from Guy's Hospital Medical School. During the second world war he served in the navy as a ship's psychiatrist. After the war, at St George's Hospital, he and Dr John Smythies learnt of the chemist Albert Hofmann's work with the hallucinogenic drug LSD-25 in Switzerland. They thought schizophrenia might be caused by metabolic aberrations producing symptoms similar to those from drugs such as LSD and mescaline.
“Osmond was interested in a metabolic redefinition of schizophrenia as something like diabetes,” said a former colleague, California psychiatrist Dr Tod Hiro Mikuriya.
LSD-25 had been synthesized by Hofmann in 1938; he discovered its hallucinogenic properties in 1943. One day when he worked with the chemical he felt restless and dizzy and went home. Over the next few hours he experienced fantastic, vivid images with intense colours. He thought he had probably absorbed a small amount of the chemical.
During the 1940s and 1950s both scientists and government intelligence agencies were interested in using hallucinogenic drugs such as mescaline and LSD as a “truth drug”.
Osmond, the scientist, thought the hallucinogens might help treat mental illness. He later wrote, “Schizophrenics are lonely because they cannot let their fellows know what is happening to them and so lose the thread of social support. LSD-25, used as a psychotomimetic, allows us to study these problems of communication from the inside and learn how to devise better methods of helping the sick.” Some psychiatrists thought they should take LSD to understand what their patients were experiencing.experien
The psychiatric establishment was not interested in drugs. In 1951 Osmond moved to Canada, to a bleak institution called the Weyburn Mental Hospital in Saskatchewan, where he had good research funding from the Canadian government and the Rockefeller Foundation and worked with a biochemist colleague, Dr Abram Hoffer. The hospital had many alcoholic patients who had not responded to all previous treatments. Osmond thought that hallucinogenic drugs produced symptoms similar to delirium tremens. Producing a terrifying artificial delirium might frighten an alcoholic into change. Between 1954 and 1960, Osmond and Hoffer treated about 2000 alcoholics under carefully controlled conditions.
They were astonished by what they found. In an interview with the psychiatrist Dr John Halpern, associate director of the substance abuse research programme at Harvard's McClean Hospital, Dr Hoffer recalled, “Many of them didn't have a terrible experience. In fact, they had a rather interesting experience.” Osmond and Hoffer reported that 40% to 45% of the alcoholics who were treated with LSD had not returned to drinking after a year.
Osmond sought a name for the effect that LSD has on the mind, consulting the novelist Aldous Huxley who was interested in these drugs. Osmond and Huxley had become friends and Osmond gave him mescaline in 1953. Huxley suggested “phanerothyme,” from the Greek words for “to show” and “spirit,” and sent a rhyme: “To make this mundane world sublime, Take half a gram of phanerothyme.” Instead, Osmond chose “psychedelic,” from the Greek words psyche (for mind or soul) and deloun (for show), and suggested, “To fathom Hell or soar angelic/Just take a pinch of psychedelic.” He announced it at the New York Academy of Sciences meeting in 1957.
But the climate was changing in the cultural and political turmoil of the Swinging Sixties. The use of marijuana and other recreational drugs among young people was thought to be a cause of social unrest, environmental protests, women's lib, civil rights marches, and protests against the Vietnam war. “The money dried up,” said Dr Halpern, and new laws restricted researchers' ability to study the drugs. “Osmond was at the cutting edge of psychiatric research at the time. It was a tragedy his work was shut down because of the culture,” said Dr Charles Grob, professor of psychiatry at the University of California School of Medicine-Los Angeles (UCLA).
Osmond moved to head the Bureau of Research in Neurology and Psychiatry at the New Jersey Psychiatric Institute in Princeton. His colleague Dr Mikuriya, later in charge of marijuana research at the National Institute of Mental Health, was puzzled that Osmond and his colleagues had psychedelic drugs available in their offices when local police had undercover agents searching for drug users. He found the answer 20 years later when the book Acid Dreams revealed Osmond's CIA and MI6 connections.
Osmond later moved to the University of Alabama, where he was professor of psychology until his retirement in 1992. He leaves a wife, three children, and five grandchildren.
Humphry Fortescue Osmond, psychiatrist and researcher, former professor of psychology University of Alabama, United States (b Surrey, United Kingdom, 1917; q Guy's Hospital Medical School 1942), died from a cardiac arrhythmia on 6 February 2004.
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Humphry Osmond
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Humphry Osmond
Saturday, November 9, 2019
Hell Garden
Atlas Obscura
@atlasobscura
·
They’re meant to warn sinners of the unspeakable horrors awaiting their souls in Naraka, Buddhist Hell.
Hell Garden
Gruesome statues of people reborn in Buddhist hell stand among the ruins of an 11th-century sanctuary.
The garden may be small, but the horrific artwork it contains is more than enough to sear its message into the minds of anyone brave enough to stroll through this gory corner of a religious complex. There, strange statues show—with shockingly gruesome detail—the many ways to torture a human soul.
The statues all stand within the Hell Garden at Wat Sa Kamphaeng Yai, a fairly modern Buddhist temple situated within a much older complex. They’re meant to warn sinners of the unspeakable horrors awaiting their souls in Naraka, Buddhist Hell.
The strange, twisted statues are all subjected to a whole assortment of gory, graphic injuries and abnormalities.
LINK https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/wat-sa-kamphaeng-yai-hell-garden?utm_medium=atlas-page&utm_source=twitter
Monday, October 21, 2019
Beware of Mr. Baker
Beware of Mr. Baker - Snagfilms
Ginger Baker is well-known for his smashing work in Cream and Blind Faith.
But the world's greatest (and most volatile) drummer didn't really hit his stride until 1972, when he journeyed to Nigeria and discovered the sounds of Fela Kuti's Afrobeat. Following various periods of drug-induced self-destruction and countless groundbreaking musical works, this flame-haired musical madman eventually settled in South Africa—where he currently resides with his much-younger bride and 39 polo ponies.
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at SXSW, Jay Bulger's entertaining and acclaimed documentary also features rock superstars Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Johnny Rotten, Lars Ulrich, Carlos Santana, Stewart Copeland and many more.
You've been warned: BEWARE OF MR. BAKER!
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Category: Film + Animation
Sunday, October 20, 2019
Thursday, October 17, 2019
Ukraine's 'Museum of Corruption' |
Go Inside Ukraine's 'Museum of Corruption'
| The New York Times
Ukraine's Museum of Corruption
July 26, 2016 | PRI's The World
BY JULIA BARTON AND MISHA FRIEDMAN
Mezhgorye club house
The the main clubhouse inside Mezhgorye, the residence of Ukraine's ousted president Victor Yanukovych. Image by Misha Friedman. Ukraine, 2016.
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On February 23, 2014, stunned Ukrainians came en masse to the former nature preserve north of Kiev to see what their just-departed president had built with their tax dollars.
What they found surprised even the most cynical: A private zoo. A restaurant on a replica of a Spanish galleon. A main house built to resemble an oversized Finnish hunting lodge, with a three-story-tall main room. Acres of manicured gardens with statuary. A glass-walled bath-house overlooking a private fountain.
The spark for the Euromaidan protests that ousted Viktor Yanukovych was his refusal to sign a long-planned agreement to bring the country closer to the European Union. But his administration’s corruption was a close second, and investigations into his lavish estate had fueled resentment for years.
The residence, called Mezhyhirya, was opened to the public soon after Yanukovych fled to Russia, and it’s been open for tours ever since. But hopes that it would become a state-run “Museum of Corruption” have faded as bill after bill to prosecute the former president and seize his assets has stalled in Ukraine’s parliament.
The grounds, which he’d privatized, are now back under state control, says Denys Bigus, an investigative journalist who helped create YanukovychLeaks, a site that has compiled the documents the former president left behind.
But Bigus says the buildings still belong to Tantalit, the real estate holding company that owns several properties on behalf of the ex-president and his extended family.
Meanwhile a group of “volunteers”—protesters from Euromaidan—took over Mezhyhirya and haven't left since. They man its gates, charging admission to the grounds ($3) and for private tours ($8).
They even have people manned at outdoor bathrooms to collect $0.20 for use. The money, along with profit from the sales of Yanukovych and Putin-mocking souvenirs, goes to pay groundskeepers and to provide security against looting.
How it covers all that is not exactly clear, since the volunteer group doesn’t pay taxes or make its books public. Although some art is missing from the walls and certain tchotchkes (like a famous golden loaf of bread) have gone missing, overall the estate looks spotless and well-maintained.
Its murky status, however, makes for an odd visitor experience.
We gather for a tour at the entrance to the “physical health complex” (noted by its unfortunate Cyrillic acronym, ФОК). Although a sign on the door insists all tours will be conducted in Ukrainian, our guide Petro Oliynyk has decided to accommodate some Russian-speaking visitors. He comes from the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, and he has basically been ensconced here since Yanukovych fled.
Oliynyk has a Ukrainian emblem hanging from his neck and an even larger one embroidered in gold on the red flag draped around his shoulders. It’s a color combo favored by the Ukrainian Liberation Army; their black-and-red flag also flies above the ФОК. Many Ukrainians see the red-and-black flag as a symbol of fighting the Soviets—but it’s also controversial, thanks to the Liberation Army’s World War II-era violence against Russians, Poles and Jews.
But Olynik doesn’t want to talk about the past, or how the Ukrainian Insurgent Army has come to run this place, if indeed it does. Mainly Olynik wants to talk about Ukraine’s current president, Petro Poroshenko.
“Poroshenko sold Crimea to Putin, and handed him part of [Eastern Ukraine] so he could loot and destroy it,” Oliynyk says at the start of our tour, which pretty much turns into an hour-long harangue against Ukraine’s leaders. Though there are occasional breaks to point out hand-carved flooring or a suit of armor, a salt-rock sauna or room-sized closet.
By midway through the tour, few in the group are listening to Oliynyk anymore, mesmerized instead by massive chandeliers and a limited-edition replica of the white piano that John Lennon gave Yoko Ono. Steinway & Sons made only 100 of them, and they’re worth about $90,000 each.
Oliynyk does say he’d like to see all of Mezhyriya nationalized, including the extensive spa and pseudo-hunting lodge. But it’s not clear how an eccentric—not to mention politically-minded—guide such as himself could remain under a more professional administration.
For his part, journalist Denys Bigus thinks the Ukrainian state, with its more serious troubles, doesn’t really want to take on the burden of running this place—as a Museum of Corruption, or anything else.
“You can’t turn it in anything,” he says. “It’s not comfortable for anything except [the] living of some dictator,” he laughs.
In the meantime, Oliynyk will keep giving tours to the curious, weaving between overstuffed furniture and planters lined with crocodile hide, opening door after door with his enormous set of keys. He’s added a few touches, moving a statue here, adding caged birds to fill the cavernous main hall with sound.
“It’s an example of how people have self-organized with no single leader or boss,” he concludes as we leave. “People can live like this in this country. We don’t need a government.”
The "Goth Chicken"
Cemani Rooster
By Kangwira - my farm, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31158986
Ayam Cemani is a rare breed of chicken from Indonesia.
This "Goth Chicken" is all dark — even its bones and internal organs
Ayam Cemani Silkie Kadaknath Java Chicken Indonesia PNG
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Ayam Cemani is an uncommon and relatively modern breed of chicken from Indonesia. They have a dominant gene that causes hyperpigmentation (fibromelanosis), making the chicken entirely black, including feathers, beak, and internal organs.
Ayam Cemani Silkie Kadaknath Java Chicken Indonesia PNG
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