Climate change is the symptoms of suffering on the planet. The plants, animals and human beings suffers because every day the balance of nature is sacrificed on the altars of the god of profit. Giuseppe Serravezza and Patrizio Mazza, coordinated by Tonino Girau, will lead us in the adventure of complex prevention and treatment of cancer, but also on the prospects opened up by the new local law. The talk is broadcast live on the Internet Wednesday, 11 March 2009 at 21, at www.oistros.it/lunapiena web – it is advisable to book the activities at lunapiena@oistros.it or email to skype contact casaoistros.

We therefore call for a paradigm shift from the general and unlimited pursuit of economic growth to a concept of “right-sizing” the global and national economies.
1. At the global level, “right-sizing” means reducing the global ecological footprint (including the carbon footprint) to a sustainable level.
2. In countries where the per capita footprint is greater than the sustainable global level, right- sizing implies a reduction to this level within a reasonable timeframe.
3. In countries where severe poverty remains, right-sizing implies increasing consumption by those in poverty as quickly as possible, in a sustainable way, to a level adequate for a decent life, following locally determined poverty-reduction paths rather than externally imposed development policies.
4. This will require increasing economic activity in some cases; but redistribution of income and wealth both within and between countries is a more essential part of this process.

The paradigm shift involves degrowth in wealthy parts of the world.
1. The process by which right-sizing may be achieved in the wealthiest countries, and in the global economy as a whole, is “degrowth”.
2. We define degrowth as a voluntary transition towards a just, participatory, and ecologically sustainable society.
3. The objectives of degrowth are to meet basic human needs and ensure a high quality of life, while reducing the ecological impact of the global economy to a sustainable level, equitably distributed between nations. This will not be achieved by involuntary economic contraction.
4. Degrowth requires a transformation of the global economic system and of the policies promoted and pursued at the national level, to allow the reduction and ultimate eradication of absolute poverty to proceed as the global economy and unsustainable national economies degrow.
5. Once right-sizing has been achieved through the process of degrowth, the aim should be to maintain a “steady state economy” with a relatively stable, mildly fluctuating level of consumption.
6. In general, the process of degrowth is characterised by:
• an emphasis on quality of life rather than quantity of consumption;
• the fulfilment of basic human needs for all;
• societal change based on a range of diverse individual and collective actions and policies;
• substantially reduced dependence on economic activity, and an increase in free time, unremunerated activity, conviviality, sense of community, and individual and collective health;
• encouragement of self-reflection, balance, creativity, flexibility, diversity, good citizenship, generosity, and non-materialism;
• observation of the principles of equity, participatory democracy, respect for human rights, and respect for cultural differences.
7. Progress towards degrowth requires immediate steps towards efforts to mainstream the concept of degrowth into parliamentary and public debate and economic institutions; the development of policies and tools for the practical implementation of degrowth; and development of new, non-monetary indicators (including subjective indicators) to identify, measure and compare the benefits and costs of economic activity, in order to assess whether changes in economic activity contribute to or undermine the fulfilment of social and environmental objectives.

In Africa’s rural areas, many poor families rely on their land to survive. But with such barren earth to farm and unreliable rains, they struggle to harvest enough food to stay healthy.

Through a FARM-Africa goat project, you can transform life for a poor community providing poor families with goats and training in how to care for them. Also give one member of the group Toggenburgs to breed with local goats, so the hardier offspring produce lots of nutritious milk. This can be drunk or sold to help pay for medicine and schoolbooks. Plus, the goats’ manure is a great fertiliser for the family’s crops.

Please buy from FARM-Africa Living PRESENTS
Chicken
Goat
Beehive
Camel

or from Growing PRESENTS
http://www.farmafricapresents.org.uk/buy/item/5

It is also possible to choose from an amazing range of quirky and memorable gifts which represent just some of the ways that your donation can be used to make a difference to the lives of poor African farmers.

See how it works here and how we use your donations here.

The STRP Festival is one of the largest art & technology festivals in Europe, presenting a four-day multidisciplinary programme with more than 120 artworks, performances, and artists. The composition of the programme is based on the principle that STRP should be a low-threshold festival, geared to a large audience. The programme
centres on robotics, music, visuals, and interactive art, and comprises an exhibition, a visuals programme, a music programme, and a programme containing performances, workshops, and lectures.

Leading American media artist Ken Rinaldo, will premiere Our Daily Dread: the mechanization of our food production, which is expressed through an installation of robot arms cow’s ears, video images, and abattoir sounds. The Interactive Balloon Ballet by Christopher Bauder (GER) is an enormous work consists of a grid of balloons that, illuminated from the inside, float through space like atoms.

Robert Henke, better known as Monolake, composed the sound environment for this work. During a special performance, the balloons drift around in a graceful choreography. Italian Sonia Cillari presents an interactive theatrical work at the STRP festival. In her interactive performance ‘If you are close to me’, a dancer is standing on a floor full of sensors. By approaching her, the visitor influences an electromagnetic field around her that reveals itself in fabulous visuals and audio compositions. Cillari was awarded an Honourable Mention for this work during the prestigious Ars Electronica Festival in 2007. Also Otolab (IT) will performe a live audiovisual performance: Circo ipnotico

Another prize-winning work is Camera Lucida by Evelina Domnitch and Dimitri Gelfand (RUS/USA). In their ‘sonochemical observatory’, they lend sound an amazing visual dimension.
The visuals programme comprises video art/video clips, live cinema, animation, and documentaries. The live cinema performances are a once in a lifetime experience in which image and sound are in perfect harmony with one another, almost creating a new dimension. Feed by the Austrian Kurt Hentschläger, is a mind-blowing experience in which all senses seem to crash. Starting at a calm pace, the performance soon enough literally builds up steam, immersing the audience in a dark space full of smoke, stroboscopes, projections of androgynous creatures and ear-deafening sound. Feed was developed for ‘Theatre Biennial Venice 2005’.

During the Animation Festival on Sunday, George Pal (1908), who used to live in Eindhoven, and the animation software Blender take centre stage. Pal developed the stop motion animation technique that earned him worldwide acclaim as the founding father of contemporary animation. Pal was awarded two Oscars and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Blender is free open source software for 3D animation, creating animation films that quality-wise equals those of the large Hollywood studios. Elephants Dream, a film entirely made with Blender, premiered in 2006; it was worldwide the first animation film ever made with open source software, and in HD quality to boot.

The STRP Festival opens on 22 November with a concert by one of the world’s most celebrated electronic bands: The Chemical Brothers. The music programmes of Friday and Saturday start at 20.00 and continue until six o’clock in the morning.

The extensive music programme presents alongside big names also superb high-tech experiments in the field of electronic music. The performance by 5MM (DJ Akufen and VJ Coutu-Dumont), is a true audiovisual gem of deep soundscapes and alienating projections. A world apart from the French Aufgang, which consists of two grand pianos and electronics: Jeff Mills meets Keith Jarrett!

The full programme and all information can be found on www.strp.nl

The chocolate enjoyed around the world today had its origins at least 3,100 years ago in Central America as a cerimony beer-like beverage and status symbol, the author of The World of the Ancient Maya (Cornell University Press, 1997), John Henderson said.

All of the Mesoamerican peoples made chocolate beverages, who made it into a beverage known as xocolātl, a Nahuatl word meaning “bitter water”. The seeds of the cacao tree, also being used as a form of currency, have an intense bitter taste, and must be fermented to develop the flavor.

Analysis of residue from a ceramic “teapot” from about 1100 BC, found in Puerto Escondido, Honduras, suggests that chocolate may have been drinking in small, delicate pottery vessels for ceremonial beverages and consumed by elites. This pushed back by at least 500 to years the earliest documented use of cacao.

Deep excavations at Puerto Escondido. The Honduran workman at the right is excavating Olmec-period (approximately 1100-900 BC) remains. Photo by John Henderson.

Chocolate, prepared as a beverage, was introduced in Europe to the Spanish court in 1544 by Kek’chí Maya nobles, brought from Guatemala by Dominican friars. The first load of beans arrived to Sevilla, Spain in 1585. Nowdays Cocoa beans are still used as a form of currency: trade means prices, taxes, and shipping costs. Business chocolate.

Armin Meiwes, the German cannibal serving a life sentence for killing and eating a man who begged to be devoured, has described how the meat tasted of pork: “The flesh tastes like pork, a little bit more bitter, stronger. It tastes quite good”. In his first television interview, broadcast last week on the RTL channel, he also spoke about his decades-long yearning to consume another man, an his obsession with cannibalism since puberty.

Meiwes filmed himself killing, disembowelling and cutting up the corpse of Bernd Brandes, a computer engineer met after posting messages in chatrooms Desperately Seeking “Men for slaughter.” He defrosted Brandes portion by portion in the following months and turned him into gourmet recipes: “I sauteed the steak of Bernd, with salt, pepper, garlic and nutmeg. I had it with Princess croquettes, Brussels sprouts and a green pepper sauce,” he said. While he kept the skull in a freezer and buried the left parts in his garden.

Someone to be part of me

He found a perfect match in Brandes, who was obsessed with being eaten. “The first bite was of course a peculiar, indefinable feeling at first because I had yearned for that for 30 years, that this inner connection would be made perfect through this flesh…” he said.

German scientists have recently discovered that Truffles produce a musky chemical that is also secreted in the male pig’s saliva and prompts mating behavior in the sow. The investigators suggest that “the biological role of this boar sex pheromone might explain the efficient interest of pigs in search of this delicacy.

It is generally believed that the truffle excites the genetic sense. So wrote Jean Antheleme Brillat-Savarin, the renowned 17th century gastronome, in his classic work The Physiology of Taste.

Do truffles actually have aprodisiacal properties? Whether a porcine pheromone scent has any effect on the human libido is yet to be proven: there are too many social and behavioral factors influencing human sexuality to consider any strictly chemical to be any reliable mating trigger. But the main characteristic of the truffle remains its smell, which can be perceived even from a distance: the unique aroma is difficult to describe. Like its unique taste.

Truffles are a sort of mushroom that lives below ground. They form a symbiotic relationship with their environment and feed on the substances they find on the roots of some species of trees to which they also restore vital substances.
Since they live in symbiosis with trees, the most important species for truffles are walnut, poplar, hazel, linden, chestnut, pine, oak. Inside the fruit is the flesh or gleba, which is differently coloured according to the species, the host tree, and to the minerals in the soil. Truffles are earth parts.

The body of the truffle is spherical in shape, varying in size from a hazelnut to a melon, with a more or less even surface
The outer part of the truffle (peridium), which is more simply known as the peel or skin can be white, yellow, dark grey or black and smooth or warty according to the different species, and according to the soil, the plants with which the truffle has a symbiotic relationship, and the area or countries in which the truffles grow.

However, the main difference is that between the black and white truffle. The best truffle of all is the white truffle. You can find it in Alba, Piedmont or in the Monferrato region and in the Marches region of Acqualagna.
White truffle sale’s seasons is just started: from 1st October to 31st December. For Black winter truffle you must wait until the 1 st of December until to 15 March.

Scrambled eggs with truffles: Beat eggs lightly in a bowl with a little cream; add white or black pepper if desired, but no salt. Scramble over medium heat in lightly browned butter. At the last minute of cooking (literally; all of the soft textured truffles are generally best either raw or very lightly heated, just enough to incorporate their essence into the dish), add slivered or shaved truffles.

By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.

William Shakespeare, Macbeth (4.1.45-6)

People believe that if you put your clothes on inside out as well as outside walk backwards on Halloween night, at midnight you will see a witch in the sky. The word Witch comes from middle English wicche, from Old English wicca, masculine, wizard & wicce, feminine, witch; akin to Middle High German wicken to bewitch, Old English wigle, divination. Wicca is a ditheistic religion, also called Witchcraft, founded on the beliefs and doctrines of pre-Roman Celts, including the reverence for nature and the belief in a universal balance. Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). Samhain is the word for November in the Gaelic languages. It is a celebration of the end of the harvest season in Gaelic culture, and is generally regarded as ‘The Celtic New Year’.

The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. And the dead returned to earth. Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. These prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.

To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.

By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. Two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain: Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead, and Pomona, to honor the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain explains the tradition of “bobbing” for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.

Pumpkin carving is a popular part of modern Halloween celebration. The practice originated from an Irish myth about a man nicknamed “Stingy Jack.” According to the story, Stingy Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him. True to his name, Stingy Jack didn’t want to pay for his drink, so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that Jack could use to buy their drinks. Once the Devil did so, Jack decided to keep the money and put it into his pocket next to a silver cross, which prevented the Devil from changing back into his original form.

The next year, Jack again tricked the Devil into climbing into a tree to pick a piece of fruit. While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a sign of the cross into the tree’s bark so that the Devil could not come down until the Devil promised Jack not to bother him for ten more years. When Jack died, as the legend goes, God would not allow such an unsavory figure into heaven. The Devil, upset for the tricks, would not allow Jack into hell and sent Jack off into the dark night with only a burning coal to light his way. Jack put the coal into a carved-out turnip and has been roaming the Earth with ever since. The Irish began to refer to this ghostly figure as “Jack of the Lantern,” and then, simply “Jack O’Lantern.”

People believe that if on the Halloween night, a girl carrying a lamp in her hand goes to a spring of water, she will see the reflection of her life partner in water.

People began to make their own versions of Jack’s lanterns and placing them into windows or near doors to frighten away Stingy Jack and other wandering evil spirits. In Mexico, Latin America, and Spain, All Souls’ Day, which takes place on November 2, is commemorated the dead who, it is believed, return to their earthly homes on Halloween. Often, a wash basin and towel are left out so that the spirit can wash before indulging in the feast. Candles and incense are burned to help the deceased find the way home.

MELBA’S BLEEDING BRAIN: A Peach and Raspberry Gelatin Brain for Halloween

2 tablespoons unflavored gelatin
1 can (29 oz.) canned peaches in syrup
1 cup milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
6 tablespoons peach flavored syrup
Raspberry pie filling

Prepare the mold by following instructions on the mold package to oil the mold and place in a bowl for stability.

Pour milk and cream into a small saucepan and sprinkle with gelatin. Whisk the mixture well, then let it sit for 3 minutes. Place the pan over medium heat and bring to a boil, whisking frequently to insure that gelatin dissolves. Immediately remove the pan from the heat, pour contents into another bowl and let the mixture cool for about 20 minutes.

In a bender or food processor, or with an immersion blender, purée remaining ingredients.

Pour purée into cooled cream mixture and stir well. Pour about half of mixture into prepared mold. Chill until set but not firm — about 40-50 minutes. Remove mold from the refrigerator. Carefully spoon the raspberry pie filling into the center.

If you like, you can scoop a small space before you add the filling, but be careful not to take too much or the filling will bleed through to the outside of the mold. Carefully pour the remaining gelatin mixture over the filling.

To unmold, dip the bottom of mold in a bowl filled with hot water, taking care to not let any water get into the mold. Dipping the mold for a few seconds helps to loosen the gelatin from the mold. Remove from water and dry off the bottom of the mold. Carefully remove the mold from the gelatin.

Excepts from: http://www.fabulousfoods.com/holidays/halloween/gelatinbrains.html

THE SMASHING PUMPKINS, Tonight, Tonight