Over the last couple of weeks I have been checking out a couple of local reserves to me. Eades Meadow and Monkwood (which is jointly owned by the Butterfly Conservation Trust). Both places were superb. I happended to be blessed with the most beautiful weather when I visited. Here are some shots from the trips. Eades Meadow Lacewing (Chrysopa Perla) Currently unidentified! Common Blue – Male (Polyommatus icarus) Common Blue – Female (Polyommatu … Read More
Raised on a wildlife reserve in Alaska, 15-year-old Garrett was interested in the dietary habits of the farm animals. After the tragic death of his mother, Garrett’s father decided to home-school his son and assigned a book written by Dr. Max Gerson that proposed a direct link between diet and a cure for cancer. Fascinated, Garrett embarks in this documentary on a cross-country road trip to investigate The Gerson Therapy. He meets with scientists, doctors and cancer survivors who reveal how it is in the best interest of the multi-billion dollar medical industry to dismiss the notion of alternative and natural cures.
Understanding of humans’ earliest past often comes from studying fossils. They tell us much of what we know about the people who lived before us. There is one thing fossils cannot tell us; at what point did we stop living day-to-day and start to think symbolically, to represent ideas about our environment and how we could change it? At a dig in South Africa the discovery of a small piece of ochre pigment, 70,000 years old, has raised some very interesting questions. Anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) emerged in Africa roughly 100,000 years ago. We know from fossil evidence that Homo sapiens replaced other hominids around them and moved out of Africa into Asia and the Middle East, reaching Europe 40,000 years ago. Prof Richard Klein believes art is a landmark in human evolution. Unquestionable art that’s widespread and common suggests you’re dealing with people just like us. No other animals, after all, are able to define a painting as anything other than a collection of colours and shapes. This ability is unique to humans. Other scientists agree. They believe art defines humans as behaviourally modern, and its beginning must coincide with the ability to speak and use language. If someone has the imagination to devise a shared way to describe their environment using art then it seems inconceivable that they could not possess language and speech. The search for the moment our ancestors became behaviourally just like us is also the hunt for the first evidence of art.
Yesterday it was snowing here in Bern and guess what did I see?
Yes it was a Tree:
…but actually there was not just one
do you understand? TREES are omnipresent!
And maybe we shouldn’t cut the TREE!
As it would be a future without fun for your son:
Francois Pantillon (b.1928) comes from a prominent family of musicians from La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, and received his initial training in violin from his father. After his diploma he joined the Royal Conservatory in Brussels, where he graduatesd with highest honours and was awarded the Van Hall Prize for violin. He hen turned to conducting skills, working with Paul van Kempen at the Academia Chigi di Siena, with Franco Ferrara in Hilversum, and with Herbert von Karajan at the Lucerne Festival. After engaging him as leader of the Festival Orchestra, von Karajan soon encouraged him to conduct.
From 1972 to 1997 he was the conductor and artistic manager of the Thuner Stadtorchester, with whom he performed more than 200 concerts. In 1965 he founded the professional chamber orchestra Capella Bernensis with whom he toured Switzerland and other European countries on several occasions.
The multi-faceted artist is frequently invited abroad as guest conductor, having toured France, Italy, Spain, England, Holland, Belgium and Poland, where he was invited to conduct various Philharmonic Orchestras every year from 1973 to 1988. In London he celebrated successes with the New Philharmonia Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Spezializing in the direction of oratorios, he is recognized as an outstanding interpreter of classic and romantic literature, but is equally devoted to modern composers, having performed Swiss and Polish premieres of Arthur Honegger, Frank Martin and Heinrich Sutermeister works in particular.
Pantillon is also a noted composer. His first oratorio, Clameurs du Monde (Clamors of the World), written in 1986, was very warmly received and noted immediately in the musical encyclopedia, Oratorien der Welt (Oratorios of the World), by Prof. Dr. Kurt Pahlen of Vienna. It was presented on Swiss television and performed by Barbara Hendricks and the Slovakian Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Oliver Donanyi throughout the major cities of Switzerland in 1991 as part of a national celebration commemorating the 700th anniversary of the Swiss Confederation. For the same jubilee the city of Bern produced for the first time his opera, Die Richterin (the Lady Judge), with numerous performances.
Soon thereafter he turned to composing chamber music, notably a sextet Gaudium and the Trio 1029 for violin, cello and piano, a song cycle Instants…, a brilliant cantata for chamber choir and piano, entitled Daphne, a Missa Brevis di San Pedro, and a Sinfonietta for orchestra. His greatest success, however, came with his Christmas oratorio, Bethlehem, which debuted in Bern in 1995, and was subsequently performed in Rome and in many Swiss cities, including Geneva. For the Millenium, his Te Deum 2000 premiered at Bern Cathedral as part of a Three Te Deum concert that also presented Haendel’s Dettinger Te Deum and Bruckner’s Te Deum.
The style of Francois Pantillon lies in the convergence of tonality with polytonality. He pursues expressiveness in modernism through a spectrum of color in which the avant-gard mixes with post-impressionist harmonies. His melodies are polished and his orchestration refined. Pantillon himself says, ” Mon souhait est d’atteindre le coeur de l’auditeur en le remplissant d’ombre et de lumière. Pour moi, la composition est un acte de réflexion et d’amour, qui tend la main à l’humanité. ” (My wish is to reach the heart of the listener in filling it with shadow and light. For me, composition is an act of reflection and of love, which stretches out its hand to humanity.)
Full Length Documentary about Out of Africa Wildlife Park
This is a volunteer, not-for-profit project created by Emmy award winning filmmakers Kim and Doug Bocaz-Larson of Poco Loco Productions of NMSU-Grants http://www.pocolocos.com
It looks like Americans like to put things in cages to play with them:
Das Guantánamo-Experiment 48:29
Unter welchen Umständen können Folter und Gewalt im US-Gefangenenlager Guantánamo gerechtfertigt werden? Für ein ungewöhnliches Experiment haben sich sieben Freiwillige bereit erklärt, 48 Stunden in der nachgestellten Realität der Haftbedingungen in Guantánamo zu verbringen. Die Testpersonen waren erschüttert über die Folgen, die sie sich weniger gravierend vorgestellt hatten.