Juana Inés de la Cruz Sister (Spanish: Sor) Juana Inés de la Cruz, O.S.H. (English: Joan Agnes of the Cross) (12 November 1651 – 17 April 1695), was a self-taught scholar and poet of the Baroque school, and Hieronymite nun of New Spain. Although she lived in a colonial era when Mexico was part of the Spanish Empire, she is considered today both a Mexican writer and a contributor to the Spanish Golden Age, and she stands at the beginning of the history of Mexican literature in the Spanish language. Early life[edit] A portrait of Juana during her youth in 1666, which states she was 15 at the time, when she first entered the viceregal court She was born Juana Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez de Santillana in San Miguel Nepantla (now called Nepantla de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz in her honor) near Mexico City. Juana was a devoutly religious child who often hid in the hacienda chapel to read her grandfather's books from the adjoining library, something forbidden to girls. Death[edit] Posthumous[edit] Works[edit] Legacy[edit]
Urban Greening May Reduce Crime Rates in Cities Urban planning is not only important to the strategic design behind a city's infrastructure, but now one study finds that the landscaping itself which emphasizes urban greening and the introduction of well-maintained vegetation, can lower the rates of certain types of crime such as aggravated assault, robbery and burglary, in cities. According to a Temple University study, "Does vegetation encourage or suppress urban crime? Evidence from Philadelphia, PA," researchers found that the presence of grass, trees and shrubs is associated with lower crime rates in Philadelphia. "There is a longstanding principle, particularly in urban planning, that you don't want a high level of vegetation, because it abets crime by either shielding the criminal activity or allowing the criminal to escape," said Jeremy Mennis, associate professor of geography and urban studies at Temple. "Well-maintained greenery, however, can have a suppressive effect on crime." Read more at Temple University.
Climate Activist DeChristopher Barred From "Social Justice" Work Blue Marble readers will recall the story of Tim DeChristopher, a Utah climate activist who posed as a bidder at a December 2008 Bureau of Land Management auction. DeChristopher was the highest bidder on thousands of acres of public land, much of which bordered national parks and monuments. The 27-year-old bid $1.79 million on more than 22,000 acres that he had no intention of actually buying. The government took a hard line on his act of protest, bringing him up on felony charges for mucking up the auction. DeChristopher ended up with a two-year prison sentence and a $10,000 fine. After serving 15 months in federal prison, DeChristopher is now living in a halfway house. DeChristopher had been offered a job with the church's social justice ministry, which would include working with cases of race discrimination, sex discrimination or other injustices that fall contrary to Unitarian beliefs. See our review of a new documentary about DeChristopher and our 2009 interview with him.
Grow your own sack garden - Humanitarian Aid & Relief | The World Concern Blog Our staff in Chad have been teaching people living in refugee camps there how to grow sack gardens. It’s a great way to improve a family’s diet by adding fresh vegetables with less water needed than a typical garden. Since spring is a time many people are thinking about gardening, we thought we’d share these instructions for growing your own sack garden! If you do, please share it with us! Our agronomists first learned about sack gardens from Manor House Agricultural Centre in Kenya, and we learned more about various container and urban gardening methods at ECHO Global Farm. Materials needed: A burlap or plastic sack (we use discarded food aid sacks, which make perfect sack gardens, especially for symbolic reasons)Soil mixed with organic compostRocks for irrigationA cylindrical bucket or tin, open on both ends (we use seed tins or vegetable oil tins, but a coffee can would work well too) Instructions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Researchers suggest one can affect an atom's spin by adjusting the way it is measured One of the most basic laws of quantum mechanics is that a system can be in more than one state – it can exist in multiple realities – at once. This phenomenon, known as the superposition principle, exists only so long as the system is not observed or measured in any way. As soon as such a system is measured, its superposition collapses into a single state. The principle of superposition was first demonstrated in 1922 by Otto Stern and Walther Gerlach, who observed the phenomenon in the spin of silver atoms. Next, the team measured the polarization of the emitted photon and found that the observed polarization determines the effect of measurement on the spin. The reason for this "action-at-a-distance" is that the spins of the measured atoms and the emitted photons were entangled. The experiment is an important step in understanding the measurement process in quantum systems. Explore further: A quantum logic gate between light and matter
A Concerted Effort To Help the Homeless Move Into and Fix Up Abandoned Properties | Cleveland Real Estate News If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! It seems like a natural fit and apparently others think so too. Homeless people and families are finding refuge in vacant/abandoned properties here in Cleveland. They are doing it in several ways, including just squatting, or moving in hoping not to be discovered. This article from Live Streak points out how this is happening around the Country, including here: “Many homeless people see the foreclosure crisis as an opportunity to find low-cost housing (FREE!) Fox News’ website also reports on this issue, this time mentioning (but not explaining) how advocates for the homeless are helping people get into abandoned homes: Elsewhere around the country, advocates in Cleveland are working with the city to allow homeless people to legally move into and repair empty, dilapidated houses. Truth be told, abandoned properties are not a new thing, it’s just that we have more of them now.
Ananda Bijam Yoga | This WordPress.com site is a Yoga Bijam The Ananda Bija Way, Relating to Hatha Asana Padmasana This site is fully intended to address an alternative holistic approach to Yoga Sadhana. For our purposes to begin, let’s accept Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, since they are the most authoritative statement on Ashtanga Yoga. From that basis alone I feel there’s much to consider about Yoga; Since the current perception seems to be that yoga means asana. When beginning a practice of yoga asana it is, to a degree, quite natural & understandable to experience tension or even a struggle. A few points re: any yoga & asana practice. True yoga is from the heart, observing & recognizing what is; seeing where tension restricts us & knowing we can slowly, consciously let it go bit by bit. Muscles respond as clay does, they both must be warmed up perhaps kneaded too, in order to become soft & stretchy. Releasing breath also establishes a harmonious wave of energy flowing throughout the entire body. Eka Pada Viparita Dandasana Om Tat Sat Like this:
Brenda Peterson: Killing With Sound: What Happens When the Whales Stop Singing? Close your eyes. Your world is now only sound -- the rain, the traffic, that far-off siren. In this acoustic world, how you navigate, find food, your children, or mate, all depends upon how well you hear. There are no noise-cancelling headphones to stop the U.S. This is the real life of marine mammals destroyed by the U.S. Ken Balcomb has researched multi-generations of the resident orca pods in the Pacific Northwest. Scientific American calls military sonar, "rolling walls of noise." In the Navy's latest environmental impact statement draft, they admit that the sonar exercises planned for 2014-2018 may unintentionally "harm marine mammals 2.8 million times over five years." A deaf whale is a dead whale. The Navy has paid little heed to the scientists, the lawsuits, the public outcry, and the many media storms all protesting this risky technology. The Navy has agreed only to post look-outs onboard ships to spot whales. Get involved:
September 2011 The Green Man, the foliate head, a composite of foliage and face, can often be found in West European churches and cathedrals, sometimes entirely made of leaves, often a face surrounded by leaves and/or vines. Sometimes hidden in dark corners, or high up in the ceiling, hardly visible from ground level. In pre-Christian mythology, he represents the vegetation, returning year after year, like the ebb and flow of nature, the spirit of the eternal cycle of nature and irrepressible life. The name ‘Green Man’ was first used by Lady Raglan, UK, in an article on folklore in 1939. There are at least four of them at Avioth. The first ‘recorded’ Green Man in a church dates from the sixth century: in Trier, Germany, the capitals of some columns from a Roman temple representing a Green Man were reused in the church replacing the temple. Green Men are found throughout the Roman Empire but none of them seems to date from earlier than the first century. Avioth, another Green Man
No Time to Grow Food? Company Will Plant a Garden for You Farmyard, a Phoenix-based company, installs and helps maintain gardens for their clients. Photo: Kathryn Sukalich, Earth911 You know that saying, ‘Give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day. Farmyard, a Phoenix-based company, has a unique business model that not only provides fresh, organic produce through a community supported agriculture (CSA) program, but also visits the yards of those interested in growing their own food, helps install gardens and follows up to ensure clients are properly tending to their crops. At its core, learning to garden requires that people alter the way they think, both about what they eat and how they interact with the world around them. “We’re so used to having that grocery store mentality, having everything all the time no matter what,” Rebecca Kidwell, co-owner of Farmyard, told Earth911. Growing their own food helps people learn where food comes from, as well as how that food relates to the local landscape, Kidwell said.
Fukushima meltdown appears to have sickened American infants Fallout from that Fukushima meltdown thing a couple years back? It’s not just the Japanese who are suffering, though their plight is obviously the worst. Radioactive isotopes blasted from the failed reactors may have given kids born in Hawaii and along the American West Coast health disorders which, if left untreated, can lead to permanent mental and physical handicaps. Children born in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington between one week and 16 weeks after the meltdowns began in March 2011 were 28 percent more likely to suffer from congenital hypothyroidism than were kids born in those states during the same period one year earlier, a new study shows. In the rest of the U.S. during that period in 2011, where radioactive fallout was less severe, the risks actually decreased slightly compared with the year before. After entering our bodies, radioactive iodine gathers in our thyroids. Their findings may be only a tip of an epidemiological iceberg. So stay tuned.
'Lights Have Entered Us': George Oppen's Words About Hope in Grief - Joe Fassler Five lines of a George Oppen poem about bereavement continually amaze Jeffrey Yang, the author of An Aquarium and Vanishing-Line—and even connected him to a fellow poet. Doug McLean By Heart is a series in which authors share and discuss their all-time favorite passages in literature. The new poetry anthology Time of Grief: Mourning Poems is an unusual, inventive take on a familiar subject: It explores grief in its various shades and incarnations. Related Story When I asked Time of Grief's editor, the poet Jeffrey Yang, to choose a favorite from the anthology, he selected a piece by the American poet George Oppen. Jeffrey Yang works as an editor at New Directions Publishing and at New York Review Books. Jeffrey Yang: A couple years ago a close friend of the publisher at New Directions unexpectedly lost her husband of 25 years. Certain lines immediately came to mind when thinking about what to include in such a thematically structured book. Bonus: A Poetry Reading