The Scream Recovered!

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

"The Scream" and another stolen masterpiece by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch were recovered by police on Thursday, two years and nine days after gunmen seized the paintings from an Oslo museum.

"'The Scream' and 'Madonna' are now in police possession," police chief Iver Stensrud told a news conference. "The damage is much less than we could have feared."

He said the pictures were recovered on Thursday afternoon in "a successful police operation" but dodged questions about how it was done. He said no ransom had been paid "as of today."

"The Scream," Munch's most famous work, is an icon of existential angst showing a terrified figure against a blood-red sky. "Madonna" shows a bare-breasted woman with long black hair.

Two masked gunmen walked into the Munch Museum in Oslo in broad daylight in August 2004 and yanked the two works from the walls in front of dozens of terrified tourists. They escaped in a car driven by another man.

The paintings are both from 1893. Three men were convicted in May of taking part in the theft and were sentenced to up to eight years in jail.

Two of them were ordered to pay $122 million in damages. Three other men were acquitted.

Police said no new arrests or charges had been made in connection with the recovery of the paintings.

Experts at the Munch Museum had examined the pictures and judged them authentic, a museum official said. A scientific examination will also be carried out to verify the works.

A spokeswoman for a City of Oslo foundation that owns the Munch Museum collection said she hoped the paintings could be put back on display soon.

Naguib Mahfouz Dies at 94

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988, and was the first Arabic writer to be so honored. Many in the Arab world saw the prize as somewhat ironic, not least because the work for which Mahfouz received the prize had been published at least three decades earlier. In spite of millions readers in the Arab world, the author's books are still unavailable in many Middle Eastern countries on account of his support for President Sadat's Camp David peace treaty with Israel in 1978. Mahfouz has written some 40 novels and short story collections, 30 screenplays, and many plays.

Naguib Mahfouz was born in Gamaliya, Cairo. The family lived in two popular districts of the town, al-Jamaliya and al-Abbasiya, which have provided the backdrop for most of his writings. His father was a civil servant, and Mahfouz eventually followed in his footsteps. In his childhood his mother often took him to museums and Egyptian history later became a major theme is many of his books. He graduated from Cairo University in 1934. By 1936, having spent a year working on an M.A., he decided to become a professional writer. He worked as a journalist at Ar-Risala, and contributed to Al-Hilal and Al-Ahram.

Before turning to the novel, Mahfouz wrote articles and short stories. His first published book was a translation of James Baikie's work on ancient Egypt. His first collection of stories appeared in 1938. In 1939 he entered government bureaucracy, where he was employed for the next 35 years. From 1939 until 1954 he was a civil servant at the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, and then worked as director of the Foundation for Support of the Cinema, the State Cinema Organization. In 1969-71 he was a consultant for cinema affairs to the Ministry of Culture.

Mahfouz's major work in the 1950s was The Cairo Trilogy, which the author completed before the July Revolution. The novels were titled with the street names Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, and Sugar Street. Mahfouz set the story in the parts of Cairo where he grew up. They depict the life of the patriarch al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad and his family over three generations in Cairo from WW I to the 1950s, when King Farouk I was overthrown. With its rich variety of characters and psychological understanding the work connected Mahfouz to such authors as Balzac, Dickens, Tolstoy, and Galsworthy. Mahfouz ceased to write for some years after finishing the trilogy.

Mahfouz, called the "Balzac of Egypt", has written some 40 novels and short story collections, screenplays, and several stage plays. In his work Mahfouz has described the development of his country in the 20th-century. He has combined intellectual and cultural influences from East and West - his own exposure to the literarature of non-Arabic culture began in his youth with the enthusiastic consumption of Western detective stories. Mahfouz's stories are almost always set in the heavily populated urban quarters of Cairo. He had focused on 'the little man', who has to deal with the modernization of society and the temptations of Western values.

In his own country his characters have become household words, and he is widely considered a spokesperson not only for Egypt but also for a number of non-Western cultures. Before the Nobel Prize only a few of Mahfouz's novels had appeared in the West. Jacqueline Onassis was among those people, who brought early translations to the English-speaking readers. In 1994 Mahfouz was stabbed in the neck with a kitchen knife. Two Egyptian Islamic militants were sentenced to death in 1995 for attempting to kill him. In his old age Mahfouz has become nearly blind.

see these links for more info:
Naguib Mahfouz
Nobel prize.Org
Naguib Mahfouz in Wikipedia

Has Survivor Jumped the Shark?

I just saw an add for the new upcoming season of Survivor.  It will be divided by race.  I have loved the show from the very beginning and  have even fantasized about trying out for the show.  I have often thought that there was not enough diversity on the show.  I have often thought that there should be more of  mix of people instead of the majority caucasian show members.  America is one big melting pot after all.   

 

My solution would be to have more diverse people on the show and not necesarily divide the contestants by race.  Is CBS clutching at straws now?  The show is still a big hit.  This season will be controversial to say the least.  According to Jeff Probst, the show has always been a social experiment but this division, I am not to sure about.  In the end they all will merge and become one tribe.  It will be intersting to see of the groups still say in their race alliances after the  merge.   

  

For the 13th edition of the show, there will be an Asian-American team (which will include Lake Forest resident Jenny Guzon-Bae), an African-American team, a Hispanic team and a white team. Eventually the team members will unite to form diverse teams.

"The idea for this actually came from the criticism that `Survivor' was not ethnically diverse enough," host Jeff Probst told Harry Smith of CBS' "Early Show" on Wednesday. "I think it fits in perfectly with what `Survivor' does--it is a social experiment. And this is adding another layer to that experiment, which is taking the show to a completely different level."

I will digress here but I only remember  one African-american that was a total embarrassment. I will have to go to the CBS site to get his name, but he was on the show with Rupert--the first time.  He was well built, has lots of muscles, good looking but he was the one who quit the show.  He decided that it was not for him.  He was an embarrassment.  What did he expect?  My god he was only going to be gone for 30 days or less and  he could not survive that long.  He would be back to his home soon enough!   

I remember him bitching and moaning that he was sick, and his body could not take it.. He looked fit as a fiddle to  me.  I remember him talking about killing a pelican.  Like he would really do that.  He could not even catch a fish.  I guess he was mentally  weak because he sure had the body for endurance.  My mother was just so disgusted with him!  With there being so few of "us" on the show, why quit when you have the chance?  It can be a stepping stone to other things.  You never hear anything about him either.   I wonder if he is forever scarred and know as the "brother who quit survivor?" 

You know what?  I do not think I will find out his name.  It deserves to be forgotten!  Quit survivor?  What the hell was he thinking????          

 

 

     

The Pharmacist

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

The Pharmacist

A lady walks into a drug store and tells the pharmacist she needs some cyanide. The pharmacist said, "Why in the world do you need cyanide?" The lady then explained she needed it to poison her husband.

The pharmacist's eyes got big and he said, "Lord have mercy, I can't give you cyanide to kill your husband! That's against the law! I'll lose my license, they'll throw both of us in jail and all kinds of bad things will happen! Absolutely not, you can NOT have any cyanide!"

The lady reached into her purse and pulled out a picture of her husband in bed with the pharmacist's wife. The pharmacist looked at the picture and replied, "Well now, you didn't tell me you had a prescription."

Witch Child

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

I just started reading Witch Child by Celia Rees. I have read about 20 pages and so far it is very intriguing. I have the same feeling when I was in middle school reading Salem's Lot by Stephen King for the very first time. I think it was an amazing thing, the power that women were perceived to have during those times. It is unfortunate that so many innocent women were persecuted in witch hunts.

Famous women in their time centered around witchcraft: Tituba

Tituba was an Indian woman, not (as commonly believed) a Negro slave. She was originally from an Arawak village in South America, where she was captured as a child, taken to Barbados as a captive, and sold into slavery. It was in Barbados that her life first became entangled with that of Reverend Samuel Parris. She was likely between the age of 12 and 17 when she came into the Parris household. She was most likely purchased by Parris from one of his business associates, or given to settle a debt. Parris, at the time, was an unmarried merchant, leading to speculation that Tituba may have served as his concubine.

Tituba helped maintain the Parris household on a day-to-day basis. When Parris moved to Boston in 1680, Tituba and another Indian slave named John accompanied him. Tituba and John were married in 1689 about the time the Parris family moved to Salem. It is believed that Tituba had only one child, a daughter named Violet, who would remain in Parris's household until his death.

Tituba made herself a likely target for witchcraft accusations when shortly after Parris's daughter, Betty, began having strange fits and symptoms, she participated in the preparation of a "witchcake" (a mixture of rye and Betty's urine, cooked and fed to a dog, in the belief that the dog would then reveal the identity of Betty's afflictor). Parris was enraged when he found out about the cake, and shortly thereafter the afflicted girls named Tituba as a witch. Parris beat her until she confessed.

Tituba was the first witch to confess in Salem, and she likely did it to avoid further punishment. In her confession she apologized for hurting Betty, claimed she never wanted to hurt Betty, and professed her love for the child. She also wove a lively tale of an active community of witches in Salem. She named Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne as witches. By confessing early on, Tituba avoided the ordeal of going to trial, joining with the afflicted girls in providing key evidence against accused witches. Her husband, John, would also fall into fits, and become afflicted.

When public sentiment towards the accusers and the trials began to change, Tituba recanted her confession. This further enraged Parris, who in retaliation, refused to pay the jailer's fee to get Tituba out a prison. As a result, she spent thirteen months in jail until an unknown person paid the seven pounds for her release and bought her. It is likely that the same person bought her husband, John, because Puritans were not inclined to split up married couples, even slaves. It is unknown what happened to her after she began her life with her new owner.

Bridget Bishop was first accused in 1680 for her husband death. It is not known if this was for
(1)Goodman Wasslebee's death or for
(2) Edward Bishop's death, but she was acquitted. She was, this time, accused on April 18, 1692 [12 years later]. Bridget was an innkeeper. She was accused of being a temptress in her red push-up bodice. By this time Bridgett was an elderly woman. Bridget was hanged on June 10, 1692. Bridget was married to husband three
(3)Edward Bishop. It was Edward that said she was a witch. They had no children.

Martha Cory: Martha Corey, unlike some of the others accused was a respected member of the community of more than "average judgement and discretion," and a member of the Village church. Prior to being named, she had steadfastly refused to give any credence to the witchcraft accusations, and when accused consistently denied any such associations.

Although her age is unknown, she was the third wife of Giles, and likely somewhat younger than he, but possibly more than sixty years of age at the time of the trials. Giles was eighty years of age at the time. Giles, at first taken up in the fury, appears to given a statement that might have contributed to his wife's discomfort. It was the testimony of others, however, that seems to have fully sealed her doom.

She was first examined in March, convicted on September 10, 1692 and hanged on September 22.

I found this interesting link for the Salem Witch Museum.

Man Never Landed on the Moon!

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

NASA LOST TAPES OF THE ORIGINAL MOON WALK!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government has misplaced the original recording of the first moon landing, including astronaut Neil Armstrong's famous "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," a NASA spokesman said on Monday.

Armstrong's famous space walk, seen by millions of viewers on July 20, 1969, is among transmissions that NASA has failed to turn up in a year of searching, spokesman Grey Hautaloma said.

"We haven't seen them for quite a while. We've been looking for over a year and they haven't turned up," Hautaloma said.

The tapes also contain data about the health of the astronauts and the condition of the spacecraft. In all, some 700 boxes of transmissions from the Apollo lunar missions are missing, he said.

"I wouldn't say we're worried -- we've got all the data. Everything on the tapes we have in one form or another," Hautaloma said.

NASA has retained copies of the television broadcasts and offers several clips on its Web site.

But those images are of lower quality than the originals stored on the missing magnetic tapes.

Because NASA's equipment was not compatible with TV technology of the day, the original transmissions had to be displayed on a monitor and re-shot by a TV camera for broadcast.

Hautaloma said it is possible the tapes will be unplayable even if they are found, because they have degraded significantly over the years -- a problem common to magnetic tape and other types of recordable media.

The material was held by the National Archives but returned to NASA sometime in the late 1970s, he said.

"We're looking for paperwork to see where they last were," he said.

THIS story plays right into the stories that man never landed on the moon. It is NASA. Surely they would have access to the best systems in the world to preserve that film, make copies and ensure that it was in a vault somewhere.

I knew it was a fake! We never landed on the moon!

• The Apollo Moon landing hoax accusations are a set of related beliefs that some or all elements of the Apollo Moon landings did not occur as they are described by NASA, but were instead faked by NASA and, possibly, members of other involved organizations. Various individuals have advanced a number of different theories, which tend, to varying degrees, to include the following common elements:
• The Apollo Astronauts did not land on the Moon;
• NASA and possible others deliberately deceived the public to conceal this, manufacturing or tampering with evidence like photos, telemetry tapes, transmissions and rock samples.

Hillary Bust: Wierd Art!

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

The sculpture "The Presidential Bust of Hillary Rodham Clinton: the First Woman President of the United States of America" sits on display at the Museum of Sex in New York August 9, 2006. Artist Daniel Edwards claims to have been inspired to make the piece after actress Sharon Stone said Clinton could never be president because she is a sexual being.

Chasing Sunsets

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

I spent about 30 minutes chasing the sunset trying to get a good picture. Unfortunately I did not take this one. I wish! Mine would have been better. Driving on the highway there was no way I could stop and get the perfect picture. The perfect place for me to be able to get the perfect shot was on top of an overpass--a busy one at about 8pm. The lane on the right side of the road was a little narrow. I guess I could have stopped but it would have been hazardous. Plus, getting back in the flow of traffic would have been hard.

What I did try to do was get on and off that exit several times hoping there would be a little break in the traffic where I could pause the car and snap a picture. The traffic was just too busy. Then I noticed the sun began to dip faster and faster. The fourth time I made it to the top of the overpass, the sun had dipped beyond the horizon and the clouds all had a grey lining. Darkness was coming.

I had missed it, but I snapped a picture with my mind's eye. It is an indelible one, forever stamped in the camera that is my mind. I took that picture out and looked at it today. The one here is no comparison.

Tomorrow is a new day. Another chance to chase the sunset.

I'm a Blogging Chick!

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

Yes, siree bob! I am a blogging chick now. (I always was one and just did not know it!) Check out the site and don't forget the blogroll. There are some very interesting blogs there! The blogroll is in the next column. Just scroll down a bit to see it!

Smelly Wars

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

We just got an email at work stating that all staff should refrain from wearing any sort of perfume or cologne because 2 people have allergies and get headaches if they smell perfume. Why do 2 people now control the perfume habits of almost 100 people in the office? That does not seem right. Now we have always gotten this sort of email for years. I have always ignored it because those 2 people do not sit near me or work in the same area as me. There was even a time in the beginning when I thought this was so wrong that I would put on en extra dose of perfume before going to work.

I still think it is wrong. Now I am now in a office closer to one of these very "nasally frail" people and I put on some hand lotion (quite far away) last thursday and managers sniffed me out until they found the offending smell. Air currents from the air condition travel far and wide. I was reminded that some in the office have allergies. That hand lotion was particulary fragrant. It was the Savannah Bee Magnolia Hand Lotion from Bath and Body Works. I guess I will have to only use that one at home.

Now there was a time some years ago when the "nasally frail" in our office demanded air filters. The company had to buy them. They looked like white seal-a meal machines that sat on their desks. It filtered the air around their desks and kept the air around them perfume free. One of them still use it. Will I continue to use my perfumes and lotions? Yes. I have invested too much in smelling good. I have many bottles of fragrance and many selections of fragrant bath gels, soaps, lotions and splashes and all sorts of mists, oils and cremes. Hundreds and hundreds of dollars of fragrance. Who can pass up a sale at Bath and Body works? I sure can't. I keep that company in business.

My thoughts to the nasally frail? Bring your clothes pins to work. Be prepared to use them on your nose!