Last updated at 13:03 GMT, Wednesday, 3 February 2010
A man who throws animal semen on schoolgirls is being hunted by police following a sixth attack.
Detectives in Greater Manchester, described the assaults, all in the Bury area, as "disgusting".
The man follows young girls before they discover they have been smeared with the liquid.
Police have released a CCTV image of a man they want to speak to. The first attack was reported in November and the latest was last week.
Det Insp Lynne Vernon, from Greater Manchester Police, said: "We have six separate incidents and do not know the motivation behind them - while we do not want people to be frightened unnecessarily, we are taking these reports seriously.
"None of the victims was physically harmed in anyway but this is still a disgusting act and the person responsible must be caught.
"I'd ask people to take a good look at this image and if you know anything about this man, please contact us.
"He is not necessarily connected to all of the incidents but we would like to speak to him as part of our inquiries."
The first victim, a 14-year-old girl, was followed by a man on Kennedy Drive in Unsworth, on 13 November.
He asked her the time and was standing uncomfortably close to her.
Police tests
When she got home, she noticed a sticky liquid on her tights.
The substance was analysed by police and later identified as animal semen.
A 15-year-old girl was smeared with liquid by a man on 7 December on Ostrich Lane, Prestwich.
Later that day another 15-year-old was followed.
On 17 December a 14-year-old girl was in a shop on Mill Gate in Bury town centre with her mother when a man bumped into her and wiped a white substance on her bottom.
The next day, a man followed two 13-year-old girls on Bury Old Road, near to the M60 in Prestwich.
In the latest attack, on 25 January, a man approached two girls, aged 15 and 16, on Pinfold Lane, Whitefield, and asked them the time.
One of the girls then noticed liquid dripping from her skirt.
In each incident, the offender was described as being a white man, aged between 25 and 35 and was carrying a bag.
From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/manchester/8495630.stm
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Ringleader Arrested In Home Invasion Involving Hot Oil
Posted: 11:53 am EST February 3, 2010
Updated: 6:31 pm EST February 3, 2010
PALM BAY, Fla. -- Home invaders were so cruel to their victims, police say, they tortured them with hot cooking oil. Police told Eyewitness News on Wednesday they've found the ringleader, and two others, who attacked a single mother and her seven children in December.
The torture that family endured is unbelievable. Police say the robbers didn’t just throw hot oil on their victims, they forced the mother and her eldest teenager to put their hands into a frying pan filled with hot cooking oil to try and get them to tell them where their money was.
The man police say is the ringleader is behind bars, in part, because of an observant young boy and Wednesday wasn't the first time Leaundrea Parker has appeared before a judge in jail. His arrest record is eight pages long, but now he is accused of one of the most horrific home invasions police in Palm Bay can remember.
Police suspect Parker and three others went to the home on December 5, armed with guns, and broke in while six children were home alone. When their mother and another child showed up while the robbers were still there, they doused them with scalding oil that could have topped 300 degrees.
“We know their motive was robbery. Their intent was to get as much cash as they could, but we don't know exactly why they chose our victims,” said Det. Mark Mynheir, Palm Bay Police Department.
The thieves left in the family's SUV and set fire to another getaway car, but they left behind a black hat and a mask.
“We had some people help us out in the investigation. We also used some technology, some DNA,” Mynheir said.
Police say DNA found on the items tied them to Parker and, it turns out, one of the children noticed a dollar sign on one of the masked suspects during the home invasion. Police say Parker has the same tattoo.
Leaundrea Parker told police he was in the Cocoa area, but police tracked his cell phone records and discovered he had used cell phone towers near the victims’ home in Palm Bay.
Leaundrea is being held on more than $1 million bond. Two other suspects are in custody, but their names have not been released.
From: http://www.wftv.com/news/22421583/detail.html
Updated: 6:31 pm EST February 3, 2010
PALM BAY, Fla. -- Home invaders were so cruel to their victims, police say, they tortured them with hot cooking oil. Police told Eyewitness News on Wednesday they've found the ringleader, and two others, who attacked a single mother and her seven children in December.
The torture that family endured is unbelievable. Police say the robbers didn’t just throw hot oil on their victims, they forced the mother and her eldest teenager to put their hands into a frying pan filled with hot cooking oil to try and get them to tell them where their money was.
The man police say is the ringleader is behind bars, in part, because of an observant young boy and Wednesday wasn't the first time Leaundrea Parker has appeared before a judge in jail. His arrest record is eight pages long, but now he is accused of one of the most horrific home invasions police in Palm Bay can remember.
Police suspect Parker and three others went to the home on December 5, armed with guns, and broke in while six children were home alone. When their mother and another child showed up while the robbers were still there, they doused them with scalding oil that could have topped 300 degrees.
“We know their motive was robbery. Their intent was to get as much cash as they could, but we don't know exactly why they chose our victims,” said Det. Mark Mynheir, Palm Bay Police Department.
The thieves left in the family's SUV and set fire to another getaway car, but they left behind a black hat and a mask.
“We had some people help us out in the investigation. We also used some technology, some DNA,” Mynheir said.
Police say DNA found on the items tied them to Parker and, it turns out, one of the children noticed a dollar sign on one of the masked suspects during the home invasion. Police say Parker has the same tattoo.
Leaundrea Parker told police he was in the Cocoa area, but police tracked his cell phone records and discovered he had used cell phone towers near the victims’ home in Palm Bay.
Leaundrea is being held on more than $1 million bond. Two other suspects are in custody, but their names have not been released.
From: http://www.wftv.com/news/22421583/detail.html
Parents of boys found dead in Alberta home were fighting over custody
By Ben Gelinas and Alexandra Zabjek, Edmonton Journal February 3, 2010MILLET, Alta. — They were born 12,000 kilometres and just 18 days apart — one in a suburb of Sydney, Australia, and the other in Calgary.
They were both 27 when they met in November 2005, while she was in Canada on a work visa.
Curtis McConnell and Allyson Meager did what many young couples do after they fall in love: they moved in together, got married, bought a home, started a family.
And somewhere in the last few months, it all began to fall apart.
He filed divorce papers. She filed a counter-claim.
Accusations were made. He was worried she might take their two sons back to Australia, and took away the boys' passports to keep that from happening.
On Monday, a neighbour who lives near the couple's home in Millet, a small town 60 kilometres south of Edmonton, said a frantic Curtis McConnell showed up at her door around 3 p.m.
"He was crying, 'My wife just killed the kids.' He was hysterical. I've never seen him like that. At first I didn't believe him."
The woman said she followed him back to the home, where she saw the bodies of two little boys, Jayden and Connor, "cold and stiff" on the bathroom floor.
"He had already pulled them out of the tub," said the neighbour, who did not want to be named.
The neighbour said police later told her the boys' mother had tried to kill herself by jumping off an Edmonton bridge on Monday afternoon.
Edmonton police say a woman jumped off a bridge at about 2:15 p.m. and landed on a freeway. She was taken to hospital with undisclosed injuries.
RCMP investigators spent much of Tuesday at the McConnell home in Millet, a recently built bungalow. So far, police are saying little about what happened in that house.
The names of the dead have not been officially released, though the boys' parents, now both 31, have been identified by neighbours and in court documents.
The Edmonton medical examiner is expected Wednesday to release results of a post-mortem done to determine the manner and cause of the deaths.
The neighbour said the couple was going through a difficult divorce.
"There was a lot of tension," she said.
The couple was married in New South Wales, Australia, on Jan. 26, 2007, and bought a house in Millet, a town of 2,200.
Their first son, Connor Ryan, was born July 31, 2007.
For the past two years, Curtis McConnell worked the 3-11 p.m. shift at a nearby Home Hardware outlet. For a few months, Allyson worked in the payroll department for an oil company.
Their second son, Jayden Blair, was born March 24, 2009. Eight months later, the couple separated.
Curtis McConnell filed for divorce in December.
"Recently, the respondent has been threatening me that she wants to move back to Australia with our children," he wrote in a sworn affidavit filed Dec. 11, 2009, in connection with the divorce proceedings. "I am completely opposed to this and I am fearful that she will attempt to do this without my consent or knowledge.
"As such, I have taken our children's passports for safekeeping. She has gone to the extent of applying for our children's Australian citizenship and then I believe she will be applying for a passport, which makes me uncomfortable."
On Dec. 21, a judge ruled the children must remain in Alberta until further direction from the court.
In a statement of defence filed Jan. 15, Allyson McConnell said she wanted to relocate to Australia with her children, where she would have more family and government support, and a better chance at employment. She said the children suffered from medical conditions that would benefit from a warmer climate.
She promised her husband would have reasonable access to the children if she moved.
The neighbour who saw the boys' bodies on the bathroom floor said she last saw Allyson on Friday, when the two women took their children swimming in Leduc. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, though in retrospect she said it was a little strange that her neighbour left her camera equipment with her, saying she didn't want her husband to get it.
The woman, whose little girl played with the two boys, said she was in shock.
"She loved those boys more than anything," the woman said. "They were great boys. Nobody would have seen this coming at all."
The deaths have hit the small town hard. The McConnell family is well known and has lived in the area for generations, another neighbour said.
She said the little boys meant "the world" to their grandparents, who had no other grandchildren.
Michelle Schmidt placed a teddy bear on the front lawn of the house Tuesday morning as part of a growing memorial that included twin angels and lanterns. She said she didn't know the family, but knows somebody who did.
"I just wanted to pay my respects to the family," Schmidt said. "I think the community is really heartbroken right now."
From: http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Parents+boys+found+dead+Alberta+home+were+fighting+over+custody/2517983/story.html
Agency had just visited mother
By Michelle Mondo and Eva Ruth Moravec- Express-News
A Child Protective Services caseworker visited the home of Elyse Marsyl Colon the day before her two young sons were stabbed to death and had found nothing amiss.
It was a routine visit that began with Colon hugging the caseworker, welcoming her into her North Side home and thanking her for being there, said Mary Walker, a CPS spokeswoman.
“Nothing,” Walker said. “There was absolutely nothing that would indicate that this mother would go out and hurt her children.”
It made hearing the news of the double homicide all the more shocking, Walker said.
Authorities said Colon, 22, stabbed her boys to death Tuesday, then stood outside her home in the 100 block of Weizmann Street and met police by holding out her hands and saying, “I killed my babies.”
Inside the patrol car, Colon said, “Their father is in jail. I want him to know.”
Colon remained Wed- nesday in Bexar County Jail on two counts of capital murder in the deaths of her children, Guillermo Garcia, 19 months, and Jose Luis Garcia, 3. Her bonds totaled $2 million.
Bexar County spokeswoman Linda Tomasini said the children's father, Luis A. Garcia-Pacheco, found out about the slayings around 1:45 p.m. Wednesday.
A clergyman and a nun told him about the deaths, which the Bexar County medical examiner's office said were caused by “multiple sharp force injuries.”
He was “very distraught and emotional,” Tomasini said.
A longtime family friend of Colon said other relatives also were in shock. Attempts to reach the family weren't successful Wednesday. Relatives did not return calls, nor did anyone answer the door at Colon's mother's house.
Martha Arkeen, 82, said she spoke with Colon's aunt Wednesday morning.
“They don't know what happened to Elyse, they thought she had just snapped,” said Arkeen, who has known Colon's mother since childhood. “But I don't know what could have caused her to murder those sweet little children.”
The slayings also moved some San Antonio residents to respond by visiting the fenced rental property.
Birdie Zuniga, 47, and her son, Tom Cruz Zuniga, 22, brought three teddy bears as a tribute to the boys, whom they never met. Wearing hoods to protect them from the noon downpour, they waded through the rain's runoff, walked to a tree, set down the bears and prayed.
Birdie Zuniga cried as she walked away.
The three bears, wrapped in plastic to protect them from rain, later were moved to a fence closer to the home. There was no other indication of what had happened inside the powder-blue home that sits behind another house.
Police Chief William McManus said it wasn't a bloody scene when officers arrived Tuesday afternoon, responding to a reported cutting.
Colon was nonchalant as one officer placed her in handcuffs while the other kicked in the home's locked front door, police said.
Once inside, police discovered the two boys lying on the bed, shoulder to shoulder, McManus said.
Authorities said the parent's history was fraught with domestic violence.
In 2009, police were called to the house nine times, records showed. On two of those occasions, May 23 and Sept. 30, Garcia-Pacheco was arrested on a family violence charge.
It was because of the family violence that CPS began working with Colon in May, after someone — whose name wasn't disclosed — called the agency, Walker said.
She said Colon admitted to a history of violence between her and the boys' father.
“The children were not hurt but (the investigation) did find they were physically neglected because they were in the middle of all this,” Walker said.
She said the case was transferred in August to the Family Safety Services division, which provides services to strengthen families and “give the mom the tools to keep the kids protected.”
The May referral was the third the agency had received in as many years, Walker said. The others were for allegations of drug abuse, but Colon and her sons all tested negative for any illegal drug use, according to Walker.
The boys' father has been jailed since his September arrest. Authorities said at that time Garcia-Pacheco also was charged with entering the country illegally and was placed on a federal detainer.
In October, Colon applied for a protective order for herself and her two sons. The order was agreed upon on Nov. 5 to last for two years, according to court documents.
She was working at keeping her family together and also was trying to find a job, Walker said.
“We're still reviewing the case because we want to make sure we did solid casework,” she said. “It appears preliminarily that we did all we could do to keep something like this from happening.”
Arkeen said Colon just didn't seem capable of the crime she told police she committed.
“Elyse was always so sweet, soft-spoken and quiet,” she said, adding she seemed like a good mother. “I just don't understand how this could happen. Those poor little innocent angels.”
From: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/83446617.html
France refuses a citizenship over full Islamic veil
Finally a country that steps up...
J.A.C.
Last updated at 04:38 GMT, Wednesday, 3 February 2010
The French government has refused to grant citizenship to a foreign national on the grounds that he forced his wife to wear the full Islamic veil.
The man, whose current nationality was not given, needed citizenship to settle in the country with his French wife.
But Immigration Minister Eric Besson said this was being refused because he was depriving his wife of the liberty to come and go with her face uncovered.
Last week, a parliamentary committee proposed a partial ban on full veils.
It also recommended that anyone showing visible signs of "radical religious practice" be refused residence permits and citizenship.
'Integration'
In a statement, Mr Besson said he had signed a decree on Tuesday rejecting a man's citizenship application after it emerged that he had ordered his wife to cover herself with a head-to-toe veil.
"It became apparent during the regulation investigation and the prior interview that this person was compelling his wife to wear the all-covering veil, depriving her of the freedom to come and go with her face uncovered, and rejected the principles of secularism and equality between men and women," he said.
Later, the minister stressed that French law required anyone seeking naturalisation to demonstrate their desire for integration.
Mr Besson's decree has now been sent to Prime Minister Francois Fillon for approval.
The interior ministry says only 1,900 women wear full veils in France, home to Europe's biggest Muslim minority.
In 2008, a French court denied citizenship to a Moroccan woman on the grounds that her "radical" practice of Islam was incompatible with French values.
From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8494860.stm
J.A.C.
Last updated at 04:38 GMT, Wednesday, 3 February 2010
The French government has refused to grant citizenship to a foreign national on the grounds that he forced his wife to wear the full Islamic veil.
The man, whose current nationality was not given, needed citizenship to settle in the country with his French wife.
But Immigration Minister Eric Besson said this was being refused because he was depriving his wife of the liberty to come and go with her face uncovered.
Last week, a parliamentary committee proposed a partial ban on full veils.
It also recommended that anyone showing visible signs of "radical religious practice" be refused residence permits and citizenship.
'Integration'
In a statement, Mr Besson said he had signed a decree on Tuesday rejecting a man's citizenship application after it emerged that he had ordered his wife to cover herself with a head-to-toe veil.
"It became apparent during the regulation investigation and the prior interview that this person was compelling his wife to wear the all-covering veil, depriving her of the freedom to come and go with her face uncovered, and rejected the principles of secularism and equality between men and women," he said.
Later, the minister stressed that French law required anyone seeking naturalisation to demonstrate their desire for integration.
Mr Besson's decree has now been sent to Prime Minister Francois Fillon for approval.
The interior ministry says only 1,900 women wear full veils in France, home to Europe's biggest Muslim minority.
In 2008, a French court denied citizenship to a Moroccan woman on the grounds that her "radical" practice of Islam was incompatible with French values.
From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8494860.stm
Man kills seven family members
Last updated 00:00 05/02/2010
A man killed seven family members, including his wife and three children, with an axe and a kitchen knife before turning himself in to police, China's state-run media say.
The state-run Xinhua News Agency said that Zhu Caifa, 37, turned violent early Wednesday in a village in the southwestern province of Guizhou.
A spokesman with the Guizhou Public Security Department told Xinhua the other victims were two of Zhu's nephews and a niece.
Xinhua says Zhu recently returned home from working elsewhere in the country and fought with his wife.
A year ago, a man in the southern province of Hubei was executed after killing eight people with an axe.
From: http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/3295339/Man-kills-seven-family-members
A man killed seven family members, including his wife and three children, with an axe and a kitchen knife before turning himself in to police, China's state-run media say.
The state-run Xinhua News Agency said that Zhu Caifa, 37, turned violent early Wednesday in a village in the southwestern province of Guizhou.
A spokesman with the Guizhou Public Security Department told Xinhua the other victims were two of Zhu's nephews and a niece.
Xinhua says Zhu recently returned home from working elsewhere in the country and fought with his wife.
A year ago, a man in the southern province of Hubei was executed after killing eight people with an axe.
From: http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/3295339/Man-kills-seven-family-members
Nine-year-old gives birth
Last updated 12:04 04/02/2010
A nine-year-old girl has reportedly become one of the world's youngest mothers after giving birth to a baby boy in China.
The girl comes from Songyuan, in China's north-east, and was taken to hospital in nearby Changchun when she was eight-and-a-half months pregnant, the Daily Mail reported.
The schoolgirl gave birth two days later, on January 27, to a healthy boy weighing 2.7kg, according to Chinese newspaper the City Evening News.
Her family has refused to discuss the pregnancy but said they had reported it to police.
In Songyuan, sex with a child under the age of 14 attracts a mandatory rape conviction and jail sentence, the Daily Mail reported.
Police were reportedly trying to find out who the baby's father was.
A nurse told the City Evening News the girl "looked very mature" but it was not known how she had become pregnant.
The youngest documented mother was Peruvian girl Lina Medina, who gave birth to a boy by caesarean section when she was five-years-old, in 1939.
From: http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/3293138/Nine-year-old-gives-birth-report
A nine-year-old girl has reportedly become one of the world's youngest mothers after giving birth to a baby boy in China.
The girl comes from Songyuan, in China's north-east, and was taken to hospital in nearby Changchun when she was eight-and-a-half months pregnant, the Daily Mail reported.
The schoolgirl gave birth two days later, on January 27, to a healthy boy weighing 2.7kg, according to Chinese newspaper the City Evening News.
Her family has refused to discuss the pregnancy but said they had reported it to police.
In Songyuan, sex with a child under the age of 14 attracts a mandatory rape conviction and jail sentence, the Daily Mail reported.
Police were reportedly trying to find out who the baby's father was.
A nurse told the City Evening News the girl "looked very mature" but it was not known how she had become pregnant.
The youngest documented mother was Peruvian girl Lina Medina, who gave birth to a boy by caesarean section when she was five-years-old, in 1939.
From: http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/3293138/Nine-year-old-gives-birth-report
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
The Crimes Of The Black Cat (1972)
(Italy,1972)(aka 7 SCIALLI DI SETA GIALLA)
directed by: Sergio Pastore
starring: Anthony Steffen, Sylva Koscina, Giacomo Rossi Stuart, Jeanette Len, Renato De Carmine, Umberto Raho, Romano Malaspina
The credits roll over a grey Copenhagen, accompanied by a startlingly perky, pearl ‘n’ deanesque loungecore opening ditty. The action unfolds in a busy fashion house- where funky zigzag dresses and white afro wigs are the order of the day. A young model- Paola, wanders into a room alone and finds a basket, covered with a yellow shawl. Within seconds, everyone in the building, hears her blood curdling scream- and she is found dead; the cause a baffling mystery. Paolo’s ex-boyfriend Anthony Steffen (Antonio de Teffe’), who she had dumped only the night before, suspects that her death was not of natural causes. Steffen- who is a blind sound engineer, teams up with Margot (Shirley Corrigan)- a friend and co-worker of Paola’s, and together they try and discover the truth behind the model’s mysterious death. Steffen comes to suspect that a whispered conversation he eavesdropped on- where it sounded like a woman was being blackmailed into carrying out an errand, has something to do with it all. Soon another body is found- Harry (Romano Malaspina) a fashion photographer, who has his throat slit by an assassin in black. Steffen and Margot discover the grisly remains and soon Steffen becomes suspect numero uno- his race to discover the identity of the real killer becomes even more desperate. With the help of his manservant- Burton (Umberto Raho), Steffen attempts to track down a mysterious woman in a white cape- the same woman who he heard that first night in whispered conversation. Before he can come up with any real answers the mystery deepens- and becomes more deadly. Another model from the fashion house- Helga (Annabella Incontera), returns to her apartment to find that someone has left her an intriguing present- a basket, its contents hidden behind a yellow shawl....
THE CRIMES OF THE BLACK CAT is a particularly ramshackle giallo, but, once the viewer has got used to the early 70’s excesses- freakout zooms and druggy camera angles; plus the, often, confusingly, disjointed narrative, it is a wildly enjoyable one none-the-less. There are some truly bizarre and fun things on offer here. The characters are especially colourful- my favourites being the phenomenally grumpy police detective who barks at Steffen, "I’ve a sign on my door, says homicide. So let me do my job and don’t mix in...", and Burton- Steffen’s manservant, who has been dubbed by a Kenneth William’s sound-a-like (and, as you can imagine, that makes for many unintentional titters, I kept on expecting him to say "Ooh Matron, mind where you stick that blade!"). Another character- who could only have come from an early 70’s giallo, is the woman that Steffen is trying to track down who turns out to be a junkie, ex-circus performer, pet shop owner and part-time (unwilling) assassin’s accomplice(!)- he eventually tracks her down because, "...she smells- no its true by God!- kind of fetid." Other things to savour are a killer with the audacity to drive to the murders in a canary yellow Volkswagen beetle. A shower scene lifted from Hitchcock’s PSYCHO (1960), but with added gore- lots of it. More slap ‘n’ tickle than you could shake a stick at. And the two subway workers who grumble in the background, after a victim has fallen under a train- "...they never think who has to do the dirty work. It makes you wonder why we joined the force..." But best of all is the royally absurd method in which the killer uses to bump the models off - (and this isn’t really a major spoiler- it is revealed fairly early on the film), a black cat (of the title) is placed in a basket and the basket is covered with a yellow shawl which is doused in a feline repellent, when the intended victim removes the shawl to peek inside, the cat leaps out and scratches her- its claws having been dipped in deadly curare, a poison which results in a the victim’s heart giving out. Modus operandi don’t come much more bizarre than that! There are so many wonderfully cheesy snippets it’s a real shame the whole thing doesn’t hang together. The editing is appalling, and although some of it could be put down to a substandard video release, the film just doesn’t flow properly- its choppiness ruining all but the most obvious elements of the story. It just doesn’t really work as a thriller- and, perhaps arguably, the primary task of a giallo is to thrill. Pastore seems unable to maintain any modicum of suspense and only one scene even approaches anything resembling a nail-biter- when Steffen is lead to a death trap building site and he must, despite his blindness, try and escape both the lethal attention of his assailant and the numerous deep pits full of quick lime which surround him. It doesn’t help that many of the elements in the film are already over familiar- a kind of giallo greatest hits. The fashion house setting comes straight out of Mario Bava’s seminal BLOOD AND BLACK LACE (1964), and the character of the blind protagonist has been clearly been lifted from Dario Argento’s THE CAT O’ NINE TAILS (1971)- a hit the previous year; the success of which couldn’t have escaped Pastore’s attention! Worst of all, or perversely ‘best of all’- depending on how you view it, is the final revelation of the killer, whose identity will elicit a "what the fuck!?" from most who see it.
BODYCOUNT 8 female:6 / male:2
1) Female killed with poisin administered via a cat scratch
2) Male has neck slashed open
3) Female killed with poisin administered via a cat scratch
4) Female pushed/falls under subway train
5) Female found hung by yellow shawl
6) Male falls into pool of quick-lime
7) Female slashed to death in shower with cut-throat razor
8) Female falls through window to her death
From: http://www.hysteria-lives.co.uk/hysterialives/Hysteria/the_crimes_of_the_black_cat.html
Oral Conception
Oral conception. Impregnation via the proximal gastrointestinal tract in a patient with an aplastic distal vagina. Case report.
"Case report:
The patient was a 15-year-old girl employed in a local bar. She was admitted to hospital after a knife fight involving her, a former lover and a new boyfriend. Who stabbed whom was not quite clear but all three participants in the small war were admitted with knife injuries.
The girl had some minor lacerations of the left hand and a single stab-wound in the upper abdomen. Under general anaesthesia, laparotomy was performed through an upper midline abdominal incision to reveal two holes in the stomach. These two wounds had resulted from the single stab-wound through the abdominal wall. The two defects were repaired in two layers. The stomach was noted empty at the time of surgery and no gastric contents were seen in the abdomen. Nevertheless, the abdominal cavity was lavaged with normal saline before closure. The condition of the patient improved rapidly following routine postoperative care and she was discharged home after 10 days.
Precisely 278 days later the patient was admitted again to hospital with acute, intermittent abdominal pain. Abdominal examination revealed a term pregnancy with a cephalic fetal presentation. The uterus was contracting regularly and the fetal heart was heard. Inspection of the vulva showed no vagina, only a shallow skin dimple was present below the external urethral meatus and between the labia minora. An emergency lower segment caesarean section was performed under spinal anaesthesia and a live male infant weighing 2800 g was born…
…While closing the abdominal wall, curiosity could not be contained any longer and the patient was interviewed with the help of a sympathetic nursing sister. The whole story did not become completely clear during that day but, with some subsequent inquiries, the whole saga emerged.
The patient was well aware of the fact that she had no vagina and she had started oral experiments after disappointing attempts at conventional intercourse. Just before she was stabbed in the abdomen she had practised fellatio with her new boyfriend and was caught in the act by her former lover. The fight with knives ensued. She had never had a period and there was no trace of lochia after the caesarean section. She had been worried about the increase in her abdominal size but could not believe she was pregnant although it had crossed her mind more often as her girth increased and as people around her suggested that she was pregnant. She did recall several episodes of lower abdominal pain during the previous year. The young mother, her family, and the likely father adapted themselves rapidly to the new situation and some cattle changed hands to prove that there were no hard feelings.
Comments
A plausible explanation for this pregnancy is that spermatozoa gained access to the reproductive organs via the injured gastrointestinal tract. It is known that spermatozoa do not survive long in an environment with a low pH (Jeffcoate1975), but it is also known that saliva has a high pH and that a starved person does not produce acid under normal circumstances (Bernards & Bouman 1976). It is likely that the patient became pregnant with her first or nearly first ovulation otherwise one would expect that inspissated blood in the uterus and salpinges would have made fertilization difficult. The fact that the son resembled the father excludes an even more miraculous conception.”
From: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2010/02/01/ncbi-rofl-thats-one-miraculous-conception/
"Case report:
The patient was a 15-year-old girl employed in a local bar. She was admitted to hospital after a knife fight involving her, a former lover and a new boyfriend. Who stabbed whom was not quite clear but all three participants in the small war were admitted with knife injuries.
The girl had some minor lacerations of the left hand and a single stab-wound in the upper abdomen. Under general anaesthesia, laparotomy was performed through an upper midline abdominal incision to reveal two holes in the stomach. These two wounds had resulted from the single stab-wound through the abdominal wall. The two defects were repaired in two layers. The stomach was noted empty at the time of surgery and no gastric contents were seen in the abdomen. Nevertheless, the abdominal cavity was lavaged with normal saline before closure. The condition of the patient improved rapidly following routine postoperative care and she was discharged home after 10 days.
Precisely 278 days later the patient was admitted again to hospital with acute, intermittent abdominal pain. Abdominal examination revealed a term pregnancy with a cephalic fetal presentation. The uterus was contracting regularly and the fetal heart was heard. Inspection of the vulva showed no vagina, only a shallow skin dimple was present below the external urethral meatus and between the labia minora. An emergency lower segment caesarean section was performed under spinal anaesthesia and a live male infant weighing 2800 g was born…
…While closing the abdominal wall, curiosity could not be contained any longer and the patient was interviewed with the help of a sympathetic nursing sister. The whole story did not become completely clear during that day but, with some subsequent inquiries, the whole saga emerged.
The patient was well aware of the fact that she had no vagina and she had started oral experiments after disappointing attempts at conventional intercourse. Just before she was stabbed in the abdomen she had practised fellatio with her new boyfriend and was caught in the act by her former lover. The fight with knives ensued. She had never had a period and there was no trace of lochia after the caesarean section. She had been worried about the increase in her abdominal size but could not believe she was pregnant although it had crossed her mind more often as her girth increased and as people around her suggested that she was pregnant. She did recall several episodes of lower abdominal pain during the previous year. The young mother, her family, and the likely father adapted themselves rapidly to the new situation and some cattle changed hands to prove that there were no hard feelings.
Comments
A plausible explanation for this pregnancy is that spermatozoa gained access to the reproductive organs via the injured gastrointestinal tract. It is known that spermatozoa do not survive long in an environment with a low pH (Jeffcoate1975), but it is also known that saliva has a high pH and that a starved person does not produce acid under normal circumstances (Bernards & Bouman 1976). It is likely that the patient became pregnant with her first or nearly first ovulation otherwise one would expect that inspissated blood in the uterus and salpinges would have made fertilization difficult. The fact that the son resembled the father excludes an even more miraculous conception.”
From: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2010/02/01/ncbi-rofl-thats-one-miraculous-conception/
Nazi doctor Josef Mengele's diary up for sale
A diary kept by the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele is to be sold at auction in the US. By Allan Hall in Berlin
Published: 7:51PM GMT 01 Feb 2010
Nazi memorabilia collectors are expected to push the price for the diary and letters of the "Angel of Death" responsible for thousands of murders at Auschwitz to at least £40,000.
Infamous as Hitler's "Angel of Death", Mengele experimented on prisoners at the death camp without anaesthetic and became obsessed with twins, hoping to be able to clone perfect specimens of the Aryan race.
His diary's eclectic and often mundane contents include praise for British rule in India and his love of Boris Pasternak's novel Dr Zhivago. But he also makes chilling references to his wartime atoricities. Unless the world adopts the breeding programmes of the kind he pursued in Auschwitz, he wrote, "mankind is doomed".
"Inferior mornons," he wrote when describing "lesser races" he believed should be exterminated. He then moved seamlessly on to how pleased he is with himself for freeing a cow trapped in mud.
The diary and letters were discovered recently in police files in Brazil, where he lived until his death in 1979.
The diary, which begins in 1960 when Mengele was 49, is to be auctioned in America by the historical artefacts house, Alexander Autographs, in Connecticut.
The auctioneers have refused to reveal the identity of the owner who acquired them in Brazil but have hinted it is someone "close" to Mengele's family in Germany.
From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7128912/Nazi-doctor-Josef-Mengeles-diary-up-for-sale.html
Jesuit school sex abuse scandal spreads through Germany
Published: 2 Feb 10 10:28 CET
The scope of a child sex abuse scandal that was uncovered at an elite Berlin Catholic school last week has spread to other parts of Germany and beyond, the provincial superior for the country’s Jesuit order Stefan Dartmann has revealed.
In addition to the 20 victims who have come forward at the Canisius College in Berlin, three from Hamburg and another two from the town of St. Blasien in the state of Baden-Württemberg have also said they were abused by the same two priests.
There are also indications from Church files that one of the perpetrators, identified as Wolfgang S., may have also sexually abused children in Chile and Spain up until 1990.
In a statement addressed to his victims over the weekend, the 65-year-old former sports teacher Wolfgang S., who left the order in 1992, said it was "a sad fact that I abused children and young people for years under pseudo-educational pretexts." He said there was "no excuse."
The confession follows revelations on Thursday that dozens of students had been abused in the top Berlin school in the 1970s and 1980s.
The school's headmaster Father Klaus Mertes sent a letter to some 600 former students at Canisius College who may have been victims of at least two priests on staff. “With deep shock and shame, I have learned of these horrific, not only isolated, but systematic violations that went on for years,” wrote Mertes, before adding that both priests left the school in the 1980s.
Wolfgang S., who currently lives in South America, claimed that he had informed his Jesuit superiors of his dark past in 1991. Jesuit provincial leader Dartmann said over the weekend that the order did know of his crimes, and has hired a lawyer "to ascertain what the Jesuits specifically knew at the time, and what steps were taken."
According to Dartmann, Wolfgang S. taught between 1975 and 1979 at the Canisius College before moving on to the Saint Ansgar School in Hamburg between 1979 and 1982. Then in 1982 he went the St. Blasien in the Black Forest and stayed until 1984 before moving on to Chile in 1985. He was also reportedly under psychiatric care while he served in Hamburg and St. Blasien.
The second suspect in the Canisius case, 69-year-old former religion teacher Peter R., taught religion at Canisius College between 1972 and 1981 in Berlin, before he moved on to Göttingen to work with youth between 1982 and 1989. He was suspended between 1989 and 1992, and then left the order in 1995. The church now has no contact with him, Dartmann said.
His files show several incidences of reported abuse beginning with an open letter in Canisius College in 1981 that criticised his sex education tactics, though there was no evidence of rape or sexual intercourse in his files, Dartmann said. There were no consequences from the letter, a fact that current Canisius College leader Mertes could not explain.
In 1982 Peter R. was injured in an apparent case of attempted murder, though it is unclear whether the event was related to abuse, Dartmann added.
From: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20100202-24969.html
The scope of a child sex abuse scandal that was uncovered at an elite Berlin Catholic school last week has spread to other parts of Germany and beyond, the provincial superior for the country’s Jesuit order Stefan Dartmann has revealed.
In addition to the 20 victims who have come forward at the Canisius College in Berlin, three from Hamburg and another two from the town of St. Blasien in the state of Baden-Württemberg have also said they were abused by the same two priests.
There are also indications from Church files that one of the perpetrators, identified as Wolfgang S., may have also sexually abused children in Chile and Spain up until 1990.
In a statement addressed to his victims over the weekend, the 65-year-old former sports teacher Wolfgang S., who left the order in 1992, said it was "a sad fact that I abused children and young people for years under pseudo-educational pretexts." He said there was "no excuse."
The confession follows revelations on Thursday that dozens of students had been abused in the top Berlin school in the 1970s and 1980s.
The school's headmaster Father Klaus Mertes sent a letter to some 600 former students at Canisius College who may have been victims of at least two priests on staff. “With deep shock and shame, I have learned of these horrific, not only isolated, but systematic violations that went on for years,” wrote Mertes, before adding that both priests left the school in the 1980s.
Wolfgang S., who currently lives in South America, claimed that he had informed his Jesuit superiors of his dark past in 1991. Jesuit provincial leader Dartmann said over the weekend that the order did know of his crimes, and has hired a lawyer "to ascertain what the Jesuits specifically knew at the time, and what steps were taken."
According to Dartmann, Wolfgang S. taught between 1975 and 1979 at the Canisius College before moving on to the Saint Ansgar School in Hamburg between 1979 and 1982. Then in 1982 he went the St. Blasien in the Black Forest and stayed until 1984 before moving on to Chile in 1985. He was also reportedly under psychiatric care while he served in Hamburg and St. Blasien.
The second suspect in the Canisius case, 69-year-old former religion teacher Peter R., taught religion at Canisius College between 1972 and 1981 in Berlin, before he moved on to Göttingen to work with youth between 1982 and 1989. He was suspended between 1989 and 1992, and then left the order in 1995. The church now has no contact with him, Dartmann said.
His files show several incidences of reported abuse beginning with an open letter in Canisius College in 1981 that criticised his sex education tactics, though there was no evidence of rape or sexual intercourse in his files, Dartmann said. There were no consequences from the letter, a fact that current Canisius College leader Mertes could not explain.
In 1982 Peter R. was injured in an apparent case of attempted murder, though it is unclear whether the event was related to abuse, Dartmann added.
From: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20100202-24969.html
Bestiality ban in Netherlands to cut video source
Tue Feb 2, 2010 2:48pm GMT
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Internet potentially will lose one of its main sources of bestiality videos under a ban approved on Tuesday by the upper house of the Dutch parliament.
The new law bans human sex with animals, including in private situations where the animals are not injured, and prohibits the production or distribution of animal pornography, a summary of the law posted on the upper chamber's website said.
Given the illicit nature of the product, precise figures on animal pornography video sales are difficult to find, but the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad, in a 2007 survey, found that distributors in the Netherlands were responsible for some 80 percent of bestiality videos worldwide.
The bill was introduced in April 2007 and passed the lower house in July 2008, but took time to make its way through the upper house to final approval. It was not immediately clear how soon the law would go into effect.
Sex with animals had been legal in the Netherlands, as long as it could be proven the animals were not injured.
(Reporting by Ben Berkowitz; Editing by Michael Roddy)
From: http://af.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idAFTRE61137420100202
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Internet potentially will lose one of its main sources of bestiality videos under a ban approved on Tuesday by the upper house of the Dutch parliament.
The new law bans human sex with animals, including in private situations where the animals are not injured, and prohibits the production or distribution of animal pornography, a summary of the law posted on the upper chamber's website said.
Given the illicit nature of the product, precise figures on animal pornography video sales are difficult to find, but the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad, in a 2007 survey, found that distributors in the Netherlands were responsible for some 80 percent of bestiality videos worldwide.
The bill was introduced in April 2007 and passed the lower house in July 2008, but took time to make its way through the upper house to final approval. It was not immediately clear how soon the law would go into effect.
Sex with animals had been legal in the Netherlands, as long as it could be proven the animals were not injured.
(Reporting by Ben Berkowitz; Editing by Michael Roddy)
From: http://af.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idAFTRE61137420100202
Indonesia says sorry for firing test rocket into house
by Staff Writers
Jakarta (AFP) Jan 29, 2010
The Indonesian government has apologised to a woman who lost her leg when a military rocket slammed into her house after a test launch, an official said Friday.
Initially reported as falling safely in a prawn farm, officials now admit the experimental Indonesian-made missile hit a house in Lumajang district of East Java province on Wednesday.
The 50-year-old woman's leg was amputated while her 60-year-old husband was hospitalised with extensive burns, State Ministry of Research and Technology spokeswoman Anny Sulaswatty said.
"We are still investigating why the mistake occurred. It could be because of strong wind at the moment of the launch," she said.
"Compensation has been offered to the victims. This reflects that we are deeply sorry," she added.
The three metre-long (nine-foot) RKN 200 rocket is being developed by a consortium of government bodies including state arms contractor PT Pindad and the research ministry.
The test launch was part of programme of activities supposed to highlight the government's achievements in its first 100 days in office after elections last year.
Indonesia's military spending has tumbled since the fall of the dictator Suharto in the late 1990s.
From: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Indonesia_says_sorry_for_firing_test_rocket_into_house_999.html
Jakarta (AFP) Jan 29, 2010
The Indonesian government has apologised to a woman who lost her leg when a military rocket slammed into her house after a test launch, an official said Friday.
Initially reported as falling safely in a prawn farm, officials now admit the experimental Indonesian-made missile hit a house in Lumajang district of East Java province on Wednesday.
The 50-year-old woman's leg was amputated while her 60-year-old husband was hospitalised with extensive burns, State Ministry of Research and Technology spokeswoman Anny Sulaswatty said.
"We are still investigating why the mistake occurred. It could be because of strong wind at the moment of the launch," she said.
"Compensation has been offered to the victims. This reflects that we are deeply sorry," she added.
The three metre-long (nine-foot) RKN 200 rocket is being developed by a consortium of government bodies including state arms contractor PT Pindad and the research ministry.
The test launch was part of programme of activities supposed to highlight the government's achievements in its first 100 days in office after elections last year.
Indonesia's military spending has tumbled since the fall of the dictator Suharto in the late 1990s.
From: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Indonesia_says_sorry_for_firing_test_rocket_into_house_999.html
Teacher was kids' brawl monitor: DA
By WILLIAM J. GORTA
Last Updated: 12:27 PM, February 2, 2010
Posted: 2:09 AM, February 2, 2010
The first rule of fourth grade - no talking about fight club.
A Queens teacher turned his classroom into a boxing arena for two feuding students, telling the boys to settle their beef with their fists as their stunned classmates watched the bizarre spectacle, authorities said yesterday.
And to make sure no one found out his twisted teaching technique, the instructor, Joseph Gullotta, 29, allegedly supplied the kids with excuses for the nurse to explain away any injuries.
In one corner was a 10-year-old. His opponent was a year younger. The Post is withholding the kids' names.
Before beginning the match at the impromptu fight club at PS 65 in Ozone Park, Gullotta instructed a girl to close the classroom door. He ordered the rest of his pupils to back up and make way for the battle, Queens DA Richard Brown said.
The two combatants came out swinging and then began wrestling.
During the bout, the older boy's head rammed into the younger one's mouth. The younger boy suffered a cut lip; the older one, a bruised head.
"When two fourth-graders became involved in a verbal dispute, their teacher allegedly told one of the students that he should 'take it out' on another student," Brown said.
"When parents send their children off to school, their teachers have an obligation to provide a safe environment for them."
Teacher's aide Abraham Fox, 43, was in the classroom during the clash, but did nothing to break it up, the DA charged.
Neither student was offered a visit to the school nurse, despite Fox's observation that the 9-year-old might need stitches, Brown said.
Then out came the schoolbooks for two periods of more traditional instruction before Gullotta finally allowed the younger boy to visit the nurse.
Gullotta allegedly supplied him with a cover story for his injuries: He was to tell the nurse that he dropped a pencil and bashed heads with his classmate as they both bent down to pick it up.
He repeated the tale and told the nurse that the other boy was hurt as well.
She sent him back to get his adversary. Gullotta escorted the 10-year-old to the nurse's office and allegedly told him to repeat the made-up story.
The incident was discovered only after one of the boys' parents heard the child talking about it.
Gullotta and Fox were charged with two counts each of acting in a manner injurious to a child under 17 and could face up to a year in jail if convicted.
Fox was suspended without pay; Gullotta was reassigned to a rubber room.
People answering the door at the Long Island homes of Fox and Gullotta declined to comment.
From: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/teacher_was_kids_brawl_monitor_da_5eh6SUnTSM2Igj8gbSzCJP
Last Updated: 12:27 PM, February 2, 2010
Posted: 2:09 AM, February 2, 2010
The first rule of fourth grade - no talking about fight club.
A Queens teacher turned his classroom into a boxing arena for two feuding students, telling the boys to settle their beef with their fists as their stunned classmates watched the bizarre spectacle, authorities said yesterday.
And to make sure no one found out his twisted teaching technique, the instructor, Joseph Gullotta, 29, allegedly supplied the kids with excuses for the nurse to explain away any injuries.
In one corner was a 10-year-old. His opponent was a year younger. The Post is withholding the kids' names.
Before beginning the match at the impromptu fight club at PS 65 in Ozone Park, Gullotta instructed a girl to close the classroom door. He ordered the rest of his pupils to back up and make way for the battle, Queens DA Richard Brown said.
The two combatants came out swinging and then began wrestling.
During the bout, the older boy's head rammed into the younger one's mouth. The younger boy suffered a cut lip; the older one, a bruised head.
"When two fourth-graders became involved in a verbal dispute, their teacher allegedly told one of the students that he should 'take it out' on another student," Brown said.
"When parents send their children off to school, their teachers have an obligation to provide a safe environment for them."
Teacher's aide Abraham Fox, 43, was in the classroom during the clash, but did nothing to break it up, the DA charged.
Neither student was offered a visit to the school nurse, despite Fox's observation that the 9-year-old might need stitches, Brown said.
Then out came the schoolbooks for two periods of more traditional instruction before Gullotta finally allowed the younger boy to visit the nurse.
Gullotta allegedly supplied him with a cover story for his injuries: He was to tell the nurse that he dropped a pencil and bashed heads with his classmate as they both bent down to pick it up.
He repeated the tale and told the nurse that the other boy was hurt as well.
She sent him back to get his adversary. Gullotta escorted the 10-year-old to the nurse's office and allegedly told him to repeat the made-up story.
The incident was discovered only after one of the boys' parents heard the child talking about it.
Gullotta and Fox were charged with two counts each of acting in a manner injurious to a child under 17 and could face up to a year in jail if convicted.
Fox was suspended without pay; Gullotta was reassigned to a rubber room.
People answering the door at the Long Island homes of Fox and Gullotta declined to comment.
From: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/teacher_was_kids_brawl_monitor_da_5eh6SUnTSM2Igj8gbSzCJP
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
The Sister of Ursula (1978)
Color, 1978, 95m. / Directed by Enzo Milioni / Starring Barbara Magnolfi, Stefania D'Amario, Marc Porel, Anna Zinnemann / Severin (US R1 NTSC) / WS (1.85:1) (16:9) By the late 1970s, the giallo craze in Italy had started to lose some of its appeal thanks to increasingly sleazy cinematic offerings involving nuns, Nazis, and other taboo-bashing staples. Filmmakers eager to stay viable either hopped over into flat-out supernatural offerings (e.g., Dario Argento and Mario Bava) or increased their chances of popularity by injecting their mysteries with heavy doses of kinkiness and sleaze. A perfect example of this latter strategy is The Sister of Ursula, an utterly batty shocker that should have earned a hefty cult following by now along with its fellow trashy bretheren like Strip Nude for Your Killer and Red Rings of Fear, though perhaps the unavailability of an English language track may account for its relative obscurity. In any case, it has now been rescued from bootleg oblivion and presented all shiny and digitally-scrubbed to startle a whole new audience.
Two sisters, jittery Ursula (Barbara Magnolfi, best remembered as the scene-stealing bitch Olga in Suspiria) and clothing-averse Dagmar (Nightmare City's Stefania D'Amario), arrive at an oceanside resort where they spend their time watching a ridiculous nightclub act by the slutty Stella Shining (Zinnemann) and hobnobbing with her handsome junkie pal (Marc Porel). Meanwhile a sadistic killer is stalking the grounds and killing women of loose morals with a giant wooden dildo. Yes, that's right, a dildo. First a hooker gets attacked in her room after trysting with a client, and then another couple is attacked after copulating in the cellar when they can't get a hotel room. Even stranger, Ursula experiences premonitions of these slayings and feels they're related to her own traumatic family experiences. Who's responsible, and can they be stopped before one of the sisters is next?
As a mystery, The Sister of Ursula is really no great shakes, nor does it try to be. The killer's identity should be patently obvious, and first-time filmmaker Enzo Milioni (who assistant-directed the great Mad Dog Killer the previous year) seems far more concerned with photographing his gorgeous cast and locations and delivering humid, close-to-hardcore sex scenes. The phallus-inflicted violence is mostly off-camera, but enough aftermath is depicted to induce viewing squirming. Far more amusing is the over-the-top lounge music score by the obscure Mimi Uva, who shamelessly piles on the breathless vocals and sub-Morricone suspense strings.
An equally interesting but seldom-discussing aspect of the film is the relationship between two of its stars, as Magnolfi and Porel had been married for less than a year when this was shot. A beautiful and extremely magnetic actress who never really received her due, Magnolfi carries most of the dramatic weight of the film (and barely shows any skin in the process) in a rare leading role, while Porel, a more experienced actor from films like Luchino Visconti's The Innocent, Lucio Fulci's The Psychic, and Ruggero Deodato's Live like a Cop, Die like a Man, fills in what amounts to a glorified supporting role. Unfortunately he was grappling with a drug problem and had to enter rehab prior to filming, and while he stayed clean for a few years, a trip to Morocco in 1983 hooked him once again. He died there, officially from meningitis but with his friends confirming the death was drug-related. Magnolfi became reclusive and largely refrained from films afterwards, though she did make sparse supporting appearances in films like Cut and Run. Back to The Sister of Ursula, perhaps the creepiest moment of the film is not one of its outrageous murders but rather a scene which finds Porel shooting up on-camera in his hotel room, a ghoulish foreshadowing of events to come.
Certainly not a likely candidate for a first-rate American DVD release, The Sister of Ursula has gotten its first respectable video presentation courtesy of Severin's recommended release. The opening titles suffer from erratic contrast levels and some visible damage, but the rest of the film looks just fine and easily blows away any of the murky-looking copies trickling quietly through the gray market for the past couple of decades. The optional English subtitles are also commendable; most of the actors' lip movements indicate that, per usual Italian filmmaking custom at the time, the major performers were speaking English during filming, though no English track was apparently ever prepared.
The biggest extra here is "The Father of Ursula," a half-hour interview with director Milioni, and as one might expect with a film this juicy, it's a fascinating experience and highly recommended for providing some context for this truly bizarre film. He talks about how he got into the business, this film's origins as a bet and its unlikely connection to Dirk Bogarde, his friendship with the married lead actors, the drug tragedy, and of course the infamous murder weapon, which he still owns and proudly displays on camera! Incredible stuff, it's also quite stylishly mounted and ranks as one of Severin's best featurettes to date. The only other extra is the incredibly salacious theatrical trailer, which packs about as much nudity as possible into three and a half minutes.
From: http://www.mondo-digital.com/ursula.html
The Museum of the Weird
Continuing the tradition of the dime museum in styleThe dime or dime store museum is by all accounts an endangered species. The first dime museum, "The American Museum," was opened in 1841 by none other than P. T. Barnum himself. It represented a departure from high-class art and science museums, catering to a poorer crowd and offering items of a much more dubious nature.
Part of the appeal of the dime store museum lay in arguing about what was real and what was a "humbug," as P. T. Barnum called a hoax or fake display. Feejee mermaids (a type of fake or "gaff" taxidermy made from a monkey and a fish, sewn together to form an incredibly ugly "mermaid") mixed with real exotic animals, and scientific instruments sat next to a loom run by a dog. Unfortunately, Barnum's American Museum burned to the ground in 1865.
Though many dime museums had disappeared by the 1920s, dime museums such as New York City's Hubert's Museum would remain open until the late 1960s. One of the best recreation dime museums, Baltimore's American Dime Museum, opened in 1999 only to shutter its doors in 2007. So though it may not look like much at first, "Austin's Museum of the Weird" is in fact a rare beast.
Created by artist-entrepreneur Steve Busti, the museum lives in the back of his store, the "Lucky Lizard," and features many of the same types of curios you might have encountered in a turn-of-the-century dime museum, including a feejee mermaid. Among the other items shown are a a cyclops pig, a hand of glory (supposedly the dried and pickled hand of a man who has been hanged), live tarantulas, a two-headed chicken, shrunken heads, and mummies. Among the more recent additions are items from 1960s and 70s camp horror films, such as full-sized figures of Frankenstein and other classic monsters.
Though slightly more expensive than a dime, at only four dollars per adult and two dollar for kids, the Museum of the Weird happily continues the tradition of the dime store museum.
From: http://atlasobscura.com/places/museum-weird
How Curiosity Works
by Josh Clark
As the animals we are, humans only need a few things to continue along as a species. We need to find food. Being omnivores, we have a wide selection available to us. We have to find clean water to drink. We need shelter to protect us from the elements. And we need to reproduce. Other than that, we don't have too many more basic requirements.
But a cursory glance around human culture shows us just how far we've exceeded these basic needs to create an extremely complex -- and, some may argue, overly complicated -- world for ourselves. The Internet, the telephone, planes, trains and automobiles, our houses, our clothes, our diets, our toys -- all of these things by far exceed our basic needs. We humans have a tendency to go above and beyond.
Such is the case with curiosity. This seemingly instinctual urge to gain information we don't really need is extraneous -- and at its most extreme, dangerous. Consider standing outside a dark cave. It's curiosity that might draw one to investigate its contents, and perhaps those contents are an angry mother bear and her cubs. Viewed most basically, the existence of curiosity is counterintuitive to evolutionary theory: The most curious among us should've been killed off before getting the chance to reproduce, with the trait losing out to natural selection. We don't really need to do crossword puzzles or find out just exactly what's inside a dark cave. And yet, we have an almost undeniable drive to do so. To paraphrase curiosity researcher George Lowenstein, just try to turn off the television in the last couple minutes of a close football game.
We've long been aware of our curious natures, and for the most part, it's been a revered trait among humans. In the West, the Middle Ages represent one of the few times in history when curiosity has been reviled, considered a vice at the suggestion of St. Augustine who, in his Confessions, considered it a distraction from exploring ourselves [source: Pihas].
This strange motivation to explore our world beyond what we need to survive has taken us to the moon, expanded our mastery of internal medicine and lent us a better understanding of our very genes. At the same time, however, we don't fully understand the vehicle which has allowed us to arrive at such breakthroughs. Curiosity, appropriately and delightfully, remains a mystery to us.
Psychological Theories of Curiosity: Within or Without Us?
To this day, exactly where curiosity originates continues to confound science. Psychologists have gotten a much better handle on classifying aspects of curiosity, though. The big question remains; does it come from within us, or is it a response to our outside world?
One camp in psychology believes that curiosity is an internal drive that originates within us, much like hunger or thirst. This drive theory of curiosity sees curiosity as a naturally-occurring urge that must be satisfied in a very similar manner to how we satisfy our hunger by eating. When our curiosity becomes aroused, we look to new or old interests to satisfy the urge.
The drive theory helps explain curiosity-seeking behavior. It shows us why we actively look for and engage in crossword puzzles or take up a musical instrument. Not only are these activities inherently superfluous, they also contain the risk of failure. Viewed as food for our curiosity, however, they make much more sense.
What drive theory doesn't explain is how object-specific curiosity may be. This is where incongruity theory comes in. This theory is based on the idea that our curiosity is motivated when we're presented with something that doesn't fit into our understanding of the world. We tend to view the universe as predictable and orderly; under incongruity theory, when this order is challenged, our curiosity is aroused. Imagine that while you're reading this article, a pencil on your desk spontaneously moves two inches to the left. This doesn't really fit into our worldview -- pencils aren't supposed to move on their own. Can you imagine not looking around the desk in an attempt to explain why the pencil moved?
In this case, our curiosity was aroused by an external event and we were moved to understand it, which supports incongruity theory.
That said, neither drive theory nor incongruity theory can fully explain curiosity. Each one has trouble fully accounting for one aspect or another, which means that curiosity remains a mystery to us. This doesn't mean we haven't arrived at some real conclusions about it, though. The debate over whether curiosity originates inside us or is a reaction to things we encounter in life has little to do with how the concept is classified.
Trait versus State Curiosity
The idea that curiosity originates inside or outside us has led to two distinct classifications of types of curiosity: state and trait. These two terms describe the way humans engage (or don't engage) in curious behavior. Remember that pencil that moved on its own? The fleeting arousal of curiosity that would evoke curiosity as a reaction is known as state curiosity. It's generally based on an external situation and can be as mundane as wondering what a truck is doing making deliveries at a nearby business at 2:00 a.m. to things as esoteric as considering the afterlife during a funeral.
If all humans are curious by nature, then state curiosity appears to be the best descriptor of this aspect of ourselves. State curiosity tends to be related to high levels of reward, such as excitement [source: Kashdan and Roberts].
The concept that curiosity resides within is known as trait curiosity. This relates to the characteristic of some people to have a lifelong interest in learning, simply for the sake of learning. Throughout its study, trait curiosity has been linked to all manner of behavior, from experimentation with drugs and arson to high intellect and fearlessness. In general, however, it's a positive characteristic.
While studies that attempt to measure trait curiosity often find contradictory evidence to other, similar studies, we can generally look at trait curiosity as a characteristic latent in all of us, but only exhibited in a high order in some of us. To a modern school of psychological thought, trait curiosity is stifled in those who don't display it due to anxiety and fear. Indeed, we risk failure when we venture out to learn new things; we may not master the musical instrument we take up, our efforts to finish a crossword puzzle may be frustrated, or we could end up being injured on a scuba diving trip. You can look at curiosity as the urge that draws us out of our comfort zones and fear as the agent that keeps us within its boundaries [source: Jacobs].
Psychologists further classify trait curiosity based on the variation of interests pursued. Breadth of curiosity is the type where an individual may be interested in a wide array of topics. Depth of curiosity is the level of interest in a single topic. That topic could be anything: dinosaurs, a foreign language, anthropology, astronomy. Any truly deep interest in a specific subject tends to describe depth trait curiosity.
This reveals another big question relating to curiosity: What do we get out of it?
The Rewards of Curiosity
One of the underlying implications of the display of curiosity is that we must derive something from it. As children, we gain an understanding of our world (and that set of predictable expectations that can be disrupted by moving pencils) by constantly interacting with it. We learn things like, red stove: hot, dog's water bowl: wet, hardwood floor: hard. But what real reward is there to learning a great deal about other planets if your day job is in accounting? What's the point of learning another language if you have no plans to travel to its country of origin?
To drive theorists, the answer is that our minds crave distraction. This idea is supported by sensory deprivation studies carried out in the 1950s and 60s. Research has shown that those who are sensorially deprived, kept in rooms without light or sound for extended periods, crave any kind of input. One study investigating the effects of brainwashing found that people will ask to hear very dry information like an old stock report over and over again in the absence of any other kind of stimulation [source: Lowenstein].
We may also get other rewards from curiosity, aside from a means to stave off boredom. Cognitive psychologists propose that we form our identities in part through the information and attitudes we gain from being curious. Under this view, curiosity is like a vehicle we use to expand ourselves. It also appears that curious people are attracted to similarly curious people. One 2004 study found that high levels of trait curiosity tended to predict how close participants felt to one another. Shared levels of trait curiosity beat out even positive trait affect -- having a generally positive outlook on life -- as a factor. So curiosity may serve as a means by which we develop interpersonal relationships, possibly through the lack of fear of failure (in this case, social rejection) associated with curiosity.
On the other hand, a lack of curiosity has been linked to negative emotions. Studies have found that temporarily depressed participants display a lack of state curiosity [source: Rodrigue, et al]. The same holds true for studies of Alzheimer's patients. One 1992 study found that when presented with novel images, Alzheimer's patients spent significantly less time examining them than those without the disease [source: Daffner, et al].
The revelations that curiosity is related to mood uncover yet another question about curiosity: Does it have a biological basis?
Biology and Curiosity
Despite having thus far failed to fully explain the existence of curiosity, psychology has contributed much to our understanding. One marker provided by the field, that curiosity is negatively correlated to fear, served as a guide for another scientific discipline, genetics.
In 2007, a team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute discovered what they termed a "curiosity gene" in the great tit songbird. This gene, the Drd4 gene, is responsible for creating receptors for the neurotransmitter dopamine. Birds displaying a common variation on the gene showed a greater propensity to visit new areas and explore unfamiliar objects placed in their cages [source: Max Planck Institute].
Animals have long been known to display their own types of curiosity, like rats exploring new areas of a maze without any expectation of food or reward and primates that learn to open windows on cages to get a peek at what's going on outside in the research lab. While this behavior may not fit the definition of human trait curiosity, the fact that the "curiosity gene" found in great tit birds related to dopamine is significant.
In the human brain, our curiosity is treated much like other pleasurable activities like eating. When we actively pursue new information through our curiosity, we're rewarded with a flood of the pleasure-inducing chemical dopamine.
In addition to the reward system, other areas of the brain play a role in curiosity as well. It appears that regions dedicated to working memory in the prefrontal cortex allow us to distinguish between new and previously experienced stimuli. After all, how could we have anything but curiosity if we couldn't recognize things we've already encountered? It looks like the center most responsible for our sense of curiosity is the dentate gyrus, a part of the brain's hippocampus.
In 2009, researchers discovered that increasing the expression of a protein that interacts with dopamine in the dentate gyrus significantly increased curious behavior in animals [source: PhysOrg]. Again, dopamine appears to play a significant role in curiosity.
Exactly how that role is carried out, and what other aspects of curiosity remains uncovered are still a mystery. Because curiosity is considered the driving force behind scientific curiosity, it's a pretty sure bet that it will eventually lead researchers to a full understanding of itself.
Sources
-Beswick, David. "An introduction to the study of curiosity." University of Melbourne. May 10, 2000.
http://www.beswick.info/psychres/curiosityintro.htm
-Beswick, David. "An introduction to the study of curiosity." Centre University of Melbourne. November 2004.
http://www.beswick.info/psychres/CuriosityIdentity.htm
-Brigham and Women's Hospital. "To age well, live like a child." Winter 2007.
http://www.brighamandwomens.org/development/Magazine/articles/Curiosity.pdf
-Daffner, K.R., et al. "Diminished curiosity in patients with probably Alzheimer's disease as measured by exploratory eye movements." Neurology. 1992.
http://www.neurology.org/cgi/content/abstract/42/2/320
-Guthrie, Chris. "I'm curious: Can we teach curiosity?" Vanderbilt University. October 2009.
http://law.hamline.edu/files/5-Guthrie_-Im_Curious_FINAL_May_09.pdf
-Jacobs, Tom. "Curiosity - the killer catalyst." Miller-McCune. October 30, 2009.
http://www.miller-mccune.com/health/curiosity-the-killer-catalyst-1550
-Kashdan, Todd B. and Roberts, John E. "Trait and state curiosity of intimacy: differentiation from related constructs." Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology. 2004.
http://mason.gmu.edu/~tkashdan/publications/jscp.curiosityint.pdf
-Kerridge, I. "Altruism or reckless curiosity? A brief history of self experimentation in medicine." Internal Medicine Journal. 2003.
http://www.sethroberts.net/self-experiment/2003_Altruism_or_reckless_curiosity.pdf
-Lowenstein, George. "The psychology of curiosity: a review and interpretation." Psychological Bulletin. 1994.
http://sds.hss.cmu.edu/media/pdfs/loewenstein/PsychofCuriosity.pdf
-Max Planck Society. "'Personality gene' makes songbirds curious." May 2, 2007.
http://www.mpg.de/english/illustrationsDocumentation/documentation/pressReleases/2007/pressRelease20070427/index.html
-McDermott, Melissa. "Researchers discover first-ever link between intelligence and curiosity." PhysOrg.com. September 14, 2009.
http://www.physorg.com/news172174436.html
-Phias, Gabriel. "Dante's Ulysses: stoic and scholastic models of the literary reader's curiosity and Inferno 26." Dante Studies. Accessed January 18, 2010.
http://www.jstor.org/pss/40166625
-Piccone, Jason. "Curiosity and exploration." California State University, Northridge. Spring 1999.
http://www.csun.edu/~vcpsy00h/students/curious.htm
-Pisula, Wojciech. "Curiosity and information in animal and human behavior." Brown Walker Press. 2009.
Reiss, Steven, PhD. "Two kinds of curiosity." Psychology Today. June 20, 2009.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/who-we-are/200906/two-kinds-curiosity
-Rodrigue, James R., et al. "Induced mood and curiosity." Cognitive Therapy and Research. February 1987.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/t5uj14jk76376n18/
Sansom, Ian. "Weird and wonderful." The Guardian. April 21, 2001. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2001/apr/21/artsandhumanities.highereducation
From: http://science.howstuffworks.com/evolution/curiosity.htm
As the animals we are, humans only need a few things to continue along as a species. We need to find food. Being omnivores, we have a wide selection available to us. We have to find clean water to drink. We need shelter to protect us from the elements. And we need to reproduce. Other than that, we don't have too many more basic requirements.
But a cursory glance around human culture shows us just how far we've exceeded these basic needs to create an extremely complex -- and, some may argue, overly complicated -- world for ourselves. The Internet, the telephone, planes, trains and automobiles, our houses, our clothes, our diets, our toys -- all of these things by far exceed our basic needs. We humans have a tendency to go above and beyond.
Such is the case with curiosity. This seemingly instinctual urge to gain information we don't really need is extraneous -- and at its most extreme, dangerous. Consider standing outside a dark cave. It's curiosity that might draw one to investigate its contents, and perhaps those contents are an angry mother bear and her cubs. Viewed most basically, the existence of curiosity is counterintuitive to evolutionary theory: The most curious among us should've been killed off before getting the chance to reproduce, with the trait losing out to natural selection. We don't really need to do crossword puzzles or find out just exactly what's inside a dark cave. And yet, we have an almost undeniable drive to do so. To paraphrase curiosity researcher George Lowenstein, just try to turn off the television in the last couple minutes of a close football game.
We've long been aware of our curious natures, and for the most part, it's been a revered trait among humans. In the West, the Middle Ages represent one of the few times in history when curiosity has been reviled, considered a vice at the suggestion of St. Augustine who, in his Confessions, considered it a distraction from exploring ourselves [source: Pihas].
This strange motivation to explore our world beyond what we need to survive has taken us to the moon, expanded our mastery of internal medicine and lent us a better understanding of our very genes. At the same time, however, we don't fully understand the vehicle which has allowed us to arrive at such breakthroughs. Curiosity, appropriately and delightfully, remains a mystery to us.
Psychological Theories of Curiosity: Within or Without Us?
To this day, exactly where curiosity originates continues to confound science. Psychologists have gotten a much better handle on classifying aspects of curiosity, though. The big question remains; does it come from within us, or is it a response to our outside world?
One camp in psychology believes that curiosity is an internal drive that originates within us, much like hunger or thirst. This drive theory of curiosity sees curiosity as a naturally-occurring urge that must be satisfied in a very similar manner to how we satisfy our hunger by eating. When our curiosity becomes aroused, we look to new or old interests to satisfy the urge.
The drive theory helps explain curiosity-seeking behavior. It shows us why we actively look for and engage in crossword puzzles or take up a musical instrument. Not only are these activities inherently superfluous, they also contain the risk of failure. Viewed as food for our curiosity, however, they make much more sense.
What drive theory doesn't explain is how object-specific curiosity may be. This is where incongruity theory comes in. This theory is based on the idea that our curiosity is motivated when we're presented with something that doesn't fit into our understanding of the world. We tend to view the universe as predictable and orderly; under incongruity theory, when this order is challenged, our curiosity is aroused. Imagine that while you're reading this article, a pencil on your desk spontaneously moves two inches to the left. This doesn't really fit into our worldview -- pencils aren't supposed to move on their own. Can you imagine not looking around the desk in an attempt to explain why the pencil moved?
In this case, our curiosity was aroused by an external event and we were moved to understand it, which supports incongruity theory.
That said, neither drive theory nor incongruity theory can fully explain curiosity. Each one has trouble fully accounting for one aspect or another, which means that curiosity remains a mystery to us. This doesn't mean we haven't arrived at some real conclusions about it, though. The debate over whether curiosity originates inside us or is a reaction to things we encounter in life has little to do with how the concept is classified.
Trait versus State Curiosity
The idea that curiosity originates inside or outside us has led to two distinct classifications of types of curiosity: state and trait. These two terms describe the way humans engage (or don't engage) in curious behavior. Remember that pencil that moved on its own? The fleeting arousal of curiosity that would evoke curiosity as a reaction is known as state curiosity. It's generally based on an external situation and can be as mundane as wondering what a truck is doing making deliveries at a nearby business at 2:00 a.m. to things as esoteric as considering the afterlife during a funeral.
If all humans are curious by nature, then state curiosity appears to be the best descriptor of this aspect of ourselves. State curiosity tends to be related to high levels of reward, such as excitement [source: Kashdan and Roberts].
The concept that curiosity resides within is known as trait curiosity. This relates to the characteristic of some people to have a lifelong interest in learning, simply for the sake of learning. Throughout its study, trait curiosity has been linked to all manner of behavior, from experimentation with drugs and arson to high intellect and fearlessness. In general, however, it's a positive characteristic.
While studies that attempt to measure trait curiosity often find contradictory evidence to other, similar studies, we can generally look at trait curiosity as a characteristic latent in all of us, but only exhibited in a high order in some of us. To a modern school of psychological thought, trait curiosity is stifled in those who don't display it due to anxiety and fear. Indeed, we risk failure when we venture out to learn new things; we may not master the musical instrument we take up, our efforts to finish a crossword puzzle may be frustrated, or we could end up being injured on a scuba diving trip. You can look at curiosity as the urge that draws us out of our comfort zones and fear as the agent that keeps us within its boundaries [source: Jacobs].
Psychologists further classify trait curiosity based on the variation of interests pursued. Breadth of curiosity is the type where an individual may be interested in a wide array of topics. Depth of curiosity is the level of interest in a single topic. That topic could be anything: dinosaurs, a foreign language, anthropology, astronomy. Any truly deep interest in a specific subject tends to describe depth trait curiosity.
This reveals another big question relating to curiosity: What do we get out of it?
The Rewards of Curiosity
One of the underlying implications of the display of curiosity is that we must derive something from it. As children, we gain an understanding of our world (and that set of predictable expectations that can be disrupted by moving pencils) by constantly interacting with it. We learn things like, red stove: hot, dog's water bowl: wet, hardwood floor: hard. But what real reward is there to learning a great deal about other planets if your day job is in accounting? What's the point of learning another language if you have no plans to travel to its country of origin?
To drive theorists, the answer is that our minds crave distraction. This idea is supported by sensory deprivation studies carried out in the 1950s and 60s. Research has shown that those who are sensorially deprived, kept in rooms without light or sound for extended periods, crave any kind of input. One study investigating the effects of brainwashing found that people will ask to hear very dry information like an old stock report over and over again in the absence of any other kind of stimulation [source: Lowenstein].
We may also get other rewards from curiosity, aside from a means to stave off boredom. Cognitive psychologists propose that we form our identities in part through the information and attitudes we gain from being curious. Under this view, curiosity is like a vehicle we use to expand ourselves. It also appears that curious people are attracted to similarly curious people. One 2004 study found that high levels of trait curiosity tended to predict how close participants felt to one another. Shared levels of trait curiosity beat out even positive trait affect -- having a generally positive outlook on life -- as a factor. So curiosity may serve as a means by which we develop interpersonal relationships, possibly through the lack of fear of failure (in this case, social rejection) associated with curiosity.
On the other hand, a lack of curiosity has been linked to negative emotions. Studies have found that temporarily depressed participants display a lack of state curiosity [source: Rodrigue, et al]. The same holds true for studies of Alzheimer's patients. One 1992 study found that when presented with novel images, Alzheimer's patients spent significantly less time examining them than those without the disease [source: Daffner, et al].
The revelations that curiosity is related to mood uncover yet another question about curiosity: Does it have a biological basis?
Biology and Curiosity
Despite having thus far failed to fully explain the existence of curiosity, psychology has contributed much to our understanding. One marker provided by the field, that curiosity is negatively correlated to fear, served as a guide for another scientific discipline, genetics.
In 2007, a team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute discovered what they termed a "curiosity gene" in the great tit songbird. This gene, the Drd4 gene, is responsible for creating receptors for the neurotransmitter dopamine. Birds displaying a common variation on the gene showed a greater propensity to visit new areas and explore unfamiliar objects placed in their cages [source: Max Planck Institute].
Animals have long been known to display their own types of curiosity, like rats exploring new areas of a maze without any expectation of food or reward and primates that learn to open windows on cages to get a peek at what's going on outside in the research lab. While this behavior may not fit the definition of human trait curiosity, the fact that the "curiosity gene" found in great tit birds related to dopamine is significant.
In the human brain, our curiosity is treated much like other pleasurable activities like eating. When we actively pursue new information through our curiosity, we're rewarded with a flood of the pleasure-inducing chemical dopamine.
In addition to the reward system, other areas of the brain play a role in curiosity as well. It appears that regions dedicated to working memory in the prefrontal cortex allow us to distinguish between new and previously experienced stimuli. After all, how could we have anything but curiosity if we couldn't recognize things we've already encountered? It looks like the center most responsible for our sense of curiosity is the dentate gyrus, a part of the brain's hippocampus.
In 2009, researchers discovered that increasing the expression of a protein that interacts with dopamine in the dentate gyrus significantly increased curious behavior in animals [source: PhysOrg]. Again, dopamine appears to play a significant role in curiosity.
Exactly how that role is carried out, and what other aspects of curiosity remains uncovered are still a mystery. Because curiosity is considered the driving force behind scientific curiosity, it's a pretty sure bet that it will eventually lead researchers to a full understanding of itself.
Sources
-Beswick, David. "An introduction to the study of curiosity." University of Melbourne. May 10, 2000.
http://www.beswick.info/psychres/curiosityintro.htm
-Beswick, David. "An introduction to the study of curiosity." Centre University of Melbourne. November 2004.
http://www.beswick.info/psychres/CuriosityIdentity.htm
-Brigham and Women's Hospital. "To age well, live like a child." Winter 2007.
http://www.brighamandwomens.org/development/Magazine/articles/Curiosity.pdf
-Daffner, K.R., et al. "Diminished curiosity in patients with probably Alzheimer's disease as measured by exploratory eye movements." Neurology. 1992.
http://www.neurology.org/cgi/content/abstract/42/2/320
-Guthrie, Chris. "I'm curious: Can we teach curiosity?" Vanderbilt University. October 2009.
http://law.hamline.edu/files/5-Guthrie_-Im_Curious_FINAL_May_09.pdf
-Jacobs, Tom. "Curiosity - the killer catalyst." Miller-McCune. October 30, 2009.
http://www.miller-mccune.com/health/curiosity-the-killer-catalyst-1550
-Kashdan, Todd B. and Roberts, John E. "Trait and state curiosity of intimacy: differentiation from related constructs." Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology. 2004.
http://mason.gmu.edu/~tkashdan/publications/jscp.curiosityint.pdf
-Kerridge, I. "Altruism or reckless curiosity? A brief history of self experimentation in medicine." Internal Medicine Journal. 2003.
http://www.sethroberts.net/self-experiment/2003_Altruism_or_reckless_curiosity.pdf
-Lowenstein, George. "The psychology of curiosity: a review and interpretation." Psychological Bulletin. 1994.
http://sds.hss.cmu.edu/media/pdfs/loewenstein/PsychofCuriosity.pdf
-Max Planck Society. "'Personality gene' makes songbirds curious." May 2, 2007.
http://www.mpg.de/english/illustrationsDocumentation/documentation/pressReleases/2007/pressRelease20070427/index.html
-McDermott, Melissa. "Researchers discover first-ever link between intelligence and curiosity." PhysOrg.com. September 14, 2009.
http://www.physorg.com/news172174436.html
-Phias, Gabriel. "Dante's Ulysses: stoic and scholastic models of the literary reader's curiosity and Inferno 26." Dante Studies. Accessed January 18, 2010.
http://www.jstor.org/pss/40166625
-Piccone, Jason. "Curiosity and exploration." California State University, Northridge. Spring 1999.
http://www.csun.edu/~vcpsy00h/students/curious.htm
-Pisula, Wojciech. "Curiosity and information in animal and human behavior." Brown Walker Press. 2009.
Reiss, Steven, PhD. "Two kinds of curiosity." Psychology Today. June 20, 2009.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/who-we-are/200906/two-kinds-curiosity
-Rodrigue, James R., et al. "Induced mood and curiosity." Cognitive Therapy and Research. February 1987.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/t5uj14jk76376n18/
Sansom, Ian. "Weird and wonderful." The Guardian. April 21, 2001. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2001/apr/21/artsandhumanities.highereducation
From: http://science.howstuffworks.com/evolution/curiosity.htm
Troops in Afghanistan Will See Through Walls in 2010
By davidpierce • February 2, 2010 8:48 amSoldiers can’t leap tall buildings in a single bound, yet. Seeing through walls — that’s a different story. Later this year, American troops fighting in Afghanistan will begin to get gadgets designed to peer inside buildings and detect the heartbeat of people buried under rubble. It’s not exactly Superman’s x-ray vision. But it’s not that far way from it, either.
These Eagle handheld scanners, which look “like a cross between a video game controller and an oversized cell phone,” according to Defense News, work by sending out low-power, wideband radio-frequency signals toward a target, and measuring how the signals bounce back. A signal coming from a person will return differently than one from dirt or concrete, which will return differently than a signal bouncing off of concrete a few feet further away.
The handheld receiver decodes these signals, and displays the image it saw on the screen of the device, creating a picture of what’s happening on the other side of the wall, or 10 feet underground. The device also has a wireless connection to a computer, so it can immediately send the image for processing and analysis.
TiaLinx, the company behind the Eagle sensors, told Defense News that the scanners can detect a person or animal 20 feet behind an 8-inch thick slab of concrete. That technology has piqued the interest of the military, as well as the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department, and other organizations from police bureaus to utility companies.
The technology is a lot like the ground-penetrating radar already being used by the military, but with a few notable improvements. The Eagle imagers use an ultra-wideband signal, which means it sends out signals over a variety of frequencies, creating a more exact and detailed picture. The ultra-wideband scanners also use a great deal less power, which means the sensors are smaller, lighter, and longer-lasting: the Eagles supposedly last up to four hours on a single battery charge.
That wireless connection creates a number of new possibilities for the Eagle’s use. They can be sent on a small robot or drone into places not safe for people, and can immediately and wirelessly transmit whatever they see, even more than would be visible to the naked eye. Danger zones or hostage situations, where human presence might only worsen the situation, can be monitored from outside.
One immediate use for the Eagle technology in Afghanistan is avoiding the Improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs, that are responsible for a huge number of the casualties in the war so far. The British military is considering buying a technology similar to the Eagle that would allow them to locate immediately where bombs are buried, speeding up the time it takes to clear a convoy route and lowering casualty rates for soldiers. The United States already uses this technology, the NIITEK Visor, on its convoy-clearing vehicles.
They’re not a bird, or a plane, but the Eagle sensors could be critical in hostage or disaster relief situations, in locating leaks and tunnels underground, or in gaining a tactical advantage through a previously impenetrable wall. The sensors will be rolled out to soldiers sometime this year, and may be wider-used shortly after that.
From: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/02/troops-in-astan-will-see-through-walls-in-2010/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+WiredDangerRoom+%28Blog+-+Danger+Room%29
Monday, February 1, 2010
Balthasar Bekker
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaBalthasar Bekker (20 March 1634 - 11 June 1698), Dutch divine and author of philosophical and theological works. Opposing superstition, he was a key figure in the end of the witchcraft persecutions in early modern Europe.
Life
Bekker was born in Metslawier (Dongeradeel) as the son of a German pastor from Bielefeld. He was educated at Groningen, under Jacob Alting, and at Franeker. Becoming the rector of the local Latin school, he was appointed to his satisfaction in 1657 as a pastor in Oosterlittens (Littenseradiel), and started as one of the first to preach on Sunday afternoon. An enthusiastic disciple of Descartes, he wrote several works in philosophy and theology, which by their freedom of thought aroused considerable hostility. In his book De Philosophia Cartesiana Bekker argued that theology and philosophy each had their separate terrain and that Nature can no more be explained through Scripture than can theological truth be deduced from Nature. From 1679 he worked in Amsterdam, after being driven from Friesland. In 1683 he traveled to England and France. In two months time Bekker visited London, Cambridge, Oxford, Paris and Leuven, with a great interest in the art of fortification.
His best known work was Die Betooverde Wereld (1691), or The World Bewitched (1695), in which he examined critically the phenomena generally ascribed to spiritual agency. He attacked the belief in sorcery and "possession" by the devil. Indeed he questioned the devil's very existence. The book had a sensational effect and was one of the key works of the Early Enlightenment in Europe. It was almost certainly the most controversial. Bekker became a heroic figure defying an army of obscurantists.
The World Bewitched is interesting as an early study in comparative religion, but its publication in 1691 led to Bekker's deposition from the ministry. He was tried for blasphemy, maligning the public Church, and spreading atheistic ideas about Scripture. Some towns banned the book, but Amsterdam and the States of Holland never did, continuing his salary, without formally stripping him of his post. He died in Amsterdam.
Works
-De philosophia Cartesiana admonitio candida & sincera. Bekker, Balth. / Vesaliae / 1668
-The world bewitch'd; or, An examination of the common opinions concerning spirits: their nature, power, administration, and operations. As also, the effects men are able to produce by their communication. Divided into IV parts; Bekker, Balthasar / Translated from a French copy, approved of and subscribed by the author's own hand / printed for R. Baldwin in Warwick-lane / 1695
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balthasar_Bekker
The Pyjama Girl Case
By Chad PlambeckOur film begins as the beach side revelry of several Australian citizens is crudely interrupted by the discovery of a dead body amongst several wrecked and abandoned cars near the water's edge. With the corpse's face gruesomely beaten and burned well past any point of recognition, when the fingerprints don't turn up anything, the police are left with two monumental tasks: one, finding out who their female victim was, and two, track down whoever did this terrible thing to her and arrest their sorry ass.
During the initial autopsy, it's revealed that the victim was shot in the throat, but the real cause of death was a severe blow to the head and the resulting skull fracture. Also of note, there is trace evidence that the girl recently had sex with at least two different men. With the media smelling blood, and a ton of pressure coming from the top brass, the Chief of Detectives assigns the case to Inspector Ramsey (Ramiro Oliveros), who is explicitly charged to wrap things up as quickly as possible -- and by any means necessary. And while he focuses on "extracting" a confession from a degenerate beach bum, the case also attracts the attention of a retired Inspector Thompson (Ray Milland), a cranky and acerbic old coot who really doesn't have much faith in this younger generation of sleuths; as proof of his doubts, one of Ramsey's better ideas to I.D. the victim is to put the preserved corpse on public display like a morbid museum piece to see if anyone recognizes her.
As the irascible Thompson ingratiates himself into the investigation, he takes up a few discarded clues, including a few grains of rice found in the singed silk remnants of the yellow pajamas the victim was wearing, and follows his instinctive nose until it leads him to a possible I.D. and three probable suspects; a college professor, a factory worker, and a waiter, all embroiled in a love quadrangle with the same woman, Glenda, who seems to move with the breeze from man to man, searching for something she cannot define, let alone find it. And as her desperate search for some kind of fulfillment spirals quickly down the drain with one bad decision after another, she puts herself in harms way when that quadrangle starts to implode around her. Meanwhile, Thompson narrows down his suspect list to the probable killer, and then puts himself in mortal danger to lure the killer out of hiding...
On a crisp September morning back in 1934, while walking his new prized bull toward his home in rural Albury, Australia, Tom Griffith spotted -- or smelled? -- something strange protruding from a culvert that ran underneath Howlong Road. Closer examination proved it to be a severely mangled and burned corpse, and after the authorities were called in, they determined it to be a petite female, probably in her twenties, who had been shot in the throat, and whose bludgeoned skull was fractured so badly that part of the brain was exposed. Due to the charring and the severity of the injuries, with the only real clue to her identity being the partial, oriental-style silk pajamas that survived the flames, identification of the victim proved difficult -- if not impossible, making apprehending whoever had done this even harder to catch. When a couple of missing persons leads didn’t pan out, the local authorities, spurred on by a voracious media blitz and a lurid lured public, allowed the body of the now dubbed “Pyjama Girl” to be moved to Sydney, where it was embalmed, preserved, and in a bizarre, morbid twist, put on public display to see if anyone recognized her.
Hundreds turned out, but no one knew her, and for ten years, not unlike the notoriously gruesome Black Dahlia murder in America several years later, the media-fed public refused to let the Pyjama Girl case go away. Constantly reminded of the failure to bring any kind of justice in the case, New South Wales police commissioner William “Big Bill” MacKay reopened the investigation, and according to some sources, already had it solved; and whether his “pre-selected” prime suspect was guilty or not was irrelevant. The suspect in question, an Italian immigrant by the name of Antonio Agostini, had just spent the last four years in an alien internment camp during the war. His wife, Linda, also an immigrant, had disappeared about a week before the Pyjama Girl showed up, was of similar build, but was ruled out forensically at the time. However, ten years later, suddenly, the dental records magically matched up, and after an intense interrogation, and a viewing of the pickled body made up to look like his wife(!), Agostini confessed that he accidentally killed her during a drunken domestic dispute and burned the body to destroy the evidence in the ensuing panic. Convicted of manslaughter, Agostini served six years and was deported back to Italy when his sentence was up.
Declaring the case solved, the body was finally buried and MacKay moved on. But others, suspicious of his dubious and sometimes brutal tactics, weren’t as easily convinced, felt the fix was in, and still believe in Agostini’s innocence and the true identity of the Pyjama Girl to still be a mystery. Recently, historian Richard Evans makes a strong case in his book The Pyjama Girl Mystery by pointing out a ton of discrepancies in Agostini’s confession, and the fact that the Pyjama Girl had blue eyes while his wife’s were brown. Oops. So if it wasn’t her, then who really was the Pyjama Girl? There’s been talk of trying to link the body through DNA to relatives of several other missing persons, but sadly, we may never know.
A true-life mystery from Australia seems an odd inspiration for a Spanish/Italian co-produced giallo, but one has to wonder if it wasn't a smokescreen to cover the fact that even though scriptwriters Rafael Campoy and Flavio Mogherini, who also directed, used the Pyjama Girl as the appetizer to get you to the table, the main course owes more to another true-crime case sensationalized by a recent best-selling novel and a big-screen Hollywood adaptation that was due to be released the very same year as their film ... While watching The Pyjama Girl Case unfold, it doesn’t take long to see a strong correlation to Judith Rossner’s novel Looking for Mr. Goodbar. Itself inspired by the murder of Roseanne Quinn, Rossner lets us know on page one that her protagonist, Theresa Dunn, is dead, murdered by some creep she picked up in a bar when a one-night stand goes bad. The rest of the novel is then spent showing us the tragic circumstances that led Theresa to this predicament: a sad tale of a double-life -- school teacher by day Theresa, and trolling the bars at night for rough-sex Terry, crippled by an extreme case of self-loathing, embroiled in a self-destructive, futile search for love, acceptance, or fulfillment on any level that will, or from what we’ve read, could, never be satisfied.
Here, Glenda Blythe (Dalila di Lazzaro) appears to be trapped in the same psychological quagmire, and her trio of lovers mirror Theresa’s almost identically; first off is her college professor (Mel Ferrer), who shines her along and then brushes her off; second is Roy, an aggressive and possessive macho prick whose only interested in his end of the screwing (Howard Ross a/k/a Renato Rosini -- who made a career out of playing macho-pricks); and lastly, Antonio, a simple but earnest beau who truly worships and loves her, and begs Glenda to marry him (Michele Placido). In the novel, Theresa, feeling she doesn’t deserve it, refuses the proposal, but in the film we take a slightly divergent course when Glenda takes the plunge after finding out she’s pregnant. Even though he isn’t sure if the baby is his -- he's not that naive, a slightly bitter Antonio doesn’t welch and still agrees to the wedding. And for a brief moment, Glenda appears to be happy, or at least content -- but this is short-lived when their baby dies not long after it was born. Depressed and disillusioned, saddled to a low-wage husband with no real prospects, her marriage barreling toward a dead end before it even began, Glenda starts sleeping around again.
But when this proves to be another futile gesture to fill an empty hole, the girl realizes that the only person who treated her right and that she truly, maybe, cared for, was an old friend who lent her a pair of yellow silk pajamas at a sleep-over to wait out a violent thunderstorm. And since this is a gialli, you’d be right in thinking that friend was female; and though they shared the same bed, Glenda wasn’t prepared for the lesbian advances at the time and shied away. Now, rejected and dejected, fraying around the edges of sanity, with nothing left to lose, Glenda burns all her bridges, steals Roy’s RV, and sets out to track down this old friend. (And is this friend our Pyjama Girl?) But things continue to take a downward spiral when Glenda prostitutes herself, needing money for gas, and agrees to a roadside motel quickie with two slovenly travelers while one of their idiot offspring watches. To complicate matters further, Roy, thinking she’s dumped him and run off to permanently shack up with the professor, rounds up his good friend Antonio and goads him into bringing his wife back -- whether she wants to or not. Together, they track her down to a secluded spot where she pulled over to sleep for the night. And at Roy’s insistence, Antonio goes to retrieve her. When she refuses, clad in those very same silk pyjamas, things go quickly from tense to ugly to homicidal…
From: http://www.badmovieplanet.com/3btheater/p/pyjamagirl.html
Bloody spree at factory
By Edward Mason
Monday, February 1, 2010
A man went on a bloody rampage in a Leominster plastic factory yesterday morning, slashing his girlfriend’s throat, attacking a woman who came to her aid and slitting his own wrists before leading cops on a nearly four-hour chase, police said.
Aaron Noe Camey Valenzuela, 23, of Leominster and an apparent illegal alien from Guatemala, beat and then slit the throat of Elba Monges because she had or was planning to end their relationship, Leominster police said.
“It appears the attack was because of a breakup or an imminent breakup,” Lt. Michael Goldman said.
At about 7 a.m., Valenzuela went over to Monges’ work station at United Solutions in Leominster and began punching her, Goldman said.
When another woman, Mary Machado, 45, also of Leominster, came to help her, Valenzuela pulled a pocket knife, grabbed Monges from behind and slashed her throat, Goldman said. Valenzuela then lashed out at Machado, slicing her cheek, Goldman said.
Amid the morning mayhem, a supervisor pulled Valenzuela off of Monges and took him outside. Valenzuela pulled another knife and slit his own wrists, neck and abdomen and fled, Goldman said.
Valenzuela was tracked by state police dogs and a helicopter to a city-owned apple orchard, Goldman said. Leominster police obtained his cell phone number and talked to him throughout the pursuit. Valenzuela, cold and bleeding, surrendered to police about 11 a.m.
Police said they have no record of domestic disputes between the couple, who were not living together at the time of the attack. But Valenzuela attacked her nearly a month ago at the factory, Goldman said, and was moved to another part of the plant for her safety. Company president Edward Zephir Jr. declined comment.
Valenzuela has been charged with assault with attempt to murder, two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and one count of assault and battery, according to police.
Monges had surgery at University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center and is in stable condition, police said. Machado was treated and released.
Valenzuela is at Leominster Hospital, where police expect him to be arraigned.
Valenzuela, a Leominster resident, was deported in 2006 but returned illegally to the United States from Guatemala, Goldman said.
From: http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20100201bloody_spree_at_factory_cops_galpal_co-worker_hurt/
Monday, February 1, 2010
A man went on a bloody rampage in a Leominster plastic factory yesterday morning, slashing his girlfriend’s throat, attacking a woman who came to her aid and slitting his own wrists before leading cops on a nearly four-hour chase, police said.
Aaron Noe Camey Valenzuela, 23, of Leominster and an apparent illegal alien from Guatemala, beat and then slit the throat of Elba Monges because she had or was planning to end their relationship, Leominster police said.
“It appears the attack was because of a breakup or an imminent breakup,” Lt. Michael Goldman said.
At about 7 a.m., Valenzuela went over to Monges’ work station at United Solutions in Leominster and began punching her, Goldman said.
When another woman, Mary Machado, 45, also of Leominster, came to help her, Valenzuela pulled a pocket knife, grabbed Monges from behind and slashed her throat, Goldman said. Valenzuela then lashed out at Machado, slicing her cheek, Goldman said.
Amid the morning mayhem, a supervisor pulled Valenzuela off of Monges and took him outside. Valenzuela pulled another knife and slit his own wrists, neck and abdomen and fled, Goldman said.
Valenzuela was tracked by state police dogs and a helicopter to a city-owned apple orchard, Goldman said. Leominster police obtained his cell phone number and talked to him throughout the pursuit. Valenzuela, cold and bleeding, surrendered to police about 11 a.m.
Police said they have no record of domestic disputes between the couple, who were not living together at the time of the attack. But Valenzuela attacked her nearly a month ago at the factory, Goldman said, and was moved to another part of the plant for her safety. Company president Edward Zephir Jr. declined comment.
Valenzuela has been charged with assault with attempt to murder, two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and one count of assault and battery, according to police.
Monges had surgery at University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center and is in stable condition, police said. Machado was treated and released.
Valenzuela is at Leominster Hospital, where police expect him to be arraigned.
Valenzuela, a Leominster resident, was deported in 2006 but returned illegally to the United States from Guatemala, Goldman said.
From: http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20100201bloody_spree_at_factory_cops_galpal_co-worker_hurt/
Man charged in second infant death
Robert Long of Louisville also convicted of killing son in 1991
By Jesse Halladay • The Courier-Journal • January 29, 2010
LOUISVILLE - A man charged Wednesday in connection to the death of his 7-week old son had previously been convicted of killing another son in 1991.
Robert W. Long, Jr., 44, was arrested Wednesday after his son was found dead in a sport-utility vehicle parked in front of a home in the 5500 block of Ridgecrest Road, near the Newburg neighborhood.
Lavion R. Gamble, of the 4400 block of Kern Court, died of multiple blunt force injuries to multiple parts of his body, said Jim Wesley, a deputy Jefferson County coroner. His death has been ruled a homicide, Wesley said.
Long was initially charged with menacing, tampering with physical evidence and abuse of a corpse. After Lavion's autopsy Thursday, Long was charged with murder.
Louisville Metro Police found the baby after he was reported missing by family members earlier in the day. Those family members said they also could not locate Long.
This is not the first time one of Long’s sons has died.
In 1992, Long was convicted of killing his 5-week-old son, Robert Deon Long, by beating the infant, dropping him and letting him fall from a bed onto a wooden floor. The baby died on Feb. 8, 1991. Long was sentenced to 35 years in prison for that murder.
Information on when Long was released from prison was not immediately available.
From: http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20100129/NEWS0107/301290051/1164/Man+charged+in+second+infant+death
By Jesse Halladay • The Courier-Journal • January 29, 2010
LOUISVILLE - A man charged Wednesday in connection to the death of his 7-week old son had previously been convicted of killing another son in 1991.
Robert W. Long, Jr., 44, was arrested Wednesday after his son was found dead in a sport-utility vehicle parked in front of a home in the 5500 block of Ridgecrest Road, near the Newburg neighborhood.
Lavion R. Gamble, of the 4400 block of Kern Court, died of multiple blunt force injuries to multiple parts of his body, said Jim Wesley, a deputy Jefferson County coroner. His death has been ruled a homicide, Wesley said.
Long was initially charged with menacing, tampering with physical evidence and abuse of a corpse. After Lavion's autopsy Thursday, Long was charged with murder.
Louisville Metro Police found the baby after he was reported missing by family members earlier in the day. Those family members said they also could not locate Long.
This is not the first time one of Long’s sons has died.
In 1992, Long was convicted of killing his 5-week-old son, Robert Deon Long, by beating the infant, dropping him and letting him fall from a bed onto a wooden floor. The baby died on Feb. 8, 1991. Long was sentenced to 35 years in prison for that murder.
Information on when Long was released from prison was not immediately available.
From: http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20100129/NEWS0107/301290051/1164/Man+charged+in+second+infant+death
Police find dying man in dumpster
Updated: Sunday, 31 Jan 2010, 10:56 PM MST
Published : Sunday, 31 Jan 2010, 10:56 PM MST
ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) Albuquerque police are investigating why a man was left to die in a dumpster near Vermont and Central on Saturday night.
Police were responding to a stolen vehicle call when a trail of blood led them to a dumpster containing a badly hurt man.
Medics were called out, but the man died shortly after emergency crews arrived.
Police have not said who the man was or how he ended up in the trash bin.
For now, investigators aren't sure if he was connected in any way to the stolen vehicle.
Police are waiting for a cause of death from the Office of the Medical Investigator. They also must notify his family before his name can be released.
If you have any information about the incident, you're asked to call police immediately.
From: http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/crime/police-find-dying-man-in-dumpster
Published : Sunday, 31 Jan 2010, 10:56 PM MST
ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) Albuquerque police are investigating why a man was left to die in a dumpster near Vermont and Central on Saturday night.
Police were responding to a stolen vehicle call when a trail of blood led them to a dumpster containing a badly hurt man.
Medics were called out, but the man died shortly after emergency crews arrived.
Police have not said who the man was or how he ended up in the trash bin.
For now, investigators aren't sure if he was connected in any way to the stolen vehicle.
Police are waiting for a cause of death from the Office of the Medical Investigator. They also must notify his family before his name can be released.
If you have any information about the incident, you're asked to call police immediately.
From: http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/crime/police-find-dying-man-in-dumpster
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