Moon Bow

Moon Bow

Colours the night

Sun

Shadows the day


by Zeni 2010

Slime Mould redesigns road networks in England and Japan

New Scientist reports on research findings by computer scientists in the UK that suggests slime mould, P. polycephalum, which feeds by spawning tendrils to reach nutrients,will map the most efficient network linking cities from London to Glasgow. This follows Japanese research that used the same technique to map the Tokyo rail network. The findings, published in the journal Science on January 22 2010 are applicable to human built networks as Wolfgang Marwan of Otto von Guericke University in Germany writes, "The model captures the basic dynamics of network adaptability through interaction of local rules, and produces networks with properties comparable to or better than those of real-world infrastructure networks... The work of Tero and colleagues provides a fascinating and convincing example that biologically inspired pure mathematical models can lead to completely new, highly efficient algorithms able to provide technical systems with essential features of living systems, for applications in such areas as computer science."

First time in Paris

New Years Eve 1954-55 I hitch hiked to Paris with my mother.



Clochards under every bridge
No more

Horse heads outside horse butchers
No more

Turtles stacked in turtle-soup shop window, tears rolling down their eyes
No more

Buses with open backs
No more

Taxi drivers spitting at your bad French
No more

Irene on top of the Arc de Triomphe

Hitch hiking from Amsterdam with my mother, 10 years old and I had never been this high up before. The view down the boulevards from the Arc de Triomphe towards the outer arrondissments and infinity.

My Paris Walk

Paris

Crossing the Seine
on the timber board bridge
a Sunday
Parisian lovers and friends
Guitars strumming with laughter
Down by the river, boatwaves lapping water on the cobblestones
Poplar trees inscribed by lovers
Their history lives on in the bark

Bye bye Fore skin

Ancient Egyptian 6th Dynasty circumcision from the tomb of Ankh-Mahor

The Quest for the missing fore skin. Episode One

My research into this story started when my good friend Ned said, “You know the sculpture of the David, surely Michelangelo knew that David was Jewish and therefore circumcised,” and my conclusion was that he probably did. But he was working for the Catholic Church and couldn’t create a circumcised sculpture. Working in Italy at the time of the Renaissance his model wasn’t circumcised, and I’d say that Michelangelo probably had never seen a circumcised male member, as only the Jews were circumcised in Europe. This made me wonder, are there any circumcised classical sculptures or paintings? Did the Jews ever create a representation of themselves naked?

Having been born during the second world war in Amsterdam, of Jewish parents, I was brought up with horror stories of suspected Jewish men and boys having their pants pulled down on the street to make sure of their lack of foreskin, and then shipped off to concentration camps. (The movie director, Roman Polanski, survived in the Warsaw ghetto by making fake foreskins for his fellow sufferers)

Now I’m living in Australia where most men seem to be circumcised (don’t ask me how I know), when I ask questions of men about their fore skins, I find that most have never thought about it. In my research, only gay men, seeing other male members to compare with their own, seem to have a strong feeling about not having a fore skin, but every man I’ve mentioned it to has been interested in talking about it to me, and not at all in a suggestive way, but purely a philosophical one, which I can’t say for their women, who presume to know about their man’s feelings about his male member. Also the women think that I’m asking questions of the man for flirty reasons, and start point scoring on how many dicks they’ve seen. Such are the difficulties in research of this kind. The women who had experienced different dick's related some differences of physical aspect such as fore skins creating more lubrication and feeling softer. I say, what does it matter anyway, it’s the motion not the meat, as desire is in the mind not in the size, shape, or look of a dick.

I am interested to know how men feel about having had a physical part of themselves taken away. After all, the fore skin is there for a reason; every species on this earth that has a male member, has a fore skin. The reasons given for cutting it off differ from culture to culture, but the urge to mutilate goes on and on.

To be continued…