next target entropy the sequel

till further notice

2009-01-08T01:00:00.001+02:00

as from today you will find us at
fade blue dot
for urban posts and thoughts
the entropy series blogs are closed till further notice
please change your bookmarks and links...

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

visit us

2009-01-02T08:12:00.001+02:00

wish you a wonderful solstice

2008-12-19T13:09:00.001+02:00

happy solstice, season's greetings

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

red passion

2008-12-13T17:57:00.001+02:00

red passion

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

season's greetings

2008-12-12T17:53:00.001+02:00

with her I may belive again
...even for few hours.

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

Demetrio's Travel Pages: The new face of India ... το νέο πρόσωπο της Ινδίας

2008-11-23T11:25:00.000+02:00

Demetrio's Travel Pages: The new face of India ... το νέο πρόσωπο της Ινδίας: "The new face of India ... το νέο πρόσωπο της Ινδίας"

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOUCopyright © Demetrios the Traveler

(Brexians lair)

Contemplation: Δημήτριος ο Ταξιδευτής; hello !!! your polar polar bear friend....

2008-11-18T00:41:00.000+02:00

Contemplation: Δημήτριος ο Ταξιδευτής; hello !!! your polar polar bear friend....

the DNA of the Greeks

2008-11-16T11:02:00.000+02:00

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

#comments#comments#comments#comments

2008-11-13T22:45:00.000+02:00

#comments#comments#comments#comments

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOUCopyright © Demetrios the Traveler

(Brexians lair)

Demetrio's Travel Pages: The Antiquarium Residenz München, a "Wormhole" ..."σκουληκότρυπα", στο Antiquarium,Residenz, Mόναχο

2008-11-11T20:41:00.000+02:00

Demetrio's Travel Pages: The Antiquarium Residenz München, a "Wormhole" ..."σκουληκότρυπα", στο Antiquarium,Residenz, Mόναχο

"A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." -- Lao Tzu
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

Demetrio's Travel Pages: In search of the Northern Lights ....σε αναζήτηση του Βορείου Σέλαος

2008-11-01T23:57:00.000+02:00

Demetrio's Travel Pages: In search of the Northern Lights ....σε αναζήτηση του Βορείου Σέλαος

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOUCopyright © Demetrios the Traveler

(Brexians lair)

Missing in MiG Alley

2008-11-01T09:26:00.000+02:00

NOVA: Missing in MiG Alley, PBS: "'MiG Alley.'"

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

Demetrio's Travel Pages: India flying to the Moon... στον δρόμο για το Φεγγάρι

2008-10-31T16:23:00.000+02:00

Demetrio's Travel Pages: India flying to the Moon... στον δρόμο για το Φεγγάρι

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOUCopyright © Demetrios the Traveler

(Brexians lair)

Πεντάεδρον: Μέχρι που φτάνει ο Ανθελληνισμός

2008-10-27T10:36:00.000+02:00

Πεντάεδρον: Μέχρι που φτάνει ο Ανθελληνισμός

may the force be with you
& remember "A verbis ad verbera"
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Zeta Jones to star as Cleopatra

2008-10-25T15:41:00.000+02:00

BBC NEWS Entertainment Zeta Jones to star as Cleopatra

"A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." -- Lao Tzu
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

Belarus's elite troops are put to the test - Telegraph

2008-10-25T12:49:00.000+02:00

Belarus's elite troops are put to the test - Telegraph

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

IgoUgo's Week in Travel: Don't Be Scared - IgoUgo

2008-10-25T11:19:00.000+02:00

IgoUgo's Week in Travel: Don't Be Scared - IgoUgo

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU

τελευταια αναρτηση......

2008-06-03T15:27:00.001+03:00

οι μεγαλες κοινωνικες αντιξοοτητες,
που πηγαζουν απο τα καινουργια οικονομικα και γεωπολιτικα δεδομενα,
με αναγκαζουν να σταματησω προσωρινα να βαζω αναρτησεις σε αυτο το ιστολογιο...
βεβαια δεν θα σταματησω να γραφω...

θα με βρειτε στο Demetrio's Travel Pages, απο οπου θα συνεχισω να σας δινω χρησιμες πιστευω συμβουλες, για τα ταξιδια σας....

Τα πραγματικα και τα Δικτυακα...
αν θελετε κατι ιδιαιτερο πανω σε ταξιδιωτικες συμβουλες, ιδεες και γνώμες σας περιμενω εκει.
Αφηστε ενα σχολιο στην τελευταια αναρτηση και με χαρα θα σας απαντησω...

αν θελετε αλλαξτε και τους συνδεσμους σας προς αυτο το ιστολογιο, με τον παρακατω: http://brexmother3.blogspot.com/

το διαστημα, η επιστημονικη φαντασια, η πολιτικη, η αρχιτεκτονικη, οι τεχνες, η φιλοσοφικη αναζητηση μπορουν να περιμενουν...
μεχρι η κοινωνικη ανισοτητα, οι προκαταληψεις, ο ρατσισμος, η θρησκευτικη μισαλοδοξια, η ατελεσφορη πολιτικη, και οι σαπιοι πολιτικοι παρουν την θεση που τους ανηκει...
δηλαδη στο χρονοντουλαπο...

παψτε να τους δινετε προσοχη και σιγα σιγα θα παψουν να υπαρχουν... μεχρι να εκλειψουν... μεχρι ενας νεος καινουργιος κοσμος αρχισει να πορευεται σε αυτην την γαλαζια σφαιρα που λεγεται ΓΗ...

Ευχαριστω για τις επισκεψεις τα σχολια και τα λογια σας ...
θα τα λεμε απο αλλου... και μονο για οτι εχει σχεση με το ταξιδι...
γιατι οπως και να εχει η κατασταση, πρεπει τουλαχιστον να κρατησουμε το ονειρο και την φαντασια μας ανοιχτη και παραγωγικη.....

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

για την Αμαλία.....χωρις λογια

2008-05-31T20:54:00.000+03:00

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

ειμαστε θύματα του Matrix... και δεν κανουμε τιποτα για αυτο.

2008-05-24T13:13:00.001+03:00

ακουστε και σκεφτειτε...
The Matrix

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

Iam what Iam

2008-05-08T09:38:00.000+03:00

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

NEXT TARGET ENTROPY THE REVELATION: ΥΠΟΓΡΑΨΕΣ;;;;

2008-04-11T00:03:00.000+02:00

NEXT TARGET ENTROPY THE REVELATION:

ΥΠΟΓΡΑΨΕΣ;;;;

may the force be with you
& remember "A verbis ad verbera"
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

καντε το σωστο, καντε το σωστα!

2008-04-02T20:54:00.000+02:00

toomanytribbles: google boom!

expelled
expelled, the movie
ben stein
intelligent design

συνδεθειτε με την TMT.

the narnia sequel

2008-03-29T15:56:00.001+02:00

a nice one!

1821 Μαρτιος, η επανασταση εδραιωνεται...

2008-03-25T05:53:00.001+02:00

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

ο καστρο εφυγε εμεις τι θα κανουμε?

2008-02-21T11:29:00.001+02:00

Cartoon by Ben Sargent.

More cartoons on Fidel Castro here.

News & Politics

Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC | Privacy Policy
Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive | c/o E-mail Customer Care |1515 N. Courthouse Rd. | Arlington, VA 22201

Ο Ρογκ σέβεται την απόφαση του Σπίλμπεργκ να παραιτηθεί από τη θέση του στο Πεκίνο

2008-02-15T20:59:00.001+02:00

Ο πρόεδρος της ΔΟΕ Ζακ Ρογκ σέβεται την απόφαση του Στίβεν Σπίλμπεργκ να αποχωρήσει από τη θέση του καλλιτεχνικού διευθυντή των Ολυμπιακών Αγώνων του Πεκίνου, εξαιτίας -όπως δήλωσε- της πολιτικής που ασκεί η Κίνα στην περιοχή Νταρφούρ του Σουδάν. Απέσυρε το προκλητικό συμβόλαιο η βρετανική ομοσπονδία...

McLaren happy with aero progress

2008-02-15T17:09:00.001+02:00

McLaren's three day session in Jerez drew to a close on Thursday, with weather conditions in the morning more favourable. The team continued the aerodynamic programme for the week. In addition Kovalainen spent some time in the morning conducting simulated qualifying runs, to further understand the handling of the MP4-23 in all race weekend situations.

Ecuador probes 'attack on tribe'

2008-02-14T19:06:00.001+02:00

Ecuador investigates claims that up to 15 Amazonian tribespeople have been killed by illegal loggers.

Οι πρώτοι αποικιστές της Αμερικής έκαναν στάση για 20.000 χρόνια

2008-02-14T18:26:00.001+02:00

Το πρώτο κύμα μετανάστευσης από την Ασία στην Αμερική εμποδίστηκε από δύο γιγάντιους παγετώνες, οι οποίοι ανάγκασαν τους αποικιστές να μείνουν στάσιμοι στην περιοχή του σημερινού Βερίγγειου Πορθμού για 20.000 χρόνια.

Χαμηλές οι επιδόσεις της Ελλάδας στην καινοτομία, δείχνει η κατάταξη της Κομισιόν

2008-02-14T18:25:00.001+02:00

Η Ελλάδα βρίσκεται στην 29η θέση μεταξύ 37 χωρών σε ό,τι αφορά τις επιδόσεις στην καινοτομία, δείχνει ο πίνακας επιδόσεων που δημοσιοποίησε την Πέμπτη στις Βρυξέλλες η Ευρωπαϊκή Επιτροπή. Τουλάχιστον η Ελλάδα περιλαμβάνεται στις χώρες που «καλύπτουν το χαμένο έδαφος».

Για το «Θα χυθεί αίμα» μίλησαν από την Αθήνα οι Ντέι Λούις και Π.Τ.Αντερσον

2008-02-14T17:15:00.001+02:00

Για την ταινία Θα χυθεί αίμα, το πετρέλαιο, τα Όσκαρ και τη χώρα μας μίλησαν ο ηθοποιός Ντάνιελ Ντέι Λούις και ο σκηνοθέτης Πολ Τόμας Αντερσον, σε συνέντευξη Τύπου που έδωσαν με αφορμή την πρεμιέρα της ταινίας στην Ελλάδα. Τα έσοδα από την πρεμιέρα θα διατεθούν για φιλανθρωπικό σκοπό.

Βιομετρικούς ελέγχους στα σύνορα σχεδιάζει η EE για τους επισκέπτες

2008-02-14T16:34:00.001+02:00

Ο επίτροπος Δικαιοσύνης της ΕΕ πρότεινε ριζική ενίσχυση των συνοριακών ελέγχων με τους ταξιδιώτες που εισέρχονται στην ΕΕ να δίνουν ψηφιακά δακτυλικά αποτυπώματα. Η πρόταση περιλαμβάνει ακόμα δορυφορικό σύστημα επιτήρησης των περιοχών μέσω των οποίων καταφθάνουν πρόσφυγες.

Τα ενεργειακά αποθέματα του Τιτάνα ασύγκριτα μεγαλύτερα από της Γης

2008-02-14T16:31:00.001+02:00

Ο Τιτάνας, το εξωτικό πορτοκαλί φεγγάρι του Κρόνου, διαθέτει εκατοντάδες φορές περισσότερους υδρογονάνθρακες από ό,τι όλα τα αποθέματα πετρελαίου και φυσικού αερίου της Γης, αποκαλύπτει το διαστημικό σκάφος Cassini. To μεθάνιο πέφτει ως βροχή και σχηματίζει λίμνες και θάλασσες.

Υπεγράφη η συμφωνία ανάληψης των Αγώνων του 2011

2008-02-14T15:25:00.001+02:00

Παρουσία του Προέδρου της Δημοκρατίας, Καρόλου Παπούλια, έλαβε την Πέμπτη χώρα στο Μέγαρο Μουσικής Αθηνών ειδική εκδήλωση των Special Olympics Ελλάς, κατά τη διάρκεια της οποίας υπεγράφη η επίσημη συμφωνία ανάληψης από τη χώρα μας των Αγώνων του 2011.

Στην 10άδα του κόσμου η εθνική ποδοσφαίρου

2008-02-14T13:40:00.001+02:00

Στην πρώτη δεκάδα του κόσμου βρίσκεται πλέον η εθνική ποδοσφαίρου των ανδρών στην κατάταξη της FIFA. Οι πρωταθλητές Ευρώπης βρίσκονται αυτό το μήνα στο Νο 10 του κόσμου, την ώρα που η Αργεντινή παρέμεινε στην κορυφή του κόσμου. Η «μπιανκοτσελέστε» άφησε και πάλι στη δεύτερη θέση την Βραζιλία και στην τρίτη την Ιταλία.

αντε και του χρονου

2008-02-14T10:48:00.002+02:00

.....μια παντρεμενη αγαπω
Θεος να τη φωτίσει.....

πονηρουληδες!!!
την γυναικα μου που με υποφερει 23 χρονια

may the force be with you
& remember "A verbis ad verbera"
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

Τέλος στην πολύμηνη απεργία τους έδωσαν οι σεναριογράφοι του Χόλιγουντ

2008-02-14T10:46:00.001+02:00

Οι σεναριογράφοι του αμερικανικού κινηματογράφου και της τηλεόρασης ψήφισαν υπέρ του τερματισμού της απεργία τους, η οποία είχε παραλύσει τον τομέα του θεάματος τους τελευταίους τρεις μήνες.

Μοχλός πίεσης για το Νταρφούρ η παραίτηση Σπίλμπεργκ από το «Πεκίνο 2008»

2008-02-14T10:40:00.001+02:00

Την απόσυρσή του από τη θέση του καλλιτεχνικού διευθυντή των Ολυμπιακών Αγώνων του 2008 στο Πεκίνο ανακοίνωσε ο διάσημος σκηνοθέτης Στίβεν Σπίλμπεργκ, καταγγέλοντας την πολιτική της κινεζικής κυβέρνησης στο Σουδάν και στη διένεξη στο Νταρφούρ.

Προϊστορικός πτερόσαυρος ήταν μικρός σαν πουλάκι

2008-02-13T20:01:00.001+02:00

Σε αντίθεση με τους περισσότερους συγγενείς του, ιπτάμενους γίγαντες με άνοιγμα φτερών αρκετά μέτρα, ένας πτερόσαυρος που ζούσε πριν από 120 εκατ. χρόνια στην περιοχή της Κίνας είχε μέγεθος σπουργίτη και πετούσε από κλαδί σε κλαδί μέσα σε πυκνά δάση.

Σε σοβαρή κατάσταση νοσηλεύεται η Αρλέτα

2008-02-13T19:55:00.001+02:00

Σοβαρή κρίνεται από τους γιατρούς του Νοσοκομείου Βόλου η κατάσταση της υγείας της Αρλέτας. Η γνωστή τραγουδίστρια υπέστη το βράδυ της Δευτέρας βαριά εγκεφαλική αιμορραγία. Η διοικητής του νοσοκομείου δήλωσε ότι τα επόμενα 24ωρα είναι κρίσιμα.

Ο Σπίλμπεργκ παραιτήθηκε από καλλιτεχνικός διευθυντής του Πεκίνο 2008

2008-02-13T19:54:00.001+02:00

Την παραίτησή του από τη θέση του καλλιτεχνικού διευθυντή των Ολυμπιακών Αγώνων του 2008 στο Πεκίνο ανακοίνωσε ο Στίβεν Σπίλμπεργκ, διαμαρτυρόμενος για την πολιτική που ακολουθεί η κινεζική κυβέρνηση σχετικά με τις συγκρούσεις στο Νταρφούρ του Σουδάν.

NEW HOME AS FROM TODAY......ΝΕΟ ΣΠΙΤΙ ΑΠΟ ΣΗΜΕΡΑ

2007-12-17T15:17:00.000+02:00

θα μας βρητε στο νεο μας σπιτι
NEXT TARGET ENTROPY THE REVELATION

you will find us in our new home
NEXT TARGET ENTROPY THE REVELATION

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

Αbsinthe...το πικρόγλυκο δηλητήριο των καλλιτεχνών

2007-12-13T07:52:00.000+02:00

Γυρίζοντας από μια έκθεση αφίσας, στο Θησείο, θεώρησα υποχρέωση μου να πιω και ‘γω ένα Absinthe.
Πιο κάτω αφίσες και άλλα διάφορα για το δηλητήριο των καλλιτεχνών, την πράσινη νεράιδα, που σε μια στιγμή γίνετε ξωτικό κακόβουλο και θανατερό!!!

(Absinthe) Αψέντι
Ετυμολογία
αψέντι < γαλλική, absinth(e) + -ι < λατινική, absinthium < αρχαία ελληνική, ἀψίνθιον (ἄψινθος) (αντιδάνειο)
Ποτό υψηλής περιεκτικότητας σε αλκοόλ (55-75% Vol) με πράσινο σμαραγδί χρώμα, το οποίο μετατρέπεται σε λευκό ομιχλώδες όταν αναμιγνύεται με νερό. Είναι απόσταγμα διαφόρων βοτάνων αλλά κυρίως του ARTEMISIA ABSINTHIUM, το οποίο είναι η κύρια πηγή της αμφιλεγόμενης ουσίας θυϊόνη.

Ιστορία
Ο Ιπποκράτης και ο Πυθαγόρας ήταν οι πρώτοι που συνιστούσαν το πικρό αυτό φυτό σαν φάρμακο για πολλές ασθένειες. Ο Γάλλος γιατρός Dr. Pierre Ordinaire, ο οποίος ζούσε στην πόλη Couvet της Ελβετίας, παρασκεύασε το 1792 ένα ελιξίριο από εκχύλισμα του φυτού ARTEMISIA ABSINTHIUM και διαφόρων άλλων βοτάνων, το οποίο καθιερώθηκε ως φάρμακο για κάθε πάθηση. Τότε πήρε και το χαϊδευτικό «Η Πράσινη Νεράιδα» (La Fee Verte).
Ήταν το 1797 όταν ο Henri-Louis Pernod, στον οποίο έφτασε η συνταγή του Dr. Ordinaire, άνοιξε τον πρώτο αποστακτήρα στο Couvet της Ελβετίας. Το 1805 μετακόμισε στο Pontarlier της Γαλλίας ξεκινώντας τη μαζική παραγωγή του πιο γνωστού, πιο αγαπημένου και πιο αμφιλεγόμενου ποτού στην ιστορία.
Χρησιμοποιήθηκε ως φάρμακο κατά του πυρετού από τα Γαλλικά στρατεύματα στον πόλεμο της Αλγερίας (1844-1847). Η επιστροφή των στρατευμάτων μαζί με την προτίμησή τους για το Absinthe βοήθησε στη γρήγορη διάδοση και τη μαζική κατανάλωσή του.
Σήμερα γνωρίζουμε ότι το ενεργό συστατικό στο Absinthe είναι νευροτοξικό. Ειδικότερα, πρόκειται για έναν αναστολέα του γ-αμινοβουτυρικού οξέος. Το μόριο αυτό ρυθμίζοντας τη διέλευση ιόντων χλωρίου στα νευρικά κύτταρα ελέγχει την ενεργότητά τους. Απενεργοποιημένο από την κατανάλωση Absinthe το γ- αμινοβουτυρικό οξύ χάνει τη ρυθμιστική ικανότητά του και τα νευρικά κύτταρα διεγείρονται ανεξέλεγκτα.
H κατανάλωση του ποτού αυτού μπορεί να ενίσχυσε τις επιληπτικές κρίσεις του Βαν Γκογκ αλλά και τη δημιουργικότητά του. Μπορεί επίσης να είχε επίδραση στην ψυχική κατάσταση η οποία τον ώθησε να κόψει το αφτί του... Πάντως εκείνη τη χρονική περίοδο το Absinthe ήταν της μόδας μεταξύ καλλιτεχνών: ο Τουλούζ Λωτρέκ έπινε Absinthe το οποίο μετέφερε σε ένα ειδικά κατασκευασμένο μπαστούνι, ενώ ο Ντεγκά απαθανάτισε τον πότη της πράσινης νεράιδας (Absinthe Drinker).

Το 1859 ο Manet ζωγράφισε τον πρώτο μεγάλο πίνακα με θέμα το Absinthe, με τίτλο “Πότης Absinthe”. Δημιουργήθηκε σκάνδαλο στην έκθεση του 1859, και η επιτροπή αρνήθηκε την έκθεση του έργου.
"Μετά το πρώτο ποτήρι, βλέπεις τα πράγματα όπως θα ήθελες να είναι. Μετά το δεύτερο, βλέπεις τα πράγματα όπως δεν είναι. Τέλος, τα βλέπεις όπως πραγματικά είναι, και αυτό είναι το πιο φρικτό πράγμα στον κόσμο"- Oscar Wilde.
Όταν γνωρίστηκαν, ο Paul Verlaine και ο Arthure Rimbaud μασούλαγαν χασίς και μεθούσαν συνειδητά με Absinthe, λαχταρώντας να υπερβούν τα όρια μιας λογικής που είχε αποδείξει ότι δεν χρησίμευε σε τίποτε.
Το αριστούργημα του Ernest Hemingway “Για ποιόν χτυπάει η καμπάνα ”γράφτηκε υπό την επήρεια της “πράσινης νεράιδας”.Το γεγονός ότι έγινε το αγαπημένο ποτό και η πηγή έμπνευσης πολλών καλλιτεχνών και διανοουμένων -ΜΠΟΕΜ- της εποχής (Van Gogh, Picasso, Manet, Baudelaire, Emil Zola, Oscar Wilde, Ernest Hemingway, όπως και οι δικοί μας Κώστας Καρυωτάκης και Νίκος Καββαδίας κ.α.) καθιέρωσε το Aabsinthe σαν σύμβολο έμπνευσης, τόλμης και αμφισβήτησης εκτοξεύοντας την κατανάλωσή του στις αρχές του περασμένου αιώνα στα 36 εκατομμύρια γαλόνια το χρόνο, μόνο στη Γαλλία.

Απαγόρευση
Οι περίεργες ιδιότητες / παρενέργειες για τις οποίες κατηγορήθηκε η ουσία Thujone, ήταν η αφορμή για τον ανελέητο πόλεμο εναντίον του Absinthe. Τοξικότητα, εάν καταναλωθεί μεγάλη ποσότητα, εθισμός μετά από μακροχρόνια χρήση, πρόκληση παραισθήσεων και παρανοϊκής συμπεριφοράς ήταν το βασικό κατηγορητήριο. Ας σημειωθεί ότι η θεωρία αυτή στηρίχτηκε κυρίως σε ενδείξεις και εικασίες, αλλά δεν κατάφερε να τεκμηριωθεί επιστημονικά.
Σύμφωνα με πολλούς μελετητές του φαινομένου Absinthe, η πραγματική αιτία του πολέμου και τελικά της απαγόρευσής του ήταν το γεγονός ότι για σχεδόν 30 χρόνια κατείχε μια εντελώς μονοπωλιακή θέση στην αγορά, εκτοπίζοντας ουσιαστικά οποιοδήποτε άλλο αλκοολούχο ποτό καθώς και το κρασί.
Η Αμερική ήταν η πρώτη χώρα που απαγόρευσε την «πράσινη πληγή της Γαλλίας» όπως αποκαλούσαν το Absinthe στις 25 Ιουλίου του 1912. Ακολούθησαν σχεδόν όλες οι χώρες στις οποίες κυκλοφορούσε. Το τελευταίο κάστρο ήταν η Γαλλία όπου απαγορεύτηκε το 1915.
Στη δαιμονοποίηση του Absinthe ήρθε, το 1986, να προστεθεί ένας ακόμη αστικός θρύλος.
Σύμφωνα με την Αποκάλυψη του Ιωάννη, «κατά το τρίτο σάλπισμα, έπεσε από τον ουρανό άστρο μεγάλο σα λαμπάδα στο 1/3 των ποταμών και στις πηγές των νερών. Το όνομα του άστρου είναι αψιθιά. Το ένα τρίτο των νερών έγινε αψιθιά και πολλοί άνθρωποι πέθαναν από το νερό διότι έγινε πικρό».
Στα ουκρανικά, Τσέρνομπιλ ονομάζεται ένα φυτό παρεμφερές με την αψιθιά, η λατινική ονομασία του οποίου είναι Artemisia vulgaris –ενώ της αψιθιάς Artemisia absinthium.
Λεπτομέρεια που παραλείφθηκε όταν οι New York Times δημοσίευσαν ένα σχετικό άρθρο μετά το πυρηνικό ατύχημα, στο οποίο ένας Ρώσος συγγραφέας, το όνομα του οποίου δε δόθηκε στη δημοσιότητα, φερόταν να λέει πως Τσέρνομπιλ στα ουκρανικά σημαίνει αψιθιά, προσφέροντας έδαφος για τη δημιουργία του μύθου.
Πέρασαν σχεδόν 75 χρόνια όπου η «Πράσινη Νεράιδα» πετούσε παράνομα σε πολλές χώρες, αλλά και νόμιμα σε κάποιες άλλες , κυρίως στην Ανατολική Ευρώπη.
Το 1998 με την οδηγία EEC 88/388 Appendix II, η Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση καθόρισε τα όρια περιεκτικότητας σε Thujone (10mg / Kg για τα Liqueur και 35mg/Kg για τα Biter spirit) τα οποία καθιστούν το Absinthe νόμιμο.

Αψιθιά (Αρτεμισία, Τραχούρι, Εστραγκόν, Αψέντι)

Αρωματικό φυτό, Artemisia Absinthum γνωστό και ως Γένια του Γέρου ή Απιστία ή αψέντι. Συναντιέται σε ξερά εδάφη και είναι γνωστό από την αρχαιότητα. Είναι μικρό φυτό με όμορφα κίτρινα λουλούδια διατεταγμένα σε στάχυα τα οποία ανθίζουν από τον Ιούλιο έως τον Αύγουστο. Χρησιμοποιούνται οι ανθισμένες κορυφές του, τα φύλλα και οι ρίζες.
Η αψιθιά είναι γνωστή από την εποχή του Ιπποκράτη και θεωρείται ένα από τα πιο αρωματικά φυτά παρόλη την πικρή της γεύση. Στην Αρχαία Ελλάδα την ονόμαζαν Αρτεμισία, ενδεχομένως προς τιμή της Θεάς Αρτέμιδος και την χρησιμοποιούσαν σε περιπτώσεις αμηνόρροιας. Άλλοι λαοί όπως οι Άραβες, οι Αιγύπτιοι, οι Κέλτες την χρησιμοποιούσαν ως ορεξιογόνο.
Κατά τον μεσαίωνα αποδώσανε αρκετές ''μαγικές'' ιδιότητες στην αψιθιά και πίστευαν ότι η ύπαρξή της σε ένα σπίτι το προφυλάσσει από τα από τα κακά πνεύματα. Πίστευαν ακόμη ότι βάζοντας φύλλα αψιθιάς στα παπούτσια μπορείς να περπατήσεις πολλά χιλιόμετρα.
Η αψιθιά χρησιμοποιείται στην παρασκευή και στον αρωματισμό ποτών και διαφόρων λικέρ, στην αρτοποιία, την ζαχαροπλαστική αλλά και στην φαρμακοποιία, . κατά της παχυσαρκίας και του σακχάρου - κατά της αναιμίας - αντιπυρετικό -ανθελμινθικό - αντισηπτικό - εμμηναγωγό - έχει νευροτονωτική δράση - κατάθλιψη - ένταση.
Είναι γνωστό ότι το αψέντι, κρασί αρωματισμένο με αψιθιά, είναι τοξικό για νευρικό σύστημα όταν χρησιμοποιείται υπερβολικά.
Προσεκτική πρέπει να είναι και η χρήση του αφεψήματος της αψιθιάς γιατί μπορεί να προκαλέσει διάφορες διαταραχές όπως πονοκεφάλους, σπασμούς, αποβολή εμβρύου, καρδιολογικές διαταραχές μέχρι και θάνατο.
Η χρήση της στην μαγειρική είναι πιο ασφαλής και είναι προτιμότερο να χρησιμοποιείται φρέσκια και όχι ξερή. Μπορεί να διατηρηθεί αποξηραμένη σε γυάλινα βαζάκια ή ακόμη σε ένα μπουκάλι ξύδι

cocktails με Absinthe

martini drinks
starry night
• 2 1/2 oz. Chocolate Vodka • 1/2 oz. ABSINTHE• 1/2 oz. simple syrup• Crushed chocolate cookie on rim• Garnish = Chinese Star Anise floating• Glassware = Martini GlassIn an iced filled shaker, add the Vodka, ABSINTHE and simple syrup. Shake thoroughly and strain into the chocolate crumbed rim martini glass. Add the Chinese Star Anise

night cat
• 1 oz. ABSINTHE• 1 oz. simple syrup• 1 oz. orange juice• 1 oz. spring water• Garnish = black licorice lace (cat tail)• Glassware = Martini GlassShake all ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker and strain into a Martini glass. Add the black Licorice lace. Garnish option = cut a black licorice into a "cats eye"

ABSINTHE martini
• 1.5 oz. ABSINTHE• 2 oz. VodkaShake ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker and strain into a martini glass.
shooters
absinthe minded
This shooter demonstrates the classic method of drinking Absinthe in a modern, less time consuming way. Line up shot glasses, fill halfway with ABSINTHE, shake water and sugar or simple syrup with ice and strain into each glass.Glassware = Shot glass

witch doctor
• 1 part ABSINTHE• 1 part sugared water• 1 part grenadine• 2-3 dashes of Angostura Bitters• Glassware = shot glassIn a shot glass, start with the ABSINTHE then add ice cold water that has been shaken with sugar or simple syrup, this will change the ABSINTHE - now add the grenadine, it will sink to the bottom to form the lower "layer" - next float the dashes of bitters on top to form the top layer.
tall drinks

ABSINTHE and RED BULL®
• 1 1/2 oz. ABSINTHE• Top with Red Bull®• Glassware = Highball glassPour ABSINTHE over ice into the highball. Add Red Bull® to taste.

the mint muse
• 1 1/2 oz. ABSINTHE• 2 oz. Pineapple juice• Muddled mint leaves and lime wedge• Topped with Sprite or 7-Up• Garnish = mint sprigMuddle 6-8 mint leaves with the lime wedge along with the ABSINTHE. Add ice, the 2 oz. of pineapple juice and shake briefly. Top with Sprite or 7-up and add the mint sprig. This name is a play on "The Green Muse"

Classic Style Absinthe Cocktails
Corpse Reviver #2

• 3/4 oz gin• 3/4 oz lemon juice• 3/4 oz Cointreau• 3/4 oz Lillet Blanc• ABSINTHE rinse

Add all of the ingredients except the ABSINTHE into a mixing glass filled with iceShake and strain into a chilled coupe rinsed with ABSINTHEN garnish

Sazerac
• 2 oz rye• 3 dashes Peychaud’s bitters• 2 dashes Angostura bitters• 1/2 oz simple syrup or 1 sugar cube• 1/4 oz of ABSINTHEFill a rocks glass with ice and set asideAdd a sugar cube and the bitters to a mixing glass and crush the cube with a muddlerAdd the Rye and ice and stir to chill and dissolve the sugar (20 seconds)Dump the ice out of the rocks glass and rinse with ABSINTHE, discard excessPour the contents of the mixing glass into the ABSINTHE rinsed rocks glassTwist a lemon peel over the surface of the drink and rub around the rimDiscard lemon twist

Chrysanthemum
• 2 oz Noilly Prat Dry Vermouth• 1/4 oz Benedictine• 3 Dashes of ABSINTHEAdd all of the ingredients to a mixing glass filled with iceStir and strain into a chilled coupeGarnish with a twist of orange

'75 Cocktail
• 1 teaspoon of Grenadine• 2 Dashes of ABSINTHE• 2 oz Calvados• 1 oz GinAdd all of the ingredients to a mixing glass filled with iceShake and strain into a chilled coupeNo Garnish
Earnest Hemingway's Death In The Afternoon Cocktail
Pour 1 oz of ABSINTHE into a champange coupe or flute"Add iced Champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness."

Absinthe Cocktail
Van Gogh Cocktail
• 2 1/4 oz. gin• 3/4 ounce ABSINTHE• 1/4 oz. black currant syrupShake with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Death Over Canal
• 1 oz. Red Hook Rye• 1/2 oz. ABSINTHE• 2 dashes Don’s szechuan bitters• Brut ChampagneStir rye, absinthe, and bitters over cracked ice. Strain into chilled flute. Top with Champagne. Garnish with orange peel.

ΚΙΝΗΜΑΤΟΓΡΑΦΙΚΕΣ ΤΑΙΝΙΕΣ ΜΕ ΑΝΑΦΟΡΕΣ ΣΤΟ ABSINTHE
Van Helsing: Stephen Sommers, 2004
Alfie: Charles Shyer, 2004
EuroTrip: Jeff Schaffer, 2004
Bright Young Things: Stephen Fry, 2003
XXX: Rob Cohen, 2002
Murder by Number: Barbet Schroeder, 2002
Moulin Rouge: Baz Luhrmann, 2001
From Hell: Allen & Albert Hughes, 2001
The Perfect Drug - Nine Inch Nails: Mark Romanek, 1999
Deceiver: Jonas Pate, Joshua Pate, 1998
Wilde: Brian Gilbert, 1997
Bram Stoker's Dracula: Francis Ford Coppola, 1992
Sleepy Hollow: Tim Burton, 1999
Total Eclipse: Agnieszka Holland, 1995
Pretty Baby: Louis Malle, 1978

Δικτυακό μουσείο για το Absinthe
ιστοτόπος αφιερωμένος Absinthe
ιστότοπος με πολλές φωτογραφίες για το Absinthe
ΑΠΟ ΜΗΧΑΝΗΣ ΘΕΟΣ ιστολόγιο με πολύ καλό post για το Absinthe

Το Absinthe στο λαικό μας τραγούδι

"Φτιάξε εύθυμο φαρμάκι για το γλέντι,

με μισή μεζούρα τζιν και λίγο αψέντι"
Δημήτρης Μητροπάνος

"Αψέντι το φιλί

χαράζει σα γυαλίστα χείλη σου η Ανατολή.

Εικόνες ζωντανέςτου πόθου οι φωνές

όταν με καις

όταν με καις"...

(στίχοι: Κώστας Μπαλαχούτης - "Αψέντι το φιλί")

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

σερ Αρθουρ Κλαρκ ενας εφηβος 90 ετων!

2007-12-10T16:13:00.000+02:00

Η ΣΕΛΙΔΑ ΓΙΑ ΤΑ 90 ΤΟΥ ΓΕΝΕΘΛΙΑ

ο σερ Αρθουρ Κλαρκ κλεινει τα εννενητα!!!
πειτε του χρονια πολλα, μεσω της ΤΜΤ στη μακρινη Κινα

ΒΙΟΓΡΑΦΙΑ ΚΑΙ ΑΛΛΕΣ ΧΡΗΣΙΜΕΣ ΠΛΗΡΟΦΟΡΙΕΣ

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

ενα πολυ ενδιαφερον αρθρο, αναφορικα με τις ουσιες

2007-12-09T22:34:00.000+02:00

f.a.q. on cannabis and other joints

Could we live happily ever after? Perhaps.

One's interest in the genetically pre-programmed states of sublimity sketched in The Hedonistic Imperative is tempered by the knowledge that one is unlikely to be around to enjoy them. It's all very well being told our descendants will experience every moment of their lives as a magical epiphany. For emotional primitives and our loved ones at present, most of life's moments bring nothing of the sort.

In centuries to come, our baseline of emotional well-being may indeed surpass anything today's legacy wetware can even contemplate. Right now, however, a future Post-Darwinian Era of paradise-engineering can seem an awfully long way off. Mainstream society today has a desperately underdeveloped conception of mental health.

There's clearly a strong causal link between the raw biological capacity to experience happiness and the extent to which one's life is felt to be worthwhile. High-minded philosophy treatises should complicate but not confuse the primacy of the pleasure-pain axis. So one very practical method of life-enrichment consists in chemically engineering happier brains for all in the here-and-now. Yet how can this best be done?

Any strategy which doesn't subvert our inbuilt hedonic treadmill of inhibitory feedback mechanisms in the CNS will fail. Political and socio-economic reforms offer at best a lame stopgap. To the scientific naturalist, all routes to happiness must ultimately be biological: "culture" must be neurochemically encoded to exert its effects. Some of these routes to happiness involve the traditional environmental detours. They are too technical, diverse and futile to tackle here. If the quality of our lives is to be significantly enhanced in the long term, then the genetically predisposed set-point of our emotional thermostats needs to be recalibrated. The malaise-ridden norm typically adaptive in humanity's ancestral environment must be scrapped. So while we wait for germ-line gene-therapy to become standard, it's worth considering instead how ordinary early 21st Century Homo sapiens can sustainably maximise emotional well-being with only present-day pharmacology to rely on. No less importantly, how is it possible to combine staying continuously high with retaining one's sense of social and ethical responsibility to other people and life-forms?

Extracting reliable information on this topic is extraordinarily difficult for laity and professionals alike. The layman is more likely to be given heavily slanted propaganda. Unvarnished fact might confuse his supposedly uneducated and functionally diminutive brain. Career-scientists, on the other hand, are bedevilled by a different problem. Access to funds, laboratories, raw materials, journal publication, professional preferment, and licenses to conduct experimental trials is all dependent on researchers delivering results their paymasters want to hear. The disincentives to intellectual integrity could scarcely be greater; and they are cloaked in such reputable disguise.By way of illustration, it's worth contemplating one far-fetched scenario. How might an everlasting-happiness drug - a drug which (implausibly!) left someone who tried it once living happily-ever-after - find itself described in the literature?

"Substance x induces severe, irreversible structural damage to neurotransmitter subsystem y. Its sequelae include mood-congruent cognitive delusions, treatment-resistant euphoria, and toxic affective psychosis.

"Eeek! Needless to say, no responsible adult would mess around with a potent neurotoxin under this description.Several excellent researchers play the game by the rules. They keep their heterodox opinions to themselves. Others find such cognitive dissonance too unpleasant. So they gradually internalise the puritanical role and tendency to warped scientific prose expected of them. [Whereas horribly-tortured experimental animals, for instance, blandly get "used" and "sacrificed", certain drugs always get "abused" by "drug-abusers"] On the other hand, some of the most original and productive minds in the field of psychopharmacology - pre-eminently Alexander Shulgin - have already been silenced. Many more careers have been intellectually strangled at birth or consigned to professional oblivion. The danger of poisoning the wells of information, for whatever motives, is straightforward. When young people discover they have been lied to or deceived, over cannabis for instance, they will pardonably assume that they have been lied to or deceived over the dangers of other illegals too. And this, to put it mildly, would be exceedingly rash.Most recently, the Internet daily delivers up an uncontrollable flood-tide of fresh ideas to counter official misinformation. Unfortunately, a lot of it isn't much more objective in content or style than the professional journals it complements.

Devising one's own system of filtering and quality-control to drown out the noise is a challenging task for anybody.antidepressants" can themselves act as "physical" painkillers. Conversely, mu-opioid receptor agonists offer both unsurpassed pain-relief and extraordinary emotional well-being; and delta-opioid agonists and enkephalinase inhibitors can function as antidepressants. There is clearly an intimate link between "physical" and "emotional" pain. In defiance of dualist metaphysics, the opioids tend to be best at banishing both.Contemporary medical orthodoxy classifies drug-induced bliss as an "adverse side-effect" of analgesics - even in the terminally ill. Yet we could all do with having our native endorphin systems enriched. Next century and beyond, the customised site-selective successors to today's opioid drugs will play a critical role in promoting emotional superhealth.Unfortunately, present-day opioids are flawed. Taken at fixed dosage, they lose some of their euphoriant and analgesic effect as tolerance sets in; opioid drugs are physiologically addictive. Overdoses can cause respiratory depression; by contrast, physical pain is a potent respiratory stimulant. When taken recreationally, opioids inspire a dreamily contented disengagement from the problems of the world. Their use diminishes our drive to constructive activity as consumers in today's competitive global marketplace. More insidiously, excess consumption of narcotics inhibits the release of endogenous opioids normally induced by social interaction with friends and family. By diminishing the craving for human companionship, the addict substitutes one form of opioid addiction for another. Thus junkies are usually "selfish".

The physical risks of opioid use shouldn't be exaggerated. Most of the problems that users suffer ultimately derive less from their choice of drug itself than from the illegal status of narcotics in prohibitionist society. Yet even if opioid drugs were legal and given away in cereal packets, such drugs wouldn't make a good choice of mood-booster - or at least not in their present, crudely non-specific guise. Kappa-agonists, for instance, impair dopamine function. They have dysphoric and psychotomimetic effects: one might as well drink ethyl alcohol spiced with meths. The paradise-engineers of posterity will surely weed out such adulterants from their elixirs altogether.By contrast to today's opioids, marijuana isn't usually addictive in the traditional sense of the term. It can still be habit-forming. Marijuana has euphoriant, psychedelic and sedative properties. Experiments with stoned rats suggest the drug reduces the amount of corticotrophin-releasing factor (CRF) in the amygdala. Excess secretion of CRF is associated with abnormalities in the HPLA axis and depression. The rebound surge of CRF on ceasing cannabis-use correlates with increased vulnerability to stress and a withdrawal-reaction, arguably one good reason not to stop in the first instance. A dysfunctional response to stress, linked to a chronically overactive HPLA axis, causes anxiety disorders and depression; CRH-type 1 receptor antagonists like antalarmin are being investigated as potential anxiolytics and antidepressants. The deeper roots of our malaise lie buried in the evolutionary past.The primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana is THC, tetrahydrocannabinol. Smoking or eating marijuana and its complex cocktail of compounds may rarely trigger episodes of depersonalisation, derealisation and psychosis. Sometimes it can induce paranoia, particularly in advocates of The War Against Drugs. More commonly, marijuana just leaves the user pleasantly and harmlessly stoned. It's fun. Sleepiness, pain relief and euphoria are typical responses. Indeed the first brain-derived substance found to bind to our cannabis receptors was christened "anandamide", a derivative of the Sanskrit word for internal contentment. Getting high may thus serve as an innocent recreational pastime in an uncaring world.Yet marijuana is not a wonderdrug. Cognitive function in the user is often impaired, albeit moderately and reversibly. Marijuana interferes with memory-formation by disrupting long-term potentiation in the hippocampus. One of the functions of endogenous cannabinoids in the brain is to promote selective short-term amnesia. Forgetting is not, as one might have supposed, a purely passive process. Either way, choosing deliberately to ingest an amnestic agent for long periods is scarcely an ideal life-strategy. It's especially flawed given the centrality of memory to human self-identity. Some artists and professional bohemians, it is true, apparently do find smoking grass an adjunct to creative thought. For persons of a more philistine temperament, on the other hand, it's hard to see such a drug as a major tool for life-affirmation or the development of the human species. This shortcoming does not, one ought scarcely need to add, suggest marijuana users should be persecuted and criminalised.

The disparate drugs we label “psychedelics” - lysergamides like LSD-25, tryptamines like DMT and psilocybin, and phenethylamines such as mescaline - are sometimes exhilarating. At best, they are life-transforming and soul-enriching. They can certainly be mind-wrenching. Taking major psychedelics can generate experiences too outlandish for our normal conceptual framework to accommodate. We haven't even names for the strange new modes of perception, selfhood and introspection their biochemical pathways disclose.Unfortunately, one can’t look after the kids, fill in one’s tax forms or carry out one’s social responsibilities while tripping on LSD. Psychedelics are typically too bizarre, exotic and ineffable in their effects to integrate into the rest of one’s life. By trapping most of us in "ordinary" waking consciousness, selfish DNA stumbled on a cunning trick to help its vehicles leave more copies of itself. Worse, the psychedelics aren't primarily euphoriants. They don’t directly stimulate the pleasure-centres and guarantee the user a good trip. Both the serotonin- and catecholamine-like families trigger psychedelia mainly via their role as partial agonists of the 5-HT2A receptors in the central nervous system; 5-HT2 heteroreceptors exert a tonic inhibitory effect on the striatal dopaminergic neurons. Such agents aren’t a dependable choice of clinical or recreational mood-brightener, whether in the short- or long-term. Depressives, neurotics and other troubled souls in search of enlightenment are most likely to undergo nightmarish freak-outs. Psychotic derealisation isn't illuminating - or fun. The drug-naïve mind can’t make an informed choice of whether to explore radically altered states. For aspiring psychonauts can’t know, in advance, the true nature of what they may be choosing - or missing.Ultimately, when our well-being is genetically hardwired and invincible, psychedelia can be safely explored. The study of consciousness can become an experimental discipline. The synthesis of tomorrow’s designer-psychedelics may unleash a revolution without precedent. Until then, psychedelic drugs are too unpredictable - and our dark, darwinian minds are too poisoned - responsibly to promote their use.

Apparently by contrast, the empathogen "hug-drug" Ecstasy (methylene-dioxymethamphetamine; MDMA) offers a wonderfully warm, sensuous, loving, and empathetic peak experience to the first-time user - "a brief fleeting moment of sanity" [Dr Claudio Naranjo].

MDMA enhances the release of serotonin and dopamine at the synaptic terminals; it also inhibits their reuptake. In consequence, distrust, suspicion and jealousy evaporate. They are replaced by a serene sense of universal love. The sensorium remains clear. Emotion is intensified. Much recreational drug-use tends to be self-centred. It is often branded as selfish. Yet here is a "penicillin of the soul" which promises to subvert our DNA-driven tendency to self-aggrandisement.Disappointingly, whether due to enzyme-induction or other causes not fully understood, most users never fully recapture the magic of their first few trips. Moreover ecstasy is neurotoxic to serotonergic axons. It may even be harmful at sub-therapeutic doses. As the uncertain process of neural recovery sets in, heavy users in particular may experience the subtle long-drawn-out reversal of all the good effects they initially enjoyed from the drug. Taking a post-trip selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI) such as fluoxetine (Prozac) 2-6 hours afterward is prophylactic against the measurable post-E serotonin dip otherwise experienced some 48 hours later. Yet taking SSRIs on a regular basis largely nullifies the already attenuated benefits of prolonged Ecstasy use. In any case, the duration of the peak E experience is a mere 90 minutes. So taking ecstasy scarcely amounts to a full-scale strategy for life either. It does, on the other hand, deliver an exquisite foretaste of the beautiful forms of consciousness that ultimately await us.

Another tantalising and deliciously sensuous hint of the sublime is offered - infrequently and unpredictably - by gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB). GHB usually takes the form of a clear, odourless, slightly salty-tasting liquid. It's also an endogenous precursor and metabolite of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA. GHB is non-toxic; but it mustn't be mixed with alcohol or other depressants.

It's metabolised quickly to carbon dioxide and water. GHB's steep dose-response curve means naïve users run the severe risk of falling asleep. When used lightly in recreational rather than stuporific or anaesthetic doses, GHB is a touchy-feely compound which typically induces deep muscular relaxation, a sense of serenity, and feelings of emotional warmth. Often it enhances emotional openness and the desire to socialise. Tactile sensitivity and the appreciation of music are enriched. Most remarkably, the moderate user may awake refreshed after a deep restful sleep: GHB appears temporarily to inhibit dopamine-release while increasing storage, leading to the brightened mood and sharpened mental focus of a subsequent "dopamine-rebound". GHB acts both as a disinhibitor and an aphrodisiac. The intensity of orgasm is heightened. Hence GHB is potentially useful in relieving the psychopathologies of prudery and sexual repression. Unfortunately, its therapeutic value has been eclipsed by its demonization in the mass-media. Stories of chaste virgins turning into sex-crazed nymphomaniacs make great copy and poor scientific medicine. Moreover GHB is sometimes confused with the amnestic "date-rape" benzodiazepine, flunitrazepam - better-known as the potent and fast-acting sedative-hypnotic "forget pill", Rohypnol. Bought on the street, GHB may be confused with all sorts of other substances too.Yet even pure GHB is no magic elixir. Not everyone likes it. GHB's psychological effects are unpredictable and poorly understood. Nausea, dizziness, inco-ordination are common; reaction-time is slowed. GHB does not usually promote great depth of thought. Its very status as "an almost ideal sleep inducing-substance" makes it of limited use to those who aspire instead to be more intensely awake. The lack of any discernible body-count to fuel the periodic moral panics its use induces may allow a partial rehabilitation. Yet GHB evokes - at best - only a faint, fleeting parody of the life-long chemical nirvana on offer to our transhuman successors.

Ethyl alcohol - the traditional date-rape drug of choice - and, most insidiously of all, cigarettes are the really sinister mass-killers. Their total human death-toll to date is around 100 million and climbing. With that poker-faced Alice-In-Wonderland logic popular amongst the world's sleazier governments, not merely do the authorities preserve the legal status of cigarette sales here in the UK on grounds of upholding personal liberty. The slickly expensive marketing and glamorisation of tobacco products to potential victims is sanctioned on similar grounds too. We ought to be as shocked at tobacco promotion as we'd certainly feel if instead the billboards urged kids to try heroin because it's cool. Yet familiarity breeds moral apathy. Youngsters are typically hooked before they are in any position to make an informed choice of their preferred poison - or even to abstain altogether. Meanwhile a state-supported export drive targets the poor in vulnerable Third World countries. With a cynicism that almost beggars belief, one celebrated British ex-Prime Minister accepted a million-dollar bribe from a leading member of the drug-cartels for her services. Her party's Home Secretary then delivered himself of blood-curdling calls for a crack-down on evil drug-pushers(!). He went on to increase the draconian penalties already available for personal users of cannabis.So long as our governments collude with the organised drug cartels to share out the billions of dollars of tax revenues mulcted from nicotine-addicts - thereby keeping direct taxes visibly down and themselves visibly in office - there seems little hope of a more intelligent approach to psychoactive drugs as a whole.

stone-age" diet rich in organic nuts, seeds, fruit and vegetables, and drastically reducing one's consumption of saturated fat (red meat, fried foods), sugar (sweets etc) and hydrogenated oils (found in margarine and refined vegetable oils), then one's baseline of well-being - or at least relative ill-being - can be sustainably lifted. There is mounting evidence too that an omega-3 fatty acid-rich diet is protective against depression and other psychiatric disorders. Visitors to HedWeb probably don't expect to be assailed by sermons on the benefits of exercise any more than food-faddism. Yet regular and moderately vigorous physical exertion releases endogenous opioids, enhances serotonin function, stimulates nerve growth factors, and leads to a livelier, better-oxygenated brain.Alas, clean living and wholesome thoughts typically aren't enough. We need stronger medicine to flourish. At first glance, however, the standard, State-rationed chemicals aren't a brilliant bunch.The so-called minor tranquillisers, benzodiazepines such as diazepam (Valium), chlordiazepoxide (Librium), alprazolam (Xanax), lorazepam (Ativan), clonazepam (Klonopin) and the shorter-acting sedative-hypnotic temazepam (Restoril), are useful but still dreadfully crude anti-anxiety agents. They act primarily on the GABA (gamma aminobutyric acid) receptor complex. GABA functions as the main inhibitory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system. The progress of molecular biology and neurogenetics in unravelling the fiendish complexity of GABA's receptor sub-types should eventually allow more targeted compounds to be developed. Ideally, these more selective and site-specific drugs will lack the sedative, amnestic and hypnotic properties of today's brands. Activation of GABA(A) receptors containing the alpha 1 subunit is responsible for benzodiazepine-induced sedation and memory deficits. It is hoped that newly-synthesised agonists selective for the alpha 2 GABA(A) receptor subtype may finally deliver a non-sedating antianxiety drug. Merck's investigational L838,417 is one such candidate. Human trials are eagerly awaited.

In the meantime, currently licensed benzodiazepines tend to induce dependence, impair memory and psychomotor peformance, dull consciousness and cloud the intellect. So there's not much chance of radical life-enrichment here, for now at least.Buspirone (Buspar) might seem more promising. It acts to desensitise the inhibitory autoreceptor 5-HT1A subtype of serotonin receptor. It thereby promotes serotonin release. This means that buspirone has mood-brightening properties too. Thus it is useful in anxious depressive states. Buspirone lacks the intellect-clouding effects of other clinical and alcoholic anti-anxiety agents. Yet its weak and equivocal effects on sub-types of dopamine function, while useful for the purposes of commercially touting its lack of "abuse-potential", mean it isn't very exciting or popular. Unlike the benzodiazepines, it's not fast-acting. Researchers hope that newer 5-HT1A agonists in the pipeline such as gepirone (Ariza) will be more effective. Alas any therapeutic gain is likely to be modest.The ill-assorted drugs we today call antidepressants fall into several categories. Their delayed-onset mood-brightening effect is correlated with alterations in the concentration of catecholamines and/or serotonin in the central nervous system, long-term receptor re-regulation, activation of specific transcription factors regulating gene expression, and new nerve-cell growth in the hippocampus.The tricyclics, prototypically imipramine (Tofranil), and their allies are relatives of the neuroleptic drug chlorpromazine. Chlorpromazine is also known as Largactil, the notorious "chemical cosh".

Tricyclics block to varying degrees the reuptake of serotonin and noradrenaline into the nerve cell terminals from where they are released. The consequent changes in pre- and post-synaptic receptor sensitivity lighten the spirits of 60-70% of the depressives who take them. Perhaps unsurprisingly given their parentage, the tricyclics are all dirty drugs, though some are dirtier than others. Their anti-cholinergic effects harm memory, concentration and intellectual performance. Their anti-histamine action induces drowsiness and sedation. Their adverse effect on cardiac function makes them dangerous in overdose. Most "euthymic" volunteers on whom they have been tested don't like their dulling effects of consciousness. Unlike chlorpromazine, the tricyclic antidepressants don't noticeably block the dopamine receptors. But with one notable exception, they do precious little to stimulate dopamine function either. Hence they're not much fun even for the severely depressed people who can benefit from taking them. For three decades they were the mainstay of the treatment of clinically-acknowledged depression. They contributed to the widely-held medical opinion that anything classed as an antidepressant won't help "normal" people; unless of course they were "really" depressed. Basically, tricyclics are cheap, nasty and best avoided.Much better, but still in some ways deeply flawed, are the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors [SSRIs]. Serotonin, "the civilising neurotransmitter", plays a vital role in mood, memory, appetite, sleep, pain perception and sexual desire.Fluoxetine (Prozac), fluvoxamine (Luvox, Faverin), paroxetine (Paxil, Seroxat), sertraline (Zoloft, Lustral), and citalopram (Cipramil, Celexa) are currently licensed and marketed. More of their tweaked and enhanced relatives are on the way from pharmaceutical companies eager for a lucrative piece of the action. In a triumph of marketing hype and creative use of patent law if not clinical need, citalopram's S-enantiomer was FDA-licensed in 2002 as "Lexapro". The SSRIs all differ in their half-lives, chemical structure and precise specificities. Their functional effects are broadly similar, though Prozac is the most activating, longest-lasting, least selective and most likely to provoke dose-related akathisia; paroxetine has anticholinergic and sedating antihistaminergic effects; fluvoxamine most commonly induces nausea and has the shortest half-life; and citalopram is the most serotonin selective. The mood-brightening, resilience-enhancing and anti-anxiety properties of the SSRIs really can make a (very) modest percentage of the population feel "better than well". As a class, SSRIs (mostly) don't have the physically unpleasant and cognitively debilitating anticholinergic effects of the tricyclics. SSRIs don't demand the dietary restrictions of the MAOIs. Their dependence potential and withdrawal reaction is usually milder than the opioids. A much larger section of the community - folk who daily knock back huge quantities of ethyl alcohol in the socially accepted fashion - could surely gain from the durably enhanced serotonin function that SSRIs can yield. Such a switch would necessitate a big change in marketing strategy.

The (sometimes) beneficent properties of the SSRIs are celebrated in Peter Kramer's contemporary classic Listening to Prozac. Kramer has written a remarkably honest book. It's a discursive memoir by a therapist who is forced to admit that many of his clients seemed rapidly to fare far better on a pill than on his industrial-strength regimen of caring talk-therapy. Kramer's discussion of "cosmetic psychopharmacology" and "designer personalities", however, enraged traditionalists. For chemical Calvinist orthodoxy finds the notion that people should have a right to choose pharmacologically who and what they want to be profoundly offensive.

Two common problems limit the usefulness of SSRIs, at least when taken on their own. The problems stem from the indirect inhibitory effect of Prozac-style drugs on dopamine function, a consequence of deliberate selective targeting of the serotonin system.First, SSRIs can compromise libido and sexual performance. This isn't always a disadvantage in over-excitable young males. It can still be a very distressing phenomenon for older people too embarrassed to talk about it. Technical performance difficulties can sometimes be counteracted by taking the blood vessel dilators apomorphine or phentolamine; the alpha2-adrenergic antagonist yohimbine; a phosphodiesterase type-5 inhibitor like sildenafil (better known as the sexual rocket-fuel Viagra), long-acting tadalafil (Cialis) or newly licensed vardenafil (Levitra); or a dopamine agonist, licit or otherwise, before bedtime action. Investigational drugs that heighten female sexual arousal (e.g. melanocortin agonists like PT-141) are another option. Yet this is scarcely an ideal solution. One of the major signs of depression is loss of interest in sex and reduced libido. So it's questionable whether the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry should continue to promote serotonergic "antidepressants" that are anti-sexual; and collude to suppress antidepressants that are pro-sexual.

Second, though some subjects may feel mildly euphoric, in other users the SSRIs serve more as mood-stabilisers and -flatteners in their lives. By increasing the user's emotional self-sufficiency, too, SSRIs may subtly change the "balance of power" in personal relationships - for good or ill. In some cases, SSRIs may even act as thymoanaesthetisers which diminish the intensity of felt emotion; by contrast, a mood-brightening serotonin reuptake-enhancer like tianeptine may intensify emotion instead. Affective flattening may be welcome to someone in the pit of unmitigated clinical depression. It is scarcely a life-enriching property for "normal" people who lack any convenient diagnostic category which acknowledges their malaise.

THE DOPAMINE CONNECTIONWhat's missing, crucially, is vigorous and prolonged stimulation of meso(cortico-)limbic dopamine function.This is really much more fun than it sounds. The currently available experimental evidence has persuaded many - but not all - investigators that the mesolimbic dopamine system serves as the final common pathway for pleasure in the brain. Enhanced responsiveness of post-synaptic dopamine D2/D3 receptors is crucial to long-term emotional well-being. Insofar as they work, all "serotonergic" and "noradrenergic" mood-brighteners eventually act on the mesolimbic dopamine pathway, albeit in differing degrees and with varying delay. New anti-Parkinsonian agents, notably pramipexole (Mirapex), ropinirole (Requip), and cabergoline (Dostinex) owe their potential role as fast-acting pro-sexual antidepressants to their dopaminergic action. Likewise, the possible mood-brightening effect of low doses of the dopamine receptor antagonist amisulpride (Solian), more commonly considered an antipsychotic agent, is explicable because amisulpride preferentially blocks the presynaptic dopamine D2/D3 autoreceptors; dopaminergic transmission is thereby enhanced.

The full story is inevitably complex. Dopamine agonists and reuptake inhibitors are often inadequate long-term mood-brighteners by themselves. The mesolimbic dopamine system mediates reward-signalling, incentive salience and a sense of urgency and significance, not the essence of pure bliss. Dopamine isn't itself the magic pleasure-chemical, though its functional role in conjunction with glutamate and mu opioid agonists in regulating medium spiny neurons of the rostral shell of the nucleus accumbens is crucial. Researchers into affective disorders readily get over-attached to one particular neurotransmitter system, its receptor sub-types and their signal-transduction cascades. Traditionally, serotonin and noradrenaline have attracted the fiercest rival partisans. "Dopaminergic" (and opioid) agents, by contrast, are suspect. They are politically incorrect since they are potentially "abusable". Moreover it can be argued that the research and development of safe and sustainable E-like empathogens and socialbilizers is as morally urgent as the license of safe and sustainable euphoriants. At any rate, enhanced mesolimbic dopamine release, exclusively or otherwise, enriches the intensity of experience; increases pleasure and libido, and potentially boosts cognitive performance. Even better, whereas some dopaminergics are potentially toxic, some dopamine-enhancing agents may have neuroprotective properties as well.So what are the other contemporary options for chemical life-enhancement?

METHYLPHENIDATE; MINAPRINE; NOMIFENSINE A SSRI can be combined ("augmented" sounds more soothing to the official medical ear) with a dopaminergic such as methylphenidate. As Ritalin, methylphenidate is prolifically dispensed to American schoolchildren for different purposes altogether. In spite of its structural relationship to amphetamine, methylphenidate resembles in many ways a benign version of cocaine, yet with a much longer half-life. It blocks the reuptake, but doesn't significantly release, the catecholamines noradrenaline and dopamine. If it is taken in sustained-release form or combined with an SSRI, all of which have anti-obsessive-compulsive properties too, then the likelihood of dose-escalation is minimised.Chewing coca leaves with a dash of powdered lime is a nutritious and energising way to sustain healthy mood. Unfortunately, it is not very good for one's teeth.A more cautious but still interesting option might be minaprine (Cantor). Minaprine blocks the reuptake of both dopamine and serotonin. It is also in some degree cholinomimetic. Thus it may exhibit both mood-brightening and nootropic properties. Much more research is needed.Merital (nomifensine) showed great promise as a pleasantly stimulating dopaminergic that also potently inhibits the reuptake of noradrenaline and - to a much lesser extent - serotonin. It was marketed by its manufacturers Hoechst with the slogan "vive la difference!" Merital was withdrawn from licensed use after the discovery of its rare side-effect of precipitating a serious blood-disorder. For retarded melancholics, however, it was typically a very effective and well-tolerated mood-brightener with minimal side-effects. The risk/reward ratio of its carefully-monitored use may have been misjudged.

BUPROPION; AMINEPTINEBupropion (Wellbutrin) is possibly less effective than nomifensine. Yet it's useful because it lacks the adverse effects on sexual function characteristic of the SSRIs. In some subjects - particularly women - libido, arousal, and the intensity and duration of orgasm may actually increase. Bupropion mildly blocks the reuptake, but diminishes the release, of dopamine. This may account for reports of its diminished propensity to induce mania in the genetically susceptible. Its active metabolites block the reuptake of noradrenaline. Marketed as Zyban, bupropion is good for giving up smoking. Scandalously, bupropion isn't licensed and marketed as an antidepressant in Europe - though doctors may prescribe Zyban to non-smoking depressives "off-label".Amineptine (Survector) is a clean-ish, (relatively) selective dopamine reuptake blocker. Higher doses promote dopamine release too. Amineptine is pro-sexual and liable occasionally to cause spontaneous orgasms. It is a mild but pleasant psychostimulant and a fast-acting mood-brightener. Unlike other tricyclics, it doesn't impair libido or cognitive function. Unlike typical stimulants and other activating agents, it may actually improve sleep architecture. Scandalously, amineptine isn't licensed and marketed in Britain and America. For it is feared it might have "abuse-potential". FDA pressure recently led to its withdrawal in Europe too. This drove it onto the pharmaceutical grey market, discomfiting doctors and patients alike.

REBOXETINE; ADRAFINIL; MODAFINIL Reboxetine (Edronax) is a well-tolerated, highly selective "noradrenergic" agent. Crudely, whereas serotonin plays a vital role in mood, noradrenaline is essential to maintaining drive, vigilance and the capacity for reward. There's a fair bit of evidence that chronically depressive people have dysfunctional and atypical noradrenergic systems - particularly their alpha2- and beta-adrenoceptors. Reboxetine itself typically doesn't have the disruptive effects on cognitive function or psychomotor performance common to older clinical mood-brighteners - though alas antimuscarinic effects are still not completely absent. The new NorAdrenaline Reuptake Inhibitors (NARIs) - and dopaminergics like amineptine (Survector) - may be especially useful in drive-deficient "anergic" states where the capacity for sustained motivation is lacking; and for melancholic depressives with a poor ability to cope with stress. Reboxetine may be safely combined with an SSRI, though there is evidence that NARIs themselves indirectly enhance central serotonin function by a mechanism that doesn't depend on reuptake inhibition. More surprisingly perhaps, preliminary studies suggest reboxetine can actually reverse tranylcypromine-induced hypertensive crises. The "cheese effect" is triggered by ingesting tyramine-rich foods. Thus NARIs plus MAOIs may prove a potent form of combination-therapy if first options fail.Depressive hypersomniacs who fare poorly on SSRIs, or can't get hold of amineptine or EC-licensed reboxetine, might consider trying a so-called eugeroic ("good arousal") agent instead. Alpha1-adrenergic agonists like adrafinil (Olmifon) and modafinil (Provigil) are centrally-acting psychostimulants that can brighten mood and sharpen mental focus. They stimulate the noradrenergic post-synaptic receptors, increase glutamatergic transmission, and activate the wakefulness-promoting orexinergic neurons, thereby boosting alertness, memory and energy. At sensible dosages, they are remarkably free of side-effects. However, the approval process in the USA is so slow, costly and bureaucratic, and the marketing hurdles typically so formidable, that foreign companies are often deterred from seeking FDA acceptance. [modafinil was licensed by the FDA as Provigil for the treatment of narcolepsy in Dec 1998; and in September 2003, an advisory panel to the FDA endorsed its use for treating shift work sleep disorder and sleep apnea] So elderly people continue to suffer the prescription of mildly dementing anticholinergics like the dumb-drug tricylcic imipramine. Adrafinil, by contrast, is at least as successful as hepatotoxic Anglo-Saxon products at treating the cognitive and memory impairments of incipient senility. Fortunately, a "French" drug like adrafinil can now be ordered over the Net; but it ought to be available at the local corner-store. It has the commercial disadvantage of being cheap.

MIRTAZAPINE; NEFAZODONE; VENLAFAXINE; DULOXETINE; ROLIPRAM NARIs are normally activating. Anxious and depressive insomniacs, on the other hand, may benefit more from "dual-action" mirtazapine or nefazodone.Mirtazapine (Remeron) is a structural analogue of the off-patent mianserin (Bolvidon). It is a comparatively new drug - a so-called NaSSA. By blocking the inhibitory presynaptic alpha2 adrenergic autoreceptors and stimulating only the 5-HT1A receptors, mirtazapine enhances noradrenaline and serotonin release while also blocking two specific (5-HT2 and 5-HT3) serotonin receptors implicated in dark moods and anxiety. By contrast, stimulation of the 5-HT2A receptors accounts for the initial anxiety, insomnia and sexual dysfunction sometimes reported with the SSRIs; stimulation of the 5-HT3 receptors causes nausea. Unfortunately, mirtazapine is a potent blocker of the histamine H1 receptors too. So it tends to have a somewhat sedative effect. This profile may be good for agitated depressives and insomniacs. Again, it is scarcely a recipe for life-affirmation.Nefazodone (Serzone) is another newish, "dual action", mainly serotonergic agent. It inhibits the reuptake of serotonin while displaying post-synaptic 5-HT2A-receptor antagonism. This may be useful for anxious depressives; but again, it may cause feelings of weakness, drowsiness and lack of energy. Nefazodone is less likely to cause priapism than its older cousin trazodone (Desyrel). It is less likely to cause sexual dysfunction than the SSRIs. But nefazodone can also be toxic to the liver, albeit rarely. It may soon be withdrawn.Venlafaxine (Effexor) is a phenethylamine. Thus it's a benign if distant chemical cousin of MDMA. Its manufacturers launched it as "Prozac with a punch". Venlafaxine inhibits the neuronal reuptake of serotonin, noradrenaline and dopamine in descending order of potency. If dopaminergically augmented, it offers another opening for creative psychopharmacology. Such augmenation-therapy remains (almost) clinically unexplored. Taken on its own at low dosage, venlafaxine acts primarily as a serotonin re-uptake inhibitor. At the high-level dosages most suitable for melancholic and hypersomnic temperaments, its noradrenergic (and weakly dopaminergic) action becomes more pronounced. Venlafaxine lacks anticholinergic activity; but some users are troubled by its antihistamine side-effects. Like the SSRIs, it is useful for a broad spectrum of disorders beyond clinical depression.It is possible that duloxetine (Cymbalta), due to be FDA-licensed in 2004, and milnacipran (Ixel), available in Europe, may be more effective than venlafaxine for a segment of the population that can benefit from dual serotonin-noradrenaline reuptake inhibition. Pain-ridden and melancholic depressives in particular may respond well to this class of drug. Once again, dopaminergic augmentation may be beneficial for the naturally lethargic. Unlike venlafaxine, duloxetine exerts its more balanced serotonin and noradrenaline reuptake inhibition throughout the dosage range. Duloxetine also weakly inhibits the reuptake of dopamine, and shows minimal affinity for the histamine and cholinergic muscarinic receptors. But it takes time to separate genuine therapeutic advance from drug company hype, typically not until the patent expires.Phosphodiesterase-inhibitors, both selective (e.g. the PDE type 4 inhibitor rolipram) and unselective, are another under-used option. The next few decades will take us much closer to the downstream intra-cellular action. For it is here that our minds will ultimately be healed, genetically or otherwise.

HYPERICUM Hypericum is important for a different reason altogether. Many constitutionally unhappy people refuse to have anything to do with orthodox western medicine. They won't take "unnatural" pharmaceutical products at all. In consequence, they spend much of their lives trapped in a squalid psychochemical ghetto of chronic low spirits. The only sort of remedy that they'll conceivably contemplate taking must carry a "natural" label and soothingly "herbal" description.Unfortunately, most folk remedies are only marginally effective. Our drug-metabolising enzymes are the product of an evolutionary arms race to counteract plant toxins. For plants tend to manufacture psychotropics because they poison or debilitate creatures tempted to eat them - not to heal our psychic woes. The Wisdom Of Nature is a quaint piece of make-believe. Perversely, several of the natural remedies that sometimes actually work - notably Cannabis sativa, Erythroxylon coca and Papaver somniferum - are now illegal. Other "natural" options are extremely limited. But two worth exploring are SAMe and St John's wort.Hypericum, the active ingredient in St John's wort, appears to be an effective mood-brightener and anxiolytic - by today's standards at least. Its side-effect profile and efficacy in mild-to-moderate depression compares favourably with its synthetic counterparts. Hypericum's blend of serotonin-reuptake inhibiting and (mild) MAO-inhibiting properties (not a combination otherwise to be explored with potent synthetics: the risk of the potentially fatal serotonin syndrome is too great) contributes to - without wholly explaining - its generally benign effects. Once again, much more research is needed, preferably not bankrolled by the makers of lucrative competing products. Faith in the integrity of biological psychiatry would be greater if the strongest predictive factor in the outcome of any published clinical trial wasn't the identity of the funding body.INOSITOL One further remedy, albeit at "unnatural" doses, is worth noting. Inositol levels tend to be low in depressives and high in euphoric people. Taking myo-inositol as a food supplement in doses of 12g and more per day represents perhaps the first successful use of the precursor strategy for a second messenger rather than a neurotransmitter in the search for long-term mood-brightening agents. Inositol and its derivatives serve as messenger molecules within the nervous system. The molecule itself is a naturally occurring isomer of glucose. It is a key intermediate of the phosphatidyl-inositol cycle. This is a second-messenger system used by several noradrenergic, serotonergic and cholinergic receptors. Adult westerners typically consume about one gram of inositol per day in their food. The richest dietary sources are fruits, nuts, beans and grains. The mood-darkening ("stabilising") effect of lithium in manically euphoric people may be explicable in terms of its inositol-depleting effect. Potentially, if taken in high doses, inositol seems to be a good way of lightening the spirits and diminishing anxiety in "euthymic" and depressed people alike. Dosages of even 50g and more reportedly produce no toxic side-effects. This regimen shouldn't be attempted unsupervised by people with a history of bipolar disorder. As usual, much more research is in order. One "problem" is that naturally-occurring compounds - such as inositol and SAMe - can't be patented. So the scope for high profit-margins is diminished. Progress is unlikely to be brisk.

THE MAO INHIBITORS

A further option involves using both some of the oldest and the newest drugs on the block, the monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs). The older irreversible MAOIs certainly shouldn't be combined with SSRIs, and inadvisably with stimulants and many other drugs. Yet both old and new, they do have some very interesting properties. MAOIs may be particularly useful for rejection-sensitive, so-called atypical depressives who have "reversed vegetative symptoms" i.e. overeating and oversleeping.Monoamine oxidase has two main forms, type A and type B. They are coded by separate genes. MAO may be inhibited with agents that act reversibly or irreversibly; and selectively or unselectively; these categories are not absolute. MAO type-A preferentially deaminates serotonin and noradrenaline, and also non-selectively dopamine; type B primarily metabolises dopamine, phenylethylamine (the "chocolate amphetamine") and various trace amines.The substantial mood-elevating properties of the MAOIs were discovered quite by chance in a US veterans hospital early in the 1950s. Many patients given the anti-tuberculotic drug iproniazid were not merely cured of their tuberculosis. They became exceptionally happy as well. The animated enthusiasm for life of a previously crotchety bunch of old soldiers disconcerted their doctors. For it transpired that their new-found euphoria wasn't just an understandable reaction to being cured of physical disease. MAOIs typically have mood-brightening properties as well. At the time, there was no accepted and clinically effective treatment for depression. Fortunately, via the usual circuitous routes, the appropriate lessons were eventually drawn. Many millions of people were successfully treated with MAOIs in consequence.Sadly, the role of MAO in deaminating tyramine (from the Greek word tyros, meaning cheese) wasn't at first understood. Certain MAOI-treated patients suffered hypertensive crises after eating varying amounts of tyramine-rich aged cheese; and several died. It is now recognised that the use of any MAOI which is both irreversible and unselective must be accompanied by dietary restrictions. But the adverse publicity of the initial inexplicable fatalities, combined with the introduction of a succession of dirty but sometimes tolerably effective tricyclic compounds, sent the use and reputation of MAOIs into a precipitous decline from which they still haven't fully recovered.

The older non-selective and (more-or-less) irreversible inhibitors tranylcypromine (Parnate), phenelzine (Nardil) and isocarboxazid (Marplan) are nonetheless valuable drugs. Outside the USA, they tend to have been eclipsed by the selective and reversible moclobemide. Similar therapeutic agents are in the pipeline. Of greater interest still are central-nervous-system-selective compounds, notably the neuroprotective antidepressant and anti-Alzheimer's drug TV3326. MAOIs that lack the peripheral effects of currently explored drugs herald an exciting new window of therapeutic opportunity.SELEGILINE (l-deprenyl)A recent New York study showed that smokers had on average 40% less of the enzyme, monoamine oxidase type-B, in their brains than non-smokers. Levels returned to normal on their giving up smoking. Not merely is the extra dopamine in the synapses rewarding. The level of MAO-b inhibition smokers enjoy apparently contributes to their reduced incidence of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease. Unfortunately they are liable to die horribly and prematurely of other diseases first.One option which the dopamine-craving nicotine addict might wish to explore is switching to the (relatively) selective MAO-b inhibitor selegiline, better known as l-deprenyl. Normally the brain's irreplaceable complement of 30-40 thousand odd dopaminergic cells tends to die off at around 13% per decade in adult life. Their death diminishes the quality and intensity of experience. It also saps what in more ontologically innocent times might have been called one's life-force. Eighty percent loss of dopamine neurons results in Parkinson's disease, often prefigured by depression.

Deprenyl has an anti-oxidant , immune-system-boosting and dopamine-cell-sparing effect. Its use boosts levels of tyrosine hydroxylase, growth hormone, superoxide dismutase and the production of key interleukins. Deprenyl offers protection against DNA damage and oxidative stress by hydroxyl and peroxyl radical trapping; and against excitotoxic damage from glutamate.Whatever the full explanation, deprenyl-driven MAOI-users, unlike cigarette smokers, are likely to be around to enjoy its distinctive benefits for a long time to come, possibly longer than their drug-naïve contemporaries. For in low doses, deprenyl enhances life-expectancy, of rats at least, by 20% and more. It enhances drive, libido and motivation; sharpens cognitive performance both subjectively and on a range of objective tests; serves as a useful adjunct in the palliative treatment of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease; and makes you feel good too. It is used successfully to treat canine cognitive dysfunction syndrome (CDS) in dogs. At dosages of around 10 mg or below daily, deprenyl retains its selectivity for the type-B MAO iso-enzyme. At MAO-B-selective dosages, deprenyl doesn't provoke the "cheese-effect"; tyramine is also broken down by MAO type-A. Deprenyl isn't addictive, which probably reflects its different delivery-mechanism and delayed reward compared to inhaled tobacco smoke. Whether the Government would welcome the billions of pounds of lost revenue and a swollen population of energetic non-taxpayers that a switch in people's MAOI habits might entail is unclear.MOCLOBEMIDEHumans now have the capacity to choose their own individual level of activity or inhibition of the two primary monoamine oxidases. This does not quite enable the fine-tuning of personality variables with the functional equivalent of a graphic equaliser. It still represents a promising start. In MAO-inhibition, as in life, more is not always better. Excessive dosages of l-deprenyl, for instance, may actually shorten, not increase, life expectancy - at least in Parkinsonians if it's combined with l-dopa. And levels of above 80% inhibition of MAO-A may lead to a sharp and possibly unwanted fall in dopamine synthesis. Repairing Nature's niggardliness will be a priority for the decades ahead.Moclobemide (Manerix, Aurorix), the "gentle MAOI", is both a selective and reversible inhibitor of MAO-A.

It marks the first RIMA to win clinical acceptance. It lacks anti-cholinergic side-effects. No dietary restrictions are needed. It is valuable as more than a mood-enhancer and resilience-booster. For moclobemide is often useful in overcoming social phobia, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, irritability and aggression owing to the way it enhances serotonin function. (The casual use of gobbledygook such as "enhanced x function" will rightly alert the reader that many complications are being skirted or omitted. Those hungry for the greater technical detail of a non-popular account can rest assured the literature will leave them feeling abundantly well-nourished).TRANYLCYPROMINEGentleness doesn't suit everyone. Moclobemide isn't much good at lifting deep melancholy. Tranylcypromine (Parnate), on the other hand, is one of the older and non-selective MAOIs - and is often none the worse for it. Structurally related to amphetamine, it's generally the most stimulating, dopaminergic and relatively fast-acting of the MAOIs. Some doctors are uncomfortable with its properties. This isn't just because of the dietary restrictions it demands. In adequate doses, it tends to induce a mild euphoria even in "normal" subjects. In fact, its nicest effects, as for all of the compounds cited here, will vary in nature and extent from person to person. To some extent, optimal dosage and long-term drug-regimen of choice can be discovered only by cautious empirical investigation.
Tranylcypromine is of course vastly preferable to the amphetamines and cocaine. Yet frequently and perversely, the more hazardous the drug, then the easier it is to get hold of in our society. The carcinogenic cocktail that carries off more people than all other toxins combined can be purchased quite legally and effortlessly at any tobacconist or newsagent. Obtaining the less lethal - but scarcely desirable - street opioids and psychostimulants requires a little more exertion. Yet they can still be readily purchased in pubs and clubs in all the big towns and cities. Many of the more beneficent drugs discussed here, on the other hand, are unlicensed, "investigational", or available on a prescription-only basis. They're not illegal to possess. But they are hard to obtain short of visiting countries where they're available over-the-counter or paying high mail-order prices for an uncertain service.If the central principle at stake here were the preservation of a drug-free society, then some sort of totalitarian (or, more euphemistically, paternalistic) argument could be cobbled together for violating personal freedom so oppressively.

Yet that's rarely the issue. For in most cases, the issue effectively amounts, not to drugs or no drugs, but to allowing people the choice to opt for better ones. Perhaps 80% of the population in Western countries currently drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes. Often they do both. Whether viewed in terms of mortality, morbidity or overall quality of life, we'd be better off if we switched to enhancing receptor sub-type selective dopaminergic, opioidergic, serotonergic and cholinergic function by the relatively safe and crude agents touched on here; and perhaps to the more exciting products under development. As a basic minimum, people shouldn't be legally robbed of the right to do so.This freedom of choice isn't conventional wisdom. It will be suggested that the level of medical expertise required to make informed choices exceeds that of the average layperson; and a quasi-priestly caste wielding the power of the prescription-pad would doubtless wish to keep it that way. But the intrinsic difficulty and complexity of psychopharmacology or nutritional medicine, say, doesn't demand greater mental effort than, for instance, all those thousands of grimly unnatural hours spent by school students learning mathematics. Moreover it's far more interesting to study something palpably relevant to one's emotional well-being than something that demonstrably isn't. The notion of an education system geared to schooling people in, and for, happiness would nonetheless strike adherents of the reigning educational orthodoxy as abhorrent were it not so largely incomprehensible.

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

ο χρονος τελειωσε......

2007-12-09T17:40:00.000+02:00

The End of Time.
I stood in the portals of the future,
Where all will shortly tread:
Before was the living eternity,
But backward old time was dead.
I looked for my friend in the spirit
Where my friends in the flesh were seen,
And the graves of the Spirit were open,
But the graves of the flesh were green.
I looked again in a vision__
I looked again in my dreams,
Where the spirit only is living,
Where reality is not what it seems.
For some do not live in the future,
And many lie dead in the past,
And where we once looked for the angel
The evil has conquered at last.

We look for the living behind us,
We look for the dead on before,
But this is not so in the future,
Where time shall be no more;
For the open represents the immortal,
While the green with gloom o'ercast;
Open the graves of the spiritual,
But green the graves of the past.

Before is the living angel,
Behind is the work of sin;
Forward the joy of living,
Backward where joys begin;
Live for the living in spirit,
Die for the dead with time,
For the end of time is the beginning,
Where life will be sublime.

I stood in the portals of heaven
And looked backward on the earth:
I saw the place of my nativity,
I saw the place of my birth;
I look again at the graves of the slain,
Alas, old time had died,
And I without pain was born again
And eternity stood at my side.

__James S. Jennings.

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

ΠΟΛΛΕΣ ΕΥΧΕΣ - SEASONS GREETINGS

2007-12-07T08:45:00.000+02:00

may the force be with you
Copyright � Demetrios the Traveler

STAR TREK LIFE....NEA WALLPAPERS

2007-12-04T17:15:00.000+02:00

ΑΜΑ ΤΑ ΧΤΥΠΑΣ ΜΕΓΑΛΩΝΟΥΝ.....

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

STAR TREK NEA WALLPAPERS

2007-12-04T17:02:00.000+02:00

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

ΚΛΑΣΣΙΚΟΙ ΚΑΙ ΔΙΑΧΡΟΝΙΚΟΙ

2007-12-04T16:57:00.001+02:00

ΦΟΒΑΜΑΙ ΚΑΙ ΑΞΕΠΕΡΑΣΤΟΙ..............

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

STAR TREK ΤΟ CAST ΤΗΣ ΝΕΑΣ ΤΑΙΝΙΑΣ

2007-12-04T16:46:00.000+02:00

ΚΛΑΣΣΙΚΟΙ ΡΟΛΟΙ ΝΕΑ ΠΡΟΣΩΠΑ

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

АнныАхматовой / ΑΝΝΑ ΑΧΜΑΤΟΒΑ / ANNA AKHMATOVA

2007-12-04T13:24:00.000+02:00

Η "ΡΟΥΣΣΑ" ΑΝΤΙΓΟΝΗ

Η ΦΛΟΓΕΡΗ ΠΟΙΗΤΡΙΑ

Ο ΑΝΕΚΠΛΗΡΩΤΟΣ ΠΟΘΟΣ ΜΕΓΑΛΩΝ ΑΝΔΡΩΝ

Η ΜΕΓΑΛΥΤΕΡΗ ΣΥΓΧΡΟΝΗ ΡΩΣΣΙΔΑ ΠΟΙΗΤΡΙΑ

Η ΕΠΟΧΗ ΚΑΙ Η ΒΙΟΓΡΑΦΙΑ ΤΗΣ

ΜΟΝΤΙΛΙΑΝΙ ΠΑΡΙΣΙ 1911

ΣΠΑΝΙΟ ΦΙΛΜΑΚΙ ΤΟΥ 1924

ΠΕΡΙΣΣΟΤΕΡΕΣ ΠΛΗΡΟΦΟΡΙΕΣ ΚΑΙ ΣΥΝΔΕΣΜΟΙ

Anna Akhmatova - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Anna Akhmatova (June .... Anna Akhmatova's Grave in Komarovo (photo by Aleksandr E. Bravo) ... URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Akhmatova

Anna Akhmatova
Anna Akhmatova was born Anna Gorenko in Bolshoy Fontan, near Odessa, Ukraine, as the daughter of a naval engineer. She began writing poetry at the age of 11 ... URL=http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/aakhma.htm

A COLLECTION OF POEMS BY ANNA AKHMATOVA
Anna Akhmatova is the literary pseudonym of Anna Andreevna Gorenko. Her first husband was Gumilev, and she too became one of the leading Acmeist poets. ... URL=http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/akhmatova/akhmatova_ind.html

Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More - Anna Akhmatova

The Academy of American Poets presents a biography, photograph, and selected poems. URL=http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/1

Anna Akhmatova Page
Tons of WWW Links About the Russian Poet Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966).On the WWW since 1995.

URL=http://www.jazzkeyboard.com/jill/akhmatova/

Anna Akhmatova
A two-volume edition of Akhmatova's collected works was published in Moscow in 1986, and The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova, also in two volumes, ... URL=http://www.odessit.com/namegal/english/ahmatova.htm

Anna Andreevna Akhmatova
First collection Evening appears under the pseudonym Anna Akhmatova, a name she takes ... "Twelve meetings with Anna Akhmatova" ("And then Anna told me. ... URL=http://max.mmlc.northwestern.edu/~mdenner/Demo/poetpage/akhmatova.html

Anna Akhmatova: Selected Poems in translation
Anna Akhmatova - Selected Poems in downloadable English translation. URL=http://www.tonykline.co.uk/PITBR/Russian/Akhmatova.htm

Anna Akhmatova, assessed. - By Clive James - Slate Magazine
Why is Anna Akhmatova's legacy important? What was shameful about Jorge Luis Borges' career? How did Coco Chanel become famous?

URL=http://www.slate.com/id/2159089/

Anna Akhmatova — Poet Seers
Anna Akhmatova was the pen name of Anna Gorenko. She was interested in poetry from an early age but her father did not approve and this is why she was asked ... URL=http://www.poetseers.org/the_great_poets/eu/aa

Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin: Anna Akhmatova
Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin: Anna Akhmatova. Index. Access:. Copyright ©. George Mitrevski. Auburn University. e-mail:mitrege@auburn.edu. URL=http://www.auburn.edu/academic/liberal_arts/foreign/russian/art/petrov-vodkin-akhmatova.html

Altman, Nathan: Portrait of Anna Akhmatova
Altman, Nathan: Portrait of Anna Akhmatova (1914). Index. Access:. Copyright ©. George Mitrevski. Auburn University. e-mail:mitrege@auburn.edu. URL=http://www.auburn.edu/academic/liberal_arts/foreign/russian/art/altman-akhmatova.html

3184. Akhmatova, Anna. The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996
ATTRIBUTION:, Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966), Russian poet. “Wild Honey Smells of Freedom,” lines 1-4, as translated by Lenore Mayhew and William McNaughton ... URL=http://www.bartleby.com/66/84/3184.html

Amazon.com: The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova: Books: Roberta ...
Amazon.com: The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova: Books: Roberta Reeder,Judith Hemschemeyer by Roberta Reeder,Judith Hemschemeyer. URL=http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Poems-Anna-Akhmatova/dp/0939010275

Summer Reading: The poetry of Anna Akhmatova - International ...
These words are from Anna Akhmatova's poem "The Sentence," translated from the Russian by Judith Hemschemeyer. Akhmatova was a remarkable woman whose deeply ... URL=http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/28/athome/aread30-anna.php

The My Hero Project - Anna Akhmatova

Anna Akhmatova was a poet who always wrote about love. When she was young in Russia, and her life was simple, her poems, called brilliant and original, ... URL=http://www.myhero.com/myhero/hero.asp?hero=a_Akhmatova

Nikolai Tyrsa. Portrait of Anna Akhmatova. - Olga's Gallery
Portrait of Anna Akhmatova. 1928. Lamp-black on paper. 36.5 x 22.7 cm. The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia. More. Nikolai Tyrsa. ... URL=http://www.abcgallery.com/liter/tyrsa1.html

Anna Akhmatova Foundation
Anna Akhmatova F O U N D A T I O N.

URL=http://www.annaakhmatovafoundation.org/

Acmeists
He and Anna Akhmatova had a tumultuous marriage from 1910 to 1918. ... It is said that he wrote the poem The Giraffe to cheer Anna Akhmatova once when she ... URL=http://www.ualberta.ca/~lmalcolm/poetry/acmeists.html

Alexander Ostrovsky - Olga's Gallery
But meanwhile his father put the child under supervision of his own mother, who disliked Anna. Akhmatova tried to protest the situation, ... URL=http://www.abcgallery.com/liter/akhmatova.html

The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - HER WORLD Anna Akhmatova’s best-known sequence, Poem Without A Hero, celebrates her dead friends such as her husband, poet Mandelstam and many others who had fallen ... URL=http://www.tribuneindia.com/2004/20040418/herworld.htm

ANNA ANDREEVNA AKHMATOVA Gemini Mint's World
The Academy of American Poets - Poetry Exhibits - Anna Akhmatova Links, poems, bio, ... Anna Akhmatova Translations into English of some of her poems. ... URL=http://www.bezumiye.com/axmatova.html

The Places of Anna Akhmatova
The St. Petersburg Times newspaper site includes reporting on business, politics, news and culture in Russia and the world; an archive, employment ads and ... URL=http://it.stlawu.edu/~rkreuzer/pete13/pete13.htm

Anna Akhmatova - Selection of Poetry from Allspirit
A selection of the poetry of Anna Akhmatova including Solitude, Sunbeam and Under Her Dark Veil

URL=http://www.allspirit.co.uk/anna.html

Akhmatova
Portrait of Anna Akhmatova, 1914 by Natan Altman ... Anna Akhmatova Biography, "The Last Rose" · Anna Akhmatova Bibliography ... URL=http://www.geocities.com/sulawesiprince/russpoets/akhmatova.html

F&P Anna Andreevna Akhmatova
Anna Andreevna Akhmatova. (Real name: Anna Andreevna Gorenko) (1889 - 1966). The Russian Soviet poet Anna Andreevna Gorenko was born on June 11th, ... URL=http://www.friends-partners.org/friends/culture/literature/20century/akhmatova.html

Amazon.com: Anna Akhmatova: Poet and Prophet: Books: Roberta Reeder
Amazon.com: Anna Akhmatova: Poet and Prophet: Books: Roberta Reeder by Roberta Reeder. URL=http://www.amazon.com/Anna-Akhmatova-Prophet-Roberta-Reeder/dp/0312134290

Anna Akhmatova -- Encyclopaedia Britannica
Anna Akhmatova: Russian poet recognized at her death as the greatest woman poet in Russian literature. URL=http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9005280/Anna-Akhmatova

ΜΟΝΤΙΛΙΑΝΙ ΠΑΡΙΣΙ 1911

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

ΜΙΑ ΜΑΓΙΚΗ ΠΕΡΙΟΔΟΣ ΣΕ ΕΙΚΟΝΕΣ

2007-12-03T22:04:00.000+02:00

ΨΑΞΕ ΤΗΝ ΥΠΕΡΤΑΤΗ ΔΥΝΑΜΗ ΜΕΣΑ ΣΟΥ!

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

ΒΟΥΤΩΝΤΑΣ - ΑΝΥΨΩΝΟΜΑΙ

2007-12-03T22:03:00.000+02:00

4 String

Diving (Into You)

Im Turning Into The Blue

Tell Me A Secret,

I Will Tell You Mine

Tell Me About Desire You Hide Inside

There Is So Much That We Should Have Done

I Was Insecure Now Im Strong

Diving, Whatever It May Take

I Keep On Trying

Diving Into You

Diving, Knowing It Was You

I Keep On Trying

Diving Into You

Im Turning

Into The Blue

We Are Rising

Celebrate The Light

It was You Who Showed Me How To Fly

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

ΜΑΓΙΣΣΑ.......

2007-12-03T22:01:00.000+02:00

Nobody else can see you the same way as myself
Fly high and touch the sky, you
If only you could feel for me that I feel for you
Why do you ignore me, angel, why can

You
You

The more love I feel for you, the more you fade away
Why can
I
I look out at the night to see your shadow by the moon

You
You

Walk through the forest I can feel that you
Why do you run away?
I
That

You
You

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

ΟΡΕ ΤΙ ΘΑ ΦΑΜΕ ΑΠΟΨΕ!!!

2007-12-03T21:58:00.000+02:00

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

καρκινικα λογοτυπα - ambigrams

2007-12-03T21:53:00.000+02:00

ΘΑΥΜΑΣΤΕ ΤΗΝ ΦΑΝΤΑΣΙΑ ΤΟΥ ΓΡΑΦΙΣΤΑ - ΚΑΛΛΙΤΕΧΝΗ

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

PALE BLUE DOT CONTINUES.........

2007-12-03T17:38:00.000+02:00

απολαυστε ενα ακομη 'pale blue dot"

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

2007-11-29T17:21:00.000+02:00

The Beacon

And then... there were none.
We breathe

we scream

we hope

we dream sometimes

we find there's nothing left to hold...

on the empty spaces in the in-between

There is no shield the heart can prepare strong enough to guard against the hole...

that words can tear

we laugh

we cry

we lose,

we sigh,

we love,

we learn,

we crash,

we burn...

sometimes we find we're so afraid...

of running out of time that fear replaces hope and we're...

still standing here...

twisted up inside wasting life away

when we should take the final step to cross that line

and find our way frozen in a teardrop

waiting to be shed pent-up passion like unmoving lifeblood refusing...

to be bled Holding back,

when we should let go wasting time,

when we should let that person know...

That there is no time to save up for another day...

There is only now and i am here and for your love..

there is no price that i would not pay

what are you willing to forsake

what does your heart lead you to keep

if you should go ahead and take this risk anyway?

i'm awake for you although i sleep,

for in my dreams,

you bleed such perfect colors through my grey

BOAT IN THE SKY - ΚΑΡΑΒΙ ΣΤΟΝ ΟΥΡΑΝΟ

2007-11-29T17:18:00.000+02:00

The Golden Boat

Clouds rumbling in the sky; teeming rain.
I sit on the river bank, sad and alone.
The sheaves lie gathered,harvest has ended,
The river is swollen and fierce in its flow.
As we cut the paddy it started to rain.
One small paddy-field, no one but me -
Flood-waters twisting and swirling everywhere.
Trees on the far bank;smear shadows like ink
On a village painted on deep morning grey.
On this side a paddy-field, no one but me.
Who is this, steering close to the shore
Singing? I feel that she is someone I know.
The sails are filled wide,she gazes ahead,
Waves break helplessly against the boat each side.
I watch and feel I have seen her face before.
Oh to what foreign land do you sail?
Come to the bank and moor your boat for a while.
Go where you want to,give where you care to,
But come to the bank a moment, show your smile -
Take away my golden paddy when you sail.
Take it, take as much as you can load.
Is there more? No, none, I have put it aboard.
My intense labour here by the river -
I have parted with it all, layer upon layer;
Now take me as well, be kind, take me aboard.
No room, no room, the boat is too small.
Loaded with my gold paddy, the boat is full.
Across the rain-sky clouds heave to and fro,
On the bare river-bank, I remain alone -
What had has gone: the golden boat took all.

~Rabindranath Tagore

ΦΑΝΤΑΣΟΥ ΟΤΙ ΜΠΟΡΕΙ ΝΑ ΦΕΡΟΥΝ ΚΑΙ ΖΩΗ ΚΑΙ ΘΑΝΑΤΟ

2007-11-29T17:13:00.000+02:00

align="middle" border="0" />

χειμερινο ηλιοστασιο, WINTER SOLSTICE, YULE, HANUKKAH, MAKAR SANKRANTI

2007-11-29T14:24:00.001+02:00

ΑΣΤΡΟΝΟΜΙΚΟΣ ΠΡΟΣΔΙΟΡΙΣΜΟΣ

Ηλιοστάσιο ή Τροπή ονομάζονται τα δύο σημεία της εκλειπτικής στα οποία βρίσκεται ο Ήλιος στις 22 Ιουνίου (Θερινό Ηλιοστάσιο) και 22 Δεκεμβρίου (Χειμερινό Ηλιοστάσιο), στα οποία έχει τη μεγαλύτερη και τη μικρότερη απόκλιση του: 23 27' και -23 27', αντίστοιχα. Όταν ο Ήλιος βρίσκεται στα Ηλιοστάσια φαίνεται σα να έχει σταθερή θέση ως προς την απόκλισή του. Εκεί οφείλεται το όνομα "ηλιοστάσιο". Ενώ το όνομα "Τροπή" οφείλεται στο γεγονός ότι ο Ήλιος αλλάζει φορά κίνησης, διότι ενώ τις προηγούμενες μέρες πριν το θερινό ηλιοστάσιο, για παράδειγμα, έχει ανοδική πορεία, στις επόμενες του θερινού ηλιοστασίου έχει καθοδική. Η ευθεία που ενώνει τα δύο ηλιοστάσια λέγεται γραμμή των τροπών και είναι κάθετη στη γραμμή των ισημεριών.

ΔΩΔΕΚΑΘΕΙΣΤΕΣ

Η Εκκλησία των Ελλήνων στο θρήσκευμα αποστέλλει,
Θερμές Ευχές σε όλους τους Έλληνες απανταχού της Γης,
για ένα χαρούμενο εορτασμό του Χειμερινού Ηλιοστασίου,
του Τριεσπέρου και του ερχομού του Θεανθρώπου.

Υπενθυμίζουμε ότι ως Έλληνες εορτάζουμε κατά τα Πάτρια Ειωθότα,
το Χειμερινό Ηλιοστάσιο την 10η Φθίνοντος μηνός Ποσειδεώνος (21η Δεκεμβρίου).
Την 7η Φθίνοντος μηνός Ποσειδεώνος (25η Δεκεμβρίου) εορτάζουμε το Τριέσπερον,
προς τιμήν των Πυρφόρων και Ηλιακών Θεοτήτων Ηρακλέους και Ηλίου.

Ευδαιμονείτε και καλωσορίστε τον ερχομό του Θεανθρώπου μας Διονύσου,
που αυτές τις ημέρες έρχεται στον Κόσμο από την σεμνή Μητέρα Του Σεμέλη.

Έρρωσθε

ΠΑΓΑΝΙΣΤΕΣ

ΤΑ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥΓΕΝΝΑ ΕΙΝΑΙ ΕΟΡΤΑΣΜΟΙ ΠΑΓΑΝΙΣΤΙΚΟΙ!

Η 25η Δεκεμβρίου συμπίπτει παραδοσιακά με το χειμερινό ηλιοστάσιο,
δηλαδή με τη νύχτα με τη μεγαλύτερη διάρκεια.
Η επόμενη νύχτα είναι θεωρητικά μικρότερη για κάποια δευτερόλεπτα,
καθώς ο ήλιος ανατέλλει νωρίτερα και δύει αργότερα, ενώ μέχρι την ημερομηνία αυτή συμβαίνει το αντίθετο (λόγω όμως των εκατοντάδων χρόνων που έχουν περάσει από την καθιέρωση της ημερομηνίας αυτής, αυτή δεν είναι πια σωστή, καθώς μετακινείται αργά ¾η ακριβής ημερομηνία του χειμερινού ηλιοστασίου του 1999 είναι το ξημέρωμα της 22ης Δεκεμβρίου).
Όλοι οι πολιτισμοί είχαν καθιερώσει γιορτές για αυτή την ημερομηνία, καθώς πίστευαν πως είναι η μέρα της ανάστασης του ηλιακού θεού.
Η αρχαιότερη απόδειξη της σημαντικότητας της ημερομηνίας αυτής, για τους αρχαίους λαούς, είναι το μεγαλιθικό μνημείο του Newgrange στην Ιρλανδία, το οποίο θεωρείται παλιότερο από τις πυραμίδες και είναι ένα κυκλικό πέτρινο κατασκεύασμα απίστευτης τεχνικής.
Φτιαγμένο, υποτίθεται, από πρωτόγονους, είναι παρόλα αυτά έτσι χτισμένο, που ο κεντρικός του θάλαμος φωτίζεται κάθε χειμερινό ηλιοστάσιο και μόνο. Η ακτίνα του ήλιου περνά μέσα από πολλά μέτρα πέτρας και φωτίζει μια λεκάνη στολισμένη με ηλιακά σύμβολα και σπείρες.
Σήμερα δε γνωρίζουμε ποιο σκοπό εξυπηρετούσε και τον τρόπο με τον οποίο κατασκευάστηκε. Οι Σουμέριοι και οι Μεσοποτάμιοι γιόρταζαν το ηλιοστάσιο σαν την ημέρα της μάχης του Μαρντούκ με τις δυνάμεις του Χάους. Επειδή, μάλιστα, η παράδοση απαιτούσε, την αυτοκτονία του βασιλιά τους για να «μεταφερθεί» στο πλευρό του Μαρντούκ και να τον βοηθήσει, ανακήρυτταν βασιλιά τους για την περίοδο του δωδεκαήμερου κάποιον τυχαίο
και αφού του πρόσφεραν βασιλικές τιμές, τον έσφαζαν τη δωδέκατη μέρα τελετουργικά.
Οι Βαβυλώνιοι και οι Πέρσες εκτελούσαν την ίδια περίοδο παρόμοιους εορτασμούς,
στους οποίους οι άρχοντες και οι δούλοι άλλαζαν τίτλους.
Οι Σκανδιναβοί, που αντιμετώπιζαν νύχτες μεγαλύτερες από 25 ώρες(!), γιόρταζαν το Yuletide, κατά το οποίο οι κυνηγοί έφευγαν στα ψηλά βουνά, για να δουν πρώτοι την επιστροφή του Ήλιου που είχε χαθεί για μεγάλο χρονικό διάστημα.
Ο πρώτος που θα την αντίκριζε έφερνε τα καλά νέα στους καταυλισμούς και ήταν επικεφαλής στο πλούσιο γλέντι που διοργανωνόταν στην επιστροφή του.
Στα ίδια μέρη του Βορρά, έδεναν μήλα στα κλαδιά των δέντρων για να υπενθυμίζουν πως η άνοιξη θα γυρίσει, ξεκινώντας ίσως έτσι την παράδοση του χριστουγεννιάτικου δέντρου.
Δεν ήταν μόνο ο Χριστός και ο Μίθρας ηλιακοί θεοί που λέγεται πως γεννήθηκαν τη μέρα αυτή, αλλά και ο Όσιρις, ο Ώρος, ο Διόνυσος, ο Άδωνις, ο Δίας και ο Jupiter, ο Tammuz, ο Ηρακλής και όλοι οι ηλιακοί ημίθεοι.
Η περσική μυστηριακή θρησκεία του Μίθρα, που μέχρι την επίσημη καθιέρωση του χριστιανισμού, ήταν η βασική θρησκεία των Ρωμαίων στρατιωτών, την ονόμαζε «Ημέρα της Γέννησης του Ήλιου».
Οι αρχαίοι Έλληνες και οι Ρωμαίοι γιόρταζαν την περίοδο αυτή τα Σατουρνάλια και τα Κρόνια, τις γιορτές που ήταν αφιερωμένες στο χθόνιο θεό της γης, τον Κρόνο.
Οι εορτάζοντες φώναζαν στους δρόμους «Ιώ Σατουρνάλια!», αντάλλασσαν δώρα και γλυκά και διοργάνωναν γλέντια με φαγητό.
Θεωρούσαν πως η εποχή της κυριαρχίας του Κρόνου ήταν η Χρυσή Εποχή της ζωής,
μια παραδείσια κατάσταση ευδαιμονίας, που την έκλεψε και τη σταμάτησε ο Δίας,
όταν μαχαίρωσε τον Κρόνο για να του αποσπάσει την εξουσία.
Σαν χθόνιος θεός, ο Κρόνος ήταν ταυτόχρονα και θεός του θανάτου και του σκότους.
Έτσι, οι εκδηλώσεις είχαν αρκετά σκοτεινά σημεία.
Σε συνδυασμό με τους εορτασμούς του Βάκχου Διόνυσου που γίνονταν την ίδια εποχή,
πολλοί «μετατρέπονταν» σε σάτυρους και κρατώντας τεράστιους φαλλούς, επιτίθονταν στους περαστικούς με σκοπό να τους τρομοκρατήσουν.
Η υποχρεωτική δωροδοκία ήταν ο κανόνας, για να τους αφήσουν τελικά στην ησυχία τους.
Ο σάτυρος, που μιμούνταν τον Βάκχο, υποδυόταν την εμφάνιση που σήμερα θεωρούμε μορφή του διαβόλου: φορούσε κέρατα, τριχωτά ενδύματα, προβιές και οπλές κατσίκας.
Η «τραγωδία», τα τραγούδια των τράγων δηλαδή, ήταν στην πρώτη τους μορφή μέρη των πρωτόγονων αυτών εορτασμών.
Αν νομίζετε πως τελικά εξαφανίστηκαν με την έλευση του χριστιανισμού,
έχετε μεγάλο λάθος!
Θα σας περιγράψω το τυπικό που ακολουθούσαν πχ. έξω από τη Θεσσαλονίκη, στα Κουφάλια μέχρι πρόσφατα, το 1950: Τις μέρες των Χριστουγέννων, τα παιδιά έπαιρναν ξύλα στα χέρια τους και έβγαιναν στους δρόμους φωνάζοντας «Κόλιεντα!» (Κόλεντα ή Κόλιεντα ονομάζονταν και οι σλάβικες τελετές προς τιμή του Τρίγκλαβ, που σημαίνει Τρικέφαλος). Μετά χτυπούσαν τις πόρτες των σπιτιών και απαιτούσαν φιλοδώρημα, απειλώντας τους σπιτονοικοκύρηδες με το ποιηματάκι αυτό: «Δώσε μπάμπω μια κουρούδα (μπισκότο ή κουλούρι ή γλύκισμα) μη σε βγάλ’ απ’ την καμινούδα (καμινάδα)», που φυσικά συσχετίζεται με την δοξασία πως η καμινάδα κρύβει μια μαγική είσοδο-έξοδο.
Μετά όμως οι μεγαλύτεροι σε ηλικία εκδικούνταν τα παιδιά, καθώς ντύνονταν «καμήλες», φορούσαν κακομούτσουνες στολές με δερμάτινες μάσκες και κουδούνια και τρομοκρατούσαν τα μικρά παιδιά, απαιτώντας χρήματα.
Παρόμοιες παραδόσεις κρατούσαν σε όλη την Ευρώπη σε κάθε τόπο, παραδόσεις που σταμάτησαν ξαφνικά καθώς τα Χριστούγεννα μετατράπηκαν στην αμερικανική έκδοσή τους, που είναι στο μεγαλύτερο μέρος της κατασκευασμένη για εμπορικούς σκοπούς.
Ο Μέγας Κωνσταντίνος, που επέβαλε το χριστιανισμό έχοντας μόνο πολιτικούς σκοπούς,
στην προσπάθειά του να σιγάσει τους εορτασμούς του Μίθρα που συνεχίζονταν κρυφά και μετά την επιβολή του χριστιανισμού, διέταξε το 336 μ.Χ. τον επίσκοπο της Ρώμης, Ιούλιο Α΄, να επιβάλει την 25η Δεκεμβρίου σαν τη μέρα των Χριστουγέννων.
Ο σκοπός του ήταν να «υπεξαιρέσει» τους εορτασμούς των Μιθραϊστών και των υπόλοιπων παγανιστών, επειδή δεν μπορούσε να τους σταματήσει με άλλο τρόπο.
Αν είστε φανατικός χριστιανός και βυθίζεστε κάθε χρόνο στον υπερβατικό εορτασμό της γέννησης του Χριστού, καλό είναι να διατηρείτε και ένα σεβασμό προς το παγανιστικό,
λλά απελευθερωτικό και ευφάνταστο παρελθόν αυτής της περιόδου που παλεύει για την επιβίωσή του και τα καταφέρνει εδώ και χιλιάδες χρόνια…

ΦΑΝΑΤΙΚΟΙ ΑΚΡΟΔΕΞΙΟΙ ΧΡΙΣΤΙΑΝΟΙ

"...Δεν νοιαζόμαστε για εμάς σ' αυτήν την αβεβαιότητα της αυγής , που το τσουχτερό κρύο παραλύει τα δάχτυλα, ώστε να εγκαταλείψουμε τον αγώνα ή να μετανιώσουμε. Νοιαζόμαστε, περισσότερο από ποτέ, να παραμείνουμε πιστοί σ' αυτό που υπήρξε το δίκαιο, και που συνεχίζει να παραμένει ακόμη.

Και το δίκαιο δεν βρίσκεται από την πλευρά των παλιών ψευδαισθήσεων της δημοκρατίας, της δεξιάς ή της αριστεράς, δεν βρίσκεται από την πλευρά του εγγλέζικου κεφαλαίου ή του σοβιετικού τρόμου: το δίκαιο βρίσκεται σ' αυτή την γηραιά γωνιά της Ευρώπης απ' όπου ξεκίνησε εδώ και χιλιάδες χρόνια, ο Λευκός πολιτισμός, κατοικεί στη θέληση ενός κόσμου στον οποίο το δίκαιο και η δύναμη θα βασιλέψουν, αδιαφιλονίκητα, το ένα δίπλα στον άλλο. Είναι στην επανάσταση του 20ου αιώνα". Rombert Brasillach - Χριστούγεννα του 1942 .
Περί την 21ην Δεκεμβρίου εκάστου έτους ζούμε την μεγαλύτερη νύκτα του χρόνου. Ζούμε την στιγμήν της "ΣΤΆΣΕΩΣ" και της τροπής του Ηλίου. Του Φωτοδότη Πατέρα της Λευκής Ράτσας, του Ζωοδότη Πατέρα των Ελλήνων, που λατρεύτηκε με πάθος μέσα στους αιώνες πότε σαν Απόλλωνας Μουσηγέτης, Αλεξίκακος και Εκδικητής και πότε σαν Άη-Γιώργης Τροπαιοφόρος και Δρακοκτόνος προστάτης του Πεζικού μας, κεντημένος με χρυσή κλωστή πάνω στις Τιμημένες Σημαίες των Συνταγμάτων Πεζικού, του Αιματοβαμμένου Πεζικού του Δοξασμένου Στρατού μας. Χειμερινό Ηλιοστάσιο, η ημέρα του Ανίκητου Ηλίου, ο Σωτήρας του κόσμου γεννιέται την στιγμή ακριβώς που στον σκοτεινό ορίζοντα εμφανίζεται το σημείο της Παρθένου.
Χειμερινό Ηλιοστάσιο, ο Σωτήρας του κόσμου, ο Αιώνιος Ήρωας γεννιέται. Το Φώς νικά το σκοτάδι, η ελπίδα ξαναγεννιέται στις καρδιές των ανθρώπων και μία νέα μάχη αρχίζει. Όλα αυτά αποκτούν στις ημέρες μας μια ιδιαίτερη σημασία. Αποκτά η ελπίδα του ήλιου, η ελπίδα της νίκης του φωτός κατά του σκότους μία ιδιαίτερη σημασία μέσα στην απόλυτα σκοτεινή εποχή μας. Στην εποχή μας, όπου ήρωες πια δεν υπάρχουν, όπου κάποιοι γκρίζοι και θλιβεροί τύποι, διακινώντας άχρηστα χαρτιά, που το μοναδικό τους αντίκρισμα είναι η χολή και το μίσος, εξουσιάζουν τους λαούς μας, σκυλεύουν τα ιδανικά μας, λεηλατούν τις ψυχές μας, ευτελίζουν τον πολιτισμό μας, βεβηλώνουν κάθε τι Ιερό και Άγιο αυτού του αιματοβαμμένου τόπου.
Ο τροχός του Ηλίου αρχίζει και πάλι να γυρνά φέρνοντας τον άνθρωπο πιο κοντά στη ζωή, παρά στον θάνατο. Το κακό εξορκίζεται και οι δαιμονικές μορφές απομακρύνονται μακριά από την οργή της ιεράς πυρράς, που καίει στην Εστία κάθε τιμημένης οικίας σε όλην την διάρκεια των Αγίων αυτών ημερών.
Γιορτάζουμε την ημέρα του Ανίκητου Ηλίου, γιορτάζουμε την νίκη του Φωτός κατά του σκότους και αν όλα γύρω μας φαντάζουν σκοτεινά, μια φλόγα καίει στις καρδιές μας και είναι αυτή η φλόγα η μοναδική ελπίδα για το "Αύριο", που έρχεται. Κάποτε θα επιστρέψουμε, θα επιστρέψουμε και η Γη θα τρέμει! "Εμπρός, πάντα εμπρός, μιας Νέας Δόξας ανατέλλει ο καιρός".

ΘΕΟΣΟΦΙΣΤΕΣ

Winter and the Tide of Water - midpoint Oimelc, Festival of Lights, Candlemas

The Winter Solstice represents the Midnight Sun and Solar Power communicating with the human spirit and its drawing in and concentration into the heart of each individual, the incarnation of the spirit, spiritual fire coming down and making intimate contact with the Earth.
The spiritual sub-plane of the Earth Mother is contacted at the Winter Solstice. This contact brings through the highest levels from which the Earth first drew her forces. They include the Logoidal powers which operate at Christmas and the great Pan force which operates at the Winter Solstice. The nativity of Mithra as well as of Jesus.
And with the passing of the Winter Solstice comes the great Cleansing or Water tide. The contact of the Water tide acts upon the emotional body of each one of us. Its action tends to eliminate all those things which prevent the intensity of the feelings, for the action of water may bring about a much wider, broader, comprehensive range of feeling, so that we may learn in time to feel with a blade of grass, with an angel, or with any of God's creatures. Anything that comes between ourselves and the way of personal destiny or service may be swept away by the Water Tide. And because it brings about a gradual expansion of feeling, a broadening of the range of sympathy, it has tended to become associated with emotional discomfort and pain, hence its former alternative title of the Tide of Destruction. It is in fact more a spring cleaning of the soul for the new life to come in at the Vernal Equinox, when a new cycle of life in the initiate's year can be started.
The half point is Oimelc, loosening of winter's grip, new lambs born, ewes in milk, the Feast of Brigit or St. Bride. A popular game played on a chequered board saw an old witch armed with a dragon and a lion doing battle with a fair maiden armed with a lamb and a hail storm, representatives of the Cailleach or Hag of Winter and Brigit the Spring Maiden, for which reason she was later credited with being foster mother of the Christ child. This time also marks the feast of the Purification of Blessed Virgin Mary or her Presentation at the Temple, which took the place of a very ancient Festival of Isis, when little boats bearing candles were set forth upon the waters.
In the Christian year the close of this Tide coincides with the period of Lent, a time of introspection, spiritual preparation, fasting and repentance. The element of renewal is also marked by the Feast of St Matthias on 24th February, who was the disciple elected to replace Judas amongst the twelve. All these teachings have application within the human soul, within ourselves, and so at this time we look to abandon all in which we have fallen short in the past and to take on the new as we seek to enter upon another new year in the cycle of the Elemental Tides.
As one of the inner plane adepti responsible for this teaching recorded: "We who are the Adepts of the Elements and know their actions and work with them, hope and strive to bring you all to a greater realisation and awareness of the action of the forces. So that by co-operating with them you can rejoice and be glad, even in the very midst of conflict and pain. It is a very necessary part of the Aquarian plan. It is not enough that you should accept the actions of the various phases, but you should be able to accept them with gladness and not sorrow. There is a very great deal of difference between acceptance with joy that comes of understanding and the ability to get behind the action, and the one who accepts in ignorance and is swept along blindly by the currents of the forces."

WICCAN & neo-PAGAN

History of Yule

A Festival of Light: Many cultures have winter festivals that are in fact celebrations of light. In addition to Christmas, there's Hannukah with its brightly lit menorahs, Kwanzaa candles, and any number of other holidays. The holiday called Yule takes place on the day of the winter solstice, around December 21. On that day (or close to it), an amazing thing happens in the sky. The earth's axis tilts away from the sun in the Northern Hemisphere, and the sun reaches at its greatest distance from the equatorial plane. As a festival of the Sun, the most important part of any Yule celebration is light -- candles, bonfires, and more.

Origins of Yule: In the Northern hemisphere, the winter solstice has been celebrated for millenia. The Norse peoples viewed it as a time for much feasting, merrymaking, and, if the Icelandic sagas are to be believed, a time of sacrifice as well. Traditional customs such as the Yule log, the decorated tree, and wassailing can all be traced back to Norse origins.

Celtic Celebrations of Winter: The Celts of the British Isles celebrated this midwinter holiday as well. Although little is known about the specifics of what they did, many traditions persist. According to the writings of Julius Caesar, this is the time of year in which Druid priests sacrificed a white bull and gathered mistletoe in celebration.
Roman Saturnalia: Few cultures knew how to party like the Romans. Saturnalia was a festival of general merrymaking and debauchery held around the time of the winter solstice. This week-long party was held in honor of the god Saturn, and involved sacrifices, gift-giving, special privileges for slaves, and a lot of feasting. Although this holiday was partly about giving presents, more importantly, it was to honor an agricultural god.

Welcoming the Sun Through the Ages: Four thousand years ago, the Ancient Egyptians took the time to celebrate the daily rebirth of Horus - the god of the Sun. As their culture flourished and spread throughout Mesopotamia, other civilizations decided to get in on the sun-welcoming action. They found that things went really well... until the weather got cooler, and crops began to die. Each year, this cycle of birth, death and rebirth took place, and they began to realize that every year after a period of cold and darkness, the Sun did indeed return.
Winter festivals were also common in Greece and Rome, as well as in the British Isles. When a new religion called Christianity popped up, the new hierarchy had trouble converting the Pagans, and as such, folks didn't want to give up their old holidays. Christian churches were built on old Pagan worship sites, and Pagan symbols were incorporated into the symbolism of Christianity. Within a few centuries, the Christians had everyone worshipping a new holiday celebrated on December 25.
In some traditions of Wicca and Paganism, the Yule celebration comes from the Celtic legend of the battle between the young Oak King and the Holly King. The Oak King, representing the light of the new year, tries each year to usurp the old Holly King, who is the symbol of darkness. Re-enactment of the battle is popular in some Wiccan rituals.

JEWISH

Hanukkah - Jewish Festival of Lights:
Hanukkah (Hanukah / Hanuka / Chanukah) is a festival of lights that is symbolized by the candelabrum known as a menorah. Hanukkah celebrates a lighting miracle when one night's worth of oil lit candles for 8 days. Special foods and gift-giving are also a part of Hanukkah.

Definition: Hanukkah is a Jewish holiday commemorating the re-dedication of the Temple in 164 B.C. The Seleucids came to control Judaea in the aftermath of the division of the empire of Alexander the Great. At first the Seleucids let the Jews practice their religion, but eventually a ruler, Antiochus IV, who came to the throne in 176 B.C., reversed the policy of tolerance, and polluted their Temple. Under the Maccabees (aka Hasmoneans), the Jews rebelled and won. They then had to re-consecrate their Temple. There wasn't enough oil to keep the candles lit throughout the night as was required, but by a miracle the oil that should have lasted one day lasted eight days, which was enough time to acquire a new supply, and so the holiday of Hanukkah commemorates this event.
zSB(3,3)
The Jewish holiday of Hanukkah is celebrated for eight days beginning with the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev.

ΖΩΡΟΑΣΤΡΙΣΤΕΣ

Dies Natalis Solis Invicti :
Mithras was an Iranian Zoroastrian god who was popular with Roman soldiers. Mithras was created by the chief deity, Ahura-Mazda, to save the world. The day of the virgin birth of Mithras was December 25 (the solstice) it was also referred to as Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, which means the birthday of the unconquered sun.

ΙΝΔΟΥΙΣΤΕΣ

MAKAR SANKRANTI

The great diversity of Indian religious beliefs is projected through the various festivals that are celebrated in our country. They arise from the innate desire of man to seek diversion from humdrum activities and they help in symbolising, reflecting and enriching social life in a specific cultural setting.
The festival of Makar Sankrant traditionally coincides with the beginning of the Sun's northward journey (the UTTARAYAN) when it enters the sign of Makar (the CAPRICORN). It falls on the 14th of January every year according to the Solar Calendar. This day has a very special significance because the day and night on Makar Sankrant are of exactly of equal hours. This day is celebrated as a festival right from the times of the Aryans and is looked upon as the most auspicious day by the Hindus.
The evidence of this festival being lucky is found in our great epic Mahabharat wherein it is told that the great warrior-hero, Bhishma Pitamaha even after being wounded and lying on the bed of arrows, lingered on till Uttarayan set in, to breathe his last. It is believed that the person who dies on this auspicious day of Sankrant escapes the cycle of birth and re-birth and that his soul mingles with the Almighty.
This festival is celebrated differently in different parts of the country yet the use of til that is sesame is found everywhere. Til or sesame seed contain lot of oil and they therefore have a quality of softness in them. Therefore, firstly the use of til in sweets is good for health and secondly being soft their exchange means exchange of love and tender feelings.
In Maharashtra on the Sankranti day people exchange multi-coloured tilguds made from til (sesame seeds) and sugar and til-laddus made from til and jaggery. Til-polis are offered for lunch and these are specialities of Maharashtra. Maharashtrian women are proud of their excellence in preparing these delicacies. While exchanging tilguls as tokens of goodwill people greet each other saying - "til-gul ghya, god god bola" meaning "accept these tilguls and speak sweet words". The under-lying thought in the exchange of tilguls is to forget the past ill-feelings and hostilities and resolve to speak sweetly and remain friends. This is a special day for the women in Maharashtra when married women are invited for a get-together called "Haldi-Kumkoo" and given gifts of any utensil, which the woman of the house purchases on that day.
In Gujarat Sankrant is observed more or less in the same manner as in Maharashtra but with a difference that in Gujarat there is a custom of giving gifts to relatives. The elders in the family give gifts to the younger members of the family. The Gujarati Pundits on this auspicious day grant scholarships to students for higher studies in astrology and philosophy. This festival thus help the maintenance of social relationships within the family, caste and community.
In Punjab where December and January are the coldest months of the year, huge bonfires are lit on the eve of Sankrant and which is celebrated as "LOHARI". Sweets, sugarcane and rice are thrown in the bonfires, around which friends and relatives gather together. The following day, which is Sankrant is celebrated as MAGHI. The Punjabi's dance their famous Bhangra dance till they get exhausted. Then they sit down and eat the samptions food that is specially prepared for the occasion.
In Bundelkhand and Madhya Pradesh this festival of Sankrant is known by the name "SUKARAT" or "SAKARAT" and is celebrated with great pomp merriment accompanied by lot of sweets.
In South Sankrant is known by the name of "PONGAL", which takes its name from the surging of rice boiled in a pot of milk, and this festival has more significance than even Diwali. It is very popular particularly amongst farmers. Rice and pulses cooked together in ghee and milk is offered to the family deity after the ritual worship. In essence in the South this Sankrant is a "Puja" (worship) for the Sun God.
In Uttar Pradesh, Sankrant is called "KICHERI". Having bath on this day is regarded as most important. A mass of humanity can be seen bathing in the Sangam at Prayagraj where the rivers Ganga, Jamuna and Saraswathi flow together. At the confluence of these holy rivers every year Kumbh Mela is held for full one month.
In Bengal every year a Mela is held at Ganga Sagar where the river Ganga is believed to have dived into the nether region and vivified the ashes of the sixty thousand ancestors of King Bhagirath. This mela is attended by a large number of pilgrims from East India.
The tribals in our country start their New Year from the day of Sankrant by lighting bonfires, dancing and eating their particular dishes sitting together. The Bhuya tribals of Orissa have their Maghyatra in which small home-made articles are put for sale.
There is also a fair in the Western Ghats at a place called Shabari Mala, where the temple of the Community Goddess is decorated with dazzling lights. The Goddess is worshipped by touchables and un-touchables both and the "bhog" to the Goddess is cooked in the touchables and un-touchables both. These tribals participate in the Mela and enjoy all together as if they belong to one single family. May be therefore, the experts pine that this festival of Makar Sankrant comes to us from those olden times when the caste system did not exist in India as it emphasises or communal harmony.
Thus we see that this festival occupies a significant place in the cultural history of our country and symbolises the victory of ORDER over CHAOS and of Love over Hate.

OI ΑΘΕΟΙ, ΟΙ ΑΓΝΩΣΤΙΚΙΣΤΕΣ ΚΑΙ ΟΙ ΓΝΩΣΤΙΚΟΙ.

THE SOLSTITIAL AND EQUINOCTIAL SEASONS
by Frank R. Zindlergraphics

by Ann E. Zindler

As astronomers reckon time, it happened over four and one-half eons ago. A cloud of cosmic proportions, composed of the dust and gases left over from the wreckage of early stars, condensed and coalesced to form a new star, with its retinue of planets, moons, and comets. That star was our sun, and one of those planets was the earth. As might be expected from a knowledge of its chaotic origin, the solar system that resulted from this reassembly of stardust intermixed with primal matter fell somewhat short of geometric perfection. When all the forces that shaped the early earth had been resolved, they left it spinning on an axis tilted 23.5 degrees away from the perpendicular. Although the points in space to which the north and south poles of that axis aim change slowly over a period of 26,000 years, Earth's orientation in space remains essentially unchanged as it completes any particular revolution about the sun. This means that as the earth orbits the sun , there is a point where its north axial pole is tilted maximally toward the sun (around June 21) and a point where that pole is tilted maximally away from the sun (around December 21).............

.................. At the winter solstice when the north pole is tipped 23.5 degrees away from the sun, an observer moving along with the Northern Hemisphere will spend more time in darkness than in light - for the simple reason that less than half of the Northern Hemisphere is illuminated. At the equinoxes , when the earth's axes are tilted neither toward nor away from the sun, observers all over the planet spend the same amount of time in darkness and in daylight.
Even though the solstices and equinoxes do not mark the motions of a god travelling across the heavens, they do mark the progress of the space-ship we call Earth in its passage through the void. They note the natural pulse of life as it has been evolved, sustained, and carried along the same celestial path for time out of mind. As we pass these four milestones on our annual journey about the life-sustaining fusion-fires of the sun - the only star known that heats the blood of self-conscious beings - we reflect upon our astronomical uniqueness. We appear to be alone, in a universe devoid of plan or purpose. There is no cosmic intelligence that counts how many rides we complete on the merry-go-round whose axle is the sun. Only we can do the counting.We only have each other. For this reason, it is the custom for many as they mark the passage of the solstices and equinoxes to pause for celebration: to celebrate and cherish their fellow travelers, to celebrate the wondrous fact that they are part of the human species - the only species known that can understand and appreciate the implausibility of its own existence.

ΘΑ ΜΠΟΡΟΥΣΑ ΝΑ ΠΑΡΑΘΕΣΩ ΚΑΙ ΑΛΛΕΣ ΔΟΞΑΣΙΕΣ ΚΑΙ ΔΟΓΜΑΤΑ ΣΤΑΜΑΤΑΩ ΕΔΩ ΚΑΙ ΠΕΡΙΜΕΝΩ ΤΑ ΣΧΟΛΙΑ ΣΑΣ

AWAITING YOUR COMMENTS

OSIP EMILEVICH MANDELSTAM...Ο ποιητής με τα σκληρά παγωμένα μάτια..

2007-11-24T10:30:00.001+02:00

ΠΩΣ Ο ΙΔΙΟΣ ΠΕΡΙΓΡΑΦΕΙ ΤΟΝ ΕΑΥΤΟ ΤΟΥ.

In the raised head, a hint of wing -
But the coat is flapping;
In the closed eyes, in the peace
of the arms: energy's pure hiding-place.

Here is a creature that can fly and sing,
The word malleable and flaming,
And congenital awkwardness is overcome
By inborn rhythm!

αυτοί οι στίχοι τον οδήγησαν στον θάνατο, μετά απο προδοσία ενός συγγραφέα του κύκλου Πάστερνακ...
αφιερωμένο στον μεγάλο πατερούλη, τον μεγάλο τιμονίερη, στο αστέρι της ΕΣΣΔ.

We live. We are not sure our land is under us. Ten feet away, no one hears us. But wherever there's even a half-conversation, we remember the Kremlin s mountaineer. His thick fingers are fat as worms, his words reliable as ten pound weights. His boot tops shine, his cockroach mustache is laughing. About him, the great, his thin-necked, drained advisors. He plays with them. He is happy with half-men around him. They make touching and funny animal sounds. He alone talks Russian. One after another, his sentences like horseshoes! He pounds them out. He always hits the nail, the balls. After each death, he is like a Georgian tribesman, putting a raspberry in his mouth.

Gulag "Archipelago" ΣΤΗΝ Vtoraia rechka, ΚΟΝΤΑ ΣΤΟ Vladivostok, 27 ΔΕΚΕΜΒΡΙΟΥ, 1938.

Ο ΌΣΙΜ δεν άντεχε άλλο. Η πείνα και οι αρρώστιες τον είχαν καταβάλει ψυχικά και σωματικά. Για να κάνει μερικά βήματα μέχρι το συσσίτιο ξεκίναγε το πρωί και έφτανε το απόγευμα.
Τα σκληρά παγωμένα ματιά του είδαν το λιγοστό μουχλιασμένο ψωμί και δεν το σκεφτήκαν για δεύτερη φορά. Το άρπαξαν και το έκαναν δυο μπουκιές……
Αυτή του η κίνηση του έδωσε τρεις νέες προοπτικές που από καιρό έψαχνε
1ον να φύγει από το στρατόπεδο ζήσει ελεύθερος
2ον να ζήσει πάλι με την αγαπημένη του γυναίκα Madezhda, και τους φίλους ποιητές τον Πάστερνακ και την Αχματόβα
Και
3ον να ξαναγράψει ποιήματα.
Και η ζωή έδειξε σε αυτόν, για τελευταία φορά την μεγαλοσύνη της!
Οι συγκρατούμενοι του τον έσπασαν κυριολεκτικά στο ξύλο, τον πέταξαν με τα ματωμένα κουρέλια και με τα σπασμένα του πόδια, έξω από το στρατόπεδο ….ΕΠΙΤΕΛΟΥΣ ΛΕΥΤΕΡΟΣ!!
Σύρθηκε στο παγωμένο χωράφι με τα λαχανά, που τον κράτησαν στην ζωή για μερικές μέρες στους -30 κελσίου της Σιβηρικής τούνδρας.
Και μέσα στο παραλήρημα του πυρετού του, συνάντησε την Madezhda, και τους φίλους ποιητές τον Πάστερνακ και την Αχματόβα, και έκανε έρωτα μετά από πολύ καιρό και ξαναμίλησε για ποίηση.
Όταν τον βρήκαν παγωμένο μετά από μερικές μέρες, τους έκαναν εντύπωση δυο πράγματα, τα παγωμένα σκληρά μάτια του και τα φύλλα λάχανου με τα ορνιθοσκαλίσματα από αίμα…..

ΒΙΟΓΡΑΦΙΑ 1

13 ΠΟΙΗΜΑΤΑ ΑΠΟ ΤΟΝ OSIP EMILEVICH MANDELSTAM

ΤΟ ΡΕΥΜΑ ACMEISM ΣΤΗΝ ΠΟΙΗΣΗ ΚΑΙ ΣΤΗΝ ΛΟΓΟΤΕΧΝΙΑ

ΑΡΘΡΟ ΤΟΥ ΠΕΡΙΟΔΙΚΟΥ ΤΙΜΕ

ΠΟΙΗΤΙΚΗ ΚΑΚΟΔΙΚΙΑ

ΚΑΙ ΛΙΓΑ ΛΟΓΙΑ ΓΙΑ ΤΗΝ ΗΡΩΙΚΗ ΓΥΝΑΙΚΑ ΤΟΥ

ΑΥΤΟ ΗΤΑΝ ΤΟ ΤΕΛΕΥΤΑΙΟ ΤΟΥ ΑΝΤΙΔΡΑΣΤΙΚΟ ΠΟΙΗΜΑ
"We live without sensing the country beneath us,
At ten paces, our speech has no sound
And when there's the will to half-open our mouths
The Kremlin crag-dweller bars the way.

"

Carl Sagan ένας μεγάλος οραματιστής

2007-11-23T16:53:00.000+02:00

Carl Edward Sagan (Νοεμβριος 9, 1934 - Δεκεμβριος 20, 1996) Αμερικανός αστρονόμος και ερευνητής. Πρωτοπόρος της Εξω-Βιολογίας, ίδρυσε το κεντρο αναζήτησης εξωγήϊνης νοημοσήνης(SETI). Εγινε γνωστός για τα βιβλία του εκλαϊκευμένης επιστήμης (popular science) και την τηλεοπτική σειρά ΚΟΣΜΟΣ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos:_A_Personal_Voyage), την οποία έγραφε και παρουσίαζε. Στα έργα του συνηγορεί υπέρ της αθείας και της επιστημονικής μεθόδου (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method).

David Lorenz Winston's Winter

2007-11-23T14:04:00.000+02:00

σχολια καλιτεχνη:

My imagery is about discovery.
It takes me to places I have
never been, places that free
me from the pressures of a
clock driven world, places
that heal. I'm most excited
when in tune with the
underlying flow and energy of
the ordinary. I seek to reveal
the essence of a moment or
place gone unnoticed. I love
showing things in new ways,
using the elements of
surprise, mystery and
playfulness, fused with design
and movement.

ΓΙΑΤΙ ΡΕ ΣΕΙΣ ΚΟΨΑΤΕ ΤΟΝ ΜΠΟΜΠ ΣΦΟΥΓΓΑΡΑΚΗ;

2007-11-23T12:38:00.000+02:00

Καλά πόσο μυαλό κουβαλάτε, στο ΕΣΡ;
Είστε με τα καλά σας;
Τον Μπομπ Σφουγγαρακη κόψατε ;
Γιατί δεν κόβατε τον άλλον τον μακρυμάλλη τον τσαχπίνη με το κουστούμι και την μαντήλα που οπού σταθεί και οπού βρεθεί την ζητά και την συζητάει;
Η τον άλλο τον σεναριογράφο ηθοποιό, που με διθυράμβους λούζετε τα τελευταία δυο χρόνια!!!
Άντε και αυτοί βγαίνουν αργά στην τηλεόραση!!!!
(Με όλα τα πρωινάδικα και μεσημεριανά σκουπίδια να τους επαναλαμβάνουν.)
Όλες τις αδελφές ψυχές που τσιρίζουν και ξεκατινιάζονται, από πρωίας μέχρι "βαθύτατης νυκτός", έχοντας γνώμη, άποψη και λόγο επί παντός και επί όλων !!!
Θα τις κόψετε;
Ή θα τις αφήσετε να ανθίσουν και άλλο;
Το GAY κατεστημένο εσείς το επιβάλατε στο ελληνικό σπίτι!
Και τώρα υποκριτές χτυπάτε για να χτυπήσετε, επειδή στην αντίπερα όχθη του Ατλαντικού ο Μπαμπ Σφουγγαράκης "εκρίθη ένοχος", -και δεν πήρε χάρη όπως η γαλοπούλα-, άντε να του την ρίξουμε και εμείς!
Τι προσπαθείτε να μας πείτε ότι κάνετε έργο και δικαιολογούνται, τα λεφτά που βγάζετε;
Χτυπάτε το GAY κατεστημένο;
Τώρα;
Μην είναι πάρα πολύ αργά;
Μια μικρή μειονότητα περίπου 0,4% του ενήλικου πληθυσμού είναι!!
Και με τις πράξεις σας την δυναμώνετε και την κάνετε να φαίνετε 10%!!!!
Μήπως, λέω μήπως είστε ενεργά μέλη της GLT κοινότητας;
Για πείτε μας;
Πάρτε θέση;
Δεν είστε;
Δεν είναι κακή ούτε κατακριτέα, η στάση του καθενός μας προς τον έρωτα!!!!
Είναι κατακριτέα η στάση η δίκια σας, προς εμάς όλους που θέλουμε να ΔΟΥΜΕ ποιοτική τηλεόραση!
ΑΝΤΕ ΓΕΙΑ ΛΟΙΠΟΝ,
ΑΝΤΕ ΓΕΙΑ

ΕΠΙΤΕΛΟΥΣ !!!!

2007-11-23T11:44:00.000+02:00

ΕΠΙΤΕΛΟΥΣ ΕΝΑ ΣΟΒΑΡΟ ΒΗΜΑ ΓΙΑ ΤΗΝ ΚΑΤΑΔΙΚΗ ΤΩΝ ΠΑΙΔΕΡΑΣΤΩΝ

may the force be with you
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

ΤΕΛΙΚΑ ΔΕΝ ΕΙΜΑΣΤΕ ΟΛΟΙ ΙΔΙΟΙ......

2007-11-22T15:44:00.000+02:00

New investigations into the code for life suggest the assumption that humans are genetically almost identical is wide of the mark, and the implications could be resounding.
Current thinking, inspired by the results five years ago from the Human Genome Project, is that the six billion humans alive today are 99.9 percent similar when it comes to genetic content and identity.
But major research work, published on Thursday, suggests we are genetically more diverse -- and the repercussions could be far-reaching for medical diagnosis, new drugs and the tale of human evolution itself.
Until now, analysis of the genome has focussed overwhelmingly on comparing flaws, or polymorphisms, in single "letters" in the chemical code for making and sustaining human life.
An international consortium of scientists has taken a different tack and believe they have uncovered a complex, higher-order variation in the code.
This better explains why some individuals are vulnerable to certain diseases and respond well to specific drugs, while counterparts swiftly fall sick or never respond to treatment, the authors believe.
Their focus has been to dig out deletions or duplications of code among relatively long sequences of individual DNA and then compare these so-called copy number variations (CNVs) across a range of volunteers of different ancestry.
The researchers were astonished to locate 1,447 CNVs in nearly 2,900 genes, or around one eighth of the human genetic code."Each one of us has a unique pattern of gains and losses of complete sections of DNA," said Matthew Hurles of Britain's Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, one of the project's partners.
"One of the real surprises of these results was just how much of our DNA varies in copy number. We estimate this to be at least 12 percent of the genome."
"The copy number variation that researchers had seen before was simply the tip of the iceberg, while the bulk lay submerged, undetected. We now appreciate the immense contribution of this phenomenon to genetic differences between individuals.
"Some of the missing or duplicated stretches are very long, suggesting that, like backroom switches in a protein factory, CNVs must have a big impact on gene expression.
Nearly 16 percent of genes that are known to be related to disease have CNVs, the group found.
These include genes involved in rare genetic disorders such as DiGeorge, Williams-Beuren and Prader-Willi syndromes and those linked with schizophrenia, cataracts, spinal muscular atrophy and atherosclerosis.
But kidney disease, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and vulnerability to malaria and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which recent research has blamed on single-letter variations in the gene code, may also well be rooted in CNVs, the doctors believe.
"The stage is set for global studies to explore anew... the clinical significance of human variation," said Huntington Willard and Kevin Shianna of the Institute for Genome and Science Policy at Duke University in North Carolina, in a review of the research.
Evolution is another area that will come under new scrutiny.
The "Out of Africa" scenario, by which Homo sapiens emerged from east Africa and spread around the globe, will not be challenged, though.
Our origins are so recent that the vast majority of CNVs, around 89 percent, was found to be shared among the 269 people who volunteered blood as samples for the study.
These individuals included Japanese from Tokyo, Han Chinese from Beijing, Yoruba from Nigeria and Americans of Northern and Western European ancestry.
All the same, there are widespread differences in CNVs according to the three geographical origins of the samples.
This implies that, over the last 200,000 years or so, subtle variants have arisen in the genome to allow different populations of humans adapt to their different environments, Wellcome Trust Sanger said in a press release.
The research, which appears in the British journal Nature, is based on two technical breakthroughs, one in faster, accurate sequencing of DNA and the other in a powerful software programme to spot the CNVs.

MILO MANARA more....EROTICUS

2007-11-21T21:21:00.000+02:00

τι σας φταινε τα παιδακια ανωμαλαρες!!!!!!

2007-11-15T16:23:00.000+02:00

free your mind

2007-11-14T01:06:00.000+02:00

αλλο ενα καλο ποστ απο την ΤΜΤ

δυνατη μουσικη

μερικα απο τα πιο προχωρημενα ιστολογια στο διαδυκτιο

toomanytribbles: free your mind

50 χρονια ταξιδια στο διαστημα....

2007-11-13T22:33:00.000+02:00

οχι αλλα ζωα, διαστημικοι ηρωες

αν θελετε πειραματα υπαρχουν ανθρωποι....

τα ζωα δεν σας πειραζουν!!!

αξίζει μια επισκεψη

2007-11-11T16:29:00.000+02:00

αξίζει μια επίσκεψη......γιατί το γέλιο κάνει καλό

marxismus, a fallen era?

2007-11-11T01:26:00.000+02:00

ΔΟΜIΝΙΚΟΣ ΘΕΟΤΟΚΟΠΟΥΛΟΣ

2007-11-10T11:21:00.000+02:00