It may be the oddest tale to emerge from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico.

Read more…

Posted by drpoo as News at 9:22 AM PDT

No Comments »

Here are some reading notes from the book “The Broken Spears — The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico” by Miguel Leon-Portilla.

———————————————————–

When the strangers (Spainards) first were spotted by the Aztecs on the Gulf coast, Motecuhzoma thought that the prophecy of their main god Quetzalcoatl returning was coming true. He sent Nahuas informants to meet the ‘gods’ and offered them many gifts and asked them to leave. He feared they were ‘returning’ to reclaim ‘their’ kingdom, as was promised when Quetzacoatl originally departed. The spainards were not deterred.

When the messengers returned to Motecuhzoma, he was anxious to hear their stories. He held a sacrificial event upon their arrival because they had completed a hard mission: they saw and conversed directly with the gods. The reports he recieved terrified him.

Motec. sent out magicians and warlocks to attempt to repel the strangers or harm them with their magic. The attempts failed miserably; they even backfired. One of the things the magicians did was sacrifice a human in front of the strangers. The thought was maybe the strangers would like to drink human blood. (they still thought they might be gods, and the gods of aztecs loved human blood). The spainards were repulsed by this. Nothing the Aztecs could do now would keep the Spainards from marching to their lands. Motec. was having a physcological fit during this time, he was having a complete mental breakdown. Motec. was very concerned that the magicians had failed completely to affect the strangers. He figured then that they must be invulnerable to their magic, and thought he was no match for them.

Motec thinks about fleeing because the strangers were coming to meet him face-to-face. He didn’t leave though and with much anguish, waited for their arrival. He also choose to meet them in peace.

On the way the Spainards had their first battle; the Tecoac Otomies were utterly destroyed. The Tlaxcala people decided to allie with Aztecs instead of fighting. The formed ranks and together then attacked/massacred the Cholulas. The Cholulas were allies of the Aztecs.

The Tlaxcala were very afraid of attacking the Chululas. They thought that the god Quetzalcoatl would bring fire and fury upon them. However once the attacks began they realized that nothing happened to them, even when the idols and temples were being destroyed. They understood then that the claims by the Chululas that great destruction would reign down upon all who fought them was a bunch of lies….and falsehoods (so is said…) They now saw that the Spainards were in fact the one’s whom were divine, and their mission was one from god/ ‘our lord’ himself. rescuing the land from the evil powers of the devil.

One account says that the Tlaxcalas attempted to arrive at Chulula in peace, but the Chululas said bring it on. That account was made by one from the Tlaxcala people (maybe to help excuse the massacre). No other accounts cooberate this claim. This account also claims that most of the Chululas commited suicide by jumping from the temples because their god did not save them, as opposed to it having been a massacre. The word got out too that Quetzalcoatl had not served Chululas in anyway and this brought much confusion and fear to all the native people.

Motec. heard of these stories. He send out a envoy with a lot of gold and other gifts to give to the strangers. He hoped they would take the treasures and leave. Of course this did not happen, but instead it made the Spainards thirst even more for the treasures. Motec. then sent out more magicians and wizards to attempt to harm the strangers again before they arrived to his city. They made it only half way before they had a vision — or before they ran into a man who foretold them of the ultimate destruction of the empire. They imediately returned to tell them of the profecy of the man whom dissapeared after telling of the cities fate. Motec. was scared shitless. He waited fatalistically for the strangers to arrive.

When the did arrive, Motecuhzoma greated them peacefully. Cortez, the Spanish leader asked him if he was truely the ruler of the empire and Motec humbly replied “Yes, I am Mtecuhzoma…Our Lord, you are weary. The journet has tire you, not now you have arrived on the earth. You have come to your city, Mexico. You have come here to sit on your throne, to sit under its conopy. The kings who have gone before, your representatives, guarded it and preserved it for your coming. The kings Itzcoatl, Motecuhzoma the Elder, … and Ahuitzol rules for you in the City of Mexico. The people were protected by their swords and sheltered by their shields. … No it is not a dream…I have seem you at last. I was inagony for five days….and now you have come out of the clouds and mists to sit on your throne again. This was foretold by the kings who governed your city, and now it has taken place. You have come back to us; you have come down from the sky. Rest now, and take possession of your royal houses. Welcome to your land, my lords!”

Intersting, Motec. is obviously unaware that Cortez is human…not a god. He’s giving his entire kingdom away…according to the accounts given by both spainards and aztecs themselves.

Cortez replied by tell Motec that there was nothing fear, they came as friends. Then later that evening Cortez captured Motec by surprise and held him hostage. The spainards took possession of the city…and demanded all the gold and riches in the city.

Then…the rest is history…(well so is this…hehe. But i’m not noting anything more.)

More background information on Hernan Cortez and the conquest of Aztecs can be found here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hern%C3%A1n_Cort%C3%A9s

-Chris

Posted by drpoo as College Of The Atlantic at 11:33 AM PDT

No Comments »

I know it’s early but i ran into a grad school admissions person at COA the other day and it really sparked my interest. Mom, you’d be happy to hear i’m interested in going to Princeton University, right?

Well there is a graduate program there at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs that has my interest. More informatio here: http://www.wws.princeton.edu

“The programs seek to develop in their graduates a lasting commitment to public affairs. The programs teach skills inanalyzing the political, economic, quantitative, scientific, technological, organizational, and normative aspects of complex policy problems, and foster an appreciation of the historical, institutional, cultural and environmental contexts of public and international policy.” Specifically the Masters in Public Affiars (M.P.A) program focuses on international and domestic relations and policy making in fields related to Science, technology, and the environment.
“The objective of the program is to produce graduates with a Master’s of Ph.D. degree who are prepared to enter leadership positions at non-governmental organizations, in national and state governments, and with international intergovernmental agencies.”

My own interests are focused in understanding the complex working of national public policy for the diffusion and implementation of Information and Computer Technologies (ICTs). Over the final two years of my undergraduate studies here at COA I plan to begin already researching in this area of study.

Another cool aspect of this program is that they typically give full scholarships to those who are accepted. I will have to really be able to prove myself worthy or get real lucky to make it in, but neither case is to far out of my reach.

Another program that is come to my attention is the Watson Fellowship. This is a scholarship that is provided to around 50 out of 200 cadidates from various participating undergraduate schools; COA is one of the participating schools.

The scholarship provides more than $25 thousand dollars to ‘just’ graduated seniors to travel and do an ‘independent study’. From the promotional material on the Watson website, “When we say independent study, we mean something a little different from independent study as undertaken at a college or university. Watson Fellows must create, execute, and evaluate their own projects. When they wake up in the morning most Watson Fellows ask themselves, What am I going to do today? … the Watson Fellowship is intended to be a time when fellows are their own advisors. The fellow should decide how questions can be answered, when it is time to move on, if a project must be adjusted in any way, etc. …Some fellows undertake volunteer work to gain access to people they wish to observe or interview, but in such cases the fellow should feel that he/she is still in charge of the project.”

Could be an excellent opportunity for me to further explore my interests in international development and policy making with regards to technology diffusion and implentation in developing contries.

More information can be found here: http://www.watsonfellowship.org/site/index.html

-Chris

Posted by drpoo as Peace Works!, Personal Endeveavors at 9:54 AM PDT

No Comments »

I happened accross a very fun website this morning as i was searching the internet at work (bored…tourist season is almost over, not very much to do in the office). the site is http://scripts.lovingyou.com/mdb/search.cgi?mdb=ideas&cat=games - Romantic Games and Fun Ideas.

Some of the ones that i read and really liked are:

Body Paint Alternative
Pudding cups in various flavors work as a great alternative to commercial body paints; each person gets one cup of each flavor. Use the pudding to finger-paint your lover. When you’re finished painting, you have to lick off your artwork. Then it’s their turn to do the same … or you can try painting each other at the same time, but that gets messy. This can also be done with containers of yogurt, but pudding works best!

A Message In A Bottle
My girlfriend and I currently live apart from each other. I wanted to send her a special note in the mail, so I came up with this idea. I got a clear plastic soda bottle, and took all the wrapping off it. I typed up a note to her and printed it on some paper that looked like a scroll. I rolled it up nice and tight and tied it in a bow. I put the note in the bottle, and screwed the top on. I taped her address to the outside of the bottle, and it only cost me .55 cents in the US mail! She absolutely loved it! Trust me, it will be one of the best inexpensive surprises ever!

Only For The Brave Men!
Only for the brave-men!! My boyfriend shaved a love heart around his belly-button and wrote above it in red “Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, I shaved my belly just for you”!!! (could work with chest hair…or whatever else you could imagine)

Bottled Memories
My boyfriend and I live 2000 miles away from each other right now. We talk every night and we try to visit each other as much as possible. I wanted to do something special for him so I took an empty champagne bottle that he and I had drank together on one of our visits and took off the paper label around the neck (soak it in water and it will peal right off). Then I took it too a glass cutter. I had him cut the bottle at the neck, right where the paper wrap would be. I then filled it with little trinkets and memories from us - movie & sport ticket stubs, pictures, Hershey Kisses, romantic fortunes from fortune cookies, flower petals, the “key to my heart” (that I bought from this website!), all the reasons why I love him written out on slips of paper, little things like that. I filled the bottle with all those things and then glued it back together with silicone glue and super glued the paper wrapper back over the place where it had been cut. It looked brand new; you couldn’t tell it had ever been cut. Then I mailed it to him and told him that he had to wait to break it open with me until the next time we were together. He loved it! We broke it open together the next time I saw him, he couldn’t wait!

Turn Me On
Unplug the TV… Put a note on the screen saying “Turn Me on Instead”

———-

These are just a few of the ones that made me think to myself…how Cute! Anyway…

-Chris

Posted by drpoo as General at 9:42 AM PDT

No Comments »

You Know You’re From Houston When…

You’re on your way to work one February morning and suddenly you’re trapped in a traffic jam caused by a chuck wagon and fifty horses — with riders — and you look around to see that everybody in the cars around you is wearing a cowboy hat.

The “farm-to-market” roads have seven lanes.

If you want to be a snob about your grocery shopping, you can go to a Randall’s Flagship, a Kroger Signature, a Rice Epicurean, or soon, an HEB Central Market to buy bread and milk (but you have to dress up!)

You have to turn on the air conditioning in January, two days after a low of 29 degrees.

You have a “roach story”: you opened your flatware drawer to find a roach the size of the Taco Bell chihuahua. He stood up and looked you in the eye. You closed the drawer, bought new flatware — and stored it in the oven.

When you see your neighbor dancing around the front yard, you don’t think he’s won the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes; you know he just stepped in a fire ant bed.

The name “Bud Adams” makes people snarl, and “Bum Phillips” doesn’t mean a bad screwdriver.

“Luv Ya Blue” still makes you smile, even if you did run the Oilers out of town.

You know that the Astrodome will always be the Eighth Wonder of the World.

You come to work in short-sleeves and walk out at noon to find that a “blue-tailed norther” has blown through, and the temperature has dropped 40 degrees in a matter of minutes.

Your neighbor’s Christmas yard decorations look like a re-creation of the gunfight at the OK Corral, complete with a ten-foot tree decorated with boots and cowboy hats, and a Santa Claus who looks a lot like Wyatt Earp.

You wander into a section of town where you can’t read the street signs because they’re written in Asian characters instead of English, but you don’t care because you can get great prices on fake designer merchandise and great food.

You go to an art festival on Westheimer and you’re almost run down by two cross-dressers on roller blades, holding hands.

The “Killer Bees” are not stinging insects.

You hear everything but English spoken when you go to the Galleria to window-shop.

You know that “Dad gummit” has nothing to do with your father’s failure to practice good dental hygiene.

You think “Y’all” is perfectly good usage if you’re referring to more than one person.

For a Chili Cookoff, you’ll use anything from armadillo to frog’s legs, but you know that the only GOOD chili is made with chopped — not ground — beef, and it has NO beans and NO tomatoes.

Spring is not the season, Katy is not the lady, and 1960 is not the year.

Society matrons of “a certain age” still sport big hair, and faces that have gone east, west, and north rather than south.

You can leave your house, head out of town, and an hour later you still haven’t left the city limits. (During rush hour, you haven’t left your neighborhood.)

You’ve never seen I-45 in any condition other than under-construction — and you’ve lived here for 20-30 years.

If the humidity is below 90 percent, it’s a good hair day.

You know that “Clutch City” has nothing to do with automobile transmissions.

“The Dream” is not a fantasy.

The only real Mexican food is Tex-Mex.

A 747 with the Space Shuttle riding piggyback has actually flown low, right overhead, and nobody paid any attention to it.

You know that while saving you money, “Mattress Mac” has amassed more than the U.S. Treasury has.

You’re happy to have beaten Los Angeles out of a football team, but you’d rather that they keep the title of “Smog Capital.”

You see nothing unusual about an 80-something former sheriff’s deputy who wears a white pompadour toupee and blue sunglasses, mispronounces names, allows televising of his frequent plastic surgeries, seems unnaturally obsessed with slime in the ice machine, and screams, “MAR-vin ZIND-ler, EYE-witness news” into a television camera every night.

You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from Houston.

——————————————–

These are from some random houstonian. I grabbed it from a website called Facebook.com; which is a website for social networking between Colleges and Highschools in the US. Pretty neat idea, i’ve already met some new people and i met some old friends too!

-Chris

Posted by drpoo as General at 7:21 PM PDT

No Comments »

Neighborhoods today lack community economics, by lacking any economic development within the confines of the community. For example in most American neighborhoods there are no local businesses or other organizations that create money flows within the neighborhood. Sometimes there are businesses surrounding the neighborhoods that enable members of the community to bring money back to the community in paycheck form but very few neighborhoods have creative economies within themselves. In fact most neighborhoods have zoning regulations which disallow creative economies to be developed. A dependence on organizations outside the community is necessary for all those who live within these ‘non-commercial’ zones. There is no need for the people of such neighborhoods to interact with each other. What effect does this have on a communities self-reliance? Are such neighborhoods even communities, or are they ‘housing locations’ which distance people from community development. Neighborhoods, in contrast to communities, are not ‘creative’; they are solely ‘consumptive’. “Monopolistic buying control is possible” with fixed, purely consumptive communities. Cities (with neighborhoods rather than more self-reliant communities) concentrate consumption and reinforce consumptive lifestyles, which draws more revenue and higher profits for ‘outside’ organizations.

Agglomeration Economies: Cities and neighborhoods allow for maximization of product sale price and product demand with the minimization of production and transportation costs. This shrinks the Webber Triangle. It also makes the centers of the economic plane for which the organization needs to place itself within to maximize profits much smaller, concentrated and closer to the maximum market points.

Posted by drpoo as College Of The Atlantic, Personal Endeveavors at 6:41 PM PDT

No Comments »

That’s what i, with the help of Victor, Simone, Cherie, Deodenne, Shehzia, Jian, Garry, Dave, and many others help get donated towards the katrina disaster relief. The participation wasn’t as much as we hoped, but i’m happy with the donations. It’s something I can handle too.

Deodenne let me borrow her Bravada and i was able to fill it well with the amount of food and other supplies we had donated.

In the morning i’m taking the stuff to Bangor early to drop the stuff off, then coming back and going to class.

Speaking of class, tommorrow i have class at 11:10 and 1:00. Native Empires to Nation States in the mornings, every monday and friday, the spanish in the afternoon. Latin America from and American perspective. Maya, Incas, Aztecs, and more. :-) There’s a girl in the class that is from mexico, she’s excited to get the history from our perspective here in the US. I am too, although history has never been my best subject.

Estoy muy contento porque puedo comenzar con clases de espanol otra vez. Lunes, Martes, Jueves, y Viernes. Tengo cuatro clases cada semana con Karla Pena. Cuando estoy con Karla o hago algo que puedo hablar en espanol, voy a hablar en espanol. Pues, no cada tiempo pero mas de no.

Then on tuesdays and fridays i have a class called applied community change. How appropriate, no? It’s interesting to think of a world which wasn’t consuming itself to extinction.

One blurb from LIVING ECONOMIES FOR A LIVING PLANET By David C. Korten, the first paper we were assigned to read for the class: (http://www.pcdf.org/Living_Economies/default.htm)
Download at Living Economies For Living Planet - David Korten

“The human future depends on moving beyond the self-limiting and ultimately self-destructive ways of Empire to live into being a new Era of Community in which life is the defining cultural value, cooperation and partnership are society’s organizing principles, and networking is the predominant organizational form. The culture and institutions of the global suicide economy must be replaced by the culture and institutions of a planetary system of living economies that mimic the behavior of healthy living organisms and ecosystems. ”

Interesting to say the least. I’m putting it up for download in the gallery page. Find it and just grab it for yourself to read if you want to see the rest.

Goodnight, i have a early wakeup call and a long drive ahead of me.

-Chris

Posted by drpoo as General, College Of The Atlantic, MDI Community Events, Peace Works!, Personal Endeveavors at 8:33 PM PDT

No Comments »