The turning woman!

I think I've run out of things to say on this blog for now, so while I try to come up with something worthwhile to say (ok, something to say), here's something to mull over.

Is she turning clockwise or anti-clockwise? Or both?!?!? (Click on the picture if you don't see her turning).

For more info, click on this link.. . . so what do you think? (my theory is that she turns the other way when you're not looking!)

(To give credit where credit is due, Caveboy sent me the link:))

Interesting globalization facts

I came across this story today in The New York Times, about the results of a survey of more than 45,000 people in 47 countries on what they think about globalization. There were several tidbits I found very interesting:

• Despite the increased focus on illegal immigration in the U.S., and individual states implementing their own measures to clamp down on illegal workers, the number of Americans supporting tighter immigration curbs has declined. So did the number in Britain, France and Germany. Jordanians, however, want stricter immigration policy, to stem the tide of Iraqis flowing into the country since the war started in 2003 (from 48 percent in 2002 to 70 percent).
• 55 percent of Americans believe their culture is superior. . . the only other Western country to display such self-confidence was Italy. (What exactly is "American culture?") The Swedes, Brits and French, however, seem in need of an ego boost -- only a fifth of Swedes and less than a third of the other two think their culture is superior. (The French have self-esteem issues?!?! Who'd a thunk??!?!?!)
• In most countries, the strength of people's religious belief falls as their wealth increases. The U.S. appears to be the only country where the opposite is true. Lots of religious rich people there!
• Fewer than half of Americans, Japanese and Israelies believe homosexuality should be accepted.
• Germans and Spaniards appear to be the most peace-loving people -- only a tenth of them said military force is needed to maintain order. This is compared with over a third of Turks and Americans, a fourth of French and Italians and a fifth of Brits. (I'm inclined to believe Japan would be similar to Germany and Spain, because of its general anti-war sentiment and its constitution, which Abe tried in vain to change).
• The percentage of Russians using mobile phones is higher than the percentage of Indians. . . and Russia had a higher level of adaptation -- from 8 percent of Russians owning mobiles in 2002 to 65 percent today, compared with 12 percent of Indians in 2002 to 60 percent now.
• South Korea has the highest degree of computer ownership in the world -- 93 percent!
• Germans are the biggest news junkies -- 80 percent "follow international news closely most of the time."

Can you read this?!?!?!?!?

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can. i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

--Not sure where this is from. . . someone posted it on Facebook.

"This we know, all things are connected"*

Most people are aware of the concept of six degrees of separation -- that you can connect yourself to any person in the world through six people. . . as in you know someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows that person. Yup, I think that's six people.

Now, thanks to Facebook and other social networking sites, there are even fewer connections between each of us. Or I guess the connections might be the same but these sites allow us an easier way to discover them. And yet, when we do find these strange connections, it's mind-boggling!

Case in point:

Last week, someone, a complete, total, random stranger -- let's call her Hakusakana -- added me as a friend on Facebook. I saw that she knew one person on my friends list, a professor at the J-school -- Srisri (who knows the most random people, particularly South Asians, in such random ways that I've ceased to be amazed by his connections). I also gathered that she was a Sri Lankan who was in Japan. So figuring that she was not some person who was randomly adding friends, I accepted her request. A couple of days later, I got an email from her, saying, in essence, "I didn't know there were Tamils in Japan. Are you in Tokyo? Do you want to meet for coffee?"

I assumed from her email that she was an ethnic Tamil, but found out later that she was Singhalese. In any case, I figured, "Why not?" and we decided on a time and place. We met up and she told me that she was visiting Japan for a couple of months. I asked her how she knew Srisri and she told me that someone had put her in touch with him a few months ago when she was in Europe. First semi-random connection established (semi-random, because I guess I actually met her through him, although her connection to him was pretty random in itself).

As we talked, I mentioned that I'd lived in Minnesota. "Oh, you lived in Minnesota! Do you know these two girls. . .?" she started. Even before she finished her sentence, I knew whom she was talking about. I'd met Mindh and Deep (the former a Singhalese painter, the latter a Tamil dancer) through some acquaintances who were alums of my college. The two run an organization that hosts performances by artists in diaspora, and I had wondered, because of Hakusakana's interest in art and in Sri Lanka (her profile made both pretty clear) if she somehow did know them -- the Sri Lankan art world is tiny indeed. So while amazed at the second random connection, I was not entirely surprised by it.

As we chatted about her experiences, I remembered that she had contacted someone else on my list of Facebook friends. I knew him, Yip, also Sri Lankan Tamil, because he went to my high school (in India) several years before I did, and my parents knew his. But I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out how she would know him.

"Oh," she said. "My husband went to school with him." Then she stopped and looked at me. "Wait! You went to school with Yip. That means you went to school with my husband!"

We stared at each other in shock. How does a random stranger turn out to be the wife of someone you went to school with, albeit a few years older? She seemed a bit worried at first about this, uncertain about whether I actually knew him, and if so, how well I did, and if so, if we'd been on good terms. I, on the other hand, was pretty sure that I didn't know him personally but that I would recognize his name. At first she wouldn't tell me his name, and, though I was dying to know, I didn't push her. After a while though, she relented. And I found that I actually did recall his and his brother's names and even vaguely remembered what they looked like. (When I got home later, I called Nev and asked him if he remembered them. After thinking for a bit, he said "Oh yeah yeah yeah! His brother was a goalie on the soccer team!")

As I returned home, I pondered the past few hours. I was struck by Hakusakana's pretty crazy experiences over the past few years but also by the strange ways in which we were connected. How do you meet a person whose path would normally never cross yours (different backgrounds, grown up and living in different parts of the world) with the only obvious thing in common being tenous ties, on both sides, to one little island on the other side of the world. . . and then find several people whom we both knew in so many weird ways?

I guess the world is not as lonely a place as it sometimes seems!

*a quote attributed to Chief Seattle, patriarchof the Suquamish Indians.

Strange encounter

Disclaimer: If you read this and think "Oh Puhleeze," allow me to assure you that I am in full agreement. This "episode" (for lack of a better word) takes on some minor significance only because of my reaction to it. Ok, now that you've read this, you HAVE to read the rest of the post! :)

For the past few weeks, I have been waking up early to go running in a park some distance from my apartment. The park, unfortunately, is far enough away that I spend considerably more time running TO it than actually IN it. I've been trying to find shorter ways to get there and have been making some progress in this quest, shortening the route to it by a little each today. Today, I managed to find the shortest.

On my way back, however, I miscalculated how far I was from the turn that would take me back home, and ended up turning too early. The result: my unfailing ability to get myself lost on the simplest of routes kicked in. I soon found myself completely turned around, lost in a web of tiny residential streets, with about five minutes left to get home to make it to work on time.

I began jogging toward the end of a small deserted street, in the general direction of where I thought I needed to be headed -- deserted, that is, except for the figure of a woman standing a few yards from where the road ended and another road ran across horizontally across it. The woman looked to be in her late 60s, with a noticeable bald patch on her head, dressed in a long skirt and a cardigan. What struck me, and sent a sudden chill through my body, was the way she stood -- shock still, erect and watchful, smack in the middle of the left side of the street, not off to the side as one normally would. She seemed to be watching for someone, and for a moment, I thought perhaps she was awaiting someone behind me. . . only, there was no one.

As I jogged towards her, she looked directly at me and bowed deeply -- like only the politest of Japanese waiters would. I smiled a little uneasily and continued on about half a minute past her. Discovering that the area was no more familiar than the place I'd traveled away from, I turned around to ask her for directions. . . only to find the road completely deserted. I looked toward the building, an old house, she'd been standing in front of, but there was no sign of anyone stirring.

I continued on, looking over my shoulder occasionally, trying to tell myself that my reaction was the result of one too many ghost stories around the campfire in which passersby saw lone women standing on the street, only to turn around and find them gone. But the uneasiness and the strange clamminess I'd felt upon first seeing her continued to disturb me.

I found my way eventually and sprinted home. My quick shower failed to dispel my nervousness, and even in my apartment, I continued to glance around me as I got ready. It was only when I reached the busy main street that I managed to calm down. And unbelievably silly though my reaction seems (she probably was a sleepwalking housewife), I do wonder. . .

Houdini to be exhumed after 81 years!

Anyone care to wager that the great stuntsman has skipped out? After all, nothing could contain him when he was alive. . . why should anything be different after death?

Story Highlights• Houdini's great-nephew wants to exhume Houdini's body for testing
• There is suspicion that Houdini may have been poisoned
• There are inconsistencies on death certificate and suspicious circumstances
• Internationally known forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden interested

NEW YORK (AP) -- For all of his death-defying stunts, Harry Houdini could not escape the Grim Reaper. The unparalleled performer, age 52, died on Halloween 1926, taking with him many of his trade secrets. Rumors he was murdered, however, soon took on a life of their own.

Eighty-one years later, Houdini's great-nephew wants to exhume the escape artist's body to determine if he was poisoned by enemies for his efforts to debunk their claims of contact with the dead.

A team of top-level forensic investigators would conduct new tests once Houdini's body was disinterred, a relative told The Associated Press.

"It needs to be looked at," said George Hardeen, whose grandfather was Houdini's brother, Theodore. "His death shocked the entire nation, if not the world. Now, maybe it's time to take a second look."

The circumstances surrounding Houdini's sudden death were as murky as the rivers from which he emerged unscathed, escaping from chains, locks and wooden boxes. The generally accepted explanation of Houdini's death is that he suffered a ruptured appendix from a punch in the stomach, leading to a fatal case of peritonitis.

But no autopsy was performed, and when the death certificate was filed on November 20, 1926, Houdini's body -- brought by train from Detroit to Manhattan's Grand Central Terminal -- was already buried in Queens.

Within days, a newspaper headline wondered, "Was Houdini Murdered?" A new biography, "The Secret Life of Houdini," raised the issue again and convinced George Hardeen and others that poisoning was a real possibility.

A Friday morning news conference was scheduled for details on the exhumation plans. Prominent New York lawyer Joseph Tacopina is assisting the family in clearing any legal hurdles to the exhumation.

The likeliest murder suspects were a group known as the Spiritualists, which became Houdini's nemesis in his final years. The magician devoted large portions of his stage show to exposing what he said were fraudulent seances by the group. The movement's devotees included Sherlock Holmes author Arthur Conan Doyle.

Houdini will 'get his just desserts meted out'
In the Houdini biography, authors William Kalush and Larry Sloman detail a November 1924 letter from Doyle that smacks of Professor Moriarty-style malevolence: Houdini, it said, would "get his just desserts very exactly meted out. ... I think there is a general payday coming soon."

Two years later, Houdini -- by all accounts an extraordinary physical specimen -- was dead before his 53rd birthday. Kalush and Sloman noted that "the Spiritualist underworld's modus operandi in cases like this was often poisoning" -- possibly arsenic.

The biography additionally detailed the injection of "an experimental serum" into Houdini by one of his doctors at Detroit's Grace Hospital.

While Houdini took the Spiritualists' repeated death threats seriously, he traveled without the security trappings now de rigeur for celebrities -- no bodyguard, no entourage, often just his wife Bess.

"If someone were hell-bent on poisoning Houdini," the authors wrote, "it wouldn't have been very difficult."

The team working on the exhumation includes internationally known forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden, and Professor James Starrs, a forensic pathologist who has studied the disinterred remains of gunslinger Jesse James and "Boston Strangler" Albert DeSalvo.

Baden, who chaired panels reinvestigating the deaths of President John F. Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., pointed out a pair of oddities in Houdini's death certificate: It noted his appendix was on the left side, rather than the right. And the diagnosis of appendicitis caused by a punch was "very unusual."

Starrs said he was long familiar with the story of Houdini's death, and believed the fatal injury was the result of an accident. Details contained in the Houdini biography convinced him otherwise.

"My eyebrows went up when I read this book," Starrs said. "I thought, `This is really startling, surprising and unsettling, and at bottom, suspicious in nature."'

The exhumation plan received support from a surprising source: Anna Thurlow, the great-granddaughter of "medium" Margery, whose husband Dr. Le Roi Crandon was one of the Spiritualist movement's biggest proponents -- and one of Houdini's most virulent enemies.

During a 1924 seance, Margery "channeled" a "spirit" named Walter who greeted Houdini with a threat: "I put a curse on you now that will follow you every day for the rest of your short life."

The prediction of a short life was all too real, and Thurlow believes there may be a connection.

"With people that delusional, you have to question what they're capable of,"' she said. "If there's any circumstantial evidence that Houdini was poisoned, we have to explore that."

Need a hole in the head? Just might!

I had quite an interesting interview the other day. . .

I'm working on a story on people who have drilled holes in their heads to increase the blood flow to the brain. I wanted to talk in particular to one man who runs a web site that advocates this practice and that links to writings and publications that support the theory that doing this gives a person a "permanent high," a completely altered consciousness, and a general feeling of clarity and happiness. When I first started working on this story, I called him, and he absolutely refused to talk to me, because he assumed the story was going to contain opinions of people who called people who do this a bunch of kooks and his role would be to refute them. I managed to convince him otherwise, and, as he was going out of town, arranged to talk to him on his return.

I called him last week to do the interview, and he was more than forthcoming with the information, which surprised me, given the fact that he initially refused to talk and pretty much hung up on me. But halfway through the two-hour interview, he said suddenly: "I had a dream about you last night."

"Oh?" This was a new twist. What kind of dream? Should I hang up now?

"Yeah," he went on. "I didn't know it was of you though until you called this morning."

"Oh."

"Yes, it was a good dream. . .I mean, it had a good feeling."

"Oh."

"Yes, it definitely was a good dream."

"So. . ." I ventured. "What was it about?"

"I dreamt that there was this person who had a tumour in their brain. And they had a hole drilled and the tumour was removed and they were fine," he said.

"Oh."

And then, "And you think that was me?" I asked.

"Yes, I do," he said. "I mean, I didn't know until you called, like I said, but now I know it was you. But, not that you have or will get a tumour or anything. But just that you would get it, get what this practice is all about."

"Oh."

"You do get it, right?"

"Ummm." I thought about it for a little while. And I realized that, in some strange way, I did get it. I mean, I'm not going to run out a drill a hole in my head -- not unless his dream actually comes true. But, after talking to him and three others, and reading all the literature about it, it actually does seem to make sense. At least I'm at a point now that I don't think they're all a bunch of crazy people. But I'm also not a die-hard advocate. Which means that I'm completely objective, which is a good thing to be when writing a story like this.

And, if his dream ends up coming true, I can point to yet another benefit of drilling a hole in the head!