Noscere Audere Velle Tascere Ire: rifts on Arts, music, photography, history, literature, poetry, science, the paintings, visual arts, the dance and ultimately to the living spaces of nature by Nosauvelta. This is a look for the space between thinking, knowing, seeing, understanding and listening well, reading stories and thoughts of what was, what is, and what has to be as told by the wise through blogs, photos, video, and music blogs.
If There Is Much In The Window There Should Be More In The Room
Man-skills are on the decline. Skinny jeans are on the rise. And male testosterone? Declining at 1% a year. What does it all mean for the future of Man? Only one documentary has the balls to ask: An Emasculating Truth. According to the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, testosterone is declining in American men at the alarming rate of one percent a year. But why? That’s what Casey Neistat and Oscar Boyson sought to uncover in their film An Emasculating Truth. Ultimately, the short film goes beyond this question to further the current dialogue about today’s definition of masculinity in light of changing gender roles. Boyson, the film’s producer and on camera emcee, came to some very personal conclusions about what it means to be a man today, turning the camera on himself and asking the question ‘what does it mean to be a man?’ “Masculinity isn’t something people think about often,” said Boyson. “Our goal was to find a cross-section of people and ask them, what does being a man mean to you? This is an issue where there isn’t much middle ground and we wanted to find out why.” The facts speak for themselves. Men suffered more than their fair share of lay-offs in the past year (80 percent to be exact), so much so that women now outnumber men in the work force for the first time in history. Women also outnumber men in higher education at the undergraduate and graduate levels, with nearly 60 percent of grad school enrollees being women. Boys – our future men – are failing out of high school at alarming rates, 4.9 percent versus 3.8 percent of girls, and are being diagnosed with ADHD at rates three times higher than that of their female counterparts. In short, manhood is in peril … or at least going through a pretty significant transformation on its way to the new future state.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,Violin Concerto No. 5 in A, 2nd Movement... soft, tranquil, calm.... Mozart’s five authentic Violin Concertos were all products of a single year — 1775. At nineteen he was already a veteran of five years experience as concertmaster, for which his duties included not only playing, but also composing, acting as co-conductor with the keyboard player (modern orchestral conducting was not to originate for at least two more decades) and soloing in concertos. It was for this last function that Mozart wrote these concertos. He was, of course, a quick study at everything that he did, and each of these works builds on the knowledge gained from its predecessors. It was with the last three (K. 216, 218, 219) that something more than simple experience emerged, however, because it was with these compositions that Mozart indisputably entered the era of his musical maturity. These are his earliest pieces now regularly heard in the concert hall, and the last one, No. 5 in A major, is the greatest of the set. A. Hyatt King wrote that this is not only the best of Mozart’s concertos for violin, “but has no rival throughout the second half of the 18th century.”
This animal is called a Slow Loris.... Being this cute can come at a tremendous cost.
Lorises are prosimian primates, related to the lemurs of Madagascar, and share many characteristics with the lemurs, like the specialized toothcomb for grooming.
Lorises live across Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent and are special among primates for their slow quadrupedalism. Lorises are increasingly threatened by illegal capture and export for the pet trade. Lorises entering the pet trade may suffer terribly, often having their teeth clipped or pulled without anesthesia to minimize risk from their toxic bite. They also might be kept awake during the day (when they normally would be sleeping) to interact with their owners. Viral videos of pet lorises depict them as cute, lovable pets however the animals often appear stressed by the bright lights and activity.
The slow loris, is one of the most popular animals in the wildlife trade, particularly in Japan, where people pay as much as U.S.$3,800 to have one as a house pet. But the loris will soon be priceless—literally—thanks to a new ruling by the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
Side Note: Learned a few interesting things about this video at the Duke Lemur Center today. 1) While it may appear that this loris is enjoying being scratched, this is a posture these animals take on when they feel threatened. 2) The animal is raising his arms to expose his scent glands, which produce a toxic & noxious fluid to deter predators. 3) As this is a nocturnal animal, the lighting in the room the animal is filmed in is actually effectively blinding him.
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the work of International Animal Rescue so that we can continue to
save slow lorises and campaign for an end to the illegal trade.
