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December 30, 2003Today, I read Saturday's newspaper. The delivery personnel for our neighborhood have been surprisingly flaky, even in the time I've been here, so instead of lazily browsing through articles that capture my attention with titles that include words like "beef" and "Chechnya," I took my time reading through the news from two days ago.While I usually rely on Nikka for the latest updates on earthquakes in Iran, I decided to take the initiative and read about this Iranian earthquake myself. (All articles from The Baltimore Sun, 12/27/03.) -- Powerful quake hits Iran A powerful earthquake rocked Bam, and ancient city in southeastern Iran, early yesterday morning, killing thousands and destroying 70 percent to 90 percent of the residential areas. The official Islamic Republic News Agency said that earthquake registered 6.3 on the standard magnitude scale. The U.S. Geological Survey put the magnitude at 6.7... About 30,000 were reported to be injured... Waverly Person, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey, said the force of the earthquake was magnified because it was relatively shallow, originating only 20 to 30 miles below the surface... At Bam's only cemetery, a crowd of about 1,000 people wailed and beat their chests and heads over about 500 corpses that lay on the ground as a bulldozer dug a trench for a mass grave... Several countries offered to help. Russia was the first... -- For comparison, there are about 45701 females in Columbia. (Since I was browsing: interesting.) Moving into Eastern Europe. -- Ukrainians protest constitutional changes Opposition politicians armed with sirens and megaphones blocked all action in Ukraine's parliament for the fourth consecutive day yesterday in a tense standoff over constitutional reforms that would phase out general elections for president and instead charge parliament with selecting a head of state. The proposed amendments would allow the general elections to proceed as scheduled in October, but would limit the victor to a two-year term. Beginning in 2006, the parliament would select presidents who would serve five-year terms... Opposition leaders blocked access to the rostrum in parliament... "We will continue this standoff indefinitely," said opposition legislator Andrei Shkil... "They may call this political reform, but we call it an anti-constitutional coup," Shkil said in a telephone interview. "This reform deprives people of their inalienable right to elect the country's president"... "Right now, most political and economic power is concentrated in the hands of the president, whereas the parliament has very little leverage," said legislator Stepan Grish, coordinator of the pro-government parliament majority. "We want to change this system, and we think this is what the country need to continue its democratic development." -- I didn't know that Ukrainians had any inalienable rights. Some nations are able to preserve the illusion that the masses actually have a say in important matters. Ukraine is not one of them. More from the other side of town, but closer to home. -- Morgan choir to heat up Russian winter fest The St. Petersburg Philharmonic. The Morgan State University Choir. Long cold nights. Fireworks. Shostakovich. Gershwin. All part of the International Winter Festival, a musical extravaganza organized by Yuri Temirkanov, music director of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO). The festival, which beings tomorrow night, has been lighting up the cultural scene in St.Petersburg, Russia, each winter since 1999... Temirkanov first worked with the Morgan State choir last year in a BSO Gershwin program. "I immediately felt that this chorus must come to the festival," he says. "The Russian people know Gershwin and love Gershwin; then know very well that period and culture of American history"... A new work by the St. Petersburg Ballet Theatre and an evening of Russian and American poetry and music will also be packed into the festival. For extra elegance, there will be the annual New Year's Eve Ball given by Temirkanov at the Yusupov Palace, a haunt of the city's high society for two centuries and the site of Rasputin's notoriously protracted murder in 1916... "Like the White Nights Festival during the summer in St. Petersburg, the Winter Festival, Art Square, is an opportunity to display Russia's rich cultural traditions," Temirkanov says. "This is especially important... given that the cultural life of Russia faces serious challenges today"... "St. Petersburg is not on everyone's list to visit in late December, early January," admits festival director Kathleen Charla, and American who has worked for Temirkanov's fest since 2000. "Every year the festival grows in reputation, and we are getting more foreign visitors"... Like any top festival, this one has its share of luminaries. In recent years, superstar pianist Evgeny Kissin and nearly superstar pianist Lang Lang were featured... -- The program will also include: -Charles Ives -Lou Harrison -Beethoven's Missa Solemnis -Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony -Rimsky-Korsakov -Prokofiev -Shostakovich A couple things: 1. Interesting that the Russki's are very familiar with Gershwin (and Fitzgerald, and Hemingway, and the Beatles, and Shakespeare... according to my parents " "). 2. Evgeny Kissin. If you get the chance to hear him play, GET YOUR ASS TO THE TICKET BOOTH. 3. I need to be Kathleen Charla!! More in local music news, taken from a letter sent in by a reader. -- Fund music, schools, not far-flung wars How sad that the young, talented musicians of the Baltimore Talent Education Center (BTEC) will have to put away their instruments because there is no longer sufficient funding for the after-school music program. This sort of thing is happening on a national scale in a country where our political leaders send $87 billion to rebuild Iraq, which we have also spent the past 13 years and more billions of dollars returning to the Stone Age... Frankly, I don't care about Iraq. I want my tax money spent here in my country. I want my kids to go to schools that are younger than I am and sit in real classrooms instead of converted trailers... [long list of what D.Ebbert from Bel Air wants]... I want the bright talented children of the BTEC to be able to play their violins. I want a president who will concern himself with the problems right here in my country, and I hope that next year we can get one. -- Anybody remember Mr. Schaeffer's middle school Social Studies class? Rockin the trailer education. Mother "wants" (would dream to in the very distant future) to open a piano school. I guess we'll see about that. And this last one deserves to be included in its entirety. -- If the shoe fits You're only as pretty as you feel, as Jefferson Airplane put it. These days, for some ladies of fashion, feeling pretty means wearing those stiletto heels that cost more than a week's salary. The problem, though, is the pain. Feet-shaped feet fit only imperfectly into those cantilevered, pointy-toed dressings; the attendant squeezing and smooshing can warp tender toes and soles as well as send twinges up the spine. Women account for 80 percent of foot surgeries, most to fix load-bearing appendages damaged by years of wearing ill-fitting shoes, according to the American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society. Nearly 90 percent of women routinely wear shoes that are a size or two too narrow. One might think the solution would be to obtain better-fitting footwear, to cut the shoe to fit the foot. But not so fast. If the style makes you feel pretty enough, why not cut the foot to fit the shoe? Some women are having bones in their feet - or a portion of toe - removed so their appendages will fit better into sexy-heeled styles. Choosing to go under the scalpel to boost "toe cleavage" or for "deboning" gives testimony to the psychic power of high heels - as well as the ubiquity of skilled surgeons. Lengthening the leg, defining the calves, trimming the feet into dainty points - high heels are a Western aesthetic pleasure for the wearer and the viewer. Call it the Betty Grable pinup look - all gams. Learning the hip roll to maintain forward momentum and knee flexion, along with the deliberate stride, is for many a rite of passage, as is one's first wolf-whistle when the stride is performed correctly. Wearing teetering heels can help declare one's feminine side, and it certainly attracts attention - as well as occasional help crossing the curb. It can give a girl a leg up on the dating front, perhaps as much as can the sharpness of her mind and the content of her character. And they don't have to be foot-killers. Some high-end designers, such as Taryn Rose and Tara, design their lines for comfort as well as style. Even some of the hot-hot Manolo Blahniks aren't that torturous, although, the designer admits, "15 percent are total madness." It's not clear how many women have had their feet trimmed, but the number is growing at such a clip it has prompted the medical community to sound a warning. While not as gangrenous as the stepsisters' self-hacking in the original version of Cinderella, trimming a wedge off a toe or slicing a bit from the side of a foot carries the usual surgical risks, plus a few extra ones. There are 26 bones, 33 joints, 107 ligaments and 19 muscles in each foot, and even a small change, as anyone who has stubbed a toe knows, can lead to pain that can stretch all the way up the leg, the back and even the neck. A big change, such as lopping off a balance point on a toe, can make the damage permanent. Not to mention what happens if the surgery goes wrong: floppy toes from losing too much tension, numbness, scarring and the dreaded "sausage toe," the opposite of the desired result. To be sure, insurers don't pay for pre-emptive cosmetic foot-work, so it's pretty much a private matter whether one chooses to brave the pain for this-year's-fashion's gain. And if it doesn't work out, at least there are those très chic four-wheeled walkers with the seats built in. Self-acceptance - feet and all - may be too tough a New Year's resolution, but perhaps one can reach a level of self-tolerance. Accept your feet. -- Nikka, that one is for you :D Safe travels friend. |
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