Showing posts with label A. Mendoza. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A. Mendoza. Show all posts

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Top 10 Strange UFO Encounters

 The topic of UFOs is one on which everyone has an opinion. From the strong believer to the condescending skeptic, everyone has deep rooted beliefs regarding the subject. Some believe UFOs are travelers from other planets or dimensions. Others believe them to be experimental military aircraft. I have picked stories from different countries and eras to show that people have been reporting the same characteristics and attributes in UFOs and Extra Terrestrials for decades upon decades, and very often these stories were reported long before the seed of UFO awareness was planted in the mind of the public, through TV, film and literature.
I, personally, believe that, in the future, the existence of intelligent Extra Terrestrial life in the universe will be seen to be self evident, and people will look back and laugh at the ignorance of the past, much in the same way we do today when we remember people used to think the earth was flat, or that it didn’t orbit the Sun. Slowly but surely scientists are beginning to agree that it is mathematically impossible for intelligent life not to exist with our planet in the endless expanse of the universe, and the trillions of planets it contains. We truly live in exciting times, as day by day, more and more is discovered about the Cosmos to show this to be empirically true. I’ll leave you with the words of the pioneer of America’s Apollo Space program, the great Wernher Von Braun. “You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering.”
10
The Bowling Green Apparition
Phear Park Sketch Ufo
During the night of the 12th of February, 2010, lifelong paranormal skeptic Roy Shaw was walking his dog in Devon, England. Wandering through the quiet streets of his neighborhood, he began to approach his local Lawn Bowling club, when he was startled by an odd object hovering high up in the sky. Hazy and distant at first, it began to descend slowly and move nearer in his direction. Circular in shape, it suspended itself above the bowling club and Shaw entered the grounds to get a better look at the object. He watched in amazement as it zigzagged around, before landing on the far side of the green.
He was astounded to make out a 100ft long space craft, with blue and red lights streaming along it’s underside. At this point a 4ft high white apparition exited from the ship and floated towards him across the lawn. ‘It was about 4ft high and seemed to be translucent and moved very slowly towards us. I was transfixed because it made a droning noise, which sounded like “my, my” repeated over and over’ he later told newspapers. His dog, Sydney – an animal he stated is normally very placid – began growling and bearing its teeth at the spirit. At this point, Mr Shaw ran for his life, with such haste he twisted his ankle in the process. Another dog walker in the area claims to have seen the ship dart off into the sky at a 45 degree angle. Funnily enough, Mr Shaw still claims to be a paranormal skeptic, even after this bizarre encounter. Above is a sketch of the UFO he saw.

9
UFO with an Accent
Nordics
A woman telephoned RAF Wattisham, in Suffolk, England, on November 21st, 1989, in a distressed manner to report an encounter she had the night before with a strange man in her area. At around 10.30pm, the woman was walking her dog near a sports field when she was approached by a man with a ‘Scandinavian type accent’ dressed in light brown overalls that resembled a flying suit. A recently released report from the National Archives about the case reads. “He asked her if she was aware of stories about large circular flattened areas appearing in fields of wheat, and then went on to explain that he was from another planet similar to Earth, and that the circles had been caused by others like him who had traveled to Earth.” The man went on that they’re visits were friendly but was ordered not to make contact in case they were seen as a threat. He said he disobeyed his orders as he felt it was important for contact between our people and his to occur.
They talked for 10 minutes until he suddenly ran back in the direction he came. The woman, realizing the gravity of her situation and the strangeness of what had just occurred, ran home in a panic stricken state. Whilst doing so, she heard a thunderous buzzing noise, growing in haste and volume behind her. She turned to see a large spherical object, glowing a brilliant orange and white, rise from the trees and eventually disappear up into the atmosphere. The MOD notes attached to the file described the case as ‘one of our more unusual UFO reports.’ The operator who took the woman’s call described it as ‘a genuine call’.

8
The Wyoming case
Higdon
In 1974, Carl Higdon was hunting in Medicine Bow National Forest, Wyoming. Taking aim and firing at an Elk something strange happened; his bullet seemed to move in slow motion. As he went to retrieve the bullet a sudden strange feeling came over him. Turning around, he saw a humanoid over six feet tall which he described as having a black jumpsuit, a wide belt decorated with a six-pointed star and emblem of yellow. It had straight hair standing out from his head, no eyebrows, bow-legs and long arms ending with rod-like appendages instead of hands. The being asked him if he was hungry and gave him four pills, telling him if he ate one he wouldn’t be hungry for 4 days. The humanoid then pointed to him, and in an instant he found himself encased in a transparent device and wearing a helmet.
Two more humanoids appeared, carrying the 5 elk Higdon had previously hunted; which were now stiff and in an unnaturally frozen state. He was told he was going to their home planet, some 163,000 light-years away, and subsequently arrived there in a flash. On the planet he said there were many buildings that resembled the Seattle Space needle, and the planet’s sun was of an intense heat. His next memory was of being back in Medicine Bow Park, with 2 and a half hours having elapsed. He staggered in a deranged state unable to find his truck, eventually finding it 3 miles away. He radioed the Sheriff, who found him at midnight exhausted and frantic, shouting ‘They took my elk’. After being taken to the local hospital and examined, they found all his vitamin levels were miraculously high, and tuberculosis marks he had on his lungs had vanished. Higdons wife and 2 other people in the area saw green and red lights in the sky on the night of his abduction.

7
The Western France Case
Chat Pape
George Gatay was a well respected local man in the town of Nouatre, in western France. A veteran of WW2, he fought with the French Resistance in Luxembourg against the Nazi’s. On the 30th of September, 1954, he was in charge of an 8 man crew working on a construction site. Whilst working he felt a ‘peculiar drowsiness ‘come over him. He felt compelled to walk, although he did not know where or why, as if some unknown force was guiding him. When he stopped he was in sight of an unknown being some 30ft away on a hill. He described it as having an opaque glass helmet, grey coveralls and short boots. He also noticed a rod like weapon in its hand and a square shaped electronic device on its chest. The creature stood in front of a dome shaped object which hovered 3ft above the ground. The craft also had a cupola shape on top, with blade like devices protruding from its highest point. In total awe of what he was looking at, Gattay stood in a paralyzed silence.
As he gazed in amazement, something even stranger happened. He stated ‘Suddenly, the strange man vanished, and I couldn’t explain how he did it, since he did not disappear from my field of vision by walking away, but vanished like an image one erases. Then I heard a strong whistling sound which drowned the noise of our excavators. Soon the object rose by successive jerks, in a vertical direction, and then it too was erased in a sort of blue haze, as if by a miracle.’ Gattay then ran back to the site to report what he saw, and noted that at his first attempt to do so he was overcome with an unshakable feeling of stillness. After greeting his workers with a panicky ‘Have you seen something!?’ Two of his workers concurred with his account, claiming to have seen a flying saucer and ‘a man dressed like a diver in front of it.’ His seven co workers complained of feeling inexplicably drowsy during the event, and George Gattay himself suffered headaches, loss of appetite and insomnia for the full following week.

6
The Winchester Woman
Encounter.Jpg.Display
In a Top 10 list of strange UFO stories, this one really is strange. The local Councillor for Winchester in Hampshire, Mr Adrian Hicks was in the town centre on a busy Saturday afternoon during the early months of 2004. After having lunch in his local bar and purchasing a few books from a book store, he noticed something odd about a woman walking through the rural town’s main street. Her clothes were somewhat unusual, and everything about her didn’t add up. The way she moved and her general demeanor gave off a strange impression which singled her out from the crowd. He followed her with his eyes for a few moments and came to the incredible realization that he wasn’t looking at a human at all – but an extra terrestrial. ‘It was staggering; I am not usually lost for words but was that day. ‘ He watched her for around 9 minutes, walking ahead of her twice and noticed a tutu like piece of clothing around her waist and a thick head of bright blonde hair. ‘She was a humanoid walking with a penguin like gait. She had very large oval eyes and was twirling her hands in a circular motion. She seemed friendly and totally at ease with us.
She wasn’t scared; she was smiling, and seemed to be enjoying herself among us.’ Hicks was startled when she stopped 7 ft away from him when he uttered ‘What the fuck is that?’ under his breath. ‘She walked very slowly up the High Street. I remember she was very interested in the clock over Lloyds Bank. She was taking it all in’. He has stated that several people noticed her without paying any extra attention and spotted some people taking pictures of her, though no pictures have ever surfaced. Hicks believes that the encounter is to do with a much larger Alien presence in Winchester, due to the secret US and British operations in a nearby base. An orthopedic technician with over 35 years experience, Hicks kept his encounter secret for 5 years in order to secure his place in local government, revealing his story only after securing election as a Liberal Democrat Councillor. He spent £400 of his own money for an artist to perfect her image, which can be seen above. He now lobbies for the government to come clean about its dealings with UFO’S.

5
The Silbury Hill Case
Beings-Approximation-444X339
During July 2009, an off duty police Sergeant was driving along the A4 motorway during the early hours of the morning. At around 5.a.m, whilst passing Silbury hill, an area long renowned for its druid precedent, UFO sightings and mystical attributes, he noticed 3 exceptionally tall men standing in a field examining a recently made crop circle. He noticed they had shining blonde hair and were dressed in white coveralls with their hoods down, which reminded him of forensic detectives. Intrigued by such a bizarre spectacle, the sergeant parked his car and approached the men. From a distance of 400 yards he shouted at them, but his attempts fell on deaf ears and he was ignored. Upon entering the field, however, the 3 men became aware of his presence and simultaneously turned toward him before making off at a miraculous speed heading southward away from the hill. He followed them for a few seconds, but realized he was no match for their pace and watched in awe as they strode off in superhuman strides. After glancing away for a second, the sergeant looked back in the men’s direction to see they had completely vanished.
“They ran faster than any man I have ever seen. I’m no slouch but they were moving so fast. I looked away for a second and when I looked back they were gone” he told Andrew Russell, the UFO investigator he has chosen to communicate through in favor of remaining anonymous. Walking back to his car, he felt something akin to a static electricity echoing throughout the field. The crops began to ripple and sway in time with a crackle that was pulsing all around him, and he developed a massive headache. “I then got scared. The noise was still around but I got an uneasy feeling and headed for the car. For the rest of the day I had a pounding headache I couldn’t shift.” He contacted his colleagues at Wiltshire Police and they released this statement. “The police officer was apparently off duty when this happened so we have no comment to make because it is a personal not a police matter.” On the night following the sighting, residents of the area reported seeing an unmarked Helicopter hovering for 3 hours over the field were the encounter took place, a sequence that has followed UFO and crop circle reports in the area with increasing frequency. The sergeant continues to remain anonymous.

4
The Zimbabwe Encounter
Ufo1
On the 14th of September, 1985, there had been reports of UFO’s in the skies over Zimbabwe. Two days later at the private Ariel Elementary in Ruwa, 20km from the capital, Harare, 62 school children between the ages of 5 and 12 spotted a glowing ball in the sky during the schools morning break. They watched as it hovered around, appearing and disappearing for a short while before it gradually descended to the ground and landed 100ft away from the school in a bushy area off limits to the children. A ‘small man’, standing around 3ft tall with long black hair, large eyes and a slim neck exited the craft and began to walk towards the children. The schools teachers and staff were indoors attending a meeting at this point, which left the children unsupervised. As he moved in their direction he suddenly disappeared in mid step, reappearing on top of the craft, where he silently stared at the children for a few moments, before re-entering the ship and soaring off at an incredible speed. Many pupils were terrified due to African folklore stories which talk of demons and vampires that kidnap children and devour them. The only adult present in the playground was a parent running a tuck shop near the school entrance, who the children descended upon in stampede like fashion to relate their extraordinary tale.
The schools headmaster, Colin Mackie, contacted the now late Cynthia Hind, who in her time was Africa’s foremost UFO investigator. She interviewed the pupils and asked them to recreate drawings of what they saw. Around 35 sketches and drawings were produced, which were all strikingly similar in their depiction of the ‘man’ and his ship. Upon interviewing the children, Hind became convinced of the stories authenticity. One child told her “I swear by every hair on my head and the whole Bible that I am telling the truth.” The consensus was reached among the parents, school staff and Hind that the pupils were in fact telling the truth; as such a lie would be far too complex for children of a young age to conceive and uphold. On a more bizarre note, the older children told Hind they thought they were being communicated to by the ‘man’ and his stare, which warned them that the planet’s natural beauty and resources were being ravaged and polluted beyond repair. “Those thoughts came from the man, the man’s eyes” a shaken 12 year old told Hind. A drawing one of the pupils produced can be seen above.

3
The Livingston case
Taylors-Abductors
On the 5th of November, 1979, Robert Taylor, a forester employed by the Livingston Development Corporation, left his house at 10.30am to check on some saplings he had planted at Dechmont Law, a secluded ,forested hill just off the M8 motorway. Accompanied by his dog, he parked his pickup truck at the beginning of a forest trail and preceded the rest of the way on foot. Turning a corner and coming onto a forest clearing, Taylor was greeted by an unbelievable spectacle. Suspended in mid air was a silent and motionless spherical object, which he recalled measuring around 20ft across by 12ft high. Made of a material he likened to black sand paper, a row of small circular windows ran around the centre of the object. A ring also protruded along the same course, sitting just below the portholes. Parts of the object were transparent and seemed to morph, which gave Taylor the impression the object was trying to make itself invisible, or had the capability to do so. As he went to walk toward the object, two smaller spheres covered in metal rods (which reminded him of old navy mines) ejected from the primary object and began to roll towards him. Attaching themselves to each of his trouser legs, they emitted an acrid, stifling smell which made him gag for air and lose consciousness.
He awoke to find himself face down in the grass, with the UFO long gone and his dog running around barking wildly. Attempting to summon the dog he realized he had lost his voice, and, trying to rise to his feet, he came to the horrible realization he couldn’t stand or walk either. Crawling and staggering back in the direction of his truck, he regained the functions in his legs and voice, but accidentally ditched his truck in wet mud after trying to drive in such a dazed and shaken state. He stumbled and lurched home, and upon arrival his wife thought he had been assaulted as he stood swaying in their doorway: his face grazed, his trousers badly torn and his clothes caked in mud. She called the police and an investigation revealed some interesting facts. The section of land in which he encountered the UFO was covered in peculiar indentations, none of which matched any forestry equipment or vehicles that were being used on the Law. The tears on his trousers were forensically examined and were discovered to have been pierced by an unknown implement, with the nature of the tears determining that whatever tore his trousers had attempted to lift him in an upwards direction. Taylor never gained financially or in any other form through telling his story, which never changed from when it first came to light in the 70′s up until his death at 89, in 2007.The Livingstone case remains unsolved to this day, and is the only UFO case in the UK which has resulted in a criminal investigation. Above is an artist’s impression of what Taylor encountered.

2
Marconi Systems
Screen Shot 2011-04-06 At 10.14.42 Am
Marconi Systems was a defense and aeronautics engineering firm, contracted by the British government to design and manufacture visionary, top of the line weapons systems and military craft. Now extinct due to its merger with British Aerospace and eventual acquisition by BAE Systems, the firm was never far from controversy and back handed scandal. During the 1980′s, reports of an unusual amount of ‘suicides’ among Marconi’s employees who worked on top secret projects gathered widespread media attention in the UK. Twenty Five engineering experts, scientists and digital communication specialists succumbed to ‘suicide’ and ‘accidents’ over a 6 year period, between 1982 and 1988. A large majority died just before their contracts with Marconi were up ,or when they were on the verge of transferring to another defense systems company. Among those the public were supposed to believe committed suicide were; Shani Warren, a 26 year old personal assistant in a biochemical subdivision of Marconi, who was found at the bottom of a lake with her legs bound, her mouth gagged, a noose around her neck and her hands tied behind her back; Richard Pugh a 37 year old digital communications expert, who was found with his feet tied, a plastic bag over his head and a rope coiled round his neck and body four times; Alistair Beckham, a 55 year old software engineer who supposedly committed suicide by going into his garden shed , connecting his body up to a series of live electrical wires and frying himself to death, and Vimal Dajhibai; a 24 year old software engineer who was in his last week of work for Marconi. His death was ruled a suicide by jumping off a suspension bridge in Bristol. Friends said he spoke of his happiness at securing a new job and saw no reason for him to end his life. The coroner ruled a needle sized puncture wound found on his buttock was caused by his fall.
Many researchers uncovered whispers that the deaths were related to revolutionary infrared radar technology being developed by the company, and the Stars Wars defense initiative, which Marconi played a significant part in, due to America’s literal colonization of British defense innovations, a situation that continues to this day. Looking at these deaths it’s clear that security was something that Marconi took very seriously, and that they were willing to go to unthinkable measures to keep its capabilities and inventions top secret. An important and strategic Marconi complex was situated in the small English town of Frimley, complete with a testing zone, a manufacturing plant and company headquarters. Given what we already know about them, if an intruder were to penetrate deep within the premises, it would rank at the top of the site security alert scale, and that’s exactly what happened in 1976, although this was no ordinary intruder. A security guard doing his patrol at night was passing through the bases’ Old House, a structure that housed the company director’s office and a treasure trove of top secret information on Britain’s Radioactive, Nuclear, Infrared, Sonar, Ballistic and Aviation capabilities.
While walking down one of these corridors, he noticed a blue light emitting from underneath one of the doors. The guard was aroused and drew his gun, as nothing but classified files in locked Cabinets was meant to be on the other side, and the only person who was authorized to be in the building was him. He burst into the room, and was met with a horrifying and epochal sight. In the corner, perched over an open filing cabinet, rifling through mountains of Top Secret documents, was none other than an Extra Terrestrial. Described as being humanoid, and wearing some form of headlight which emitted the blue glow, it quickly turned toward the guard and erased itself in a blue haze right before his eyes and disappeared. Shrieking in terror, the guard ran out of the building to a security outpost, where he informed his colleagues of his encounter and the Complex went into lock down. The following morning the guard was taken away by 2 military psychiatrists, never to be seen by anyone on the site again.

1
The Varginha Case
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In recent years, the Varginha case has garnered just as much attention and controversy among hardcore UFO enthusiasts as Roswell has among the general public. Many attempts have been made to thoroughly investigate the case and make conclusive findings. The 2002 book ‘UFOS over Brazil’ by American UFO expert Dr Roger Leir, is the closest so far, and his interviews with military officials, hospital surgeons and a wide array of civilian witnesses will form the basis of this account. The NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) tracked an uncorrelated, unidentified object soaring above the western hemisphere on the 13th of January, 1996. It entered Brazilian airspace and the CINDACTA (acronym translates as the ‘Integrated Air Traffic Control and Air Defense Centre’) were contacted, who in turn alerted the Brazilian Army command at Tres Coracoes, giving the instruction that all wings of the Brazilian military were to be put on high alert.
Rumors of mass UFO sightings began sweeping throughout southern Brazil in the days that followed, and events made a significant development on the 20th of January, when witnesses in a rural town in the state of Minais Gerais reported seeing a ‘Submarine shaped craft’ cruising 20ft above the ground, which appeared to be damaged or malfunctioning. Moving at a rickety, slow pace and emitting some form of smoke, it was heading in the direction of Varginha. At daybreak on the 21st, strange creatures were seen wandering around the town in an incapacitated and horribly confused state. Villagers erupted into frenzy and notified the police and fire brigade, telling them the town had been overrun by monsters from Indigenous folk tales and even the Devil himself. The army was quickly contacted and according to several witnesses 2 of the creatures were captured without resistance, with one being subsequently shot dead and the other being transferred to the Hospital Humanitas to receive treatment for the injuries it sustained during the crash. The Orthopedic Surgeon Leir interviewed said he was instructed by armed officers to begin a surgical scrub and prepare to perform a fracture reduction on plainly ‘a leg’. Leir interviewed the other surgeons and assistants that attended the surgery, who all stated the operating theatre was sealed except for one entrance which was manned by armed officers, who were unaware of what was in the theatre. The flow of military officials and hospital personnel into the room was strictly monitored, with only a small essential team of staff being allowed inside. Corrective surgery was performed on a fracture of the femur of its upper thigh, with members of the Brazilian Army S-2 military intelligence division being present at the surgery.
The bipedal creature was described as being around 5ft, with massive red eyes, a thin neck and dark brown skin which looked wet but was dry to the touch. It also had 3 bony protuberances on 3 sections across its head, and from its anatomy alone its sex was indeterminable. All attempts made to communicate verbally with the creature were of no consequence and it’s wound healed completely within 24 hours. After surgery the surgeon turned to see the aliens eyes fixated upon him. He then began to feel ‘hammer- like blows’ to his head and chunks of information began to pound and cram his mind, which he described as being like ‘Thoughtgrams’. The surgeon has never revealed the full extent of what the Alien told him, but among other things it told him that it’s race felt sorry for humans, because we are largely detached from our spiritual selves and are unaware of the amazing things we can accomplish, that it’s race already have. It was then taken out of the room by the officers, along with all X-rays, documents and test results that pertained to it. The surgeon complained of headaches for the 2 weeks following the event and was reduced to a quivering wreck when telling this aspect of the story to Leir. Two days later, several witnesses saw US military cargo planes at Sao Paolo Airport, which were presumed to be collecting the crashed craft and its occupants.
The story was picked up in its most basic form by The Wall Street Journal, who ran it on their front page as a story as centrally dealing with a downed unknown object in Brazil. While some people will perceive the story as baseless and futile nonsense, there is much evidence on the contrary. Ubirajara Rodriguez, an attorney and Varginha UFO case expert obtained a copy of the death certificate of a Corporal Marco Cherez, an officer who died three weeks after he supposedly touched the creature with his bare hands. His death certificate states the cause of death as being from a ‘Toxic substance’ and an ‘Ebola Type Disease’ although the full report of his autopsy has never been revealed. In the weeks that followed the event, a surprise visit was paid to Brazil by Warren Christopher and Daniel S.Goldin who were, at the time, the US Secretary of State and Director of NASA, respectively. Leir was shown several authenticated documents concerning agreements between Brazil and America which allow ‘any material coming from space that is found in Brazil to be turned over to the government of the United States.’ To top it off there are literally hundreds of Witnesses across Varginha, from all walks of life. Police officers, school teachers, peasant farmers and government employees: they are all united under the belief that extra terrestrials crash landed in their city at the turn of 1996, and they all witnessed it with their own eyes. But if you think the case is strange, you should take a look at the explanation Major Eduardo Calza gives as the cause of all this UFO hysteria surrounding Varginha. ‘It was an expectant Dwarf couple and a mentally handicapped dwarf’ he told investigative journalist Bruce Burgess during an interview for his documentary ‘The Brazilian Roswell’. What do you believe?

10 Unique And Amazing Places on Earth

10 Unique And Amazing Places on Earth

The Door To Hell
Turkmenistan

The Door to Hell, as local residents at the nearby town of Darvaza have dubbed it, is a 70 meter wide crater in Turkmenistan that has been burning continuously for 35 years. In 1971, geologists drilling for gas deposits uncovered a huge underground cavern, which caused the ground over it to collapse, taking down all their equipment and their camp with it. Since the cavern was filled poisonous gas, they dared not go down to retrieve their equipment, and to prevent the gas escaping they ignited it, hoping it would burn itself out in a couple of days. Unfortunately, there was a slight miscalculation as to the amount of gas that was trapped, and the crater continues to burn to this day.
You can see it on Google Earth at 40°15′8″N 58°26′23″E

Mount Roraima
Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana
Mount Roraima
Mount Roraima is a pretty remarkable place. It is a tabletop mountain with sheer 400-metre high cliffs on all sides. There is only one ‘easy’ way up, on a natural staircase-like ramp on the Venezuelan side – to get up any other way takes and experienced rock climber. On the top of the mountain it rains almost every day, washing away most of the nutrients for plants to grow and creating a unique landscape on the bare sandstone surface. This also creates some of the highest waterfalls in the world over the sides (Angel falls is located on a similar tabletop mountain some 130 miles away). Though there are only a few marshes on the mountain where vegetation can grow properly, these contain many species unique to the mountain, including a species of carnivorous pitcher plant.

Meteor Crater
USA
 
Meteor Crater

Meteor Crater is a meteorite impact crater located approximately 43 miles (69 km) east of Flagstaff, near Winslow in the northern Arizona desert of the United States. Because the US Department of the Interior Division of Names commonly recognizes names of natural features derived from the nearest post office, the feature acquired the name of “Meteor Crater” from the nearby post office named Meteor. The crater was created about 50,000 years ago during the Pleistocene epoch when the local climate on the Colorado Plateau was much cooler and damper. At the time, the area was an open grassland dotted with woodlands inhabited by woolly mammoths, giant ground sloths, and camels. It was probably not inhabited by humans; the earliest confirmed record of human habitation in the Americas dates from long after this impact. The object that excavated the crater was a nickel-iron meteorite about 50 meters (54 yards) across, which impacted the plain at a speed of several kilometers per second.

The Great Dune of Pyla
France
The Great Dune of Pyla
Since Europe has no deserts, you’d think the title of “Europe’s largest sand dune” would go to something that wasn’t particularly impressive. But you’d be wrong. The Great Dune of Pyla is 3km long, 500m wide and 100m high, and for reasons I will probably never understand, it seems to have formed in a forest. The dune is very steep on the side facing the forest and is famous for being a paragliding site. At the top it also provides spectacular views out to sea and over the forest (since the dune is far higher than any of the trees surrounding it).

Socotra
Republic of Yemen
Socotra
Socotra has been described as one of the most alien-looking place on Earth, and it’s not hard to see why. It is very isolated with a harsh, dry climate and as a result a third of its plant-life is found nowhere else, including the famous Dragon’s Blood Tree, a very-unnatural looking umbrella-shaped tree which produces red sap. There are also a large number of birds, spiders and other animals native to the island, and coral reefs around it which similarly have a large number of endemic (i.e. only found there) species. Socotra is considered the most biodiverse place in the Arabian sea, and is a World Heritage Site.

83-42
Greenland
83-42

This is more of a curiosity and not visually impressive, but 83-42 is believed to be the northernmost permanent point of land on earth. It is tiny, only 35m by 15m and 4m high, but is about 400 miles from the north pole. It beat the previous record holder, ATOW1996, when it was discovered in 1998, and lichens were found growing on it, suggesting it was not just one of the temporary gravel bars that are found in that region, which are regularly pushed around by the rough seas. The picture above features what is currently the northernmost point on land, one of the temporary gravel bars, photographed in 2007, as I could find no photos of 83-42 (For some reason, nobody feels the need to produce a photograph of a tiny rock in the middle of nowhere, which only five people have ever stepped foot on).


Rotorua
New Zealand
Rotorua
Rotorua is a city on the southern shores of the lake of the same name, in the Bay of Plenty region of the North Island of New Zealand. The city is known for its geothermal activity, with a number of geysers, notably the Pohutu Geyser at Whakarewarewa, and boiling mud pools (pictured above) located in the city. This thermal activity owes itself to the Rotorua caldera on which the city lies. Rotorua is also a top adventure destination and is New Zealand’s Maori cultural heartland. Rotorua city is renowned for its unique “rotten eggs” aroma, which is caused by the geothermal activity releasing sulphur compounds into the atmosphere. If you are ever visiting New Zealand – this is a city you must see. It was once home to the famed Pink and White Terraces and you can visit thermal wonderlands with sights that are truly astounding.

Don Juan Pond
Antarctica
Don Juan Pond
With a salinity of over 40%, Don Juan Pond is the saltiest body of water in the world. It is named after the two pilots who first investigated the pond in 1961, Lt Don Roe and Lt John Hickey. It is a small lake, only 100m by 300m, and on average 0.1m deep, but it is so salty that even in the Antarctic, where the temperature at the pond regularly drops to as low as -30 degrees Celsius, it never freezes. It is 18 times saltier than sea water, compared to the Dead Sea which is only 8 times saltier than sea water.

Iceberg B-15
Antarctica
Iceberg B-15
Iceberg B-15 was the largest ever recorded iceberg. It had an area of 3,100 km², making it larger than the island of Jamaica, and was created when part of the Ross Ice Shelf broke off in March 2000. In 2003, it broke apart, and one of the larger pieces (called B-15a) drifted north, eventually smashing into a glacier in 2005, breaking off an 8-km² section and forcing many antarctic maps to be rewritten. It drifted along the coast and eventually ran aground, breaking up once again. In 2006, a storm in Alaska (that’s right, Alaska) caused an ocean swell that travelled 13,500km, over 6 days, to Antarctica and broke up the largest remaining part even more. Almost a decade on, parts of the iceberg have still not melted, with the largest remaining part, still called B-15a, having an area of 1,700 km². The picture above shows B-15a (top left) in 2005, after drifting west into the Drygalski Glacier (bottom), breaking the end off into several pieces.

Guaíra Falls
Brazil-Paraguay border
Guaíra Falls
Located on the Parana river the Guaíra Falls were, in terms of total volume, the largest waterfall on earth. 1,750,000 cubic feet of water fell over this waterfall each second on average, compared to just 70,000 cubic feet per second for Niagra Falls. However, the falls were flooded in 1982 when a dam was created to take advantage of this massive flow rate. The Itaipu Dam is now the second most powerful hydroelectric dam in the world, after the Three Gorges Dam. The Itaipu Dam supplies 90% of the power consumed by Paraguay, and 19% of the power consumed by Brazil, including Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Facebook Applications

facebookI’ve seen some how-to guides for getting started writing facebook apps on the web but none really cover everything fro
Publish Post
m start to finish. Even Facebook’s own documentation is somewhat disappointing. So to help others find their way around Facebook markup and the life cycle of a Facebook application here is a simple tutorial.It is a very basic app which aims to display a web image of the user’s choice a) in miniature on their profile, and b) in full on the application’s own canvas page. What is a canvas page? Simply the main page of your application that the user sees each time they click on your app.

Prereqs:
What you’ll need – an account on Facebook and a web hosting provider who will run php scripts and allows you to set up a database. I use mysql in this guide, but you can safely leave out the db steps if all you want to learn is the facebook-specific work flow stuff.

Step 1: Setting things up on Facebook.com
A Few things here -
1) Add the Facebook Developer Application to your profile if not done so already.
2) Set up new app, give it a name. Enter in the following details:
Canvas Callback URL – the full url of the canvas page to be stored on your server.
Canvas Url – the unique name for your app @http://apps.facebook.com/. You can flesh it out with icons, descriptions, etc too.
3) Once you get the hang of things it becomes obvious two app instances are needed for each separate application you create – one live and one test. However for the sake of brevity I’ll continue with a single instance.

Now it’s time to create your viral hit. Download the client libs of your choice and we’ll look at how to create a setup page for users that wish to add your app. For this demo I’ll be using the official PHP client.What we’ll be doing is showing a simple image. We’ll go through all use cases a user will walk through over the lifetime of a facebook app together with the main social networking elements that make the facebook platform such a powerful medium for app developers.

Step 2: Config on your side
Now for the config in your php script. Go to the file you entered in as the Canvas Callback URL – this is the jump-off point for all calls from Facebook to your application.

// Include the Facebook client library
require_once ('facebook.php');
// Set authentication variables
$appapikey = '<yourkeyhere>';
$appsecret = '<yoursecrethere>';
$facebook = new Facebook($appapikey, $appsecret);
// I also will be accessing my own database on almost every call so will set db up here
$username="<yourusername>";
$password="<yourpassword>";
$database="<yourdb>";
mysql_connect(localhost,$username,$password);
@mysql_select_db($database) or die( "Unable to select database");

You are now ready to interact with the Facebook api.

Step 3: Where to begin?
This was the first – and most dogged – question I asked myself when creating my first Facebook application. As it turns out the workflow is quite like any other web app, with a few bells and whistles tacked on.

Let’s imagine for a second that user A already has our completed app installed. User Bthen comes across it on User A’s profile, so they click through to the app’s canvas screen.

$url = '';
if(!($_GET['user']==NULL||$_GET['user']=='')){
//user wants to see someone elses profile
$user = $_GET['user'];
if(preg_match('/^[0-9]+z/', $user)){
//use id to retrieve img url from db
$query = 'select * from turl where userid = '.$user;
$result=mysql_query($query) or die("Couldn't execute query");
$url=mysql_result($result,0,"url");}?><img src="<?=$url?>" />

The above code looks for a ‘user’ variable in the http query. If it finds it (i.e. not null) it looks up the image url stored for the user sought (User A in this case) and displays.

I should also tell you a bit about the database at this stage. It is simply a single table (turl) holding two fields url and userid (as in facebook userid).

So we have one use case. But what if it’s user A who is clicking through to their own canvas page? Should we make any additions? Yes – we should give them the option of adding the image to their profile if they haven’t done already. Fortunately interactions like this that deal with Facebook UI and concepts such as profile can be easily taken care of declaratively through Facebook Markup Langauge (FBML). Here we add:

if($user==$facebook->api_client->users_getLoggedInUser()){
//user is looking at their own profile
?> <p class="section_button"><fb:add-section-button section="profile"></fb:add-section-button></p>}
else{
?>api_client->users_getLoggedInUser()?><a href="http://apps.facebook.com/<yourappname>">Add your web image</a>, if you haven't already!}

If the user is looking at their own web image but hasn’t yet displayed it on their profile (either in the boxes tab or on the left hand strip on their wall tab) they will see the add to profile image below:

Add to Profile

The else statement checks if it’s another users image page and if so a rudimentary viral feature appears – asking the viewer if they want to try the app out too.

Step 4: Allowing a new user to preview
OK so back to User B. Having clicked through to User A’s web image they like what they see – now they want to try things out for themselves. At this stage some FB devs like to force the user to install the app – with a call to $facebook->require_login() – before they can try it out for themselves. I don’t know about you but personally I find this a very annoying feature of 99% of FB apps so as a developer I want to give my users the option to preview their app first.

There is a drawback though.

$user = $facebook->require_login() is a really simple way of getting the user id, something you will need for virtually all meaningful interactions with the platform API. Otherwise there are all sorts of possible ways a user can land on your canvas page without their user id being specified in the various Facebook ID fields sent with each request. For example a user could enter the app url directly into the browser address bar or open from an email link.

Because the platform isn’t an exact science as such, with features, availability, etc changing quite a bit I’ve hacked around something that appears to work for me, i.e. it gets user ids in most situations without forcing an install on the user:

}else{
if(!(($_GET["fb_sig_canvas_user"]==NULL) ||($_GET["fb_sig_canvas_user"]==''))){
$user = $_GET["fb_sig_canvas_user"];}
elseif(!(($_REQUEST["fb_sig_user"]==NULL) ||($_REQUEST["fb_sig_user"]==''))){
$user = $_REQUEST["fb_sig_user"];}
else{
$user = $facebook->api_client->canvas_user;}
if(($user==NULL)||($user=='')){
//if not already, try redirect
if (!isset($_REQUEST['reload'])){
$facebook->redirect($app_base_url.'?reload');}
else{?><span>You must be logged into Facebook to access web image</span><?die();}}

Step 5: how to track your user base
Users.isAppUser has come under a lot of criticism. Well, from me at least. Because it only records if a user has previously authorised an app, and not if the app is currently authorised, facebook platform currently has no sure way of knowing if it is installed by a user right now. So we create our own solution with the previously mentioned db table turl. Turl’s two fields userid & url tell us if the user has authorised the app (userid is present) and what web image they have displayed (url). So now that we have the user id, we check for authorisation:

  else{
//set isAppUser
$query = 'select * from turl where userid = '.$user;$result = mysql_query($query) or die("Couldn't execute query");
if(mysql_num_rows($result)==1)
$isAppUser=true;
else
$isAppUser=false;
}

if authorised we get the image url and show it on the canvas:

if($isAppUser){
//display gfx, webform
$user = $facebook->require_login();
$query = 'select * from turl where userid = '.$user;
$result=mysql_query($query) or die("Couldn't execute query");
$url=mysql_result($result,0,"url");?><img src="<?=$url?>" /><p class="section_button"><fb:add-section-button section="profile"></fb:add-section-button></p> }

Step 6: Adding a user proper
We’re on our 6th step so lets take stock of where we are. We’ve taken into account a user viewing another users canvas page and also a user viewing their own page. We’ve also got the user’s id and, assuming a user’s been added to the database successfully, can tell if they have installed the app. Now we can begin to comtemplate how a user is added to our database.

First we should deal with the preview:

 else{
?><span>Want to display a web image of your choice on Facebook?  Enter the url here:</span><form action="." method="get"> <input name="url" type="text" /> <input value="Preview" type="submit" /></form><?}}
mysql_close();
?>

And so we have the above catchall statement added if the user is not currently using the app, inviting them to preview it. Once this form is submitted by the user we need to show the preview, so we include the following case before the form:

 elseif(!($_GET['url']==NULL||$_GET['url']=='')){
$url=$_GET['url'];?><img src="<?=$url?>" /><span>Happy with this?  Click to install app</span><form action="." method="get"> <input value="<?=$url?>" name="url" type="hidden" /><input name="add" type="hidden" /> <input value="Add Web Image" type="submit" /></form><?}

Now we also have the preview step. If the user wants to install at this stage we go ahead with the obligatory warning page and then we can perform the main installation tasks. So another case goes in above the previous one:

 elseif(isset($_GET['add'])){
$user=$facebook->require_login();
//once authorised FB forwards the user with all existing request variables - back to this page, so we can continue installation on our side
$url=$_GET[url];
$query = "insert into turl values ('$user','$url')";
mysql_query($query);
$fbml_profile = '<a href="http://apps.facebook.com/<yourappname>/?user='.$user.'"><img src="'.$url.'" width="182" height="182" /></a>';$fbml_boxes = '<a href="http://apps.facebook.com/<yourappname>/?user='.$user.'"><img src="'.$url.'" width="360" height="100" /></a>';
$facebook->api_client->profile_setFBML(null, $user, $fbml_boxes, null, null, $fbml_profile);

After the user authorises the application we add the user to our db and also set the fbml markup for displaying the chosen web image on their profile wall or boxes tab.

Step 7: Adding Viral Features
Along with maybe the application directory, this is the most powerful aspect of the Facebook platform for developers. Given the right incentives/marketing/branding/whatever you wish to call it, apps on facebook can spread like wildfire. We will implement two features commonly used by FB developers to reach the tipping point – app invites and newsfeed stories.

Both are normally done at app sign up time and are used to inform members of the users personal network. But they differ in that an invite is an explicit question targeted at friends of the user’s choice while adding it to a users newsfeed merely passively notifies people that they are using your application. It’s harder to get a user to send out invites because they aren’t always welcome but if a user does target them successfully it may lead to a higher sign up rate amongst their friends.

Step 7a: Application Invite
First the app invite. It takes the form of more FBML and presents itself in a separate page pretty much like the authorisation page, before redirecting the user back to our page again. You don’t want the user to send out any to friends who already have the application, so here’s the code to display only those who don’t yet have them:

  $fql = 'SELECT uid FROM user WHERE uid IN (SELECT uid2 FROM friend WHERE uid1='.$user.') AND has_added_app=1';$_friends = $facebook->api_client->fql_query($fql);
// Extract the user ID's returned in the FQL request into a new array.
$friends = array();
if (is_array($_friends) && count($_friends)) {
foreach ($_friends as $friend) {$friends[] = $friend['uid'];}}
// Convert the array of friends into a comma-delimeted string.
$friends = implode(',', $friends);
// Prepare the invitation text that all invited users will receive.
$content = <<<fbml><fb:name shownetwork="false" firstnameonly="true" uid="{$user}"> wants to see your web image!<fb:req-choice label="Add Your web image to your profile" url="{$facebook->get_add_url()}">FBML;?><fb:multi-friend-selector exclude_ids="<?php echo $friends;?>" rows="5" showborder="true" actiontext="Invite your friends not yet displaying their web image" max="20"></fb:multi-friend-selector></fb:req-choice></fb:name></fbml>

Step 7b: Wall Story
The Wall story request feature is implemented as a popup using FBJS – the subset of javascript allowed on Facebook canvas pages. It is slightly more complex than that unfortunately – you need to create a feed template first to describe the format of the story that will appear on users newsfeeds.

Go to the template editor tool to begin. We’ll create a simple feed that shows your application logo and invites people to try it or view their friends web image. First choose your application then create a one liner, note the special markup involved to allow personalisation. 3 main bits to note in this:

Short story template title & body:
Add in your message -> “{*actor*} added their web image”

Sample template data: very important for ensuring your story appears how you wish. Use it to experiment.

Action Link URL:To give friends a way of viewing the user’s own web image, enter the following -> “http://apps.facebook.com//?user={userid}”

Click through next, Register Template Bundle and note down the ID generated. It can get more powerful than this but it’s quite error prone for a beginner so lets keep things simple. We’re halfway there – now back to your php code:

 <script type="text/javascript">
var tpl_data={"status":"status","images":[{"src":"<yourapplogo>", "href":"http://apps.facebook.com/<yourapppage>"}],"userid":"<?=user?>"};
var user_msg = {"value":""};
var share_msg = "share with your friends";
Facebook.showFeedDialog(<feeddialogid>, tpl_data, "", "", null, share_msg, user_msg);</script><fb:request-form content="<?php echo htmlentities($content);?>" type="web image" invite="true" method="POST" action="http://apps.facebook.com/<youapppage>/"></fb:request-form>} </yourapplogo>

Enter your feed dialog ID in the code above, together with your app logo url, etc. As you can maybe workout, we substitute the the real data needed in tpl_data in place of the sample template data you seen in the feed templating tool. Note we pass in our own user variable, necessary to know which users image the friend wants to view.

Step 8: Deleting user records
Almost done. A user now can view other users web images & install one on their own profile. But what happens when a user deletes the app? To avoid our database potentially filling up with duplicate user accounts (and if we want to keep an accurate record of the total number of installed users), we must create a 2nd php script that Facebook can call when a user deletes our app.

To do this, create a 2nd script on your web host then go back into the FB dev application, click on the ‘more’ tab of our app then ‘edit settings’ -> ‘authentication’ -> ‘Post-Remove Callback URL’. Enter in the full URL of this script. All we need to do is delete the user from our db:

// Include the Facebook client library
require_once ('facebook.php');
// Set authentication variables
$appapikey = '<yourkeyhere>';
$appsecret = '<yoursecrethere>';
$facebook = new Facebook($appapikey, $appsecret);
$user = $facebook->get_loggedin_user();
if ($user != NULL && $facebook->fb_params['uninstall'] == 1) {
//The user has removed your app
$username="<yourusername>";
$password="<yourpassword>";
$database="<yourdb>";
mysql_connect(localhost,$username,$password);
@mysql_select_db($database) or die( "Unable to select database");
$query = 'delete from turl where userid = '.$user;mysql_query($query) or die("Couldn't execute query");}?>

And that’s that! A working Facebook application from the ground up with several important features explained.

For a complete listing of the code check out google docs add.php & remove.php

Need a more in-depth explanation?  In my opinion the book that offers the most clarity on the subject is Facebook Cookbook: Building Applications to Grow Your Facebook Empire

Monday, January 21, 2008

LAXACAM Chas A. Mendoza

LAXACAM Chas A. Mendoza
Drug Category: Laxative.
Contents: Drops: Per 5ml: Sodium picosulphate 5mg.
Regn.No:Pack:Trade Prices:Retail Prices:
Drops (018081):15ml: 24.31:28.60.

LAXACAM Chas A. Mendoza

LAXACAM Chas A. Mendoza
Drug Category: Laxative.
Contents: Drops: Per 5ml: Sodium picosulphate 5mg.
Regn.No:Pack:Trade Prices:Retail Prices:
Drops (018081):15ml: 24.31:28.60.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Gary Fincke

(1945– )

The Magpie Evening: A Prayer

When magpies die, each of the living swoops down
and pecks, one by one, in an accepted order.

He coaxed my car to start, the boy who’s killed himself.
He twisted a cable, performed CPR on
The carburetor while my three children shivered
Through the unanswerable questions about stalled.
He chose shotgun, full in the face, so no one stepped
Into the cold, blowing on his hands, to fix him.
Let him rest now, the minister says. Let this be,
Repeating himself to four brothers, five sisters,
All of them my neighbors until they grew and left.
Let us pray. Let us manage what we need to say.
Let this house with its three hand-made additions be
Large enough for the one day of necessity.
Let evening empty each room to ceremony
Chosen by the remaining nine. Let the awful,
Forecasted weather hold off in east Ohio
Until each of them, oldest to youngest, has passed.
Let their thirty-seven children scatter into
The squabbling of the everyday, and let them break
This creeping chain of cars into the fanning out
Toward anger and selfishness and the need to eat
At any of the thousand tables they will pass.
Let them wait. Let them correctly choose the right turn
Or the left, this entrance ramp, that exit, the last
Confusing fork before the familiar driveway
Three hundred miles and more from these bleak thunderheads.
Let them regather into the chairs exactly
Matched to their numbers, blessing the bountiful or
The meager with voices that soar toward renewal.
Let them have mercy on themselves. Let my children,
Grown now, be repairing my faults with forgiveness.

© Gary Fincke

Len Roberts

(1947– )

The List of Most Difficult Words

I was still standing although
Gabriella Wells and Barbara Ryan were too,
their bodies dark against the wall of light
that dull-pewter December afternoon,
shadows with words that flowed
so easily from their mouths,
fluorescent and grievous,
pied and effervescent,
words I'd spelled out to the rhythm
of my father's hoarse whispers
during our nightly practice sessions
beneath the dim bulb,
superfluous, excelsior,
desultory and exaggeration
mixed with his Schaefer breath
and Lucky Strike smoke

as I went down
The List of Most Difficult Words
with a man whose wife had left,
one son grown into madness,
the other into death,
my father's hundred-and-five-pound skeleton
of skin glowing in that beer-flooded kitchen
when he'd lift the harmonica

to blow a few long, sad riffs
of country into a song
while he waited for me to hit
the single l of spiraling,
the silent i of receipt,
the two of us working words hard
those nights on Olmstead Street,
sure they would someday save me.

© Len Roberts

Oliver Wendell Holmes

(1809–1894)

The Last Leaf

I saw him once before,
As he passed by the door,
And again
The pavement stones resound,
As he totters o'er the ground
With his cane.

They say that in his prime,
Ere the pruning-knife of Time
Cut him down,
Not a better man was found
By the Crier on his round
Through the town.

But now he walks the streets,
And looks at all he meets
Sad and wan,
And he shakes his feeble head,
That it seems as if he said,
"They are gone."

The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prest
In their bloom,
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.

My grandmamma has said—
Poor old lady, she is dead
Long ago—
That he had a Roman nose,
And his cheek was like a rose
In the snow;

But now his nose is thin,
And it rests upon his chin
Like a staff,
And a crook is in his back,
And a melancholy crack
In his laugh.

I know it is a sin
For me to sit and grin
At him here;
But the old three-cornered hat,
And the breeches, and all that,
Are so queer!

And if I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree
In the spring,
Let them smile, as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough
Where I cling.

William Butler Yeats

(1865–1939)

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Ben Jonson

(1572–1637)

The Hourglass

Consider this small dust here running in the glass,
By atoms moved;
Could you believe that this the body was
Of one that loved?
And in his mistress' flame, playing like a fly,
Turned to cinders by her eye:
Yes; and in death, as life, unblessed,
To have it expressed,
Even ashes of lovers find no rest.

Andrew Marvell

(1621–1678)

The Gallery

Clora, come view my soul, and tell
Whether I have contrived it well.
Now all its several lodgings lie
Composed into one gallery;
And the great arras-hangings, made
Of various faces, by are laid;
That, for all furniture, you'll find
Only your picture in my mind.

Here thou art painted in the dress
Of an inhuman murderess;
Examining upon our hearts
Thy fertile shop of cruel arts:
Engines more keen than ever yet
Adornèd tyrant's cabinet;
Of which the most tormenting are
Black eyes, red lips, and curlèd hair.

But, on the other side, thou'rt drawn
Like to Aurora in the dawn;
When in the east she slumb'ring lies,
And stretches out her milky thighs;
While all the morning choir does sing,
And manna falls, and roses spring;
And, at thy feet, the wooing doves
Sit perfecting their harmless loves.

Like an enchantress here thou show'st,
Vexing thy restless lover's ghost;
And, by a light obscure, dost rave
Over his entrails, in the cave;
Divining thence, with horrid care,
How long thou shalt continue fair;
And (when informed) them throw'st away,
To be the greedy vulture's prey.

But, against that, thou sit'st afloat
Like Venus in her pearly boat.
The halcyons, calming all that's nigh,
Betwixt the air and water fly:
Or, if some rolling wave appears,
A mass of ambergris it bears:
Nor blows more wind than what may well
Convoy the perfume to the smell.

These pictures and a thousand more,
Of thee, my gallery do store;
In all the forms thou canst invent
Either to please me, or torment:
For thou alone to people me,
Art grown a num'rous colony;
And a collection choicer far
Than or Whitehall's, or Mantua's were.

But, of these pictures and the rest,
That at the entrance likes me best;
Where the same posture, and the look
Remains, with which I first was took:
A tender shepherdess, whose hair
Hangs loosely playing in the air,
Transplanting flowers from the green hill,
To crown her head, and bosom fill.

John Donne

(1572–1631)

The Flea

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame nor loss of maidenhead,
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pampered swells with one blood made of two,
And this, alas, is more than we would do.

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed and marriage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, we are met,
And cloistered in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that, self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Curel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thy self nor me the weaker now;
'Tis true; then learn how false, fears be;
Just so much honor, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

(1807–1882)

The Fire of Drift-Wood

We sat within the farm-house old,
Whose windows, looking o'er the bay,
Gave to the sea-breeze damp and cold,
An easy entrance, night and day.

Not far away we saw the port,
The strange, old-fashioned, silent town,
The lighthouse, the dismantled fort,
The wooden houses, quaint and brown.

We sat and talked until the night,
Descending, filled the little room;
Our faces faded from the sight,
Our voices only broke the gloom.

We spake of many a vanished scene,
Of what we once had thought and said,
Of what had been, and might have been,
And who was changed, and who was dead;

And all that fills the hearts of friends,
When first they feel, with secret pain,
Their lives thenceforth have separate ends,
And never can be one again;

The first slight swerving of the heart,
That words are powerless to express,
And leave it still unsaid in part,
Or say it in too great excess.

The very tones in which we spake
Had something strange, I could but mark;
The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark.

Oft died the words upon our lips,
As suddenly, from out the fire
Built of the wreck of stranded ships,
The flames would leap and then expire.

And, as their splendor flashed and failed,
We thought of wrecks upon the main,
Of ships dismasted, that were hailed
And sent no answer back again.

The windows, rattling in their frames,
The ocean, roaring up the beach,
The gusty blast, the bickering flames,
All mingled vaguely in our speech;

Until they made themselves a part
Of fancies floating through the brain,
The long-lost ventures of the heart,
That send no answers back again.

O flames that glowed! O hearts that yearned!
They were indeed too much akin,
The drift-wood fire without that burned,
The thoughts that burned and glowed within

Thomas Hardy

(1840–1928)

The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

Edgar Allan Poe

(1809–1849)

The City in the Sea

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.

No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently—
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free—
Up domes—up spires—up kingly halls—
Up fanes—up Babylon-like walls—
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers—
Up many and many a marvelous shrine
Whose wreathèd friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.

Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol's diamond eye—
Not the gaily-jeweled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Among that wilderness of glass—
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea—
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.

But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave—there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide—
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow—
The hours are breathing faint and low—
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.

Anne Bradstreet

(ca. 1612–1672)

The Author to Her Book

Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth didst by my side remain,
Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true,
Who thee abroad, exposed to public view,
Made thee in rags, halting to th' press to trudge,
Where errors were not lessened (all may judge).
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call,
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
Thy visage was so irksome in my sight;
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could:
I washed thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot still made a flaw.
I stretched thy joints to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run'st more hobbling than is meet;
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save homespun cloth i' th' house I find.
In this array 'mongst vulgars may'st thou roam.
In critic's hands beware thou dost not come,
And take thy way where yet thou art not known;
If for thy father asked, say thou hadst none;
And for thy mother, she alas is poor,
Which caused her thus to send thee out of door.

Gary Fincke

(1945– )

The Billion Heartbeats of the Mammal

“Feel this,” my father says, guiding my hand
To the simple Braille of his pacemaker.
“Sixty,” he tells me, “over and over
Like a clock,” and I mention the billion
Heartbeats of the mammal, how the life span
Can be rough-guessed by the 800 beats
Per minute of the shrew, the 200
Of the house cat, speeding through their billion
In three years, in twelve. How slowly we act,
According to our pets. How we are stone
To the frantic insects. “Not slow enough,”
He answers, summing up the math, citing
His two billion heartbeats of punched-in work,
The one billion my mother beat to do
The daily double-shift of housekeeper
And clerk until her heart softened to mush.
He’s busy, now, with wiping down his floors
The way he swirled a mop through locker rooms
Before striding the push broom up and down
The grain of gym sweep, repeating the moves
Of twenty kinds of cleaning between ten
And six-thirty in the high school I used
Between eight and three-fifteen. He might have
Been following the Peterson Method
For care, learning the neat lines and ovals
Of my mother, who wrote to me, the day
She died, a perfectly scripted letter,
Pages of open vowels so nothing
She said could be misread. And even now,
In the attic, inside her black notebooks
Stacked and banded, her carefully copied
Familiar quotes, the good advice
Of the writing exercise dating back
To a hundred lines of ovals, fifty
Of the properly slanted line. Penciled
Pages of strict, block printing, the two-space
Capitals, the touch of tall letters to
The roof of lines, my father repeating
The multiplication and division
To the thirty years of humans, how he is
Closing in on three billion while I am
Nearing two. How we are the exception
To the heartbeat system, taking so long
To come of age we have time to practice
The Peterson Method for memory,
Preserve these things to open up and read.

© Gary Fincke

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

(1809–1892)

Tears, Idle Tears

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more

Paul Laurence Dunbar

(1872–1906)

Sympathy

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting—
I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!

Emily Brontë

(1818–1848)

Stars

Ah! why, because the dazzling sun
Restored our earth to joy
Have you departed, every one,
And left a desert sky?

All through the night, your glorious eyes
Were gazing down in mine,
And with a full heart's thankful sighs
I blessed that watch divine!

I was at peace, and drank your beams
As they were life to me
And revelled in my changeful dreams
Like petrel on the sea.

Thought followed thought—star followed star
Through boundless regions on,
While one sweet influence, near and far,
Thrilled through and proved us one.

Why did the morning dawn to break
So great, so pure a spell,
And scorch with fire the tranquil cheek
Where your cool radiance fell?

Blood-red he rose, and arrow-straight
His fierce beams struck my brow:
The soul of Nature sprang elate,
But mine sank sad and low!

My lids closed down—yet through their veil
I saw him blazing still;
And steep in gold the misty dale
And flash upon the hill.

I turned me to the pillow then
To call back Night, and see
Your worlds of solemn light, again
Throb with my heart and me!

It would not do—the pillow glowed
And glowed both roof and floor,
And birds sang loudly in the wood,
And fresh winds shook the door.

The curtains waved, the wakened flies
Were murmuring round my room,
Imprisoned there, till I should rise
And give them leave to roam.

O Stars and Dreams and Gentle Night;
O Night and Stars return!
And hide me from the hostile light
That does not warm, but burn—

That drains the blood of suffering men;
Drinks tears, instead of dew:
Let me sleep through his blinding reign,
And only wake with you!