Kulapavana

mine comes from too much gunfire /images/graemlins/wink.gif and laboratory ultrasonic cell disruptors... permanent hearing loss - nothing will help me now... /images/graemlins/frown.gif

"what's that iskcon acharya issue?" ---------------- gurus who merely imitated Prabhupada fell down.

I thought we were talking about the issue of nuclear waste storage.

Orthodox Activists, Cossacks Attack Hindu Festival in South Russia Created: 06.10.2005 14:42 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 14:42 MSK, 3 hours 55 minutes ago MosNews About 200 people with icons and slogans have attacked the opening of Vedic culture festival in the South Russian resort of Anapa. The festival, organized by Russian Krishnaites — a Hindu sect wide spread outside India — took place in a health center. Cossacks in camouflage and elderly women burst into the center territory demanding that Krishnaites leave their town, Russian website Religio.Ru reported. The site also said that representatives of Russian Orthodox clergy headed the protest. The attackers carried slogans saying “Vedic Culture Is Hitler’s Culture” and “We Will Clean Anapa of Devil Kin.” Some of them turned over a book stall, trampled down a portrait of a Krishnaite saint, tore down festival posters. Organizers of the festival supported by local authorities held negotiations with the attackers who agreed to leave the scene so that the Krishnaites could continue their festival. However, the Hindus were forbidden to wear traditional Indian costumes when visiting Anapa. The festival included seminars, songs and dances, other actions.

there is a difference between following in the footsteps of one's guru, and imitating him. look at the initiating guru / acharya issue in Iskcon for example.

"In regards to this story I am reminded of another story concerning Sripada Sankaracarya and his disciples. When passing through a town one day a casteless woman was passing on the road with some cakes. She spontaneously offered a cake to Sripada Sankaracarya which he took to reward and bless the woman for her spontaneous devotion. The disciples of Sripada Sankaracarya also took cakes and Sripada Sankaracarya noted it but said nothing. Then approaching the end of the town there was a blacksmith who had some small cauldrons of molten hot iron on the fire. Sripada Sankaracarya took one in hand and drank from it. He then offered the prasad which touched his lips to his disciples but none would dare touch it. He chided them OH! you took the cakes why not take this also? They were speechless in fear. Sripada Sankaracarya told them DO NOT IMITATE ME!" Devotee known as Das

just like we perceive air by feeling the wind with our sense of touch, we perceive the space with our mind. the space is real, but our perception of it is illusory and incomplete. when our mind is purified, we percieve the space just like the great sages who gave us Srimad Bhagavatam with it's descriptions of the Universe.

"Police found the gang had set up a myriad of screen companies controlled from abroad." guess where that "abroad" is? they do not DARE to say... LOL!

when a scam is successful it's a "terrorist operation" or in this case "criminal operation". when crooks get busted they say: "IT WAS A STING OPERATION" watch out for the "anti-terrorism warriors". most of them are just plain CROOKS.

Source: ABC NEWS ONLINE Published: October 6, 2005 Banks fall for '.' sting, mastermind escapes A gang that tricked Paris banks out of millions of euros by pretending to hunt down money-laundering by terrorists has perpetrated what French investigators call a "perfectly incredible and ." sting. French police have arrested two members of the gang and are hunting for the other three, including the alleged mastermind, Gilbert C, who they say has fled to Israel. The scammers carried out their operation by having one of their number present himself to the banks as an international bank director helping Western anti-terrorist officials track down suspicious money transfers. He backed up his story by giving details of some of the banks' richest clients and supplying information about certain transfers. He then told the banks they would receive a visit from an agent from France's DGSE counter-espionage service, who would ask them to secretly put up funds so the "money-laundering rings" could be infiltrated. Some 20 banks were approached and several complied. In July, one unidentified establishment provided 350,000 euros in cash to a woman gang member posing as the DGSE operative. In September, another bank sent $US2.5 million to a Geneva account, two million euros were sent to a Hong Kong account and five million euros were sent to an account in Estonia. An alert raised by one of the banks allowed police to block two of the September transfers, but the third was allegedly pocketed by Gilbert C before the noose closed. Police found the gang had set up a myriad of screen companies controlled from abroad. One investigator says the suspected mastermind is "impossible to catch" and "worthy of the best" of the world's scam artists. http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200510/s1476042.htm

problem is: many energy fields can be created in a vacuum - that is if you define vacuum as space devoid of atoms. in reality, the space in the universe is filled with all kinds of "stuff", most of which we dont even understand at the slightest... vacuum as a theoretical concept: space devoid of ALL particles - may be bogus in itself. perhaps there is no such thing as "empty space". perhaps our perception of space is just an illusion, created by the particles or energies present there?

"A jiva is a spark of the eternal consciousness. A jiva is first situated on the line of demarcation between the material world and the spiritual world. There those jivas who do not forget their relation with Krsna derive the power of consciousness and are drawn into the spiritual world, they come in eternal touch with Krsna and enjoy beatitude arising from the worship of Krsna. And those who forget Krsna and give themselves up to maya's enjoyments, maya with her own force draws them into herself. It is from that very moment that we fall into the misery of this world." (Jaiva Dharma, chapter 7) that would suggest that both maya and forgetfulness are part of the spiritual realm. this issue is unavoidable even if you say the living entities come from the BORDER region. Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura wrote a lot of pretty controversial stuff, especially in his younger years.

the Maori people of New Zealand and Polynesia are thought to have migrated from India some 40,000 years ago. If you look at them closely you will see that they have indo-european body type. that would then suggest that such body type was common in India 40,000 years ago, or that indo-european body type is not the result of the so called Aryan Invasion, unless that "invasion" is much, much older. even in North America there were Indian tribes closely resembling Europeans by their bodily features, and these people came there from Asia (possibly S.Asia) at least 30,000 years ago.

the issue of vacuum is not that relevant. the test simply shows that in some high intensity energy fields light slows down.

A Stab in the Dark or Something More? Today, whilst out shopping, I overheard an interesting conversation between a shop assistant on the checkout counter and a customer. The customer was explaining that despite recently having a Flu jab it hadn't prevented her from getting the Flu again. "They're just taking a stab in the dark", she said, whilst explaining how the Flu jab couldn't protect against all the potential Flu strains, and only protected against a few know types, strains that the pharmicutical companies chose to protect against. And of course, she was right, in theory. The question is, do the flu vaccinations offer any protection at all, and regardless of whether they do or not, what effect do the vaccines themselves have on the individual? I was an on-the-spot observer of the 1918 influenza epidemic All the doctors and people who were living at the time of the 1918 Spanish Influenza epidemic say it was the most terrible disease the world has ever had. Strong men, hale and hearty, one day would be dead the next. The disease had the characteristics of the black death added to typhoid, diphtheria, pneumonia, smallpox, paralysis and all the diseases the people had been vaccinated with immediately following World War 1. Practically the entire population had been injected "seeded" with a dozen or more diseases — or toxic serums. When all those doctor-made diseases started breaking out all at once it was tragic. That pandemic dragged on for two years, kept alive with the addition of more poison drugs administered by the doctors who tried to suppress the symptoms. As far as I could find out, the flu hit only the vaccinated. Those who had refused the shots escaped the flu. My family had refused all the vaccinations so we remained well all the time. We knew from the health teachings of Graham, Trail, Tilden and others, that people cannot contaminate the body with poisons without causing disease. When the flu was at its peak, all the stores were closed as well as the schools, businesses — even the hospital, as the doctors and nurses had been vaccinated too and were down with the flu. No one was on the streets. It was like a ghost town. We seemed to be the only family which didn’t get the flu; so my parents went from house to house doing what they could to look after the sick, as it was impossible to get a doctor then. If it were possible for germs, bacteria, virus, or bacilli to cause disease, they had plenty of opportunity to attack my parents when they were spending many hours a day in the sick rooms. But they didn’t get the flu and they didn’t bring any germs home to attack us children and cause anything. None of our family had the flu — not even a sniffle— and it was in the winter with deep snow on the ground. When I see people cringe when someone near them sneezes or coughs, I wonder how long it will take them to find out that they can’t catch it — whatever it is. The only way they can get a disease is to develop it themselves by wrong eating, drinking, smoking or doing some other things which cause internal poisoning and lowered vitality. All diseases are preventable and most of them are cureable with the right methods, not known to medical doctors, and not all drugless doctors know them either. It has been said that the 1918 flu epidemic killed 20,000,000 people throughout the world. But, actually, the doctors killed them with their crude and deadly treatments and drugs. This is a harsh accusation but it is nevertheless true, judging by the success of the drugless doctors in comparison with that of the medical doctors. While the medical men and medical hospitals were losing 33% of their flu cases, the non-medical hospitals such as BATTLE CREEK, KELLOGG and MACFADDEN’S HEALTH-RESTORIUM were getting almost 100% healings with their water cure, baths, enemas, etc., fasting and certain other simple healing methods, followed by carefully worked out diets of natural foods. One health doctor didn’t lose a patient in eight years. The very successful health treatment of one of those drugless doctors who didn’t lose any patients will be given in the other part of this book, titled VACCINATION CONDEMNED, to be published a little later. If the medical doctors had been as advanced as the drugless doctors, there would not have been those 20 million deaths from the medical flu treatment. There was seven times more disease among the vaccinated soldiers than among the unvaccinated civilians, and the diseases were those they had been vaccinated against. One soldier who had returned from overseas in 1912 told me that the army hospitals were filled with cases of infantile paralysis and he wondered why grown men should have an infant disease. Now, we know that paralysis is a common after-effect of vaccine poisoning. Those at home didn’t get the paralysis until after the world-wide vaccination campaign in 1918. Should you get the Flu shot? News reports have been flooding us with articles warning that the impending flu season may be the worst in years.Even though it is difficult to separate the facts from the hype, a close evaluation of the flu vaccine will reveal that serious questions must be raised about the recommendations that are routinely touted, namely high efficacy with little risk. Anyone considering a flu shot should become informed about the substances coming through that needle, and should be determined to investigate the safety and efficacy issues that are still unresolved. What's in a flu shot? The influenza virus is grown in "specific pathogen-free" (SPF) eggs. Eggs are tested for a variety of agents usually between 23 and 31-to confirm the absence of those specific pathogens. Laboratories limit the number of agents that are screened due to the shear abundance of potential viruses and/or bacteria to choose from. In addition, screening for every potential agent would be cost prohibitive. If none of the tested agents are detected, the vaccine is reported as "pathogen free. However, it should be understood that there is a distinct difference between "pathogen free and "specific pathogen-free. In its July 1996 report, the Institute of Medicine acknowledged that "although it is not possible to produce a completely uncontaminated animal, it is possible to produce an animal [or egg] certified to be free of specific pathogens. Viruses that are harmless to their animal host, however, may be potentially harmful to humans. During the manufacturing process, antibiotics (neomycin, polymyxin B and gentamicin) are added to eliminate stray bacteria found in the mixture. The final solution can contain the following additives in any combination: Triton X-100 (a detergent); polysorbate 80 (a potential carcinogen); gelatin; formaldehyde; and residual egg proteins. In addition, many of the influenza vaccines still contain thimerosal as a preservative. Thimerosal (mercury) is being investigated for its link to brain injury and autoimmune disease. Does the flu shot protect? There are no guarantees that the influenza viruses selected for the vaccine will be the identical strains circulating during a given flu season. In fact, it has recently been announced that this year's flu vaccine does not include the strain that is being reported by doctors in the community called the "A Fujian strain. Outbreaks have been reported in Texas, Colorado and elsewhere that involve strains that do not match the current flu vaccine. CDC tests have confirmed that more than 80 per cent of the 55 strains of influenza virus isolated thus far are the A Fujian strain. Even so, the CDC still maintains that the current vaccine could provide cross-protection against the new variant, but the fact is, no one knows for sure. Moreover, the majority of illnesses characterized by fever, fatigue, cough and aching muscles are not caused by the influenza virus. Non-influenza viruses (e.g., rhinoviruses respiratory syncytial virus [RSV], adenoviruses, and parainfluenza viruses) can cause symptoms referred to as influenza-like illnesses. Certain bacteria, such as Legionella spp., Chlamydia pneumoniae, Mycoplasma pneumoniae, and Streptococcus pneumoniae, have been documented as the causes of ILI. Notably, these microbes are not part of the flu vaccine. Unless an organism's antigen is contained within the vaccine, there is no protection conferred by the vaccine. Unusual and frightening complications with Flu outbreak At left: Kim Collins talks to her son, Nick Collins, 9, both of Texarkana, Texas, as he opens his eyes briefly in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock, Ark., Monday, Dec. 8, 2003. Nick, who arrived at the hospital on Nov.10, needs four chest tubes to drain air and fluid from three holes in his lungs caused by bacterial pneumonia. Doctors are trying to prevent a blood clot from killing him. He's also developed a drug-resistant bacteria infection, a worrisome find that doctors are starting to see in other flu cases. Doctors are reporting unusual and frightening complications with this year's flu outbreak, particularly among young patients. This last comment should raise some red flags and make one wonder about the following. US Army scientists create "Spanish Flu" virus in laboratory - medical benefit questionable [...] Biosafety Irregularity in Spanish Flu Experiments Highlights the Need to Strengthen Biodefense Transparency The Sunshine Project News Release 21 October 2003 (Austin and Hamburg) - Genetic experiments to recreate one of the most devastating viruses of the past century were not reviewed or approved by a biosafety committee. The University of Georgia claims that it was too troublesome to convene its Institutional Biosafety Committee to review research to genetically reconstruct the Spanish flu. Instead, the University signed off on the experiments based on ad hoc talks between only four members of its biosafety committee. As a result, no minutes were taken to describe safety review of the experiments. In fact, by not convening its committee, Georgia's actions ensured that there was no timely opportunity to raise concerns at all. The case demonstrates a severe weakness in the public disclosure provisions of federal research rules (the NIH Guidelines) and underscores the need for mandatory committee-level (or higher) review of research projects with disease agents. By approving the experiments with an ad hoc subcommittee, requirements for public disclosure were avoided. The existence of the experiments only came to light through journal articles. According to Edward Hammond of the Sunshine Project, "Genetic engineering of bioweapons agents has national and international implications for health, biosafety, and security. But Georgia shied away from these and simply rubber-stamped the Pentagon-led project to recreate the Spanish flu." In 1918-19, the Spanish flu killed 20-40 million people worldwide. In the US, deaths from the flu strain resulted in a 10 year drop in life expectancy. Recreating the deadly flu may create international unease, in particular because of the leadership of the US military in the project. The Spanish flu reconstruction began at a University of Georgia biosafety level three (BSL-3) facility in 1999. Researchers from US universities, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) are involved. The lab specializes in diseases of poultry, including avian influenza. The Sunshine Project has confirmed - and reconfirmed - under the Freedom of Information Act that USDA has no biosafety committee minutes related to the experiments. The Project also directly contacted the University of Georgia and requested Institutional Biosafety Committee meeting minutes that are required by the NIH Guidelines for Recombinant DNA Research. Georgia's Biosafety Officer stated that no minutes exist. Scientists have recently begun to accept the need to reinforce the Institutional Biosafety Committee system established under the NIH Guidelines for Recombinant DNA Research. But the discussion, including that in a recent report on biosafety by the National Academies of Science, is out of balance because it is taking place almostly exclusively between scientists, government regulators, and the Pentagon. "There is a need to make more room at the table. The public has a right to help determine if, and under what conditions, risky research proceeds." says Hammond, "Biosafety review must be a matter of law, and public access provisions of federal research rules must be strengthened. Otherwise, risky experiments such as this one will take place with little or no transparency, and that will decrease international security and create environmental and health risks." Spanish Flu - Why is the US government interested? A recent commentary in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (Madjid et al. 2003) noted that influenza is readily transmissible by aerosol and that a small number of viruses can cause a full-blown infection. The authors continued:"the possibility for genetic engineering and aerosol transmission [of influenza] suggests an enormous potential for bioterrorism" The possible hostile abuse of influenza virus is seen as a very real threat by public health officials in the USA. Just two weeks ago, $15 million was granted by the US National Institutes of Health to Stanford University to study how to guard against the flu virus "if it were to be unleashed as an agent of bioterrorism". US scientists led by a Pentagon pathologist recently began to genetically reconstruct this specifically dangerous 1918 influenza strain. In one experiment a partially reconstructed 1918 virus killed mice, while virus constructs with genes from a contemporary flu virus had hardly any effect. Attempts to recover the Spanish flu virus date to the 1950s, when scientists unsuccessfully tried to revive the virus from victims buried in the permafrost of Alaska. In the mid 1990s, Dr Jeffrey Taubenberger from the US Armed Forces Institute of Pathology started to screen preserved tissue samples from 1918 influenza victims. It appears that this work was not triggered by a search for flu treatments, or the search for a new biowarfare agent, but by a rather simple motivation: Taubenberger and his team were just able to do it. In previous experiments they had developed a new technique to analyse DNA in old, preserved tissues and for now looking for new applications: "The 1918 flu was by far and away the most interesting thing we could think of" explained Taubenberger the reason why he started to unravel the secrets of one of most deadliest viruses known to humankind.

all legitimate long term storage facilities for high level nuclear waste are very deep underground. if the quake damages the vaults the waste has nowhere to go but down, where it is not going to bother anyone. there is much more risk to the public from the current temporary storage facilities for nuclear waste as they are often quite poorly engineered and maintained. as to clouds of radioactive dust from storage facilities drifting across oceans that is impossible.

Actually, radioactive minerals are quite common in nature, including highly radioactive ones. The biggest risks are not in the storage of nuclear waste, but in the transportation of highly radioactive materials through populated areas. All things considered, nuclear energy production does less environmental damage than the fossil fuel consumption. Especially if we used fissile materials from military sources.

yes, that is a possibility. one of the plans of the ruling elites is to bring the population of Earth to below one billion people.

Source: CFR's foreign affairs magazine Published: July 1, 2005 Summary: If an influenza pandemic struck today, borders would close, the global economy would shut down, international vaccine supplies and health-care systems would be overwhelmed, and panic would reign. To limit the fallout, the industrialized world must create a detailed response strategy involving the public and private sectors. Michael T. Osterholm is Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, Associate Director of the Department of Homeland Security's National Center for Food Protection and Defense, and Professor at the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health. FEAR ITSELF Dating back to antiquity, influenza pandemics have posed the greatest threat of a worldwide calamity caused by infectious disease. Over the past 300 years, ten influenza pandemics have occurred among humans. The most recent came in 1957-58 and 1968-69, and although several tens of thousands of Americans died in each one, these were considered mild compared to others. The 1918-19 pandemic was not. According to recent analysis, it killed 50 to 100 million people globally. Today, with a population of 6.5 billion, more than three times that of 1918, even a "mild" pandemic could kill many millions of people. A number of recent events and factors have significantly heightened concern that a specific near-term pandemic may be imminent. It could be caused by H5N1, the avian influenza strain currently circulating in Asia. At this juncture scientists cannot be certain. Nor can they know exactly when a pandemic will hit, or whether it will rival the experience of 1918-19 or be more muted like 1957-58 and 1968-69. The reality of a coming pandemic, however, cannot be avoided. Only its impact can be lessened. Some important preparatory efforts are under way, but much more needs to be done by institutions at many levels of society. THE BACKDROP Of the three types of influenza virus, influenza type A infects and kills the greatest number of people each year and is the only type that causes pandemics. It originates in wild aquatic birds. The virus does not cause illness in these birds, and although it is widely transmitted among them, it does not undergo any significant genetic change. Direct transmission from the birds to humans has not been demonstrated, but when a virus is transmitted from wild birds to domesticated birds such as chickens, it undergoes changes that allow it to infect humans, pigs, and potentially other mammals. Once in the lung cells of a mammalian host, the virus can "reassort," or mix genes, with human influenza viruses that are also present. This process can lead to an entirely new viral strain, capable of sustained human-to-human transmission. If such a virus has not circulated in humans before, the entire population will be susceptible. If the virus has not circulated in the human population for a number of years, most people will lack residual immunity from previous infection. Once the novel strain better adapts to humans and is easily transmitted from person to person, it is capable of causing a new pandemic. As the virus passes repeatedly from one human to the next, it eventually becomes less virulent and joins the other influenza viruses that circulate the globe each year. This cycle continues until another new influenza virus emerges from wild birds and the process begins again. Some pandemics result in much higher rates of infection and death than others. Scientists now understand that this variation is a result of the genetic makeup of each specific virus and the presence of certain virulence factors. That is why the 1918-19 pandemic killed many more people than either the 1957-58 or the 1968-69 pandemic. A CRITICAL DIFFERENCE Infectious diseases remain the number one killer of humans worldwide. Currently, more than 39 million people live with HIV, and last year about 2.9 million people died of AIDS, bringing the cumulative total of deaths from AIDS to approximately 25 million. Tuberculosis (TB) and malaria also remain major causes of death. In 2003, about 8.8 million people became infected with TB, and the disease killed more than 2 million. Each year, malaria causes more than 1 million deaths and close to 5 billion episodes of clinical illness. In addition, newly emerging infections, diarrheal and other vector-borne diseases, and agents resistant to antibiotics pose a serious and growing public health concern. Given so many other significant infectious diseases, why does another influenza pandemic merit unique and urgent attention? First, of the more than 1,500 microbes known to cause disease in humans, influenza continues to be the king in terms of overall mortality. Even in a year when only the garden-variety strains circulate, an estimated 1-1.5 million people worldwide die from influenza infections or related complications. In a pandemic lasting 12 to 36 months, the number of cases and deaths would rise dramatically. Recent clinical, epidemiological, and laboratory evidence suggests that the impact of a pandemic caused by the current H5N1 strain would be similar to that of the 1918-19 pandemic. More than half of the people killed in that pandemic were 18 to 40 years old and largely healthy. If 1918-19 mortality data are extrapolated to the current U.S. population, 1.7 million people could die, half of them between the ages of 18 and 40. Globally, those same estimates yield 180-360 million deaths, more than five times the cumulative number of documented AIDS deaths. In 1918-19, most deaths were caused by a virus-induced response of the victim's immune system -- a cytokine storm -- which led to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). In other words, in the process of fighting the disease, a person's immune system severely damaged the lungs, resulting in death. Victims of H5N1 have also suffered from cytokine storms, and the world is not much better prepared to treat millions of cases of ARDS today than it was 85 years ago. In the 1957-58 and 1968-69 pandemics, the primary cause of death was secondary bacterial pneumonias that infected lungs weakened by influenza. Although such bacterial infections can often be treated by antibiotics, these drugs would be either unavailable or in short supply for much of the global population during a pandemic. The arrival of a pandemic influenza would trigger a reaction that would change the world overnight. A vaccine would not be available for a number of months after the pandemic started, and there are very limited stockpiles of antiviral drugs. Plus, only a few privileged areas of the world have access to vaccine-production facilities. Foreign trade and travel would be reduced or even ended in an attempt to stop the virus from entering new countries -- even though such efforts would probably fail given the infectiousness of influenza and the volume of illegal crossings that occur at most borders. It is likely that transportation would also be significantly curtailed domestically, as smaller communities sought to keep the disease contained. The world relies on the speedy distribution of products such as food and replacement parts for equipment. Global, regional, and national economies would come to an abrupt halt -- something that has never happened due to HIV, malaria, or TB despite their dramatic impact on the developing world. The closest the world has come to this scenario in modern times was the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) crisis of 2003. Over a period of five months, about 8,000 people were infected by a novel human coronavirus. About ten percent of them died. The virus apparently spread to humans when infected animals were sold and slaughtered in unsanitary and crowded markets in China's Guangdong Province. Although the transmission rate of SARS paled in comparison to that of influenza, it demonstrated how quickly such an infectious agent can circle the globe, given the ease and frequency of international travel. Once SARS emerged in rural China, it spread to five countries within 24 hours and to 30 countries on six continents within several months. The SARS experience teaches a critical lesson about the potential global response to a pandemic influenza. Even with the relatively low number of deaths it caused compared to other infectious diseases, SARS had a powerful negative psychological impact on the populations of many countries. In a recent analysis of the epidemic, the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine concluded: "The relatively high case-fatality rate, the identification of super-spreaders, the newness of the disease, the speed of its global spread, and public uncertainty about the ability to control its spread may have contributed to the public's alarm. This alarm, in turn, may have led to the behavior that exacerbated the economic blows to the travel and tourism industries of the countries with the highest number of cases." SARS provided a taste of the impact a killer influenza pandemic would have on the global economy. Jong-Wha Lee, of Korea University, and Warwick McKibbin, of the Australian National University, estimated the economic impact of the six-month SARS epidemic on the Asia-Pacific region at about $40 billion. In Canada, 438 people were infected and 43 died after an infected person traveled from Hong Kong to Toronto, and the Canadian Tourism Commission estimated that the epidemic cost the nation's economy $419 million. The Ontario health minister estimated that SARS cost the province's health-care system about $763 million, money that was spent, in part, on special SARS clinics and supplies to protect health-care workers. The SARS outbreak also had a substantial impact on the global airline industry. After the disease hit in 2003, flights in the Asia-Pacific area decreased by 45 percent from the year before. During the outbreak, the number of flights between Hong Kong and the United States fell 69 percent. And this impact would pale in comparison to that of a 12- to 36-month worldwide influenza pandemic. The SARS epidemic also raises questions about how prepared governments are to address a prolonged infectious-disease crisis -- particularly governments that are already unstable. Seton Hall University's Yanzhong Huang concluded that the SARS epidemic created the most severe social or political crisis encountered by China's leadership since the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown. China's problems probably resulted less from SARS' public health impact than from the government's failed effort to allay panic by withholding information about the disease from the Chinese people. The effort backfired. During the crisis, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao pointed out in a cabinet meeting on the epidemic that "the health and security of the people, overall state of reform, development, and stability, and China's national interest and image are at stake." But Huang believes that "a fatal period of hesitation regarding information-sharing and action spawned anxiety, panic, and rumor-mongering across the country and undermined the government's efforts to create a milder image of itself in the international arena." Widespread infection and economic collapse can destabilize a government; blame for failing to deal effectively with a pandemic can cripple a government. This holds even more for an influenza pandemic. In the event of a pandemic influenza, the level of panic witnessed during the SARS crisis could spiral out of control as illnesses and deaths continued to mount over months and months. Unfortunately, the public is often indifferent to initial warnings about impending infectious-disease crises -- as with HIV, for example. Indifference becomes fear only after the catastrophe hits, when it is already too late to implement preventive or control measures. READY FOR THE WORST What should the industrialized world be doing to prepare for the next pandemic? The simple answer: far more. So far, the World Health Organization and several countries have finalized or drafted useful but overly general plans. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has increased research on influenza-vaccine production and availability. These efforts are commendable, but what is needed is a detailed operational blueprint for how to get a population through one to three years of a pandemic. Such a plan must involve all the key components of society. In the private sector, the plan must coordinate the responses of the medical community, medical suppliers, food providers, and the transportation system. In the government sector, the plan should take into account officials from public health, law enforcement, and emergency management at the international, federal, state, and local levels. At the same time, it must be acknowledged that such master blueprints may have their drawbacks, too. Berkeley's Aaron Wildavsky persuasively argued that resilience is the real key to crisis management -- overly rigid plans can do more harm than good. Still, planning is enormously useful. It gives government officials, private-sector partners, and the community the opportunity to meet, think through potential dilemmas, purchase necessary equipment, and set up organizational structures for a 12- to 36-month response. A blueprint forces leaders to rehearse their response to a crisis, preparing emotionally and intellectually so that when disaster strikes the community can face it. Influenza-vaccine production deserves special attention. An initiative to provide vaccine for the entire world must be developed, with a well-defined schedule to ensure progress. It is laudable that countries such as the United States and Vietnam are pursuing programs with long-term goals to develop and produce H5N1 vaccine for their respective populations. But if the rest of the world lacks supplies, even the vaccinated will be devastated when the global economy comes to an abrupt halt. Pandemic-influenza preparedness is by nature an international issue. No one can truly be isolated from a pandemic. The pandemic-related collapse of worldwide trade and its ripple effect throughout industrialized and developing countries would represent the first real test of the resiliency of the modern global delivery system. Given the extent to which modern commerce relies on the precise and readily available international trade of goods and services, a shutdown of the global economic system would dramatically harm the world's ability to meet the surging demand for essential commodities such as food and medicine during a crisis. The business community can no longer afford to play a minor role in planning the response to a pandemic. For the world to have critical goods and services during a pandemic, industry heads must stockpile raw materials for production and preplan distribution and transportation support. Every company's senior managers need to be ready to respond rapidly to changes in the availability, production, distribution, and inventory management of their products. There is no model for how to revive the current global economy were it to be devastated. To truly be complete, all planning on international, regional, national, and local levels must consider three different scenarios: What if the pandemic begins tonight? What if it starts one year from now? What if the world is so fortunate as to have an entire decade to prepare? All are possible, but none is certain. STARTING TONIGHT What would happen today in the office of every nation's leader if several cities in Vietnam suffered from major outbreaks of H5N1 infection, with a five percent mortality rate? First, there would be an immediate effort to try to sort out disparate disease-surveillance data from a variety of government and public health sources to determine which countries might have pandemic-related cases. Then, the decision would likely be made to close most international and even some state or provincial borders -- without any predetermined criteria for how or when those borders might be reopened. Border security would be made a priority, especially to protect potential supplies of pandemic-specific vaccines from nearby desperate countries. Military leaders would have to develop strategies to defend the country and also protect against domestic insurgency with armed forces that would likely be compromised by the disease. Even in unaffected countries, fear, panic, and chaos would spread as international media reported the daily advance of the disease around the world. In short order, the global economy would shut down. The commodities and services countries would need to "survive" the next 12 to 36 months would have to be identified. Currently, most businesses' continuity plans account for only a localized disruption -- a single plant closure, for instance -- and have not planned for extensive, long-term outages. The private and public sectors would have to develop emergency plans to sustain critical domestic supply chains and manufacturing and agricultural production and distribution. The labor force would be severely affected when it was most needed. Over the course of the year, up to 50 percent of affected populations could become ill; as many as five percent could die. The disease would hit senior management as hard as the rest of the work force. There would be major shortages in all countries of a wide range of commodities, including food, soap, paper, light bulbs, gasoline, parts for repairing military equipment and municipal water pumps, and medicines, including vaccines unrelated to the pandemic. Many industries not critical to survival -- electronics, automobile, and clothing, for example -- would suffer or even close. Activities that require close human contact -- school, seeing movies in theaters, or eating at restaurants -- would be avoided, maybe even banned. Vaccine would have no impact on the course of the virus in the first months and would likely play an extremely limited role worldwide during the following 12 to 18 months of the pandemic. Despite major innovations in the production of most other vaccines, international production of influenza vaccine is based on a fragile and limited system that utilizes technology from the 1950s. Currently, annual production of influenza vaccine is limited to about 300 million trivalent doses -- which protect against three different influenza strains in one dose -- or less than one billion monovalent doses. To counter a new strain of pandemic influenza that has never circulated throughout the population, each person would likely need two doses for adequate protection. With today's limited production capacity, that means that less than 500 million people -- about 14 percent of the world's population -- would be vaccinated within a year of the pandemic. In addition, because the structure of the virus changes so rapidly, vaccine development could only start once the pandemic began, as manufacturers would have to obtain the new pandemic strain. It would then be at least another six months before mass production of the vaccine. Even if the system functions to the best of its ability, influenza vaccine is produced commercially in just nine countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These countries contain only 12 percent of the world's population. In the event of an influenza pandemic, they would probably nationalize their domestic production facilities, as occurred in 1976, when the United States, anticipating a pandemic of swine influenza (H1N1), refused to share its vaccine. If a pandemic struck the world today, there would be another possible weapon against influenza: antiviral medicine. When taken daily during the time of exposure to influenza, antivirals have prevented individuals from becoming ill. They have also reduced the severity of illness and subsequent complications when taken within 48 hours of onset. Although there is no data for H5N1, it is assumed antivirals would also prevent H5N1 infection if taken before exposure. There is no evidence, however, that current antiviral influenza drugs would help if the patient developed the kind of cytokine storm that has characterized recent H5N1 infections. But barring this complication, H5N1 should be treatable with Tamiflu (oseltamivir phosphate), which is manufactured by the Roche pharmaceuticals company in a single plant in Switzerland. In responding to a pandemic, Tamiflu could have a measurable impact in the limited number of countries with sizable stockpiles, but for most of the world it would not be available. Although the company plans on opening another facility in the United States this year, annual production would still cover only a small percentage of the world's population. To date, at least 14 countries have ordered Tamiflu, but the amount of these orders is enough to treat only 40 million people. The orders take considerable time to be processed and delivered -- manufacturing can take up to a year -- and in an emergency the company's ability to produce more would be limited. As with vaccines, countries would probably nationalize their antiviral supplies during a pandemic. Even if the medicine were available, most countries could not afford to buy it. Critical antibiotics, for treatment of secondary bacterial infections, would also be in short supply during a pandemic. Even now, supplies of eight different anti-infective agents are limited in the United States due to manufacturing problems. Aside from medication, many countries would not have the ability to meet the surge in the demand for health-care supplies and services that are normally taken for granted. In the United States, for example, there are 105,000 mechanical ventilators, 75,000 to 80,000 of which are in use at any given time for everyday medical care. During a routine influenza season, the number of ventilators being used shoots up to 100,000. In an influenza pandemic, the United States may need as many as several hundred thousand additional ventilators. A similar situation exists in all developed countries. Virtually every piece of medical equipment or protective gear would be in short supply within days of the recognition of a pandemic. Throughout the crisis, many of these necessities would simply be unavailable for most health-care institutions. Currently, two U.S.-based companies supply most of the respiratory protection masks for health-care workers around the world. Neither company would be able to meet the jump in demand, in part because the component parts for the masks come from multiple suppliers in multiple countries. With travel and transportation restricted, masks may not even be produced at all. Health-care providers and managed-care organizations are also unprepared for an outbreak of pandemic influenza today. There would be a tremendous demand for skilled health professionals. New "hospitals" in high school gymnasiums and community centers would have to be staffed for one to three years. Health-care workers would probably get sick and die at the same rate as the general public -- perhaps at an even higher rate, particularly if they lack access to protective equipment. If they lack such fundamental supplies, it is unclear how many professionals would continue to place themselves in high-risk situations by caring for the infected. Volunteers who are naturally immune as a result of having survived influenza infection would thus have to be found and employed. That means that the medical community's strong resistance to using lay volunteers, which is grounded in both liability concerns and professional hubris, would need to be addressed. Other unpleasant issues would also need to be tackled. Who would have priority access to the extremely limited antiviral supplies? The public would consider any ad hoc prioritization unfair, creating further dissent and disruption during a pandemic. In addition, there would not even be detailed plans for handling the massive number of dead bodies that would soon outstrip the ability to process them. Clearly, an influenza pandemic that struck today would demand an unprecedented medical and nonmedical response. This requires planning well beyond anything devised thus far by any of the world's countries and organizations. A YEAR FROM NOW Even if an H5N1 pandemic is a year away, the world must plan for the same problems with the same fervor. Major campaigns must be initiated to prepare the nonmedical and medical sectors. Pandemic planning must be on the agenda of every school board, manufacturing plant, investment firm, mortuary, state legislature, and food distributor in the United States and beyond. There is an urgent need to reassess the vulnerability of the global economy to ensure that surges in demand can be met. Critical heath-care and consumer products and commodities must be stockpiled. Health professionals must learn how to better communicate risk and must be able to both provide the facts and acknowledge the unknowns to a frightened or panicked population. If there is a year of lead-time before an H5N1 pandemic, vaccine could play a more central role in the global response. Although the world would still have a limited capacity to manufacture influenza vaccine, techniques that could allow scientists to get multiple doses from a current single dose may increase the supply. In addition to further research on this issue, efforts are needed to ensure the availability of syringes and equipment for delivering vaccine. There must also be an international plan for how the vaccine would be allocated. It is far better to struggle with the ethical issues involved in determining such priorities now, in a public forum, rather than to wait until the crisis occurs. Prevention must also be improved. Priority should be placed on early intervention and risk assessment. And an aggressive and comprehensive research agenda must be launched immediately to study the ecology and biology of the influenza virus and the epidemiologic role of various animal and bird species. TEN YEARS LATER If developed countries begin to transform radically the current system of influenza-vaccine production, an influenza pandemic ten years from now could have a much less devastating outcome. The industrialized world must initiate an international project to develop the ability to produce a vaccine for the entire global population within several months of the start of a pandemic. The initiative must be a top priority of the group of seven industrialized nations plus Russia (G-8), because almost nothing could inflict more death and disruption than a pandemic influenza. The current BioShield law and additional legislation recently submitted to Congress will act to enhance the availability of vaccines in the United States. This aim is laudable, but it does little to address international needs. The ultimate goal must be to develop a new cell-culture vaccine or comparable vaccine technology that works on all influenza subtypes and that can be made available on short notice to all the people of the world. WHAT COURSE TO TAKE? The world must form a better understanding of the potential for the emergence of a pandemic influenza strain. A pandemic is coming. It could be caused by H5N1 or by another novel strain. It could happen tonight, next year, or even ten years from now. The signs are alarming: the number of human and animal H5N1 infections has been increasing; small clusters of cases have been documented, suggesting that the virus may have come close to sustained human-to-human transmission; and H5N1 continues to evolve in the virtual genetic reassortment laboratory provided by the unprecedented number of people, pigs, and poultry in Asia. The population explosion in China and other Asian countries has created an incredible mixing vessel for the virus. Consider this sobering information: the most recent influenza pandemic, of 1968-69, emerged in China, when its population was 790 million; today it is 1.3 billion. In 1968, the number of pigs in China was 5.2 million; today it is 508 million. The number of poultry in China in 1968 was 12.3 million; today it is 13 billion. Changes in other Asian countries are similar. Given these developments, as well as the exponential growth in foreign travel over the past 50 years, an influenza pandemic could be more devastating than ever before. Can disaster be avoided? The answer is a qualified yes. Although a coming pandemic cannot be avoided, its impact can be considerably lessened. It depends on how the leaders of the world -- from the heads of the G-8 to local officials -- decide to respond. They must recognize the economic, security, and health threat that the next influenza pandemic poses and invest accordingly. Each leader must realize that even if a country has enough vaccine to protect its citizens, the economic impact of a worldwide pandemic will inflict substantial pain on everyone. The resources required to prepare adequately will be extensive. But they must be considered in light of the cost of failing to invest: a global world economy that remains in a shambles for several years. This is a critical point in history. Time is running out to prepare for the next pandemic. We must act now with decisiveness and purpose. Someday, after the next pandemic has come and gone, a commission much like the 9/11 Commission will be charged with determining how well government, business, and public health leaders prepared the world for the catastrophe when they had clear warning. What will be the verdict?

well, well, well... soon people will figure out that some of our most basic assumptions about the universe are wrong. that stuff has tremendous implications for astrophysics. perhaps there are entire segments of our universe where light travels at slower speeds. after all, whatever we know about the Universe comes from light analysis.

Source: UC Berkeley via PhysOrg Published: October 4, 2005 Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have made a dramatic advance in their quest to slow light down for applications in speedier communication networks. The research team, led by Connie J. Chang-Hasnain, UC Berkeley professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, has created a device that uses a laser amplifier to slow the speed of light more than one million-fold. The researchers clocked the speed of light at 245 meters per second, or three-quarters the speed of sound in air. Moreover, the team did this at room temperature. The experiment is described in the journal Optics Express, published yesterday (Monday, Oct. 3). The researchers built upon work completed one year ago in which they slowed light by a factor of 31,000 times, or 6 miles per second. "Last year, UC Berkeley researchers were able to use coherent population oscillation in semiconductors to slow light down, but this method required temperatures as low as 10 degrees Kelvin," said Xiaoxue Zhao, a UC Berkeley graduate student in electrical engineering and computer sciences and lead author of the paper. "This year, we got a state-of-the-art laser and used it as an amplifier to adjust the velocity of light at room temperature, making it more practical and effective." By lowering the electrical current applied to a vertical cavity surface emitting laser - the same type of laser used in an optical mouse - the researchers were able to use the device as an amplifier to pump up the signals of the light passing through it. As the electrical current injected into the laser cavity increases, the velocity of light decreases. "This method has the added benefit of allowing us to significantly vary the speed of light," said Bala Pesala, a UC Berkeley graduate student in electrical engineering and computer sciences and co-author of the paper. "By varying the electrical current, we can adjust the frequency delay by as much as 100 picoseconds for a 2.8 gigahertz broadband signal." In optoelectronics, adjusting the speed of light is part of an effort to overcome a bottleneck in optical communications. Optical signals speed along fiber networks, but are then jammed as they hit an intersection, or router. At these intersections, light signals are converted to slower moving electronic data to be directed to the correct path before being switched back to light, a process known as optical-electronic-optical (OEO) conversion. "Controlling the speed of light along these networks could ultimately eliminate the need for these OEO conversions, which are both slow and costly to power," said Chang-Hasnain, principal investigator of the project and director of UC Berkeley's Center for Optoelectronic Nanostructured Semiconductor Technologies. "Without this traffic jam, we could easily transmit 3-D graphics and ultra high-resolution video, among other applications." Prior experiments have demonstrated that light beams can be slowed through atomic vapor as well as solid-state crystal. But Chang-Hasnain points out that semiconductors have 1 million to 1 billion times broader bandwidth capacity than atomic gas or crystal, making them more practical for network communication applications. The researchers hope to eventually freeze light in its tracks, which would open doors to a world of optical memory and storage. "Imagine if we could store the entire contents of the Library of Congress in one flash memory card," said Chang-Hasnain. "That's still many, many years off, but a number of researchers are working towards this objective. In this effort, the words of the poet William Blake seem appropriate. He wrote, 'Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.' That describes what we're trying to do." Other co-authors of the paper are Phedon Palinginis, a UC Berkeley graduate student in electrical engineering and computer sciences, and Philip Hemmer, associate professor of electrical engineering at Texas A&M University. This research was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the U.S. Air Force.

Source: cbc.ca Published: October 4, 2005 Author: CBC News Bush wants military to keep order in bird flu pandemic scenario Last Updated Tue, 04 Oct 2005 21:47:55 EDT CBC News U.S. President George Bush said Tuesday that in event of a bird flu pandemic, American troops would be the best solution to enforce quarantines. Speaking at his first full-fledged news conference in over four months, Bush said aggressive action could be needed to prevent a potentially crippling U.S. outbreak of a bird flu strain that is sweeping through Asian poultry. Many experts fear it could become the next deadly pandemic. Bush said he has asked Congress to give him the authority to call in the military, if state and local authorities are unable to contain and deal with such an outbreak. The President has already indicated that he wants to give the armed forces the lead responsibility for conducting search-and-rescue operations and sending in supplies after massive natural disasters and terrorist attacks. This notion could require a change in law. Dr. Irwin Redlener, associate dean of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and director of its National Centre for Disaster Preparedness, said this would mean martial law in the United States. He said Bush's suggestion is an "extraordinarily draconian measure" that would be unnecessary if the nation had built the capability for rapid vaccine production, ensured a large supply of anti-virals like Tamiflu, and not allowed the degradation of the public health system.

you think DS kept his old NV set? /images/graemlins/wink.gif

Krishna's Dwarka was not in Jamnagar but in Junagadh: ISRO Ahmedabad, Oct. 4 (PTI): Giving a totally new twist to the location of Lord Krishna's birthplace Dwarka, satellite pictures taken by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have indicated that Dwarka did not exist in Jamnagar as the historians believe but in Junagadh district of Gujarat. A senior scientist with Space Application Centre of ISRO Dr P S Thakker, who has worked on this project, said "what is interesting is that the findings of ISRO corroborates what is mentioned in the Vedas and ancient Hindu scriptures about the geographical location of Dwaraka but contradicts what the archaeologists and modern historians say about the present Dwarka which they claim is in Jamnagar district of Gujarat." Though the study was done by ISRO four years back it was confined to abstract papers in the dusty shelf of ISRO. Satellite images can pinpoint things that are not visible to the naked eye. For example, it can indicate the presence of ruins of a city which has been long buried under the soil. Thakker said there are nine sites in Gujarat which claim to be original Krishna's Dwarka. Those sites are the holy town of modern Dwarka in Jamnagar district, Mul Dwarka near Kodinar in Junagadh district, Muli in Surendranagar district, Panch Dwaraka near Vankaner in Rajkot district, Bet Dwarka in Jamnagar district near Okha and a city believed to be submerged in the Great Rann of Kutch. Another site which is claimant of Dwarka is Jima Durga in Junagadh district. Descriptions of Krishna's Dwarka mentions presence of rivers, forests, mountains, gardens having colourful flowers in its environs. But the present day Dwarka, which exists in Jamnagar, doesn't match with the descriptions found in literature but matches perfectly with the images of satellite which was taken of Junagadh district, Thakker added. He said the available literature indicates existence of two different Dwarkas at two different periods. One Dwarka was that of Vasudeva and the other was that of Krishna's. Vasudev's Dwarka, which was submerged in the Arabian Sea about 3500 years ago, and Krishna's Dwarka were both located in Junagadh district near Prabhash Kshetra, according to Thakker. In 1988, the sixth Marine Archaeological expedition of the National Oceanography, Goa led by Dr S R Rao, Emeritus Scientist, had discovered hitherto unknown features of a city in Jamnagar which Rao claimed to be Krishna's Dwarka. The expedition carried out by Dr Rao had come across inner and outer gateways of the proto-historic port city flanked by circular bastions built of massive blocks of sandstone. From the inner gateway, a flight of steps led to the Gomati river the submerged channel of which has been traced over a length of 1.5 km in the seabed. However, Thakker claims this unknown feature of a city discovered by Rao could be any other city settled after 1 AD other than Krishna's Dwarka.

Christine Leigh Heyrman Department of History, University of Delaware ©National Humanities Center Teaching about Native American religion is a challenging task to tackle with students at any level, if only because the Indian systems of belief and ritual were as legion as the tribes inhabiting North America. So let's begin by trimming down that bewildering variety to manageable proportions with three glittering generalizations (which might, with luck, prove more useful than misleading). 1. First, at the time of European contact, all but the simplest indigenous cultures in North America had developed coherent religious systems that included cosmologies--creation myths, transmitted orally from one generation to the next, which purported to explain how those societies had come into being. 2. Second, most native peoples worshiped an all-powerful, all-knowing Creator or "Master Spirit" (a being that assumed a variety of forms and both genders). They also venerated or placated a host of lesser supernatural entities, including an evil god who dealt out disaster, suffering, and death. 3. Third and finally, the members of most tribes believed in the immortality of the human soul and an afterlife, the main feature of which was the abundance of every good thing that made earthly life secure and pleasant. An Iroquois funeral as observed by a French Jesuit missionary, early 1700s At left: the corpse with items to be buried with him At right: the burial pit being lined with animal skins Detail from Joseph-François Lafitau, Moeurs des sauvages amériquains comparées aux moeurs des premiers temps (Customs of the American Indians compared with the customs of primitive times [in Europe]), 1724. The Library Company of Philadelphia Like all other cultures, the Indian societies of North America hoped to enlist the aid of the supernatural in controlling the natural and social world, and each tribe had its own set of religious observances devoted to that aim. Individuals tried to woo or appease powerful spiritual entities with private prayers or sacrifices of valuable items (e.g., furs, tobacco, food), but when entire communities sought divine assistance to ensure a successful hunt, a good harvest, or victory in warfare, they called upon shamans, priests, and, in fewer tribes, priestesses, whom they believed to have acquired supernatural powers through visions. These uncommon abilities included predicting the future and influencing the weather-- matters of vital interest to whole tribes--but shamans might also assist individuals by interpreting dreams and curing or causing outbreaks of witchcraft. As even this brief account indicates, many key Indian religious beliefs and practices bore broad but striking resemblances to those current among early modern Europeans, both Catholic and Protestant. These cultures, too, credited a creation myth (as set forth in Genesis), venerated a Creator God, dreaded a malicious subordinate deity (Lucifer), and looked forward to the individual soul's immortality in an afterlife superior in every respect to the here and now. They, too, propitiated their deity with prayers and offerings and relied upon a specially trained clergy to sustain their societies during periods of crisis. Finally, the great majority of early modern Europeans feared witches and pondered the meaning of their dreams. Important as it is to appreciate the affinities between the religious cultures of Indians and early modern Europeans (and Euro-Americans), there were real differences that must be kept in mind. The most important is that Indians did not distinguish between the natural and the supernatural. On the contrary, Native Americans perceived the "material" and "spiritual" as a unified realm of being--a kind of extended kinship network. In their view, plants, animals and humans partook of divinity through their close connection with "guardian spirits," a myriad of "supernatural" entities who imbued their "natural" kin with life and power. By contrast, Protestant and Catholic traditions were more inclined to emphasize the gulf that separated the pure, spiritual beings in heaven--God, the angels, and saints--from sinful men and women mired in a profane world filled with temptation and evil. Historians Debate The key development in the field of Native American historiography (also referred to as "ethnohistory") within the last twenty years is the growing awareness of the "new world" created for both whites and Indians as a result of their contact. Earlier histories either celebrated the rapid triumph of Euro-American "civilization" over Indian "savagery" or deplored the decimation of native peoples through military defeat and disease. In both versions, native peoples figured primarily as passive victims. More recent histories tell another story entirely, drawing attention to the enduring Indian resistance to white domination and, even more important, to the multiple forms of cultural adaptation and accommodation that took place on both sides of the moving frontier. The landmark study of this new scholarship is Richard White's eloquent and densely detailed The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), which focuses on the Ohio valley and shows how a common cultural terrain gradually emerged as its indigenous peoples interacted with missionaries, soldiers, traders, and other settlers, first the French and later the English. To get the most from this book requires several hours of close reading, but every learned, lucidly written page repays the effort. If you're looking for something that is less daunting in its heft but just as provocative, it's James Axtell's The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America (New York : Oxford University Press, 1985). Few historians understand better than Axtell the importance of religion in shaping early American history, and here he argues that the superiority of French Jesuits as missionaries and the "limber paganism" of the Indians sustained the efforts of both to keep the British from winning the three-way struggle for the North American continent, a contest that culminated in the Seven Years' War (1755-1762). The book sparkles with learning and wit, and its pages are filled with anecdotes that will delight your students. In addition, Axtell has edited a book of primary sources, The Indian Peoples of Eastern America: A Documentary History of the Sexes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), which offers a rich array of selections exploring every facet of life, including religion, among the eastern Woodland tribes, as well as much helpful commentary in the introduction and prefaces to each selection.