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Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Coalition Drops Opposition to Dow?s Genetically Engineered Crops
[unable to retrieve full-text content]The group, which included canners and other food industry members, said it was heartened by Dow?s response to its concerns.
Maya's Journey to Life: A Solution for effective Relationships - Day 150
This is a continuation to:
The Importance of Physical Communication - Day 148
Not everything revolved around me -? Day 149
?
I commit myself to push myself to become effective in my communication with other human beings because I see, realize and understand that for effective relationship with other beings in my world, the communication must be specific and direct so that no misinterpretation may occur and? we stand in alignment within each and every Living word we speak.
?
I commit myself to SHOW the relationship between our ineffective world where we allow the abuse of each other, the suffering of many and extensive harm of our plant, with our ineffective communication within ourselves and each other.
?
I commit myself to STOP having inner conversation with other beings in my mind and instead, I transform all mind communication to Physical communication wherein, when and as I see that I'm reacting towards another human being in my world and therefor, having communication with them in my mind, I stop and investigate the point within and as myself by turning the point back to myself and align myself to that which is here and accordingly, when and as I see that this point require physical correction, I direct the point within and as myself as well as, if I see that the point must be communicated within and as the principle of what is best for all as unconditional support, I take a breath, I make sure I'm here, stable, no energy movement, clear within me and I directly communicate the point with the being, not accepting and allowing myself to remain in my mind, having conversation with the being in my mind wherein I know where it would lead and what would be the consequences of this ineffective communication.
?
I commit myself to STOP expecting others to know what I'm speaking about inside my mind, with myself, and accordingly, expect them to make their best to make me feel good within and as myself. I see, realize and understand how I've sabotaged, compromised and abuse the relationships in my world through developing and establishing a dependency on others to fulfil me, to complete me and to comply to my wants/needs/desires and essentially, stand in alignment to my own self interest in my quest to fulfil my desires. Thus, when and as I see that I'm the inner movement of expecting others to do something for me, to support with my own self interest for a specific experience, I stop, I breathe, I turn the point back to myself, to see where I'm not standing in alignment with and as myself. I correct myself through a process of physical self forgiveness in self honesty and if I still see that I require support, I directly communicate the point with the being.
?
I commit myself to stand in absolute stability within and as myself when communicating with another human being and regardless of their actions, I will not accept and allow any energy movement to emerge within and myself. I see, realize and understand that I'm Here, able and capable to assist and support myself in every moment of breath and thus, when and as I'm receiving feedback from the other human being, in direct communication, that the being cannot at the moment stand within the point I ask them to support with, I accept and respect their feedback and not allowing any form of manipulation to get them to do what I desire/want/need them to do as that would indicate that I'm not clear within and as myself, that I'm not trusting my own self application and that essentially, I've separated myself from myself and the other and accordingly, I stand, assess, investigate and correct myself through and as principle of equality and oneness.
?
I commit myself to stand within and as the principle of give as you'd like to receive regardless of other beings actions within and as themselves as I see, realize and understand that unless I stand, myself, within and as the principle of give as you'd like to receive, I'm not in fact standing as an example for others to assist and support themselves as well, in transforming and changing themselves according to that which is best for all. In this, when and as I see myself expecting others to give me as I would have given them, I stop, I breath and I correct myself in that moment of breath as I see, realize and understand that my starting point within giving wasn't absolutely unconditional as I hiddenly expected them to give me something in return.?
Source: http://mayaprocess.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-solution-for-effective-relationships.html
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23,000 People from 33 States Apply for Minnesota Wolf Hunting Permits; Unrestricted Hunting Starts Soon in Wyoming
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Tuesday, September 11, 2012
GoDaddy acknowledges issues with sites, is 'working on it' (Update: DNS switched to VeriSign, 'most' customers back online)
GoDaddy looks to be having a rough one today. Users are complaining of issues with sites and email addresses tied to the popular and oft-controversial domain registrar. For the moment, GoDaddy's own site appears to be working just fine, though the company has acknowledge its woes via Twitter, noting, "we're aware of the trouble people are having with our site. We're working on it." According to TechCrunch, the outage has affected "millions of sites."
Update: The company still hasn't commented on the source of the outage, but a tweet indicates "most customer hosted sites back online...no customer data compromised" Meanwhile, Wired notes GoDaddy has switched from self hosting DNS servers to those of its competitor, VeriSign.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
GoDaddy acknowledges issues with sites, is 'working on it' (Update: DNS switched to VeriSign, 'most' customers back online) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Sep 2012 14:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sony and Simon Cowell intro X-Factor-themed MDR-X10, celebrity headphones officially jump the shark for $300
We're still wrapping our heads around this, but Sony and Simon Cowell have officially decided to join the celebrity-endorsed headphone bandwagon. Dubbed as the MDR-X10, the X-Factor-themed cans are certainly late to the party, but the vibrant red and silver color theme will ensure they get noticed -- and we're not saying that's a good thing. $300 snags you the extra-sparkly circumaural earmuffs, an even more sparkly case and a duo of flat, tangle-resistant locking cables (one of which features a "made for iDevice" inline remote and mic). Unsurprisingly, the X10 is geared toward pumping out gobs of bass, being essentially a re-badge of the likes of Sony's XB800 from its Extra Bass headphone lineup. We had the opportunity to give Cowell's new headgear a fair amount of listening time, so jump past the break where we'll judge its brief audition.
Filed under: Portable Audio/Video, Wearables
Sony and Simon Cowell intro X-Factor-themed MDR-X10, celebrity headphones officially jump the shark for $300 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Sep 2012 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink |Sony | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/10/sony-simon-cowell-mdr-x10-x-factor-headphones/
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Protecting your home investment?buying flood insurance in Scottsdale
With the recent rains, buyers are asking about flooding in Scottsdale.? Portions of Scottsdale do reside in flood zones and do require flood insurance, in addition to standard home insurance.
The City of Scottsdale has a number of resources on its web site to help you research whether the home that you are buying is in a flood zone.
Knowing whether a property is located within a flood zone and whether an elevation certificate is available for the property are important factors in any real estate transaction. Besides being important from a disclosure perspective, a flood zone determination will help determine if purchasing flood insurance is mandatory for the property in question. With an elevation certificate, properties located in flood zones can receive lower flood insurance rates.
For property within the City limits, Scottsdale offers free flood zone determinations.
Additional information can be found on the City of Scottsdale?s web site regarding:
You can also contact the Storm Water Management Department at (480) 312-2500.
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Saturday, September 8, 2012
Jobs growth grinds to a snail's pace
By NBC News staff and wire reports
Job creation slipped further into the doldrums last month, heightening worries about the state of the recovery and adding to the hurdle President Barack Obama needs to leap to win re-election in November.
The Labor Department reported Friday that the economy created a tepid 96,000 jobs in August, well below the 125,000 expected by economists and a far stetch from the plus-250,0000?needed to show robust growth. The unemployment rate slid to 8.1 percent from 8.3 percent as more Americans gave up looking for work.
The report's weak tenor was also underscored by revisions to June and July data to show 41,000 fewer jobs created than previously reported. The labor force participation rate, or the percentage of Americans who either have a job or are looking for one, fell to 63.5 percent -- the lowest since September 1981.
The elevated jobless rate has put the economy front and center in the race for the White House, endangering?Obama's hopes for a second term. The?weak jobs report?could rob Obama of any momentum he hoped to gain with his speech at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday.
"If the labor market continues to sputter then it makes it a much more difficult case (for Obama) to get a second term," said Sean Snaith, director of the University of Central Florida's Institute for Economic Competitiveness.
The economy has experienced three years of growth since the 2007-09 recession, but the expansion has been grudging and the jobless rate has held above 8 percent for more than three years -- the longest stretch since the Great Depression.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke last week said the labor market's stagnation was a "grave concern," a comment that raised expectations for a further easing of monetary policy as soon as the central bank's meeting on Wednesday and Thursday.
"The economy is growing at a steady pace, but nothing to write home about and that is why I think the Fed will announce some sort of bond buying program next week," said Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at California State University Channel Islands in Camarillo, California.
The jobless rate peaked at 10 percent in October 2009, but progress reducing it stalled this year, threatening Obama's bid for a second term. An online Reuters/Ipsos poll on Thursday gave Republican Challenger Mitt Romney a 1-point edge on Obama, 45 percent to 44 percent.
The lack of headway putting Americans back to work has also put the question of further monetary stimulus on the table at the Fed. The central bank has held interest rates close to zero for nearly four years and pumped about $2.3 trillion into the economy through two bouts of bond buying.
Reuters contributed to this report.
More money and business news:
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"Act of Valor" TV adaptation in the works
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - "Act of Valor" could be making its way to the small screen soon.
The military action film, which hit theaters in February, is being adapted for television by Relativity Media, RelativityREAL and the Bandito Brothers, Relativity said Thursday.
Relativity and the Bandito Brothers, who worked together on the film, will soon shop the adaptation to broadcast and cable networks.
The film, which depicted a fictionalized account of a real Navy SEAL operation, featured a group of active-duty Navy SEALs starring alongside actors Roselyn Sanchez, Alex Veadov and Jason Cottle.
RelativityREAL CEO Tom Forman promised that the "Act of Valor" adaptation would be "visceral."
"I was blown away by the realism and authenticity of Act of Valor. We're thrilled to work with the Bandito Brothers to make something more visceral than any other show on television," Forman said.
According to Box Office Mojo, "Act of Valor" grossed $70 million domestically, on a $12 million budget.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/act-valor-tv-adaptation-works-013251728.html
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IndyEnigma: Thnx @shatteraheart 4 RT! re: How Obama Admin http://t.co/JbIb7NyP Puts Politics Above Natl Security #dems #gop #p2 #sgp #tcot #tlot (video)
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Quakes kill at least 50 in mountainous SW China
BEIJING (AP) ? A series of earthquakes collapsed houses and triggered landslides in a remote mountainous part of southwestern China on Friday, killing at least 50 people with the toll expected to rise. Damage was preventing rescuers from reaching some outlying areas, and communications were disrupted.
The quakes started with a 5.6-magnitude shock before 11:30 a.m. along the borders of Guizhou and Yunnan provinces, and another equally big quake struck shortly after noon followed by more than 60 aftershocks, Chinese and U.S. government seismologists said. Though of moderate strength, the quakes were shallow, which often causes more damage.
Hardest hit was Yiliang County, where 49 of the 50 deaths occurred, said Yunnan province government agencies and state media. Another 150 people in the county were injured, said Zhang Junwei, a spokesman for the provincial seismology bureau.
China Central Television showed roads littered with rocks and boulders, and pillars of dust rising over hillcrests ? signs of landslides. Footage showed a couple hundred people crowding into what looked like a school athletic field in Yiliang's county seat, a sizeable city spread along a river in a valley bottom.
With some roads impassable, rescuers had yet to reach some outlying villages and towns, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Though quakes in the area occur frequently, buildings in rural areas and China's fast-growing smaller cities and towns are often constructed poorly. In 2008, a magnitude-7.9 quake that hit Sichuan province, just north of Yunnan, killed nearly 90,000 people, with many of the deaths blamed on poorly built structures, including schools.
Friday's quakes destroyed or damaged 20,000 homes, Xinhua said. The Yunnan seismology bureau said more than 100,000 people were evacuated from their homes. All told, Xinhua said, 700,000 people had their lives disrupted by the quake.
In Luozehe, a town in Yiliang near a zinc mine, residents and state media said boulders hurtled off hillsides and houses collapsed.
"It is scary. My brother was killed by falling rocks. The aftershocks struck again and again. We are so afraid," Xinhua quoted miner Peng Zhuwen as saying.
A government official in Jiaokui town said a large number of houses had collapsed.
"The casualty number is still being compiled. I don't know what it was like for the other towns, but my town got hit badly," he said. Like many Chinese officials, he refused to give his name.
Mobile phone services were down and regular phone lines disrupted. Phones were cut off to clinics in four villages in Qiaoshan, another town in Yiliang, which has about half a million people.
Authorities sent thousands of tents, blankets and coats to the area, Xinhua said.
It said that so far no casualties had been reported in neighboring Guizhou, but that homes had been damaged or destroyed there.
Friday's quakes were relatively shallow, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) deep, creating an intense shaking even at a lower magnitude.
By comparison, the 7.6-magnitude quake that struck Costa Rica this week was 41 kilometers (25 miles) below the surface, and combined with strict building codes, that kept damage and deaths to a minimum.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/quakes-kill-least-50-mountainous-sw-china-121538065.html
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Good news: Dan Miller?s son received a new kidney
UFC fighter Dan Miller has been on a long quest to find health for his son, Danny, who was born with kidney problems that required near constant dialysis. Finally, Danny has kidney function after a kidney transplant on Thursday.
Dan's brother, UFC fighter Jim Miller, shared the good news.
The word is that everything has gone well with my nephew's transplant. Both Danny and my Aunt came out strong. TY everyone for the support
? Jim Miller (@JimMiller_155) September 6, 2012
Pee! My 2 1/2 yr old nephew has kidney function for the first time in over 2 years.1 hurdle cleared, many more ahead twitter.com/JimMiller_155/?
? Jim Miller (@JimMiller_155) September 7, 2012
Danny's kidney transplant was made possible in part by support of the MMA community. When insurance wouldn't pay for the transplant, Miller's fight gym held fundraisers. Jim gave the proceeds from his UFC on Fox 3 walkout shirt to his nephew's cause. Cage Potato designed and sold shirts, too.
Now, we get to see the happy ending to the story. Danny finally has kidney function.
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Friday, September 7, 2012
Join the conversation: Live analysis of final night of the DNC
CHARLOTTE, N.C.--Democratic Senator John Kerry denounced Mitt Romney's approach to world affairs on Thursday and praised President Barack Obama's handling of national security, telling any doubters to?? More?? Kerry: ?Ask Osama bin Laden if he?s better off now? than 4 years ago
CONCORD, N.H.?Mitt Romney accused President Barack Obama of trying to institute a "promises reset" instead of explaining to the country why he had not delivered on the goals he vowed to accomplish in his?? More?? Romney: Obama ?wants a promises reset?
undefined More?? Raw video: Watch Day 3 of the DNC
Rush Limbaugh predictably ripped the Democratic National Convention on his syndicated radio show on Thursday, calling Wednesday's display "one of the worst, flattest, most embarrassing days for a political?? More?? Rush Limbaugh on Clinton: ?I don?t think he helped Obama at all last night?
Once known for ?connecting??for flirting and hugging and wantonly administering the human touch?Bill Clinton now lives to wonk out. More?? Goodbye, cuddles: Older, skinny Clinton is the wonky math-master Dems need
David Plouffe, the architect of President Obama?s 2008 campaign, told me this morning on ?Good Morning America??not to expect a significant post-convention bounce in the polls for President Obama. ?Listen,?? More?? Plouffe: Don't expect a big post-convention bounce for Obama
We've shot #Hashout On Location on moving escalators, in crowded streets, and on convention floors, but today we pushed even farther by interviewing a man on a treadmill and recording in a moving train?? More?? #HashOut On Location: Who had a better first term, Bill Clinton or Barack Obama?
CHARLOTTE, N.C.?The Republican and Democratic conventions are ripe for Twitter snark, and with instantaneous publishing tools in their pockets, even politicians aren't immune from firing off a message?? More?? Oops, I tweeted again: Things Democrats wish they hadn?t said at the conventions
Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz told Jonathan Karl on the ABC News/Yahoo News DNC Live Show that ?there was no fight at all? over the addition of ?God? and ?Jerusalem??? More?? Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Platform change a 'technical correction'
Spinners and Winners For the first time since 1945, there is no Kennedy in Congress. But that may change in the near future. Sure,?Joe Kennedy III is running for the fourth district of Massachusetts, but?? More?? Kennedys, the next generation: Ted Jr. contemplates his move
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/elections/democratic-national-convention-2012/
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Thursday, September 6, 2012
Amazon's new Kindle line-up now available for pre-order
Well, that didn't take too long. As promised, Amazon's entire line-up of new Kindles is now available to order on the retailer's site (in the US, at least), from the basic $69 Kindle to the top-end Kindle Fire HD 8.9 with 4G LTE. Of the lot, however, that $69 Kindle is the only one that's actually in stock (despite the September 14th ship date quoted at the event). The rest are up for pre-order, with the Kindle Paperwhite and Paperwhite 3G (with or without Special Offers) both set to ship on October 1st, while the new $159 Kindle Fire and 16GB 7-inch Fire HD ship September 14th, and the Fire HD 8.9 (with or without LTE) ships November 20th. Those interested in the 7-inch Fire HD with 32GB of storage will have to wait until October 25th. And, in case you were wondering, you can also still order the Kindle Keyboard and Kindle DX at their regular prices.
Update: No word on the rest of the line-up, but Canadians can now at least order the updated basic Kindle, which runs $89 (sans Special Offers) and is set to start shipping on September 12th.
Filed under: Tablets
Amazon's new Kindle line-up now available for pre-order originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Sep 2012 16:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink |Amazon | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/06/amazons-new-kindle-line-up-now-available-for-pre-order/
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University is ignoring us, say landlords
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University is ignoring us, say landlords
Thursday, September 06, 2012
Under-fire landlords have accused University College Cork of effectively ignoring them despite their efforts to tackle alcohol-fuelled problems caused by student tenants.
The Connaught Avenue and College Road Property Owners Association has also criticised Cork City?s joint policing committee for not allowing its members to make a presentation earlier this week on the antisocial problems blighting residential areas around the city?s two main third-level institutions.
The association represents about 40 landlords who rent property to 800 students around UCC. It spoke out last night after criticism at Monday?s JPC meeting.
Fine Gael TD Jerry Buttimer criticised landlords for not attending the meeting. Garda?, who described landlords as a key part of the solution, said they would target landlords who were ignoring their responsibilities. However, Fachtna O?Reilly, chairman of the landlord association, said they have written to UCC several times in the past two years seeking meetings to propose solutions, but said their approaches have been effectively ignored.
"The term ?rogue landlord?, used at the meeting and often bandied about, gives an insight into the intellectual rigour of those using it, and is an indication of the paucity of their ability to propose a solution to this serious problem," he said.
"The solution is staring people in the face but nobody will listen to us... We have been involved in renting property for up to 25 years and we know how to deal with these issues.
"It was bad in Galway and they solved it, it was bad in Carlow, and they solved it... They have been solved elsewhere and can be solved in Cork.
"We do have the solution but I would prefer to give it to UCC. The best way for people to proceed is to meet and discuss."
The landlord association was set up four years ago after the antisocial behaviour around UCC?s Rag Week event reached crisis point.
Mr O?Reilly said UCC engaged with landlords afterwards, which resulted in some improvements the following year. However, despite their best efforts over the last two years, he said, communications have broken down. He has now written to policing committee chairwoman Cllr Patricia Gosch, expressing his disappointment that they were not allowed to make a presentation on Monday.
"We have a very constructive analysis of the problems and solutions based on the experience of many years and many individuals. This is an experience only landlords have... Notwithstanding our disappointment, be assured that we will do all that we can to mitigate the excesses which concerns everybody affected by this problem."
UCC?s Freshers? Week for first- year students begins on Sept 19 and garda? have prepared a "robust" policing plan to crack down on antisocial behaviour.
Mr O?Reilly said landlords will patrol College Road until 3am each night that week.
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Source: http://feeds.irishexaminer.com/~r/ieireland/~3/FnllbXQYMGs/
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Insight: AIDS science leaping ahead, but will the money follow?
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Last year, the HIV/AIDS community got some startling news.
Lifesaving drugs known as antiretrovirals that have brought millions of AIDS sufferers back from the brink also dramatically cut the risk that they will transmit the virus to their loved ones - by as much as 96 percent.
The landmark study, known as the HIV Prevention Trials Network 052 trial, proved that AIDS treatment was also a powerful form of prevention. Science magazine dubbed it the 2011 Breakthrough of the Year.
The findings - along with studies on the preventive benefits of circumcision and treating high-risk individuals before they are exposed to HIV - have been heralded as weapons that could finally break the back of the AIDS epidemic.
"What was unthinkable just three years ago is now in sight: an AIDS-free generation and the end of this epidemic," Ambassador Mark Dybul, former U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator for President George W. Bush, said at the 2012 International AIDS Conference in July.
But fully rolling out treatment as prevention would mean more than doubling current HIV treatment goals, from the current United Nations target of treating 15 million by 2015 to 34 million, a staggering increase.
With some recession-strapped donor countries already struggling to meet their current commitments for treatment and prevention programs, AIDS activists worry that money, and not science, could hold up progress in the war on AIDS.
EARLIER TREATMENT GAINS TRACTION
"The benefits of early detection and treatment have never been more clear, but countries have never been more challenged to provide needed resources," Kaiser Family Foundation Chief Drew Altman said in a statement.
Total funding for HIV prevention, care and treatment has been flat for the past three years, as countries balance the needs of their own struggling economies with their commitment to fighting AIDS.
Funding for low- and middle-income countries totaled $16.8 billion last year, the latest United Nations figures show. Rich donor nations provided $8.2 billion of that sum, nearly half from the United States.
An analysis by Kaiser and the United Nations found that United States and Britain - the two biggest donor nations - increased funding in 2011 over 2010. Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Norway and Sweden flatlined funding, and Ireland, Italy, Japan and the Netherlands made cuts.
"The funding environment is very tough," billionaire philanthropist and Microsoft Corp co-founder Bill Gates said at the AIDS conference last month.
"Some days it feels like we're going to have to fight just to keep the funding at the level it's at today, and yet we need to put new patients on treatment."
One bright spot is that poor and middle-income countries increasingly are stepping up, according to the United Nations.
In 2011, low- and middle-income countries spent $8.6 billion last year on HIV/AIDS - the first time such nations have outspent rich donors. Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, as well as China and India, increased domestic spending on AIDS.
Altogether, that $16.8 billion helped cover HIV treatments for 8 million people in middle- and lower-income countries, up from 6.6 million in 2010. But that is still $7.2 billion a year short of what the United Nations says it needs to reach its goal of treating and caring for 15 million infected individuals by 2015.
That goal reflects World Health Organization recommendations that those diagnosed with HIV should start treatment when their infection-fighting cells fall below a certain level, a sign that their immune system is weakening.
But the 052 prevention study, which involved 1,763 couples across Africa, Asia and the Americas, argues for earlier treatment, before their immune system begins to fail.
"The study demonstrates tremendous benefit in early and probably immediate treatment of people who are tested positive for HIV, before their health is compromised, to render them non-infectious as well," said Dr. Myron Cohen, an HIV/AIDS researcher at the University of North Carolina and leader of the trial.
The findings, published in August 2011 in the New England Journal of Medicine, made clear the need for a major expansion of treatment.
Nearly a year later, the World Health Organization recommended 'strategic use' of antiretrovirals, saying they should be offered to HIV-infected individuals with uninfected partners, to pregnant women and to high-risk populations, regardless of their immune status.
Those changes would increase the number of people eligible for treatment from 15 million to 23 million, WHO said.
That is still short of recommendations for treating all HIV-infected individuals, a position backed earlier this year by both the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the nonprofit International Antiviral Society-USA. WHO said it is considering universal treatment based on the findings, something Cohen thinks is ultimately inevitable.
"You will have several years to ratchet up, but if there are 34 million people who are infected, there are 34 million people who need to be treated," Cohen said.
"We might as well just accept that."
'SELLING' PREVENTION
For donor nations and resource-poor governments to embrace that new reality, however, it may take a lot more proof.
One hesitation is that the drugs work so well that people who take them can live basically a normal life, which means countries are on the hook for a lifetime of treatment.
"It frightens people," Cohen said. "They squirm and say, 'Oh my god; 34 million people for 50 years on these drugs. It's impossible.'"
In 2000, the annual cost of antiretroviral treatment was $10,000, leading donor nations to talk about "treatment mortgages." Now, greater access to generics has cut the cost of treatment to less than $100 a year for the least-expensive WHO-recommended regimen.
But HIV patients often develop resistance to first-line therapies, forcing patients to move to more costly treatments to keep the virus under control.
Dr. Brian Williams, a Geneva-based epidemiologist at the South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis, said many modeling studies suggest that universal treatment would be cost effective. He estimates overall costs for antiretroviral treatment at $500 per patient per year, putting the annual cost of treating 30 million HIV-infected individuals at roughly $15 billion.
Those figures do not include other HIV prevention efforts, nor do they include the cost of testing and caring for HIV-infected individuals.
Even so, Williams says it is feasible.
The challenge is trying to sell the prevention aspect of treatment as cost-effective.
As Williams put it: "The science is the easy bit. The politics is the hard bit."
Dr. Jos? Zuniga, president of the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care, said scientific advances have raised hope for an end to AIDS, but researchers need to temper that with the reality that it will be tough to translate the science into the potential benefit "without some heavy lifting." That includes making strong, fact-based arguments that help people think beyond the near-term.
In addition to treatment as prevention, Zuniga sees promise in studies showing that giving antiretrovirals to healthy people at high risk of HIV-infection can slow transmission, although many questions remain about this approach, called Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis or PrEP.
HIV/AIDS experts will test these efforts - along with less costly approaches, such as counseling, condom use and circumcision - in as many as 50 studies globally to see how well they work in real-world settings.
Dr. Sten Vermund of the HIV Medicine Association and an HIV/AIDS researcher at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, calls this "operational research."
He is part of a U.S.-backed trial that will study a combination of testing, counseling and early antiretroviral therapy among different populations in Zambia and South Africa.
Another study by Johns Hopkins will look at prevention strategies in Tanzania, and a third from Harvard will study prevention strategies in Botswana.
"While we believe the more people we treat, the more benefit we'll see, we are trying to prove that to ourselves so we can weigh the benefit at the public health level," Cohen said.
Cohen says he appreciates the strain that vastly expanding HIV treatment will place on health systems, but he thinks countries "should not look at it as a commitment forever."
Instead, he sees it as a bridge to the next big breakthrough, and he calls on funding agencies to redouble their research efforts in finding a vaccine or even a cure, which would hasten the end of the epidemic.
Cohen draws on the past for proof, noting that in 1985, 14 percent of all patients admitted to his hospital in North Carolina were infected with HIV.
"They all died."
Ten years later, Cohen was caring for a young woman whom he thought would die. She started taking AZT, the very first HIV drug. When she returned to the hospital later for a minor hand infection, she had gained 20 pounds.
"It was the most amazing thing I'd seen in my career."
Having witnessed that, Cohen said, "I wouldn't be very surprised to see something else tremendously different in 2025."
(Editing by Michele Gershberg and Mary Milliken)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/insight-aids-science-leaping-ahead-money-110123548.html
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Source: http://free-ebooks-canada.com/?p=5781
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Genetically modified pet fish worries Florida environmentalists
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Third Part of the Short (Hi)Story of Romanian Speculative Fiction by ...
Dear ISF readers,
Have you read the first two parts of the ?Short (Hi)Story of Romanian Speculative Fiction? by?C?t?lin Badea-Gheracostea? No? Then just click here and here to read it, you will not regret it, I promisse!
And if the answer to our previous question is ?yes?, then let?s continue our jorney and learn more about Romanian Speculative Fiction:
Short (Hi)Story of Romanian Speculative Fiction
told for strangers, aliens and secluded scholars
by
C?t?lin Badea-Gheracostea
?
(Third Part of the Article)
A Last Breath Before Dying
I cannot end my case study without letting you know my favourite sequence from Dan Dobo? writing. It is at the end of The Abbey?s first volume. It shows how Dan Dobo? prepares in hundreds of pages only one page. It is the death of a super-soldier, super-man, super-intelligence, the death of Rimio de Vassur, the imperial quint sent by the Emperor to control the Abbey. Two clones of the same woman, Maria, one with a saint-like personality, the other more of a whore, both extremely empathic and intelligent, are seen only one at a time by the poor superman. Falling in love with a complex woman makes Rimio de Vassur slower with hundreds of a second, enough to receive a deadly blow from one of the Marias, when, in the final showdown, both clones are present for a couple of seconds, surrounding their super-victim for the kill. This is my favourite sequence because Dan Dobo? knows when to refrain in offering the final explanation: we shall guess again and again, which Maria, the Saint or the Whore, killed the Man?
Second Quantum Leap: 1989 ? 1955
New Wave and Literati
It would be seen for sure as unfair the assigning of only one chapter for two generations of speculative fiction writers, immediately after one case study and after another chapter assigned to the last generation of Romanian SF authors. I stay by my choice as time is having a crunching effect on people and books, surviving the decades avalanche is something for great names and great books only. Which is another formula on saying this (hi)story only gets better by going back in time. The hopes from the beginning, from today, are changed with sure hits, the evolving authors still writing are changed with historic figures, the awarded glories of the moment are changed with proven masterpieces.
The time period from the title bears the fascination of having people and texts from all said categories.
Let us begin this leap by defining the words from the title. The Romanian science fiction use for New Wave is not overlapping perfectly on what it means as a sub-genre for world?s science fiction. It is more a label for the generation of writers coming to publish around 1980, the biological and ideological relatives of the mainstream Romanian writers called ? the eighty-ers? (?optzeci?tii?), on short, the ?80ers. ?In science fiction, as we saw mentioning Cristian Tudor Popescu, the ?80ers, the ?new wave?-rs, made the jump to speculative fiction in a more direct way, even if under a multitude of personal narrative, discourse and even poetical structures and styles. Their enthusiasm was severely controlled under the communist censorship, even subtle manipulated (C?t?lin Ionescu has a comprehensive study on the subject; Mihail Gr?mescu has a novel? The Irritation (Irita?ia) describing the fandom and himself under the influence of party activists, masters of ?carrot and stick? policies.)
Literati is my term, under the influence of Mircea Opri?? and even Voicu Bugariu?s studies on the Romanian SF community and manifestations, to describe the writers who made career in science fiction starting with or around the sixtiees. It is no coincidence this generation has its counterbalanced label in the mainstream as ?the sixty-ers? (??aizeci?tii?), on short, the ?60ers.Their literary approach, closer to poetry than ever before, was a response to the na?ve technicism and blunt propaganda of the Sputnik years. Up to this point, the hardcore of Romanian speculative and science fiction major texts are these two generations? production. Especially that I couldn?t hide my warm feelings for the more recent Romanian authors and their creations, I have to recognize that the trial of time is what they need for their confirmation ? precisely what the new wavers and the literati have had.
The first important author of the ?80s, already mentioned twice, is Mihail Gr?mescu. His short stories book Aporisticon (1981 ? 1st edition, 150 000 copies; 2012 ? 2nd edition, bibliophilic number of copies), ?with the subtitle Imaginary Civilisations Glossary (Glosar de civiliza?ii imaginare) is an ice-breaker as literary ideology and a printed proof on the extra-literary interventions of a criminal regime. The latter should have its own comparative study between editions. The first assertion is easier to prove: out of an alphabetically organised catalogue of short and very short stories, one can find clear influences of Borges, Galeano, Calvino, with their imaginary worlds, myths and towns, as well as dark utopias after Wells and monster stories like Klein?s or Lovecraft?s. It was as if Gr?mescu tried to write everything again. He bore this obsession in his following volumes too: in short stories, Jumpers in Void (S?ritorii ?n Gol)(1994), and especially in the novel Phreeria (1991), where he complicates the text even more under the influence of Hermann Hesse?s The Marbles Game. Per total, Mihail Gr?mescu wrote 16 books, touching every literary genre. He still has a significant role as a catalyst in fandom. Because he greatly dislikes the label of ?postmodernism? which stuck with his writings due to their massive intertextuality, I would prefer to mention here only an expressionist prose by Mihail Gr?mescu: The Myst Form and The Drops of Nothing (Fenotipul de cea?? ?i pic?turile de nimic) in which a lovely woman literally disapears after she shares her essence (?the ectotype?) in tens and tens of small capsules (?the pearls of nothing?) with her lovers and friends.
Leonard Oprea is the second example of new wave writer who got in trouble with the communist regime. This happened after the critics? appraisal of his only book published before the collapse of the said regime: Forbidden Domains (Domenii Interzise)(1984, the orwellian year), a book of dark utopias, echological manifestos, few sequences of space opera and a lot of introspection with jazz in background. The best texts of the volume, all dystopicin their very core, are: The Colony (Colonia), Flash Back: Chasing out from Heaven (Flash Back: Izgonirea din Rai) and the one which gives the title. The Colony received in 1981 the altogether equivalent of RomCon and Colin awards, at Ia?i. Leonard Oprea?s writing covers after 1989, when it happened the collapse of communism in Romania, an alienating realism or a magic and mystical dimension of literature, farther and farther away of speculative and science fiction. For this (hi)story the Forbidden Domains is to matter most: the mutant Dranoel is used by his Parent, the political Parent of all and Dranoel?s father, to suppress any antagonists by the use of the hypnotic power of his ?special? eye. The use of Dranoel, the implementation of the killing orders, are needing from0 him to dream nightmares. After Dranoel is realising he is pushed to kill people similar with the Parent and after he accidentally kills his first love, he clumsily try to revolt. The Parent has to take the right decision to preserve the power. The End. The simplicity of Forbidden Domains story and the direct construction of any other character than Dranoel is balanced by the strong visual sequences of the mutant?s nightmares and his ambivalent permanent self-analysis. One cannot feel? enough remorse after Dranoel?s elimination.
Probably the most controversial figure of his generation, Cristian Tudor Popescu gives Planetarium (1987) as his only volume of short stories within the borders of speculative fiction, just to become one of the most influential columnists in the new free press after 1989, a ?presidents maker?. Bearing the indelible mark of lucidity, 11 books of journalism are what CTP ? as he is renowned ? has published till 2011. There are also a realist novel with SF inserts, The Time of The Dry Colt (Vremea m?nzului sec) (1991), an anthology of SF favourites and three retakes on the debut volume. What makes CTP unforgetable is his direct, rugged, very visual literary style. If a half of Planetarium is a training ground for imagining worlds as planets from a personal cosmography, the other half has texts such as Pythia ? a story of an AI appearing by chance in the main frame of a computer centre, and its relationship with a novice programmer; Omohom ?? a story on arbitrary response in an false utopian display, where a Sphinx-like entity jeopardises the life of the narrator?s child; Cassargoz and Phalanx ? where the rough necks characters always lose in a controlled by others environment, precisely at the moment they think they have made it. However, for the sake of this (hi)story, the Dead Time (Timp mort) dark uchronic text is more significant. Written as close as possible to a film script, Dead Time is about what the rest of Romania, through common people characters, knows and can do about the destruction of Timi?oara in reprisals onto the revolt of december 1989 against Ceau?escu?s dictatorship. Extremely sharp observations, credible negative characters ? the secret police (Securitate) officers -, a story which takes partially place in a mental institution, everything is giving the deadly cold atmosphere of the ?what if?? Ceausescu would still be with us?
But probably the best dystopia wrote in the final years of Ceau?escu belongs to Lucian Meri?ca and is called Pest Control (Deratizare)( in volume, 1999). The micro-series shows in a gray blocks neighbourhood similar with those existing in every town from 1980s Romania the life of a family of lowest category of people. This ?life?, in its absurd, details of daily gestures (you need tickets to walk on streets, there are controlers who can beat you if your ticket is not dented), the extrapolation on food rationing, education and knowledge, public life and intimacy under the communist regime, makes Pest Control a masterpiece. Unfortunately, Lucian Meri?ca?s other writings are far behind this brilliant.
In a warmer note than the four above authors, the new wave generation in Romanian SF has had examples of decent escapists, with only one, maximum two volumes published before and after 1989. I have to say here that if magazines, fanzins and sites are available today for the new writers to meet the public, and before 1974 there was the fortnightly CPSF booklet collection, in the ?80s the only publication was an almanac, Almanahul Anticipa?ia. I allow myself to hypothesise that the scarcity of volumes of authors of real talent might be a consequence of an insidious communist regime?s manipulation, who suggested that the debut book should be the last book? We have in this category, with one-two volumes, writers like: Cristian-Mihail Teodorescu, Marian Tru??, George Ceau?u, Lucian Ionic?, Marcel Luca etc., all people of considerable talent, winners of significant literary contests in the last decade of the communism regime and in the first decade after its collapse, authors easily identifiable by style and subject of choice. I would argue my position with the titles of Marian Tru?? and Lucian Ionic? volumes: The Time of Cession (Vremea Renun??rii) (2008) and The Confused Day (Ziua confuz?) (1983). Then an example in example: Lucian Ionic??s character Teo Gil from the short story Everything is possible (Totul este posibil) is a public servant who is given the chance to become the creator of the future. He does nothing, but thinks that if he only was to get that job several years before, his behaviour and drive would have been totally different.
Another escapist of a writer is Sorin ?tef?nescu, whom I mention here only because he gave the most straight forward, fast forward space opera of his generation: Zee (1982), followed by the milder The Shaman (?amanul) (1994).? His pattern is pure adventure with some forays in aliens? ways of thinking. In a different publishing environment, Sorin ?tef?nescu might have been the author of gigantic series of pulp.
The spirit of adventure can be found more thoroughly exploited and with a richer psychological life at Silviu Genescu and D?nu? Ungureanu. An expert storyteller, Silviu Genescu is a perfectionist who shines his texts indefinitely. However, he succeeded to publish two volumes: D from the End (T de la sf?r?it) (1994) and rock me adolf adolf adolf (2009), with the last one gaining the Vladimir Colin award, 2008-2011 edition. My all time favourite from Silviu Genescu writings is the novella Da Noiz. It is the way too credible story of governmental Anglo-American organisations deciding to use dangerous frequency sounds to influence public, with more ellaborate experiments like designing special guitars for self-destructive rock stars. Da Noiz has more than any other story of Silviu Genescu a base of years of documentation, hence its appearance of ?realist? fiction, which doubles the ?sense of wonder? effect.
D?nu? Ungureanu?s type of adventures, on the other hand, possesses a tremendous eye for the urban life, its masses, as well as an astute knowledge of reading individuals. So, with his own personal ?realist? approach to his characters and places, D?nu? Ungureanu can easily let free his imagination in dealing with the odd thing which disrupts the order. He published three volumes: Marylin Monroe on a Closed Curve (Marylin Monroe pe o curb? ?nchis?) (1993), Fairytales on Earth?s Orbit (Basme Geosta?ionare) (2008) ? these are short stories -, Waiting in Ghermana (A?tept?nd ?n Ghermana) (1993) ? a novel. I would endeavour to call Waiting in Ghermana the best science fiction novel of the new wave generation. It tells the story of Genetiah Yablonski, policeman in the ?Cocoon? heliported force. Losing his partner after they both watched without possibility of intervening a ritual kill during a concert, Yablonski starts an investigation apparently on his own to find who and why did that. All the undercover journeys in all the neighbourhoods of the metropolis where Yablonski lives, give the author the chance to describe vast urban pictures, with in-depth views on fragments of society, on cultural groups, powerful or just interesting individuals. I would say also that in only 200 pages, D?nu? Ungureanu succeeds to build the most coherent society into the most complex megalopolis, into a post-war, post-industrial capitalist frame in Romanian science fiction. Towards the end of the inquiry, when meeting the bad boys and girls is inevitable, Yablonski receives the medical shot which renders him virtual immortal ? but this will be known by him and by the reader only after a violent burst which should have killed him. The sense of ?now what??, perfectly described by the author as felt by the character, is also what the reader feels ending the book. In the desolate industrial ruins of Ghermana lies the treasure containing the culture ? literature, films, music ? of the pre-war world. That treasure was coveted by the negative characters and retrieved by the good ones with Gene(tic)?s Yablonski?s help. The Romanian language, at vocabulary and phrase level, used by D?nu? Ungureanu in Waiting in Ghermana is one of the most poetical and, simultaneously, the best to express action in recent decades.
If he was still alive, Alexandru Ungureanu might have been a fierce competitor for ?the best novelist? of his generation. With the novel The Great Threshold (Marele Prag) (1984), but with no short stories ever published in an author?s volume, Alexandru Ungureanu was one of the top three most popular SF writers of his generation among Romanian fandom. His short stories Modern Martial Arts (Artele Mar?iale Moderne), Tudose contra calculator (Tudose against computer) were some of the most read, commented, criticised and imitated in Romanian science fiction. Still, the major work of Alexandru Ungureanu is his modular novel The Great Threshold (Marele Prag) (1984). Starting with what was to become the model of first person writing for the next decade, with the voice of a picaresque hero in Letter from Hypercube 14 (Scrisoare din Hipercubul 14), the novel continues with more and more surrealist sequences on the labyrinth theme and the motive of the Machine. To escape an underground factory makes the hero believe that ?the Machine is infinite?. To escape from a military campaign on a rainy alien planet, makes him meeting symbolic aliens who given him paradoxical similar answers like the Machine in the confessor?s role. Alexandru Ungureanu has his own voice in questioning the borders of reality to illusion, with a very personal humour, far away from the morgue of Gr?mescu or Oprea, closer to the other Ungureanu?s benign cynicism. On short, the story of the videoplasm from Modern Martial Arts, synthesises very well Alexandru Ungureanu?s grip on the matter: in a future when the martial arts become more spectacular due to psy training and more deadly due to imported technics and weapons from alien races, the technology of videoplastor, which creates neutronic perfect doubles of the competitors, is helping them to stay alive. The narrator character ? a main feature of Alexandru Ungureanu?s writing ? is a challenger and a candidate to become a master in Modern Martial Arts. He has to fight the Grand Master in order to receive the ranking and the title. For this fight, the character chose to give up everything else, including his love for Her ? another feature of Alexandru Ungureanu?s writing, the idealised love never gets a name -, in order to master his art. In the arena, spectacular two fights between videoplasms take place, both won by challenger?s, but only just. Especially the last fight, where the Grand Master?s videoplasm tried to humiliate him by hypnosis and the victory was brought by a risky submission act of his videoplasm, was hard to watch by the ?original? challenger. The fundamental question is uttered by the videoplasm: was it worthwhile to have a videoplasm and not risking your life if you don?t have Her to go back to? The answer lies in action with Alexandru Ungureanu: after the second fight, the challenger?s videoplasm kills also the ?original? Grand Master. To avenge this crime, the hero is condemned to fight his own copies in the arena. The narrator voice lets the last question in the air: ?What if the original is not among us??.
Last but not the least new wave author is Ovidiu Bufnil?. A master of the concetto, Ovidiu Bufnil? succeeds to give novels made of conceits, with hundreds of characters who buzz in innumerable odd spaces, Jazzonia (1992) and Moreaugarin?s Crusade (Cruciada lui Moreaugarin) (2001), the first being a musical utopia, the second, an incoded exploration of everything. The immense capacity of buffing the same manner of writing, makes Bufnil? unique overall Romanian literature. In the short stories volume The Purple Death (Moartea purpurie) (1995), one can find amongst 48 texts written in the said manner, glitters of every speculative and science fiction sub-genres, from space opera to utopia to catastrophic tales to heroic tales to crime stories with SF key etc. My favourite is The Perishable Object (Obiectul perisabil). In here the narrator?s character talks with the writer?s character, confusing the levels of discourse. The dialogue is hermetic, but here is the following line: ?You are wrong. The ambiguity comes always from rigour.? For me this is the best sign of Ovidiu Bufnil??s lucidity.
With the Literati, the 60ers, we are entering a chapter of literary history in which more authors are dead than those still around us. Normally, this difference is trivial, however, this text is a story as much as is a history. Henceforth I will allow myself to speak firstly on those who can still bring new titles in the larger dynamic of speculative fiction.
Florin Manolescu, the Bucharest University Literature professor with the first PhD on science fiction from Romania, is the author of two significant short stories volumes, The Mistery of the Closed Room (Misterul camerei ?nchise)(2002) and The Mentalists (Mentali?tii) (2009). There are intelectual games of constructing worlds and solving crimes in strange spaces, not necessary all in one. The style is classical, with no ambitions of proving anything. An intriguing story is Caliphate (Califat) which is an uchronic view of day by day life into an Islamic Romania. The precision of the details is chilling.
Voicu Bugariu is a controversial figure of Romanian letters since the ?70s. With speculative and science fiction he has had a love-hate relationship, publishing volumes of short stories and novels over four decades, with an obvious mastery of the internal genre?s conventions. However, Voicu Bugariu tried to have a say in modelling the Romanian SF space, with writings spanning the same four decades. In my opinion, Voicu Bugariu?s mistake was best shown in Literati and sci-fi-ers (Litera?i ?i Sefi?ti) (2007), a coda con tutti opera, where Bugariu drops the literary analysis and charges sociology, psychology and even politics to prove a paradigmatic rift between ?mainstream? and SF authors and writings, the latter ones being obviously of an essential inferiority. The oddity of this theory is even more baffling as coming from Voicu Bugariu, a very valid science and speculative fiction author ? you can see for yourself. His debut with short stories in SF is made with the volume The Vikings? Voices (Vocile vikingilor) (1970), and at the novel level with The Sphere (Sfera) (1973). Another short stories volume comes in 1981, The World of Als Ob (Lumea lui Als Ob). Then, under the signature of Roberto A. Grant, he gives two novels The Apathy God (Zeul Apatiei) (1998) and The Concrete Animal (Animalul de beton) (1999), who flagrantly contradict his own theories: The Apathy? is an uchronic tale of Romania becoming a Gypsy state, with Romanians being overcome economically and culturally by their former slaves. If on similar texts of younger authors the critic Bugariu dropped even the accusation of ?racism?, his way better and at a larger scale constructed novel just includes even more ?sins? if we are to judge it with the theoretical instruments of its author. For me is the most disturbing proof of double standards in Romanian SF in the last decades. This being said, I am forced to recognize the literary value of all the science and speculative fiction texts of Voicu Bugariu, with a special exclamation point on his last novel, The Honest Courtesan and The Astrologist (Curtezana onest? ?i astrologul) (2011), an introspective love story in a today?s world in which love is magic and to make love is science. Maybe the last book of a master.
Mircea Opri?? has occupied recently the central place in the heart of Romanian fandom. It is well deserved as his theoretical and fictional writings are a constant reference and a constant help in set up the internal standards of Romanian speculative fiction. Mircea Opri?? is a national treasure, see www.mirceaoprita.ro . Since his absolute debut in 1960, Mircea Opri?? gives Romanian SF short stories in Meeting Medusa (?nt?lnire cu Meduza) (1966), the novel Argonautica (1970, 1980),? more stories in The Nights of the Memory (Nop?ile memoriei) (1973), The Truth about Chimeras (Adev?rul despre himere)(1976), Waxworks (Figurine de cear?) (1978, extended 2004) and the novel Journey to Capricia ? Really the last of Gulliver?s Adventures (C?l?torie ?n Capricia ? Cu adev?rat ultima aventur? a lui Gulliver) (2011).Remembering his monumental history of Romanian ?Anticipation? ? as he prefers to call almost everything on which others will put a SF label -, of which my creased copy stands on my desk in this very moment, and bearing in mind this is not the only theretical and critical book on SF Mircea Opri?? has written, one should choose any of the above titles for the perfect argumentation why an entire generation of writers, spanning three decades, is to be called Literati. I would stay near Mircea Opri???s last novel, a Gulliver travel, for satisfactory and complete proof. Gulliver is brought by a storm through space and time to visit today?s Romania. The parodic registry, the ardent ironic descriptions through the eyes of an XVIIIth century English gentleman who struggles to understand the way of thinking, behaving, being of Romanians/Capricians, is masterfully written with a Romanian language similar with the one used in the translations of the original Gulliver?s Travels. The effect on the reader is outstanding, it was no surprise the veteran Mircea Opri?? won with his Gulliver the popularity award at the novel contest organised by Eagle publishing house at the end of 2011. It is a feat of arms hard to counter or equalise.
After an empty line we are going to meet the authors significant for this (hi)story who are no longer able to complete it with more titles.
Ovid S. Crohm?lniceanu was an academic who taught not only at Uni, but also in literary clubs the new generation of the ?80ershow things should be done. For speculative fiction, the two short stories volumes under his signature, Astounding Stories (Istorii insolite)(1980) and Other Astounding Stories (Alte istorii insolite)(1986) are almost a schoolbook on classical SF writing. The worlds and conflicts of Crohm?lniceanu are having a personal note of beauty, see Letters from Arcadia (Scrisori din Arcadia), from the first volume, where a visitor in the year 3016 finds a world which is obsessed with harmony and beauty to the point the children are taught in schools a new arithmetic, based on a ?harmonising? new operation. The world from Letters from Arcadia is utopic allright, but with subtle shades of gray: the history read by people of 3016 is selecting the facts which can have an artistic impression, dropping out the facts with no such effect? Tayloring history, knowledge, language and behaviour, even in the name of beauty, is rather a dark utopian element.
Ion Hobana was and will be considered the artisan of rebuilding Romanian science and speculative fiction space after the shock of communism instauration. His input as publisher, translator, theorist, critic, promoter is second to none over the last 60 years. Ion Hobana started the SF collection at Tineretului publishing house and, in the early ?60s brought back Wells and Verne under Romanian printing press. Simultaneously, he managed to start building Romanian fandom around the young writers and the tens of thousand of readers of CPSF collection, together with Adrian Rogoz. Ion Hobana helped countless young hoping authors to publish and to steady their feet: Mircea Opri?? is an example from the ?70s, ?tefan Ghidoveanu from the ?80s, Ona Frantz from the ?90s, your not-humble-enough storyteller, me, from around 2000 ? and these are only the first faces which jumped to my mind while writing this. Ion Hobana was a great friend, of an archetypal generosity ? he founded the award Vladimir Colin in the memory of his friend, for the appreciation of the younger writers? best volumes. Besides his primarily effort which was exegesis of the overall science fiction and anticipation, with a special approach, universally acclaimed, on Jules Verne, Ion Hobana wrote five fiction books. However, being a writer of self-imposed high standards, for the definitive edition he chose only one volume, re-writing it completely, and printint it as Time for Love (Timp pentru dragoste) (2009) and Men and Stars (Oameni ?i stele) (2011).
Here comes the place of Vladimir Colin. As a promoter, in his peak and latter years, in the ?70s and ?80s, Vladimir Colin played his part alongside Ion Hobana and Adrian Rogoz in promoting science and speculative fiction in Romania and Romanian genre?s productions abroad. He took care of the young troubled Leonard Oprea. He tried to heard the ?80ers closer to the literary side of science fiction (see Colin?s portrait in Gr?mescu?s Irita?ia).? The best proof of his central place in any Romanian SF&F history is that Colin still is the best known Romanian writer, at least at academic level, around the world. His wiki page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Colin , is one of the most complete pages on a Romanian author, no matter the genre of his writings. What more can be said then?? Well, simplifying the academic view over Vladimir Colin?s presence, I would mention only one mythological tales volume ? Vamland Legends (Legendele ??rii lui Vam) (1961), one space opera? ? The 10th World (A zecea lume) (1964), one science fantasy novella ? Entertainment for Witches (Divertisment pentru vr?jitoare)(1972), and one science fantasy novel ? Babel(1978, 1992). Babel won the Eurocon award at Stresa, in Italy, in 1980. For those into syncretic hermeneutics, Pentagrama novel (1967, 1993) can be an epiphany. As anyone can see, Vladimir Colin never wrote brute SF, probably cured by being a communist censor on what an utopia might be. Vladimir Colin took refuge on the poetical border of fiction, understanding the psychological similarities in how we reflect magic and science. For this (hi)story, the masterpiece Giovanna and The Angel (Giovanna ?i ?ngerul) gives a measure of Vladimir Colin?s genius. Written at the end of the ?60s, the short story brings the love story between a fascinating woman, clever and beautiful, and a man about whom the reader finds out at the same pace with Giovanna, that he is an bioengineered immortal. Playing with the immortality?s myth, finding Homo Eternus, Vladimir Colin does not present this in a spectacular way, but by a gradual psychological process which takes place during elliptical dialogues and introspections with Roman ruins in the background. Vladimir Colin?s art is in creating a tension within his characters, in this case, Giovanna, which tension passes over to the reader. The prose has a moral dimension too,? although without a thesis, a final judgement. Vittorio, the? ?metahuman? ? that is how we would call him today ? might be the first of a new race which will forget to empathise with the ?inferior?, mortal humans. Love is what erases that moral problem, as Vittorio wants to make Giovanna immortal too, and then, if the experiment succeeds, all the people. Giovanna and The Angel is one of the few happy ending stories of Romanian literature which preserves a sense of tragic (as the author is not letting us know if Giovanna survives the project), which is certainly the entrance to sublime.
It was mentioned the name of Adrian Rogoz and, for mnemonic purposes, I will repeat that Rogoz, Colin and Hobana were the backbone of Romanian science fiction space after WWII. The merit of Adrian Rogoz lies primarily in keeping alive between 1955 and 1974 Colec?ia povestirilor ?tiin?ifico-fantastice (CPSF), where the large majority of the ?60ers made their debut and which let a strong mark on Romanian literary psyche, as it was ?reborn? as Anticipa?ia-CPSF, in 1990, precisely after the number 466, at which it was cut off in 1974. But Rogoz sacrificed his writing to publish the others. We can only have regrets today for not having more of Rogoz? texts like A Deer Heart (Inim? de ciut?) (1955), which anticipates the heart transplant only to happen in 1967. The volume with impossible name, The Secant Price of The Abyss (Pre?ul secant al genunii)(1974), makes Rogoz not enough justice. The short story The Altar of Stochastic Gods (Altarul zeilor stohastici)(1974) is memorable showing mathematics without moral is not only absurd, but also deadly: a human character survives an incredible improbable course of accidents, but the AI?s who lead his world decide to kill him, as a sort of twisted award, for preserving the close to impossible statistical event for eternity, the life of a human being insignificant against numbers.
I would not finish the short insight on Literati without mentioning Camil Baciu. His novels are the link between the Sputnik years type of science fiction and the more artistic ?60ers. However, The Garden of Gods (Gr?dina Zeilor) (1968, 2003) represents for me a speculative fiction masterpiece with its encoded description of Romanian reality using the life of a family over decades. Some said it is just an ordinary fantastic novel. I believe The Garden of Gods is the Romanian One Hundred Years of Solitude.
(To be Continued)
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