There she can! Roseanne Barr has failed after Lifetime series “Roseanne’s Nuts,” the actress has plenty of free time they would like to take advantage of the useful and has big plans – she is running for president. The actress, who is above all with her sitcom “Roseanne” stuck in my mind, has announced on last Thursday that they will not let the Green Party presidential candidate standing as.

The Golden Globe and Emmy-winning actress said that she was a great supporter of the party and would like to work with someone who shares their values. Moreover, she is with the current political environment in the U.S. very dissatisfied “Democrats and Republicans have proven that they are servants of the people – bought and paid for by the 1 percent – who do not what is in the interest of the American people,” complained Barr and made reference to the slogan of the movement Occupy Wall Street “We are the percent 99″.

The application for the Green Party Barr pleaded for her nomination: “The mainstream media, I will ignore almost can, but more importantly, they are hard to miss the needs of the average American before the 2012 ballot.” Also, via their Twitter Account Barr makes big promises, “I will use the power of the Office to ensure that every American gets a job and a free health insurance.”

A motto Roseanne Barr has also been created: “Vote for me, I’ll fix this s ***!”

Barr’s announcement should come as no surprise, because last summer she had been in an interview on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” announced that it intended to bid for the Oval Office. What then, some thought was a publicity stunt, could now become reality. Would you like to see Roseanne Barr at the White House?

The Green Party conference is scheduled in July in Baltimore. There will be decided on the nomination of presidential candidates. “Our position is that Roseanne is applied for the nomination and we are impartial in all of our candidates,” said Scott McLarty, the national coordinator of the Green Party, compared with E! And Barr was welcomed as a candidate.

1. Hemp can be used to make over 25,000 products.
2. A good farmer could grow up to 8 tons of dry hemp per acre of plants.
3. You could be jailed in Virginia for refusing to grow hemp from 1763 to 1769.
4. Earliest known records of hemp farming go back 5000 years in China.
5. In the 1920s government studies reported that 1 acre of hemp equals 4.1 acres of trees grown for paper.
6. Clothing made from Hemp can help block UV rays.
7. The hull of every Hempseed is 25%, easy to digest protein. It is used in many different kinds of birdseed in the United States.
8. Hemp is rich with the amino acid GLA (gamma linoleic acid), also found in mother’s milk.
9. The U.S. State Department distinguishes the difference between hemp and marijuana.
10. A 1938 Popular Mechanics article described hemp as a “New Billion Dollar Crop”.

Please share these 10 facts with your friends and family. The sooner more people know the truth about Hemp and Marijuana the better. The idea that legalizing Hemp and Marijuana will help pull the economy out of the gutter is a growing belief. If we’re lucky, this notion will be excepted by the people that write the rules…

I have listened to debates as far back as the Nixon Administration and still continuing to find old debates. What I normally hear is double talk and smoke. Any REAL question is talked AROUND without any effort to answer the question honestly. I’ve heard the same questions asked in different words but the answer is always the same. They NEVER answer the question. Only talk about “plans” they have. WE ALL have plans, those who have the guts to answer are quickly restricted from the rest of the debates because of the honesty and the willingness to answer they show to the people asking.

As of yet, I still have not made up my mind who I’ll vote for, but I certainly know who I WON’T be voting for. My biggest hope is that a few people will take my advice. LISTEN, LEARN, THINK and then DECIDE. You just might surprise yourself at your decision.

Christmas Foods

turkey

trimmings

stuffing

mashed potatoes

gravy

fruit cake

meat pies

rolls

cranberry sauce

cranberry jelly

Yorkshire pudding

sweet potatoes

glazed carrots

green bean casserole

candied yams

fig pudding

eggnog

devilled eggs

Decorations

Christmas tree

Christmas lights

Christmas decorations

tinsel

garlands

reindeer

Santa Claus

North Pole

Mrs. Claus

elves

Christmas Songs:

Jingle Bells

Silent Night

Little Drummer Boy

O Come all ye Faithful

Joy to the World

Little Town of Bethlehem

gifts

presents

wreath

children

Rudolph

Snowmen

candy canes

chocolates

evergreen trees

spruce trees

fir

led lights

St. Nicholas

snowflakes

snow

Jesus, Mary Joseph

manger

Nativity scenes

Nutcracker

Christmas villages

To make money in Runescape, one must make themselves into a somewhat entrepreneur, one who is willing to take risk in order to profit handsomely. Often great risk can be very rewarding, although I do not recommend this approach to making money.

I for one did do this once my merchanting took off, although it is completely optional. I ended up buying 21k death talismans for 700-1.5k each, and then bam an update kicks in and i end up making 150M selling 2.5k of them for 10-75k each.

Now I began my merching life by buying things like barrows armour, dragon hatchets, dragon skirts and using bogrods pouch exchange into shards. Even though this was profitable, it also required me to be extremely active.

Using this method I had to constantly update my offers to make sure nobody was beating mine, which was a significant hassle. 

I guess it is now time for the key points that are extremely helpful when merching.

1. Flipping larger items: When wishing to discover what the highest bid is for an item and the sell price you must first attain that item. I recommend flipping minor items to develop your cash pile, such as barrows. Now in this example say I purchase a dharoks set for 4,250,000 gp, write that price down and when it is time to sell your acquired items sell them for 1gp under that price.

Now sell the item back into the ge at lowest, until it instant sells. Say it sells for 4,200,000. I suggest you purchase this item for 4,200,001 gp, so that any of them sell to you. In my example this item has a 50k gap which is the profit you will earn.

2. This is the method I use, and that is flipping many smaller items. My bank is in the billions now thanks to this method, and it is so easy. My favorite items to flip are runes and essence, mainly because people often buy these in bulk. The only thing with runes though is you need money to start, I like to flip at least 300-500k runes at a time, often any higher than that and I lose some due to the 4 hour reset. (sometimes the runes sell and buy a little faster, however at these rates you can often make 6M from 6 ge slots in this period of time)

Often runes can have a 3gp gap, and sometimes even an 8gp gap if they are low in supply. Astrals are well known for this, however you must be cautious when flipping any item, as prices can fluctuate a great deal.

Do not panic sell, whatever you do. I bought at least 1M astrals when they were between 66-79 each, and have recently sold them for 210-220 each. If something is at a low and looks as if the low is unsustainable, the price is sure to rise soon.

When you are flipping, you are looking for percentage gain rather than total profit per item. 3gp per item may not sound like much compared to 50k from 1 item, however you must put things into perspective.

When bots were around the price of essence often determined the price of runes. Now things have changed, so you must be more vigilant to not be caught off guard by price fluctuations. The most I have lost is approximately 10M over the time of my merchanting, so It definitely pays off.

Some scientists have suggested that over 50,000 species are going extinct every year. Most of these extinctions will be unnoticed and undocumented as they represent flora and fauna we never even knew existed.

Even today we destroy flora and fauna alike; sometimes directly as when we control the population growth of other species through systematic slaughters, and culling, sometimes indirectly, as when introduced species become invasive and kill other species.

We poison gophers and rabbits who make holes in pastures, then we kill coyotes who go after livestock when they cannot find gophers and rabbits to eat. We shoot wolves, cougars, and bears, that become a threat to people, then we kill deer because there are no wolves, cougars, and bears, to control the deer population.

We select which species are important to us, and have decided that the human species is the most important of all. It is extremely ironic that our own species is allowed to reach the numbers it has, topping 7 billion people as of October, 2011.

For some reason we find it easier to kill off seals so they do not eat “our fish” rather than restricting our population growth, or our consumption of fish. For some reason we have decided that we need to cut the rain forest at a rate where we consume nature faster than it can recover. For some reason we have allowed humanity to build a large dept to nature that few are interested in repaying.

Do we have the right do destroy other species to maintain our own?

How can we Repay Nature?

We can repay nature by finding ways to live a sustainable life without destroying other life at the same time.

• Spaying and Neutering our pets so we do not have to control excess populations of cats and dogs through euthanasia.
• Eat less tuna, or none at all.
• Eat less meat in general. Have 2-4 meatless days every week.
• Stop overeating.
• Opt for smaller homes, ones that require less resources to build, and that take up less space.
• Reuse, and Recycle, and consume less in general.
• Put out bird food in the winter.
• Allow our yards to be more natural, include more trees, shrubs, and other plants, reducing the size of the lawn itself.
• Restricting human population growth is key to reducing the damage we do. This might mean only allowing people to have one child for a few generations until such a time has come that we can allow more.
• Birth control and education about birth control must be made available to all worldwide.
• Reduce destruction of the rain forest by using products that depend on the rain forest being in place (shade grown coffee, rain forest nuts).
• Encourage a respect for nature in our children by not allowing them to squish bugs just for the fun of it.
• Support zoos that have breeding programs for endangered animals and those already extinct in the wild.
• Discourage shopping for pets in pets stores where animals (birds, reptiles, marine fish) are caught in the wild.

There are thousands of other ways we can repay our debt to nature and live in harmony with other life on the planet.  If you can think of some please share them in the comments.  Or you might want to write your own article and get paid, you can join here to do so!

Midwest Design Challenges

                Regional design in the Midwest could be a very challenging thing. There are so many factors that come into play, as well as a wide variety of opinions and viewpoints. Each design decision has to deal with a number of different environmental, social, and economic problems. Many of the challenges that designers face have to do with people’s habits, opinions, and prejudices. Some of the main challenges facing regional design in the Midwest are suburban sprawl, changing the habits of people, and merging land inhabited by people, and land set aside for nature.

                Very similar to Perth in Australia, many Midwest cities are experiencing suburban sprawl. In my opinion, sprawl may be the largest problem faced by designers, because it has negative social, economic, and environmental consequences. Cities are becoming much larger, but also much less dense. New development is leaving the cities, and developers are buying cornfields instead of reusing brown fields in cities. The social consequences are relatively obvious, rather than people living in dense communities with a diverse mix of people, they are moving farther and farther from cities, and in many cases they end up living in communities where everyone looks like they do. Economically sprawl destroys the core of cities. The new development in the cornfields around a city isn’t restricted to residential. Many companies move to farms and build massive glass boxes in the middle of a field. Sprawl is drawing all of the money out of the cities, partially in the form of taxes. This leaves the city with less money to make it more appealing for people to move back in. The environmental consequences are plentiful. The destruction of wildlife habitat and productive agricultural land is only one negative consequence. The lifestyle of those living in these massively “sprawled” suburbs is one that is completely dependent on cars. Each house has a yard that is too big, they use too many chemicals on it, they drive to far and too often, and these communities are constantly outgrowing the infrastructure. Sprawl creates massive problems, and it will be very hard to solve, because it is the cheapest way to develop. New designers have to make people see how reinvesting in cities will have more economic benefits long term, and how those benefits will outweigh the short-term benefits of developing cornfields.

                In order to create a regional design that faces many of the challenges that designers have, the habits and opinions of the citizens has to be changed, or modified. This is linked to suburban sprawl because much of the negative aspects of sprawl have to do with the habits of the people that live in these areas. No matter how good a design may be, it’s the people that will use the design that will ultimately determine whether or not it is good for the environment, or if it has positive social and economic effects. All the porous pavement in the world can’t make a design “green” if residents are driving two blocks to drop their kids off at school and then driving a quarter mile to work every day. Designers have to change how people use their designs, and education is one step that we should take. People should know about paths and trails, and should be able to find out how far they live from certain amenities, and that they could, and should be walking or riding their bike places. The design of a region should allow people the most opportunities to make environmentally and economically beneficial decisions. Shopping at small businesses and family owned shops can greatly benefit local economies, so rather than planning a community around ease of accessing the Wal-Mart, communities should function around these small retail shops, and the communities should be walk able.

                Perhaps the most important environmental issue in my own opinion, is how we will adapt and merge wildlife habitat with inhabited land, or if we will continue to destroy and leave the country a barren, asphalt wasteland. Biodiversity is an incredibly important thing ecologically, but also economically, and socially. It creates stability and resiliency to ecosystems, and it can be valuable to economies that use eco-products. The number of species that can live in an area is directly influenced by the size of the habitat; this phenomenon is why islands have relatively low species diversity as compared to their mainland counterparts. By developing we are constantly decreasing the amount of habitat, and the habitat that is left is left splintered and only truly exists as small islands. This has destroyed ecosystems, biodiversity, and the number of native plants and animals in the Midwest. When designing regions, special attention should be paid to linking habitats and making these links substantial enough to allow animals to move through a larger network of habitats. Attention should also be paid to the smaller scale spaces that can act as habitat for certain species. The book “Brining Nature Home” by Douglas Tallamy talks about how we are taking away so much habitat to build more suburbs, and the only way to retain biodiversity is to allow our suburbs to act like habitat. Utilizing native plants is an important part, but the overall design and layout of spaces can also affect how much wildlife a region can support.

                Regional planning in the Midwest today has to deal with many challenges. Regions aren’t the same as they were decades ago, and many of the regions that are being designed are actually being redesigned. The best designs aren’t happening in undeveloped areas, and the designs have to respond to the existing infrastructure and residents. Our new landscapes will have to face the challenges, and if new designs can respond to the challenges, and solve the multitude of problems that we face on a regional scale in the Midwest, the environmental, social, and economic benefits would be immense.   

americansustainabilityblog.blogspot.com

Colour: Image via Wikipedia

Colour, or color if you prefer the American spelling, has certain meanings to us in the West. In the rest of the world, ancient and modern, there are different viewpoints.  As there were in our own past. To the ancient Greek poet Homer the Mediterranean was a wine-red sea; to us the Mediterranean is a lush turquoise escape. There was no word for blue, of any hue, at that time for Homer to use in describing the sea he lived by.

Red:

In China, red is the symbol of fire, the south and the positivity of courage, loyalty, honour, success, fortune, fertility, happiness, passion, and summer. Red is used in weddings and to wrap monetary gifts. Obituaries are written in red and to write someone’s name in red ink means they are “dead” to you.

In Japan red is the hue of heroism.

In India, red is the colour of brides, for it is the colour of purity, fertility, beauty and the wealth of the goddess Lakshmi.

In parts of Africa, red is the shade of death. The Red Cross uses the colour green in these areas.

Orange:

In India the colour orange, or saffron, represents courage, sacrifice and renunciation of earthly cares. The colour orange/saffron is sacred in Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism.

Orange is the historical colour of the Netherlands and is often connected with Protestantism in Ireland.

Yellow:

In Italy a “yellow novel” is a crime story.

In China a “yellow movie” is x-rated. In Imperial China, yellow was the royal colour because it was the most difficult tone for them to obtain. It was used in clothing and buildings. The first emperor was known as the “Yellow Emperor”.

To the ancient Maya, the shade of yellow was connected with the south and the colour’s symbol also meant precious.

Green:

Many Asian languages have no word for green; rather it is part of the terminology for blue or for anything smelly, like in Thai. In Japan, the green traffic light is sometimes still called blue as are leaves and grass.

In China, green is linked with the east, the sunrise, and with life. In ancient China, the husbands of prostitutes wore green scarves.

In Persian poetry, a dark-skinned desirable beauty is described as sabz-gandom-gun (green wheat coloured) or sabz-malih (a green beauty), as green means black or dark.

In Ancient Egypt, green was the colour of resurrection; the god Osiris, who was raised from the dead, is always shown with green skin, representing new life.

In Medieval European literature green was associated with lust and in early English folklore, green is the colour of the devil, the witch and of malevolent fairies. This may stem from the Celtic belief that green was an unlucky colour, heralding death.

Blue:

In Greek myth, the god Zeus made the rain fall when he was sad and made storms when he was angry. Blue was assigned to both rain and sadness.

In some  maritime western cultures, when an officer of a ship’s crew was lost at sea, a blue stripe would be painted on the hull and a blue flag would be hoisted upon returning home.

In Germany, “to be blue” is to be drunk.

In Hinduism, the god Krishna has dark blue skin and that is what his name means. Sometimes the gods Ram and Vishnu are also portrayed with blue skin: Vishnu is connected with water and clouds. The destroyer god Shiva is also illustrated in light blue and is called neela kantha, or blue-throated, for having swallowed poison during a battle.

Purple/violet:

In Medieval Europe, there were sumptuary laws governing what fabrics, textures and colours could be worn by the different social groups. Ordinary folk wore green and brown. The nobility wore blues and purples. By this time the “royal purple” was a much bluer shade than the Tyrian purple worn in the past.

In Japan, purple is the colour of death.

In China the correct translation of the name of the Forbidden City is “purple forbidden city”.

Byzantine royalty were born in a purple room, hence “born to the purple”.

In England, shades of purple were worn as the later colours of mourning, after the first year of wearing all black. This was called “secondary mourning” or “half-mourning”.

Brown:

In Japanese the colour brown is called “tea-colour”.

Black:

In parts of the Mediterranean, widows wear black for the rest of their lives. In Greece and Cyprus they are sometimes called “black widows” or “blackbirds”.

In Japan, honour is symbolised by the colour black.

In ancient China black symbolised the north and water.

In English heraldry, black equals darkness, doubt, ignorance, and uncertainty.

To the Maasai tribe in Africa, black is the rain, life and prosperity. This is similar to Native American philosophy.

The ideas of “black magic” and “white magic” come from the murky past of Ancient Egypt. Ancient Egyptians referred to Egypt as Kemet, the black land, because of the life-giving silt washed up by the yearly Nile floods.

White:

In much of Asia (China, India, Vietnam and Korea) and Africa, white is the colour of mourning at funerals, but in Japan, wedding kimonos are often white. Japanese brides wear white to signify their “death” to their families.

In Ancient Egypt, white was also the colour of death.

Grey/gray:

In Scandinavian folklore, grey is linked to fairies and goblins and their garb is usually grey, showing their amoral nature.

In Classical Greek myth, the goddess Athena was said to have grey eyes, glaukós, (owl-like). The comparison to an owl demonstrates her aspect of great wisdom.

In France, “to be grey” is to be drunk.

UFO enthusiasts call aliens, “greys”.  

Pink:

June, 1918 Ladies’ Home Journal: “The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.” The change of pink for girls and blue for boys occurred in the 1940s.

In Japan, “cherry blossom pink” movies are x-rated. Their other word for pink refers to a peach shade.

Pink became the colour of the British Empire on maps in the 19th century.

A “pink novel” in Spain and Italy is a romance novel.

See also: http://socyberty.com/languages/the-world-of-colours-part-one/

http://socyberty.com/people/red-hair-revelations/

http://beyondjane.com/weddings/princess-brides/

http://socyberty.com/society/the-story-of-scarlet/

http://quazen.com/arts/colour-conformity-and-connotations/

Maya glyph – yellow: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maya_glyph_yellow.svg

St. Wolfgang and the (green) Devil by Michael Packer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Michael_Pacher_004.jpg 

Justinian I, Byzantine Emperor, in Tyrian purple: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Justinian.jpg

Japanese bride: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wedding_kimono.jpg

Colour wheel: Image via Wikipedia

Colour, or color if you prefer the American spelling, has certain meanings to us in the West. Just think of how back in the 80s it was the done thing to wear a red power tie. How about gang colours in American cities? Some will have read on how anthropologist say girls like pink and boys like blue because of latent hunter-gatherer genes. The pink reminds the subconscious of ripe berries once gathered and the blue is the clear open sky of the hunter. In the UK, at least, blue was the colour of women and many older women still wear predominately blue. Pink was the colour of Her Majesty’s Empire on all our maps. My room in university was mint green because the head of maintenance read that green helped students to learn.  And every hair colour ad invokes our beliefs about blondes, brunettes and redheads.

Red: lust, passion, fire, sin, guilt, anger, courage, sacrifice, power, virility, fertility, dominance, blood, communism, socialism, Satan, danger, stop

Origin: The word red comes from the Old English word rēad, which has its roots in the Proto-Germanic rauthaz and the Proto-Indo European root reudh-. The word rudhira means red or blood in Sanskrit

Literature: The Red Badge of Courage, The Scarlet Letter, Isaiah 1:18 “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.”

Phrases: “being caught red-handed”, “red-blooded”, “red-light district”, “in the red” (bankrupt), “seeing red” (irate), “red sky at night, sailor’s/shepherd’s delight; red sky in morning sailors/shepherds take warning”, “red as sin”

Orange: safety, warning, autumn, Protestantism

Origin: The fruit, prior to the introduction of oranges into the English speaking West, this colour was called ġeolurēad (yellow-red).

Yellow: cowardice, infidelity, warmth, sun, summer, happiness, optimism, gold, riches, liberalism, remembrance, caution

Origins: Yellow comes from the Old English geolu, or geolwewhich itself came from the Proto-Germanic word gelwaz.

Music: “The Yellow Submarine” – The Beatles, “Mellow Yellow” – Donovan, “Yellow” – Coldplay

Phrases: “yellow-bellied, lily-livered coward”, “yellow journalism” (sensationalist), “tie a yellow ribbon”

Green: ecology, environmentally friendly, go, envy, money, illness, growth, hope, Islam, spring, nature

Origins: The word green is derived from the Old English verb growan, “to grow” and the associated words grēne, and in its older form, grœni. In other languages we have the West Frisian grien, the Dutch groen, the German grün, and the Danish grøn. All the words have a connection to words for plant life.

Phrases: “green with envy”, “green around the gills” (sick), “green spaces”, “greenback”, “have a green thumb”, “greenwashing” (cover-up of environmental damage), “green” (young, gullible), “greenhorn” (inexperienced)

Blue: boys, peace, conservatism, sadness, ice, winter, sky, Virgin Mary

Origins: Blue has complicated etymological origins. There is the Middle English bleu orblewe, the Old English blāw (blue) and blǣwen (light blue), the Old French bleu, bleve,and blöe, and Frankish or possibly Old High Germa blāo.  The source of all these variations is the Proto-Germanic blǣwaz, from the Proto-Indo-European *bhlāw-, *bhlēw- (light-coloured, grey, blue and yellow), from *bhel- (to shine, be light). A Scots term for “blue-grey” is blae, from the Middle English bla (dark blue) which came from the Old Norse blār). The English word bleemeaning “colour, complexion” is also thought to be related. Further afield through a Proto-Indo-European root, the word blue is possibly interrelated with words from many modern languages which mean white, grey or yellow, like the Russian белый, belyi (white), and  the Welshblawr(grey). The root of it all may be the Proto-Indo-European *bhel- meaning “to shine, flash or burn”.

Phrases: “feeling blue”, “blue skies” (happy days), “blue-collar workers”, “blue stocking” (educated woman), “blue ribbon”, “blue blood, “blue moon”, “blue-sky thinking”

Purple/violet: royalty, imperialism, nobility, wisdom, episcopacy, mysticism, elegance

Origins: Purple arises from the Old English word purpul which stems from the Latin purpura, that came from the Greek πορφύρα (porphura. Porphura was the Greek name of the Tyrian purple dye created in antiquity from mucus secreted by the spiny dye-murex snail. This dye, depending on the manufacturing process, could make shades of yellow, green, red and purple. The darkest colour – a reddish, blackish purple – was the most expensive and was the colour of Tyrian nobility.

Literature: The Color Purple

Music: “Purple Rain” – Prince, “Purple Haze” – Jimi Hendrix, “Purple People Eater” – Sheb Wooley

Phrases: “born to the purple” (born to rule), “purple prose” (ornate or pretentious writing), “purple mountains’ majesty”

Brown: reliability, stability, conformity, dullness, earth

Origins: the term brown has its birth in the Old English brún, which meant anything dark in hue. It may be related to the Germanic adjective *brûnoz, *brûnâ meaning dark as well as glistening, like in “burnished”.

Music: “Brown Sugar” – The Rolling Stones, “Brown-eyed Girl” – Van Morrison

Phrases: “brown spaces”

Black: evil, death, decay, depression, sophistication, mourning, fear, secrecy, bad luck, witchcraft, occult, black magic, anarchy, non-conformity

Origins: Black originated form the Old English blæc (black, dark) and the Old Saxon blak(ink) which came from the Proto-Germanic *blakkaz(burned). That term came from, again, the Proto-Indo-European *bhleg- (to burn, gleam, shine), from the base *bhel- (to shine). The word black and its roots are related to the Old High German blah (black), the Old Norseblakkr (dark),the  Dutch blaken(to burn), and theSwedish bläck (ink). Before the word black was in use in England, the word for the colour black was sweart (dark, black). This word exists today as the word swarthy, dark-skinned.

Music: “Black or White” – Michael Jackson, “Back to Black” – Amy Winehouse, “Black Dog” – Led Zeppelin, “The Man in Black” – Johnny Cash

Phrases: “in the black” (solvent), “to blacken his name”, “blacklist”, ”blackball”, “blackmail”, “black and white” (no middle ground), “the new black”, “that ole black magic”, “black day”, “black market”, “black comedy”, “black sheep of the family”, “black-hearted” (unloving), “black mood”, “my black dog” (depression), “black hats” (in film – the bad guys), “black hole of Calcutta” (overcrowded, poor), “black tie”, “black as sin”

White: heaven, peace, God, angels, purity, virginity, innocence, morality, brides, wedding, cleanness, nobility, winter, snow, ghosts, white magic, non-violence

Origins: White originated with the Old English hwīt, that came from a Common Germanic *χwītaz and the Old High German (h)wîz.The root word from the ancient past is from the Proto Indo-European *kwid-, seen today in the Sanskrit śveta (to be white or bright).The ancient Germans also had the word *blankaz (white, bright, blinding), which delivered the source for Romance words for “white” (the French blanc, the Spanish blanco, and the Italian bianco). (And perhaps “blank”?)

Literature: Isaiah 1:18 “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.”

Phrases: “black and white” (no middle ground), “white hats” (in film – the good guys), “whitewash” (propaganda), “white flag” or “to show the white feather” (surrender), “man on a white horse” (hero), “white-collar workers”, “white elephant”, “white tie and tails”

Grey/gray: neutrality, age, depression, monotonous, dreary

Origins: from the Old English grǣg, the Old High German grāo and the Old Norsegrar.

Phrases: “grey power” (influence of the elderly), “shades of grey” (morally ambiguous)

Pink: girls, love, health, spring, beauty, cancer awareness

Origins: The term pink had nothing to do with colour but with flowers called pinks that had frilled edges. To give something a frilled edge is “to pink” and may come from the medieval German pinken (to peck). By the 1600s, the term pink/pinke as a colour meant a yellow tone which was mixed with blue to make green.

Music: the singer Pink, the group Pink Floyd

Phrases: “pink dollar”, “to be in the pink” (healthy), “seeing pink elephants” (drunk), “pink slip”, “pink-collar workers” (men doing jobs traditionally associated with women)

Is it not rather interesting that the colors red, black and white have not only the most connotations but the strongest ones?

See also: http://socyberty.com/history/the-world-of-colours-part-two/

http://socyberty.com/society/the-story-of-scarlet/

http://socyberty.com/people/red-hair-revelations/

http://quazen.com/arts/colour-conformity-and-connotations/

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sunset_with_funnel_clouds.jpg

Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight, Red sky in morning, shepherd’s warning.

Turkish tiles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Blue_Turkish_Tiles.JPG

The black sheep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hebridean_ram.jpg

Funeral practices are our way of dealing with the dead, paying tribute to a life lived, but the powerful belief in corpses being hazardous to health is simply not true, so is it  not about time that we stopped removing so much potential building land from town planners?

Change to the habits of millennia, where burial is concerned, could well be seen as sacrilegious, but the burgeoning world population and demand for land on which to build make alternatives to burial seem very attractive indeed.

Latest disposal techniques include promession – the bodies are freeze-dried with liquid nitrogen gas, then shaken down into dust which can be scattered wherever the bereaved wish – and resomation, which involves the dissolving of soft bodily tissues in a sterile solution that can go into the water supply, the bone ash left over useful in fertilizing a memorial plant, for example.

These both, to me anyway, seem much more eco-friendly than the awful prospect of being the subject of a horrid cosmetic exercise by a fussy undertaker before either burial in a wooden box or a 900 degree Celcius burning.

As gets quoted at every  burial service, earth returns to earth and dust to dust, so what is wrong with changing the rules to allow those who wish to be given back to nature after death, by being subjected to a green burial to have their wish?

If natural burial effectively amounts to composting, as some would have it, what leads them to suppose that the natural processes happening in consecrated ground are any different?  It is utterly delusional to believe that decay is somehow more acceptable in a graveyard, and surely the surrendering of all that made up your physical form to the natural world is just the order of things?

Remember please that, wherever dead bodies get interred, the chemicals of which they were composed all find their way back into the lives of others over time, so it makes more sense, in my opinion, to make best use of the bodies of the dead by allowing them to return to the earth from which they came.

Places to bury the dead, in terms of official sites, are becoming scarcer, so the prospects of older graves being giving additional occupants is very real.  It seems to me, though, that graveyards are simply wasted storage for what after all are only memories, and there needs to be a dramatic attitude shift to address the problem.

The surest way to avoid polluting the natural world with needless carbon emissions from creations, or unpleasant chemicals from embalmed corpses is to quite simply do what seems most natural, putting the deceased into the earth as naked as they were at birth, and letting nature take its course.  That is the way I want to go after death, because it seems the most natural thing in the world. Am I wrong?