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Keeping World Cool

The Butterfly Effect is as old as a world itself is, while formulating this principle was an innovation at the time.

Any timing quests the responding problem solving of which the right identifying / sharp formulating of a problem the very ground is.   

What is an issue the most fashionable and overwhelmingly- grasping a world recently if not a climate change?

Obviously, although interlinked processes resulting from terrestrial alterations could hardly be overestimated in general, applying preventive policies must address possible occurrences as much precisely.

At meantime, even the most traditionally foreseen and methodologically-responded hurricanes, bushfires take significant tolls.

Popularly blaming the developers in all the planetary sins is not too realistic as interlinks between natural and humankind-related causes of disasters are not so simplistic: gravity, electro-magnetism and geo-mechanical characteristics are inextricably linked and mutually transforming each other features while solar radiation and space rays add significantly to a global reality, where ozone depletion and climate change have been natural processes following the unstoppable deteriorating of the biosphere being accustomed.

Therefore, adapting to a climate change rather than combating nature ought increasingly to be seen as a more successful possible imminent deed indeed.

A set of technical issues is the most visual of any future action undertaken to somehow please electorates or simply gratify to some extent various folks worldwide.

Energy-generating and power-consuming, on energy- efficiency emphasised technologies are at the top of agenda-political or technical, engineering.

Although to date in areas of accumulating the energy and extending the exploration of batteries innovations were impressive, bio-fuel is still a more conventionally-accustomed resource than solar energy more abstract to comprehend as a daily-use pattern on-a-move.

However, neither energy source contradicts the basic physic law of nature, that one of the quantity grand status quo: calculated precisely, an input total is equal to product produced and all the used to both producing and cleaning up the ties afterwards.

Geopolitically speaking, at a global scale can one estimate deployed ammunitions’ direct/indirectef effect on the climate change?

In the time of the significant, long-overdue changes oncoming in Eurasia especially, such realistic considerations might sustain the highest essence at least till 2018 eventually.

      So, what is about a butterfly?

It might happen, on a pristine island of Sentinel an indigenous butterfly tickles a local warrior during some intimate moment, that what resulted in making birds airborne, bird-threaten animals running and farting, which habit, according to academically proven data, may undisputedly increase climate change gases to a dramatic level rocketing unexpectedly, unpredictably for, one says, clever computers a meticulously-theoretically calculated planetary emission cap up and backward, to a start point of an expert work seemingly already well done, keeping a world steadily both trembling before the Unknown and cool instantly.

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An author is an engineer and citizen interested in environment and things surrounding.


What may be the most important and historically-challenging for humans aiming a sky than to change a run of a natural planetary history?

Heracles, Achilles, many others are more/less famous in different parts of a planet heroes, prophets memorized by the fellow earthlings, saints having passed generations-lasting Vatican beautification processing.

As the Earth entered a time nature presented uncertainty and unpredictability to extent of a space distraction, a very existence of humankind is questionable.

Climate change, global warming, ozone depletion are visible carriers of the change.

These features are so commonly known, that even hard-parting nightclub goers hear such stuff, enjoying the lovely tunes.

Avoiding sophistications of super-professional texts, some thoughts on a widely-discussed climate-change-linked carbon emission topic had passage of time ago been submitted to State authorities-and context might surely be of some interest to anyone-  to, especially, those thinking that paying more brings about better results definitely.

Probably, dismissing author’s conclusions convincingly would surely sustain a very sense of a carbon tax related billiard-dollar international propaganda.

Of climate-change-related papers and carbon-trading-scheme speculations following the produce on a topic up to date, the most impression is a total sin evil humans have been committing by ruining a planet with their activities and even their mere presence on.

However, it is not so simplistic: gravity, electro-magnetism and geo-mechanical characteristics are inextricably linked and mutually transforming each other features as solar radiation and space rays add significantly to a global reality where ozone depletion and climate change have been natural processes following the unstoppable deteriorating of the biosphere being accustomed.

Therefore, decreasing industrial gas exhaust in environment is an issue humanity-protecting rather than preventing a geo-cosmic destruction.

Therefore, a local effect of emissions cannot be tackled by paying the distant outsiders for deploying their quote on emitting into the universe somewhere.

Therefore, the more geographically distant carbon-dollar recipient(s) is (are) – the more extensive donor’s exchange can originate in situ de facto.

Therefore, in a legal environment of a vogue enterprise collective responsibility, money itself substitutes neither clean-up technology nor an air quality itself.

Therefore, in any locality, nationally, a local air quality reflects foremost a local level of industrialization, local types of technological processes and local clean-up techniques whilst none can and does clean atmospheric air at any level and to any degree anywhere around the Earth.

Therefore, demanding cash for re-saleable, money-convertible atmospheric exhaust licensing is akin selling the shares for using an air, which was so far free for use even in the most feudal Dark Ages being already supposedly overcame by human rights delighted modern societies.

Therefore, a physics open object shared universally, Earth atmosphere hardly behaves utterly-predictably, which to some extent explains already misfortunes of the introduced pilot emissions trading schemes in Canada and the European Union.

Therefore, a point of following into someone’s misguiding footsteps is unclear if no coherent scientific opinion regarding a climate change outcome existed: planetary cooling rather than global warming had more recently been seen as a realm of a next epoch on the Earth.

Therefore, against extremes -either warming or cooling oncoming, planetary strata are a natural protector, and shifting planetary magnetic poles indicate dramatic changes in global environment upon all the natural history known.

Therefore, an accumulated-carbon-emissions-future-efficient utilization is not a-stand-alone-complex, but a vital practical task sustaining a very existence of generations oncoming, a constituent of and a major concern for adaptation to the inevitable, which is a global climate change.

What is the next?

A responsible signatory to unrealistic climate change international treaties should be prepared to a factual extortion of own national resources under umbrella of “an international emission trading scheme” if related international pacts do not collapse till 2030 naturally.

At a national level such a “trading” is a next dollar turnover around itself, stimulating inflation and tackling no environment protection problem but a playground for worldwide viciously hypothesising only the nature’s decrees.

Perhaps, practically enforcing anti-smoking legislation in public places will bring about much more positive results, both financial and clean air/climate change related than an overseas-minded nonsense of an atmospheric air trading in any form at any level. 

On a usual basis of “pay-as-you-go”, accumulating carbon emissions for further utilization is seen to be a realistic path for the future national well-being on a way of  adaptation of natural terrestrial developments. “

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About the Author

An author is an engineer and a citizen interested in things surrounding.


US Presidential Trivia

Who called Eisenhower, Hoover and Truman in the early morning hours of November 23, 1963?
A: Lyndon B. Johnson.

Who told Jimmy Carter in a debate: “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe”?
A: Gerald Ford.

Whose 1800 presidential campaign did the Hartford Courant offer a formal apology for opposing, in 1993?
A: Thomas Jefferson’s.

What presidential candidate did Ronald Reagan support when voting for the first time?
A: Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Which First Lady was born Mamie Doud?
A: Maime Eisenhower

In the 60s what was the first name of John F. Kennedy’s wife?
A: Jackie

Whose assassination was Sam Seymour the last living witness to, until his death in 1956?
A: Abraham Lincoln’s.

A: Barbara.

Where was JFK when he said the U.S. “never had to put up a wall to keep our people in”?
A: West Berlin.

What three words did George Bush say before “no new taxes” in 1988?
A: Read my lips.

A: Ulysses S. Grant.

Whose 1823 doctrine said the Western Hemisphere was not open to colonization or aggression by European nations?
A: James Monroe’s.

What card game did Dwight D. Eisenhower play fanatically while planning for D-Day?
A: Bridge.

A: December 8, 1941.

What U.S. president’s State of the Union address lasted a record 81 minutes?
A: Bill Clinton’s.

What U.S. president was born William Jefferson Blythe IV?
A: Bill Clinton.

What U.S. president had the shortest life?
A: John F. Kennedy.

What former president was on an African hunting trip when his enemy J. P. Morgan quipped: “Let every lion do his duty”?
A: Theodore Roosevelt.

What conspirator in the Lincoln assassination was pardoned for saving the lives of prison guards during a yellow fever epidemic?
A: Dr. Samuel Mudd.

Who was the first president to utter “We shall overcome” before a joint session of Congress?
A: Lyndon B. Johnson.

A: Andrew Jackson.

What president’s mug graces a $100,000 bill?
A: Woodrow Wilson.

A: John F. Kennedy.

A: The war of 1812.

A: The U.S. Constitution.

Who was the first daughter of a U.S. president to pose nude for a Playboy video?
A: Patti Davis.

How many U.S. states are named after a president?
A: One.

Who is the only president to have survived two assassination attempts by women?
A: Gerald Ford.

What day does the U.S. president traditionally deliver a weekly radio address?
A: Saturday.

What horse-loving future president cheated on an eye exam to join the cavalry reserves in the 1930′s?
A: Ronald Regan.

What U.S. president threw out the most Opening Day baseballs?
A: Franklin D. Roosevelt.

A: Bridge.

What White House lawyer first revealed the existence of an “enemies list” and “hush money” at the Watergate hearings?
A: John Dean.

A: December 8, 1941.

What U.S. president installed solar panels on the White House roof?
A: Jimmy Carter.

What First Lady of the 1980s was shocked to find “a tremendous rat” swimming with her in the White House Pool?
A: Barbara Bush.

What future anchor was the only female reporter to tag along with Richard Nixon on his historic trip to China?
A: Barbara Walters.

Who revealed that the U.S. had a hydrogen bomb in his last State of the Union speech?
A: Harry S. Truman

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Free fun US Presidential trivia questions with answers for you to use as you wish:Trivia Quiz Questions Hundreds of fun trivia questions on all topics with the answers.

Free fun triviaTrivia Questions and Answers Thousands of fun-filled free trivia questions on all topics complete with answers.


What is a Permanent Resident Card?


What Does the Law Say?

Section 264 of the Immigration and Nationality Act provides that, “Every alien in the United States shall be issued a certificate of alien registration or an alien registration receipt card in such form and manner and at such time as shall be prescribed under regulations.”


The specific requirements and procedures for applying to renew an expiring permanent resident card are set forth in the Code of Federal Regulations [CFR] at 8 CFR § 264.5.

Who Should Renew a Permanent Resident Card?


If you are a Conditional Resident and your status is expiring, these instructions do not pertain to you. You are to use Form I-751 (Petition to Remove the Conditions on Residence) to apply to remove the conditions on your permanent resident status.

How Do I Apply to Renew My Permanent Resident Card?

If you are a lawful permanent resident whose ten-year I-551 has expired or will expire within the next six months, you may renew your card by filing an Form I-90.

What If I am Outside of the United States?

If you are outside the United States, and your permanent resident card will expire within six months, (but you will return within one year of your departure from the United States and before the card expires), you should file for your renewal card as soon as you return to the United States.

If you are outside of the United States at the time of the card’s expiration, and you have not applied for the renewal card prior to your departure, you should contact the nearest American Consulate, USCIS office, or Port of Entry, before attempting to file Form I-90 for a renewal I-551 card.

How Can I Find Out the Status of My Application?

If you have immigration-related questions, you may call the USCIS National Customer Service Center (NCSC) at 1-800-375-5283. You should be prepared to provide the USCIS staff with specific information about your application, such as your receipt number, Alien Registration Number, name, and date of birth. Please click here for complete instructions on checking the status of your application. Or, you may check the status of your application online at Case Status Online. Please remember that an E-Filed receipt number may not be available through Case Status Online for 72 hours.

If My Application is Denied How Can I Appeal?

If your application for a renewal of your permanent resident card is denied, you will receive a letter that will tell you why the application was denied. You will not be allowed to appeal a negative decision. However, you may submit a motion to reopen or a motion to reconsider with the same office that made the unfavorable decision. By filing such a motion, you may ask the USCIS office to reexamine or reconsider its decision.

A motion to reopen must state the new facts that are to be provided in the reopened proceeding and must be accompanied by the appropriate documentary evidence. A motion to reconsider must establish that the decision to deny your application was based on an incorrect application of law or Immigration policy, and further establish that the decision was incorrect, based on the evidence in the file at the time the decision was made. For more information, please see How Do I Appeal the Denial of Petition or Application?

Can Anyone Help Me?

If advice is needed, you may contact the District Office near your home for a list of organizations who can assist you with the preparation and filing of your application.

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About the Author

John Glas is a director of a company focused on helping employers target, qualify, and attract foreign prospects to their businesses. John is a regular contributor to industry publications on jobsearch. He is also a student of employment trends and best practices. His consulting work has spanned a wide variety of industries and recruiting challenges with companies in Europe, the US and the Middle East.


Ten Most Famous Navy Seals


Given below is a list of 10 such famous Navy SEALs.

Roy Boehm




Rudy Boesch



Scott Helvenston



Eric T. Olson



Jesse Ventura



Christopher Cassidy


Michael P. Murphy

He was posthumously awarded America’s highest military decoration, the ‘Medal of Honor’, for his courageous actions in the war in Afghanistan. Since, the Vietnam War, no other person from the Navy has been awarded this rare honor.

Thomas R. Norris

He holds pride of place amongst Navy SEALs for his rescue missions in the Vietnam War. For this he was awarded the Medal of Honor.

Richard Machowicz


Richard Marcinko



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The Self-immolation, Burning Monk

A Buddhist monk from the Linh-Mu Pagoda in Hue, Vietnam, burned himself to death at a busy intersection in downtown Saigon, Vietnam, on June 11, 1963. His name was Thich Quang Duc. Witnesses say that Thich Quang Duc and two fellow monks arrived at the intersection by car, Thich Quang Duc was seen getting out of the car, seating himself in the traditional lotus position and the accompanying monks helped him pour gasoline over himself. He ignited the gasoline by lighting a match and burned to death in a matter of minutes.


Thich Quang Duc had been preparing himself for several weeks. Preparations included meditation and explaining his motivation in letters to members of the Buddhist community as well as to the government of South Vietnam. In the letters he described his need to bring attention to the repressive policies of the Catholic Diem regime that controlled the South Vietnamese government at the time.

Before the self-immolation, the South Vietnamese Buddhists had made requests to the Diem regime, asking it to: Lift its ban on flying the traditional Buddhist flag; Grant Buddhism the same rights as Catholicism; Stop detaining Buddhists; Give Buddhist monks and nuns the right to practice and spread their religion; and Pay fair compensations to the victim’s families and punish those responsible for their deaths. When these requests were not addressed by the Deim regime, Thich Quang Duc carried out his self-immolation. Unfortunately the self-immolation received little attention from religious scholars.


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Janis resides in western Canada, among the mountains where she studies the Buddhist religion and practices reiki healing. Janis loves making Buddhist t-shirts, gifts and apparel to spread the knowledge of enlightenment. All of the images used on the products are hand drawn with high quality graphics and historical accuracy a priority. Visit her website at


What Do Navy Seals Do When They Retire?

The U.S. Navy SEALs, or the United States Navy Sea, Air, and Land Forces, are the U.S. Navy’s elite Special Operations Forces. They conduct clandestine operations from the sea, air, and land. Navy SEALs are considered silent professionals who have acquired razor-sharp precision and are known to possess unbending standards coupled with uncompromising loyalty and sense of teamwork. Counterterrorism operations, direct action operations, unconventional warfare, and special reconnaissance are just a few of the missions included in their career as Navy SEALs.

Navy SEALs are subjected to training in a wide diversity of environments and on a great variety of fields. Each setting and mission requires them to employ special procedures, tactics, and techniques. Physically, emotionally, mentally, psychologically, the Navy SEALs are molded to face any task thrown at them on a mission. Hence, even after their Navy SEALs careers, they easily adapt to the civilian world of employment. The following are the most common jobs that ex-Navy SEALs men are known to be employed at:

o Business and Business Administration — Ex-Navy SEALs make good financial administrators, human resources specialists, security administrators, social science specialists and the like. Aside from being capable of running their own businesses, ex-Navy SEALs are able to administer, supervise, monitor, and perform professional management services vital in an organization’s operation, something they have learned to do in the Navy.

o Health Care — From physicians to dentists, health scientist to health system administrator, physical therapist to occupational therapist, ex-Navy SEALs do not find it hard to get employment within these areas. Ex-Navy SEALs find it easy to be driven by the goal of providing high standards when it comes to medical care. Like their Navy SEALs training, they find it motivating and challenging to answer the needs of patients with various medical problems requiring medical management and creativity.

o Architecture/Engineering/Technical Support — From civil, electrical, to environmental engineering jobs, architectural jobs, and other technical support jobs, ex-Navy SEALs are able to show excellence in this area that requires the application of general knowledge of mathematics and physical science. These kind of jobs may entail planning, designing, constructing, and maintaining structures and facilities that may be use for shelter, transportation, and so on and so forth.

o Trades and Specialized Skilled Occupations — This category can include various occupations like fire protection and prevention specialist, maintenance mechanic, rehabilitation specialist, chef, electrician, and a whole lot more. These jobs require professional knowledge and abilities for full performance, something that ex-Navy SEALs have been equipped with during their training and in their navy career.

Whatever the job title, every position that ex-Navy SEALs seek after their navy career speaks of compassion, energy, and commitment. And like their SEALs career, they find these jobs professionally rewarding and emotionally satisfying.

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This Article is written by James Kara Murat from, the contributor of Navy Seal Store. More information on the subject is at What Do Navy SEALs Do When They Retire?, and related resources can be found at navy seal workout.


African Tribes

African Tribes
In this article the economies and lifestyles of such African tribes as the Lele and the Bushong will be discussed. In order to understand the differences between cultural and economic processes of these tribes we’ll refer to the organization of labor in those tribes, the meaning of authority, the importance of environmental issues and ritual practices.
One of the main conclusions of Mary Douglas’s brilliant comparison of Lele and Bushong economies is that in some societies people work for a much greater part of their lifetime than in others. “Everything the Lele have or do,” Douglas wrote, “the Bushong have more and can do better. They produce more, live better as well as populating their region more densely than the Lele” (211). They produce more largely because they work more, as demonstrated along one dimension by the remarkable diagram Douglas presents of male working life span in the two societies.
Beginning before age 20 and finishing after 60, a Bushong man is productively occupied almost twice as long as a Lele, the latter retiring comparatively early from a career that began well after physical maturity. Without intending to repeat Douglas’s detailed analysis, some of the reasons might be noted briefly for their pertinence to the present discussion.
One is the Lele practice of polygyny, which as a privilege of the elders entails for younger men a considerable postponement of marriage, hence of adult responsibilities. Moving into the political domain, Douglas’s more general explanations of the Lele -Bushong contrast are concentrated on issues which are familiar to many researchers. But Douglas carries the analysis to new dimensions. It is not only differences in political scale or morphology that make one or another system more effective economically, but the different relations they entail between the powers that be and the process of production.
Scant use of young adult labor, however, is not characteristic of the Lele alone. It is not even the exclusive privilege of agricultural societies. Hunting and gathering do not demand of Kung Bushmen that famous “maximum effort of a maximum number of people.” They manage quite well without the full cooperation of younger men, who are fairly idle sometimes to the age of 25:
“Another significant feature of the composition of the [Kung Bushmen] work force is the late assumption of adult responsibility by the adolescents. Young people are not expected to provide food regularly until they are married. Girls typically marry between the ages of 15 and 20, and boys about five years later, so that it is not unusual to find healthy, active teenagers visiting from camp to camp while their older relatives provide food for them.” (Lee 36).
In the course of primitive social evolution, main control over the domestic economy seems to pass from the formal solidarity of the kinship structure to its political aspect. As the structure is politicized, especially as it is centralized in ruling chiefs, the household economy is mobilized in a larger social cause. Although the primitive headman or chief may be himself driven by personal ambition, he personifies a public economic principle in opposition to the private ends and petty self-concerns of the household economy.
Mary Douglas introduces her major monograph on the Lele of Kasai as a study in the failure of authority. And she notes immediately the economic consequence: “Those who have had anything to do with the Lele must have noticed the absence of anyone who could give orders with a reasonable hope of being obeyed…. The lack of authority goes a long way to explain their poverty.” (1).
Unlike the Lele, the Bushongo is one of the African tribes that managed to achieve great stability and cultural distinction. They conquered their environment and learned how to live at peace with it; and the word “primitive” can be applied to them, with any degree of justification, only in a strictly narrow and technological sense. One of the reasons of the Bushongo success is that this tribe was loyal to traditions of strong authority.
On this, Emil Torday’s comment will stand. He was writing of King Shamba Bolongongo, whose rule over the Bushongo began around A.D. 1600 and who is said to have abolished his standing army and forbidden the use of the throwing knife in warfare. “A central African king of the early days of the seventeenth century,” says Torday, “whose only conquests were on the field of thought, public prosperity, and social progress, and who is still remembered in our day by every person in the country . . . must have been a remarkable man indeed.” (88). Torday, it is true, was an enthusiast; yet his thoughts on the past of central Africa, even if they stray a little to the side of a romantic idealism, are none the less nearer to the truth than the miseries of savage.
A tribe of the Bushongo nation to the south of the Congo, had a king whom they regarded as a god on earth, all-powerful to maintain the prosperity of the country and people. On this subject E. Torday, who discovered this divine king, writes as follows: ” My long conversations with them made the political situation clearer than it had seemed at first. Its intricacy had its source in the dual position of the Nyimi (king) as temporal and spiritual chief. As the Prime Minister explained to me, to such people as the Bengongo and the Bangendi, the Nyimi was the King, the political chief of the country; if they rebelled, theirs was a political crime. But to the Bambala, the ruling tribe, he was also the head of the clan, the spiritual chief, the living representative of the founder, and, as such, sacred. Hence their frenzied jealousy of his honour; an insult to him was an insult to all the members of the clan, dead, living, and not yet born. They wanted him to defend this, their honour, at the risk of his life, at the risk of the nation’s existence. Nothing mattered so long as honour was satisfied. There was not one amongst them who would not have freely given his life to save the head of the clan the slightest humiliation ; as Chembe Kunji (god on earth) they loved him tenderly and resented the fact that he would not allow them to die for him. … In his own clan his position is really a more exalted one than that of the Mikado of Japan, for while in the latter country only part of the population professes the Shinto religion, the Bambala are all ancestor worshippers, and the Nyimi (king) is the living link that alone can join them through the chain of his one hundred and twenty predecessors to Bumba, the founder. The spirit of Bumba lives in every one of them; it is the life of the living, the memory of the dead, the hope of future generations. It is his spirit that makes the moon wane and increase, that makes the sun shine ; it is his spirit that in the shape of rain quenches the thirst of the soil after the months of drought ; it is his spirit that makes the seeds germinate and presides over the reproduction of all that lives. This spirit is incarnated in the Chembe Kunji (god on earth) and Kwete (the king) is Chembe Kunji; any weakening of his power, every affront to his dignity sends a tremor through all and everything that shares his spirit and pushes it towards the abyss of annihilation.” (Torday 114)
In order to understand the life style of the Bushong and the Lele let’s review the philosophy of those tribes describing some of their rituals which refer to treatment of life and death. Douglas portrays general social practices regarding pollution beliefs as setting social boundaries between “purity” and “danger”as ways, that is, to map a safe course through a threatening world. Some version of socially constructed categorical differentiations between “purity” and “danger” are, by her account, universal features of human social organizations. Moreover, she observes, “the focus of all pollution symbolism is the body” and therefore “the final problem to which the perspective of pollution leads is bodily disintegration. Death presents a challenge to any metaphysical system. ” (Douglass 121). Douglas also identified a special role for priestly castes in many societies as enforcers and, at the same time, as approved transgressors of those categorical boundaries.
Of all the practices Douglas discussed, she found the greatest fascination and profundity in the pangolin cult of the Lele tribe of the Congo. I want to set out her account at some length in order to suggest some parallels between this cult and the ritual role of death in the Lele culture:
“[The Lele] are a people who are very pollution-conscious in secular and ritual affairs. Their habitual separating and classifying comes out nowhere so clearly as in their approach to animal food. Most of their cosmology and much of their social order is reflected in their animal categories. Certain animals and parts of animals are appropriate for men to eat, others for women, others for children, others for pregnant women. Others are regarded as totally inedible. One way or another the animals which they reject as unsuitable for human or female consumption turn out to be ambiguous according to their scheme of classifications. Their animal taxonomy separates night from day animals; animals of the above (bird, squirrels and monkeys) from animals of the below: water animals and land animals. Those whose behaviour is ambiguous are struck off someone’s diet sheet. …” (Douglas 100)
“[Lele formal rituals] lead through a series of cults which allow their initiates to eat what is normally dangerous and forbidden, carnivorous animals, chest of game and young animals. In an inner cult a hybrid monster, which in secular life one would expect them to abhor, is reverently eaten by initiates and taken to be the most powerful source of fertility. … [T]he benign monster to which Lele pay formal cult [is] the pangolin or scaly ant-eater. Its being contradicts all the most obvious animal categories. It is scaly like a fish, but it climbs trees. It is more like an egg-laying lizard than a mammal, yet it suckles its young. And most significant of all, unlike other small mammals its young are born singly. … Instead of being abhorred and utterly anomalous, the pangolin is eaten in solemn ceremony by its initiates who are thereby enabled to minister fertility to their kind. … [In this] inner cult of all their ritual life, … the initiates of the pangolin, immune to dangers that would kill uninitiated men, approach, hold, kill and eat the animal which in its own existence combines all the elements which Lele culture keeps apart” (Douglass 102).
Our culture is free to disregard the ritual opportunities seized by the Lele initiates in their pangolin cult. But if we do take this restrictive course, we will be turning awayas Douglas observesfrom a “common urge to make a unity of all [human] experience and to overcome distinction and separation in acts of atonement.” (Douglass 110). In this refusal, this rigid insistence on the purity and power of our conventional conceptions of rational self-control and rational control over natural forces, we will miss what the Lele have grasped. As Douglas saw,
“The dramatic combination of opposites is a psychologically satisfying theme full of scope for interpretation at varying levels. … [A]ny ritual which expresses the happy union of opposites is also an apt vehicle for essentially religious themes. The Lele pangolin cult is only one example, of which many more could be cited, of cults which invite their initiates to turn round and confront the categories on which their whole surrounding culture has been built up and to recognise them for the fictive, man-made, arbitrary creations that they are. … By the mystery of [the pangolin] rite they recognise some thing of the fortuitous and conventional nature of the categories in whose mould they have their experience. If they consistently shunned ambiguity they would commit themselves to division between ideal and reality. But they confront ambiguity in an extreme and concentrated form. They dare to grasp the pangolin and put it to ritual use, proclaiming that this has more power than any other rites. So the pangolin cult is capable of inspiring a profound meditation on the nature of purity and impurity and on the limitation on human contemplation of existence.” (155)
Similar to the Lele, Bushongo people believe that they cannot control their attitudes toward death or suppress a sense of ambivalence and contaminating mystery by a self-willed act of rational intellectual mastery.
One of the examples of the Bushongo beliefs is the cult of ancestor worship. Ancestor worship is based upon the belief that man, or rather part of him, survives after death. This conviction is held by Bushong people, who firmly believe that already during his lifetime a person consists of two separable entities, his mortal body and his immortal soul.
All those present at the funeral must be ceremonially cleansed. Very often an ox or goat is killed as part of the ceremony, the meat being “doctored” with strengthening medicines before they can eat it. The close relatives and other dependants of deceased shave their hair, change their clothing, refrain from sexual relations, cease all agricultural work and abstain from many other customary activities, and observe various food and other taboos for a few days or weeks. When a Chief has died, all his subjects mourn in the same way. A special purification ceremony is then performed releasing them from these restrictions. Widows or widowers, however, continue to mourn for a period of from six months to a year, during which they may not go about freely among the people, and must take various ritual precautions to prevent their contaminating any hut, field, cattlekraal, or other place which they enter for the first time since their bereavement. An animal is then slaughtered for the final purification, their hair is dressed, they receive new garments, and may resume all their former activities. They may now also remarry.
The worship of ancestors is based upon the belief that when a man dies he continues to influence the lives of his relatives remaining on earth. But the spirits of the dead, “although they have found enlargement of power through release from the restraints of the body, are not omnipotent; nor can they read the secrets of the human heart, though they know all that their children do, say, or suffer. They are as interested as ever in their descendants who remain ‘outside on the earth’, but indifferent to members of other communities, unless they owe them some grudge or have to hinder them from hurting their protégés. Their characters have not been changed by death; they are as prone to jealousy as they ever were, and as rancorous towards descendants who wound their vanity, flout their wishes, squander their bequests, or infringe the ancient laws and customs of their clans; but they are also as willing as ever to help those of their lineage who treat them with becoming respect and obedience.” (Willoughby 88). The affairs of human beings as such do not concern the spirits of ancestors; they are exclusively interested in the affairs of their own family and tribe, and without their help and guidance their living descendants cannot hope to flourish. As long as the moral code is strictly followed, they confer blessings and abundance; but if offended by any breach of custom, they can also send drought, cattle plague, tribal or personal disaster, sickness or death.
The belief in survival after death is common to the Lele and the Bushong tribes; but it is not necessarily accompanied by ancestor worship for the Lele. The development of this cult among the Bushong can perhaps be understood if we remember how greatly respect for seniority dominates all social relations in Bantu life, and how effectively the members of a family are subordinated to its headman. This pattern is carried over even beyond death: the unquestioning respect for the living parents changes into veneration for and worship of their spirit.
Besides rituals, climatic conditions, also, influence the life styles of the Bushong and the Lele. A rare departure from the social sciences’ lack of concern with the climate-society relationship throughout the twentieth century was Mary Douglas’ comparison of Lele and Bushong economies. Douglas observed a stark difference in the levels of development and climatological perception of these neighboring peoples, who were separated by the Kasai River, and subject to only minor variations in ecological conditions.
Whereas the more economically developed Bushong viewed the summer as hot, dry, and unpleasant, the technologically and artistically inferior Lele regarded it as a pleasant season of relaxation. Douglas suggested that the ability of the monogamous Bushong to earn status through their own industriousness provided more stimulus to cooperative economic effort than the polygamous Lele. The latter could only acquire status, along with wives, through age. Hence, Bushong were hard at work herding throughout the summer while their Lele counterparts were able to kick back in the shade drinking palm wine. According to this account, social relations exert a strong influence on ideas about the weather.
However, researchers seem to be divided on this issue. For example, several appear to see perceptions of climate and weather as determined by natural conditions of aridity. Indeed, there are echoes of these views in West’s claim that “ecological and climatic conditions shape particular patterns of belief, which induce people to place more value on specific natural phenomena than others” (Shackley et al 188). On the other hand, Finan emphasizes ‘how a climate discourse is embedded in traditional forms of political interaction within a highly stratified, paternalistic society’ (Shackley et al 200). Orlove and Harley describe how seasons are anchored in cultural stereotypes associated with calendrical time (Shackley et al 201).
In conclusion, we see that numerous factors influenced the differences in economic and social development of the Bushong and the Lele tribes. The Bushong tribe managed to achieve better economic results than the Lele tribe because of the attitude of Bushong people towards work, authority and senior status of the members of the family. The Lele tribe cannot be described by significant achievements in the economic field because Lele people work less and have less developed structure of authority.

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Different Types of Flags

A flag is a piece of colored cloth with one side tied to a pole or mast. The basic purpose of a flag is identification or signaling. Today, flags are used for messaging, advertising and decorative purposes, though there is no scientific difference between a flag and a simple cloth banner. Depending on the use of flags at a particular place, there can be different interpretations of flags.
Different interpretations of Flags are:

National Flags

Whenever the word flag is referred, the first and most popular use of a flag that comes to mind is National Flag. Not only it symbolizes your country but also gives a sense of belonging to you.

Swimming Flags

Swimming flags are a pair of red/yellow flags which are used to mark the limits of swimming area on a beach. To indicate that the beach is close, simply cross the poles of the flags. These flags are used in countries like Australia, New Zealand, UK and Philippines.

Sports Flags

  • In American and Canadian football, referees use flags to indicate an error has been made in game play.
  • In auto and motorcycle racing, flags are used to communicate with drivers. The most famous use of flag in this sport is a checkered flag of black and white that marks the end of the race.

Railway Flags

Flags are used in railways as well. These colored flags carry the following meaning:

  • A red flag indicates stop.
  • A yellow flag indicates proceed with care.
  • If a green or a white or a blue flag is hoisted it indicates proceed.
  • In case of emergency a flag of any color if waved vigorously indicates stop.
  • A blue flag on the side of a locomotive indicates that work is in progress and hence it should not be removed.
  • A blue flag on a track indicates that nothing on the track should be removed or displaced. Only the person or group who placed the flag has a right to remove it.

Since flags are not visible during night time, lanterns of same color are used as a replacement.

Navy Flags

Flags at sea can be the difference between life and death. In situations where there is no other means of communication and the ship is in a bad state, asking help in the middle of the sea becomes next to impossible. Here, you can use flag signals to send the message across the other sailing ship.

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Jatin Chawla is a freelance journalist. Jatin writes for, offering valuable information on Flags and Banners.


Gay Marriage: Pros and Cons
The truth of the matter is, I think, they cannot!

Pick any argument they make and they can easily be rebuffed.

Let’s look at the top three excuses one at a time:

1) Marriage is an American Institution and must be protected to be just between a man and a woman: Do you talk about 50% divorce rate? That’s far from an institution. Also, as long as 2 drunks can get married in a drive thru wedding chapel in Las Vegas, that’s very weak ground on which to build and institution

2) Marriage is a gift from God and must be preserved: Do you talk about separation of church and state. See the first amendment to the US Constitution.

3) Marriage is for procreation/children: Then marriage licenses should only be given to fertile couples, and those who are paralyzed, or women who have gone thru menopause may not be married because they cannot have children.

4) Gay marriage will undermine US Society: See the State of Massachusetts. Gay marriage has been the law there for nearly 2 years. There has been NO destruction of society there. The streets are not running with blood, the sky is not falling – life goes on!
The concept of Separate but Equal has never withstood Constitutional muster, and it won’t here.

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