Dreamways

"New York: A former oral surgeon has agreed to plead guilty to charges that he orchestrated a grisly plot to plunder corpses and sell body parts for transplants, his lawyer said. Prosecutors say Michael Mastromarino, 44, was making millions by covertly carving up hundreds of corpses at a Brooklyn funeral home and selling the parts for dental implants, hip replacements and other procedures nationwide. Prosecutors said that the cadavers were looted without permission or proper screening for diseases and that an untold number of patients were unknowingly exposed to infection.  read more »

In her review, „A Lawyer Who Hears New Ways to Argue“ (The New York Times, 31 Jan 08), Ginia Bellafonte writes about a surprising dreamful aspect of a brand new TV show, "Eli Stone.“ The title character is an attorney who has isolated himself, living, it seems, a stereoptypically ruthless and high-powered life.  read more »

"Canio, the heartbroken clown in 'I Pagliacci,' doesn’t just suffer. In the Seattle Opera’s new version of Ruggero Leoncavallo’s opera … he also dreams. In an 11-muinute sequence inserted after the aira 'Vesti la giubba,' music taken from Leoncavallo’s 'Zaza', a Metropolitan Opera hit in the 1920s, is heard as Canio relives his life with his beloved Nedda: He discovers her as an orphaned waif, teaches her to be an acrobat and actress and, finally, is rejected by her. Acrobats play Canio, as well as Nedda at different ages.  read more »

"Christmastime is bonus time on Wall Street, and the Gucci set has been blessed with another record harvest,“ writes columnist Bob Herbert in „Nightmare Before Christmas“ (The New York Times, 22 Dec 07). He goes on with the startling fact that "the top securities firms are handing out nearly $38 billion in seasonal bonuses, the highest total ever.“ Thirty billion – that's billion with a "b“ – dollars in holiday bonuses! That’s beyond my wildest dreams!

"'Why shouldn’t we be proud of our past, when each new day is worse than the previous one?' asks Aleksandar Cotric, a dissident-turned-politician, whose dark one-liners were once scrawled on banners during the demonstrations that helped overthrow the Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.“  The tremendously important role of humor in Serbia is explored in Dan Bilefsky’s article "Dark One-Liners shine a Light on the Mood of Serbs: Aphorisms Thrive as Anxieties Grow“ (The New York Times, 02 Dec 07).

I found this in the Fall, 2007 Wilson Quarterly

RED TAPE: Rebirth Certificate

Upon the death of a "living Buddha" a Tibetan Buddhist monk believed to be a living reincarnation of a buddha from the past, the Dalai Lama or a lower-level lama confers the mantle on someone else, and the cycle of reincarnation goes on. But in July, the Chinese government issued "Reincarnation Regulations for Tibetan Living Buddhas."

"Here comes the bride, all dressed in white … two-ply, extra soft toilet paper. Lovebirds Jennifer Cannon and Doy Nichols of Lexington, Ky., plan to get hitched … in a public restoom in New York. She’ll be wearing a gown fashioned from glue, tape and Charmin Ultra Soft and Ultra Strong toilet tissue. The intricately detailed dress was designed by Hanah Kim, winner of the 2007 Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest, sponsored by Cheap-Chic-Weddings.com.  read more »

"Too little milk, sunshine and exercise: It’s an anti-bone trifecta. And for some kids, shockingly, it’s leading to rickets, the soft-bone scourge of the 19th century.“ This is the first image of a waking nightmare, a dark dream of physical malady that many of us thought rested safely in the past. Rickets is a deficiency where bones become so soft that legs literally bow out.  read more »

The photo image of Martin Luther King’s face takes up most of the visual field of the black and white ad that covers the bottom half of this Martin Luther King Day (21 Jan 08) Denver Post page. His hands are held together, fingers interlocked, at the level of his chin. He is facing us, his eyes looking into the distance somewhere to his right. His gaze is relaxed, focused and pensive.  read more »

Animals often figure prominently in sleep dreams, as well as in sleep nightmares. They can play significant roles in our waking lives, too, as in this news article, featuring a certain animal playing a sadly disturbing role in a waking nightmare. The news article, "Sturdy Sea Lion Under Growing threat from Acidic Algae“ by Henry Fountain (The New York Times, 27 Nov 07) describes a true nightmare. "The California sea lion is a robust species, but in the past decade marine biologists have recognized domoic acid poisoning as a growing threat to its health.  read more »