Day: March 24, 2005

Basti
This can be practiced with or without a bamboo tube. But it is better to have a bamboo-tube. Sit in a tub of water covering your navel. Assume the posture Utkatasana by resting your body on the forepart of your feet, the heels pressing against the posteriors. Take a small bamboo-tube 6 fingers long and insert 4 fingers of its length into the anus after lubricating the tube with vaseline or soap or castor oil. Then contract the anus. Draw the water into the bowels slowly. Shake well the water within the bowels and then expel the water outside. It is known as Jala-Basti.

The way this all got started was that my friend and i were sitting around at dinner chatting about what to do for the upcoming room-to-room party. We went through a whole bunch of ideas for room themes. And then — you know how, sometimes when you’re bored, you look up and imagine what it would be like if gravity turned upside down and you got to walk around on the ceiling? (Does everyone have this daydream?) Anyway, we both mentioned it at the same time, and then it dawned on us that we could make it happen. Or a variant, anyway. I think sideways actually works better than upside-down, because then you can integrate real people into the scene in strange ways.

A virtually unstoppable “snakebot” developed by a University of Michigan team that resembles a high-tech slinky as it climbs pipes and stairs, rolls over rough terrain and spans wide gaps to reach the other side.
The 26-pound robot developed at the University of Michigan U-M College of Engineering is, called OmniTread. It moves by rolling, log-style, or by lifting its head or tail, inchworm-like, and muscling itself forward.

Determined to make their offices as efficient as those of the West, the Japanese invented a typewriter for their own complex writing system early in the 20th century. The typist was touted as the belle of the workplace. But the Japanese typewriter was a challenging tool that could only be mastered after rigorous training. The development of a truly efficient writing machine — the word processor — necessitated a reassessment of the Japanese language itself.

As citizens and people of faith-we implore, beg, nay… insist, that you brothers, so distinguished by their singular accomplishments and political leadership-use the Constitutional powers of their respective offices to interpose yourselves and deploy the police services at your disposal and take Terri Schiavo into your protective custody, direct that her food and water be restored to her, and save her alive while the lawyers debate arcane matters of jurisdiction and jurisprudence.