Saturday, October 17, 2009

Model pose and fashion in Florence


Ferrari Logo and Florence Sky


Looking inside, a place rare to stand


Proud


Ferrari's, nice red ones

A few weeks ago, the main "fashion" shopping street was closed to traffic so people could walk around and view the new fall collection's in the shops.  At the same time, one could meander through the Ferrari collections parked in the middle of the street.  Do the upscale fashions go hand in hand with Ferrari's? I heard comments from the local Italians who are having a difficult time putting food on the table, and paying their bills, say that the exhibition was like a kick in the face, or spit in the eye.  The economy is horrible everywhere, yet at the same time, they make a big extravaganza of things that no one can afford.  Sure, wouldn't everybody want to buy a $700,000 red Ferrari Enzo?  Wouldn't most women like the opportunity to buy a 2,000 Euro blouse?  However, most of us who walked down this street, cannot even consider of buying such luxuries.  We can only dream of such things.

I have to admit, the cars were beautiful, and I mean beautiful.  To listen to the Ferrari engine roar made me think of the best sexual experience...Actually, I could see myself sitting on the front leather seat with my hair blowing through the wind and a really hot guy sitting right next to me.  He was giving me the look of love with a big smile on his face.  When I finished strolling through dreamland, I woke up and decided that I needed to play the lottery more often.  I wonder how many of the other people were dreaming like I was.

Just about everyone was taking photographs with their cell phones, or small digital camera's.  I saw some professional looking folks bouncing around in the attempt to get that perfect shot.  I took some images myself, just look at them, are they not good?

While glancing around, I had to take a shot of the "model" looking girl standing in front of one of the shops, just look at her stance, is she a professional?  I took a shot of a sweet looking foreign young man with a glint in his eyes.  He was standing proudly by a Ferrari looking as though he just made it to heaven.

I also noticed many "single" women wondering around all dressed in fancy clothes.  A person told me that they are hoping to find some rich man.  I think to myself as a response, "Can money really buy happiness, how can a women be with a person just for money and live with herself?"  I know that I sound a bit naive, and I know that people really do live that way, I just cannot imagine it for myself.  It seems to be a plastic world of unreality.

I know that if I won the lottery, I would not buy a Ferrari, I would pay off my children's and my student loans, pay cash for a nice home...or two.  I am torn between two places, Florence and the states, if I were lucky enough  I would buy two.  Then, I would invest some and continue with my passion of photography projects.  Now that is a dream!

Books:  Ferrari:  "A complete guide to all models" by, Leonardo Lcerbl
Lottery:  "Lottery Master Guide" by, Gail Howard
Student Loan:  "The Student Loan Scam: The Most Oppressive Debt in the U.S. History - and How We Can Fight Back" by, Alan Michael Collinge
Student Loan: "Zero Debt for College Grads: From Student Loans to Financial Freedom" by, Lynnette Khalfani
Student Loan: "How to Wipe Out Your Student Loans and Be Debt Free Fast:  Everything You need to Know Explained Simply" by, Michele Burgh



Sunday, October 11, 2009

L’Allarme Aviria in a nutshell.

Rome, Italy - The Alarm of the Virus in Europe is that the H5N1 strain that can be transmitted from birds to human from feces droppings into the sand then transferring into the air. This is how the avian virus can spread from animal to human, and then from human to human. My attempt to see what is happening and the risk for Italy is quite difficult because Italian is not my forte of languages. When I attempted to search on the internet about the virus and Italy, I find only the accounts for the UK, Scotland and Ireland, which are the European English speaking countries.

Concern about the spread is evident in Italy because the newspapers are flooded with maps of the bird migration routes and the bird virus explanations and antiviral possibilities. This concern may be due to the fact that in Italy during 1999- 2001 the H7N1 virus mutated within 9 months to a highly pathogenic form and more than 13 million birds died or were destroyed.

The viral spread occurs when the combination of the normal flu and the avian virus exists at the same time.[1] It is not known for sure if the virus is transmitted from migratory wild birds. Scientists believe that on species of bird may contain the virus and has a natural immunity to it then when they come into contact with other birds, the virus is transmitted to them. Many birds have been found dead not because they are the transmitters but because they lack the immunity to the virus.

A dead bird cannot fly; a sick bird cannot fly 200 kilometers then die. The problem lies in how do they find the carrier? What birds are infected? First, they need to find the carrier in order to know how to stop or restrain the virus from spreading. In the meantime, there are cross border controls not allowing any live produce into Germany from Romania where a strain of the virus was found.

FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations) states that the virus spread from Siberia and may carry the virus to the Caspian and Black Sea. The regions are the Balkans and could be a gateway to central Europe. The migration also runs across Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq, Georgia, Ukraine and some Mediterranean countries. FAO also is concerned that India and Bangladesh seems to be uninfected, but may be at risk because India harbors a large number of domestic ducks and are along one of the major migratory routes.

FAO also states that “the bird flu has killed more than 60 people in Asia since 2003 and more than 140 million birds have died or been slaughtered.” Between April and June 2005, more than 6,000 migratory birds died due to the H5N1 at the Qinghai Lake Nature Reserve in Qinghai Province, China.

There are estimates that up to 50 million people can be killed from the virus with 50,000 in Ireland and the UK alone.[3] WHO spokesman on influenza, Dick Thompson, told a news conference in Geneva that the WHO's official estimate of the number of people who could die was between two million and 7.4 million[4] in a BBC article titled, “Bird Flu could kill up to 150 million people.” There is a bit of confusion here over the estimates in numbers of possible deaths. Either the news agencies do not want a widespread panic, or the pandemic researchers do not really know what they are up against.

If we really do not know what we are up against, then how to we attempt to restrain the spread of the virus? Scotland’s attempt to stifle the spread is by developing an emergency plan for health and security. They have decided that the health boards will have the power to request a medical examination and could force detention in a hospital for quarantine. The authorities could forbid individuals from going to and from work or the children from attending school if they have been exposed to the virus.
The Netherlands are established a month long quarantine on domestic bird to go outside, the chickens and the ducks had to be released into fenced areas with roofs to protect the birds. France is planning to have 14 million doses of antiflu drugs available by 2006 and is stockpiling 200 million protective face masks; 50 million masks have already been delivered to the French hospitals.
On Monday the virus reached Greece and they are banning exports of live poultry, meat and other poultry products. Croatia, Macedonia and Bulgaria are testing possible virus cases. The virus was located in Turkey where 50 turkeys fell sick and died on Money, and another 100 died the next day. So far, 5,000 turkeys have been killed in Turkey.

To calm the situation and the concern for the spread of global panic, Jack Straw chaired an emergency meeting of the EU in Luxembourg reminding everyone that “to date there is no evidence of any transfer of the virus to human beings.”[5]

[1] “The disease could jump species if a person became infected with avian and normal flu at the same time.” http://www.rednova.com/news/health/272539/h5n1_its_here
__killer_strain_of_bird_flu_virus/index.html?source=r_health
[2] “Wild birds expected to spread bird flu virus further” http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2005/107405/
[3] see link for note one

[4] BBC article: “Bird Flu could kill up to 150 million People” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4292426.stm
[5] Spiegel Online: “Europe Struggles to Combat H5N1” http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,380362,00.html