WUHAN ARTISTS WANDS : MERCIFUL MEMORIES

 

WUHAN : A melancholy guitar melody intertwines with an ethereal beat as wild-haired singer Lu Yan intones his homegrown's feelings into a microphone.

''Virus in Wuhan. We all survived.''

In music, graffiti, even comics, Wuhan artists are beginning to pay homage to their city with works referencing its coronavirus suffering, punishing 76-day lockdown and subsequent rebirth.

''Wuhan's people made a great sacrifice for the whole nation and the whole world,'' Lu said of the song's intended message.

The song, titled WUHAN2020 is the title track of the pandemic-themed debut album by Wuhan synth-rock trio Hardcore Raver in Tears, conceived and written remotely while the bandmates were separated during the lockdown. ''I was worried the world would end.'' said Lu, after singing through a black mask during a rehearsal in a Wuhan studio.

The coronavirus emerged in the city one year ago, before spreading into a global pandemic. The vast majority of  China's 4,634 officially acknowledged Covid-19 deaths occurred in Wuhan. Its economy was pummelled and its name indelibly linked to the pathogen.

To many Wuhan citizens, the pandemic period is best forgotten.

'Speak righteously'

But graffiti artist Huang Bowen tries to keep the memories alive. A self-taught 22-year-old designer, he tagged the city with virus-themed graffiti during lockdown, using a pass gained as a pandemic volunteer to evade restrictions on moving around what had become a ghost town.

Huang's subjects have included ophthalmologist Li Wenliang, one of several Wuhan doctors who first warned of the spreading contagion in December 2019 and were told by the authorities to keep quiet. He later died of the virus.

Politically sensitive art is taboo in tightly controlled China. As with nearly all his pandemic graffiti, Huang's homage to Li - the phrase ''speak righteously and remember this forever'' spray pained on the walls of the Wuhan Central Hospital where Li worked - was quickly painted over.

''I don't mind because I think I've done what I wanted to do and it was enough for me to express what I wanted to say,'' said Huang., who cultivates a Bohemian look with wide-rimmed glasses and a wispy goatee.

He previously used English words in his graffiti, switching during the pandemic to artistic renderings of Chinese characters. ''it's more direct and something everybody understands,'' he said.

' Rebellious streak'

As he spoke, Huang and two fellow rangers worked under the cover of night on a mural inside an abandoned residential building - a green pine forest encircling a giant blazinbg match, all book-ended by the two Chinese characters for ''hope''.

Chinese media reports have highlighted an explosion of Video bloggers who have documented the outbreak and how it has affected citizens, including an amateur rapper/vlogger who sings about the city in Wuhan's unique dialect. Chinese-American artists with Wuhan roots have also created comics celebrating the city, to show it is not just Virus Ground Zero.

Wuhan has long held a rebellious streak. It was the scene of of 1911 uprising that sparked china's revolution against imperial rule; was later known as a polluted industrial city with a rough hewn blue-collar population; and more recently, as become famous as China's capital of punk rock.

But rock singer Lu said the sobering pandemic experience had given his band a kinder, more mellow sound.

''No matter for people in Wuhan, Chinese people, or people around the world, being kind-hearted is the starting point,'' he added. [AFP]

SCIENCES LAB STUDENTS

 

INDELIBLE ME

1.- The fruit of a poison tree is armor against hyenas

For a rodent the resembles the love child of a skunk and a steel wool brush, the African crested rat carries itself with surprising amount of swagger.

The rats ''very much have the personality of something that knows it's poisonous,'' says Sara Weinstein, a biologist at the University of Utah and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, who studies them.

When cornered, they fluff up their fur, including specialized brown hairs with a honeycomb like texture. Those spongy hairs contain a poison powerful enough to bring an elephant to its knees.

In research published in Journal Mammalogy, Dr. Weinstein describes African crested rats chewing bits from poison arrow trees and spitting them back out into their fur.

The chemical protection most likely keeps away predators like hyenas and wild dogs.  The rats are the world's only known toxic rodents and are among the few mammals that borrow poison from plants. [Katherine J. Wu]

IT GOES WITH THE FLOW

2.- Hidden treasure on Hawaii : Rivers running deep underground

There are a few things on the Island of Hawaii more valuable than fresh water. Not because the island    -known to residents of the State of Hawaii as the Big Island - is dry:

There is plenty of rain. But there is tremendous demand, and much of the water disappears before it can be used.

New research by marine geophysicists shows that underground rivers running off the island's western coast are the key to this vanishing act.

Water for human use on the island is often pumped from aquifers. But recent studies have shown that the aquifers are leaking.

''Everyone assumed that this missing fresh water was seeping out at the coastline or traveling laterally along the island,'' said Eric Attias, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hawaii, who led the new study published in Science Advances. But his work shows that rivers of fresh water flow underground through porous rock as far as 2 1/2  miles out into the ocean. [Matt Kaplan]

Headline, December 11 2020/ HONOURS : ''' '' HEART* STUDENTS HEALER '' '''

HONOURS : 

''' '' HEART* STUDENTS HEALER '' '''

 

IN PROUD PAKISTAN - SO LONG AGO : MISTY EYED, THE PRIME MINISTER O'' CAPTAIN IMRAN KHAN - prayed for mercy from the Covid-19 - for the entire Mankind.

The World Students Society - the exclusive and eternal ownership of every student in the world, avails itself of the honour to address the Students and the Leaders of the entire world.

''The crises should totally reveal what is in your hearts. This is the moment to dream big, to rethink your priorities - what we value, what we want, what we seek - and to commit to act in our daily life on what we have dreamed of.''

God asks us to dare to create something new. We cannot return to the false securities of the political and economic systems we had before the crisis. We need economies that give to all access to the fruits of creation, to the basic needs of life : to land, lodging and labor.

We need a politics that can integrate and dialogue with the poor, the excluded and the vulnerable., that give people a say in the decisions that affect their lives. We need to slow down, take stock and design better ways of living together on this earth.

The coronavirus is damn special because it affects most of the humankind. But it is very special only in how visible it is. There are a thousand other crises that are just as dire, but are just far enough from some of us that we can act as if they don't exist.

Think, for example, of the wars scattered across different parts of the world; of the production and trade in weapons; of the hundreds and thousands of refugees fleeing poverty, hunger and lack of opportunity; of climate change.

These tragedies may seem distant from us, as part of the daily news that, sadly, fails to move us to change our agendas and priorities. But like the Covid-19 crisis, they affect the whole of humanity.

LOOK at us now : We put on face masks to protect ourselves and others from a virus we can't see. But what about all those other unseen viruses we need to protect ourselves from? How will we deal with hidden pandemics of this world, the pandemics of hunger and violence and climate change?

THE THEME OF HELPING OTHERS WILL ALWAYS STAY WITH The World Students Society, the exclusive and eternal ownership of every student in the world.

In lockdown the Founder Framers have always gone in prayer to those who sought all means to save the lives of others. The world over, so many of the nurses, doctors and caregivers paid that price of love, together with priests, and religious and ordinary people whose vocations were service.

We return their love by grieving for them and by humbly honoring them wherever they may be.

WHETHER or not they were conscious of it, their choice testified to a belief that it is better to live a shorter life serving others than a longer one resisting that call. That's why, in many countries, people stood at their own windows or on their doorsteps to applaud them in gratitude and awe.

They are the saints next door, who have awakened something important in our hearts, making credible once more what we desire to instill by our preaching.

They are the antibodies to the virus of indifference. They remind us that our lives are a gift and we grow by giving of ourselves, not preserving ourselves but losing ourselves in service.

With some exceptions, governments have made great efforts to put the well being of their people first, acting decisively to protect health and and to save lives. The exceptions have been some governments that shrugged off the painful evidence of mounting deaths, with inevitable, grievous consequences.

But most governments acted responsibly, imposing strict measures to contain the outbreak.

YET some groups protested, refusing to keep their distance, marching against travel restrictions - as if measures that the governments must impose for the good of their people constitute some kind of political assault on autonomy or personal freedom!

Looking to the common good is much more than the sum of what is good for individuals. It means having a regard for all citizens and seeking to respond effectively to the needs of the least fortunate.

It is all too easy for some to take an idea - in this case for example, personal freedom - and turn it into an ideology, creating a prism through which they judge everything.

IF WE have to come out of this crisis less selfish than when we went in, we have to let ourselves be touched by others' pain. There's a line in Friedrich Holderlin's ''Hyperion'' that speaks to us, about a how the danger that threatens in a crisis is never total; there's always a way out.

"'Where the danger is, also grows the saving power.'' That's the genius in the human story: There's always a way to escape destruction. Where humankind has to act is precisely there, in the threat itself; that's where the doors open.

The Honor and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on Pandemic, Crisis, and Lessons, continues. The World Students Society thanks most profoundly and humbly, Pope Francis.

With respectful dedication to Mankind, Leaders, Grandparents, Parents, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all Prepare and Register for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter - !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011 :

''' Society - Sense '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless