Sevilla’s Koffi Ndri Romaric is dropped from the Ivory Coast squad for January’s Africa Cup of Nations for disciplinary reasons…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: soccer standings. The blog is also related to: football league.

 Blow (The Bomb) by Ivory

2009 (5 tracks, 26:56)

dance/electronica

PRE-BAN ELEPHANT BARK IVORY SCALES

Your bidding on some of the most beautiful, rare, pre-ban elephant BARK scales.

These scales are very large… 4-3/8″ long x 1-3/4″ wide x 1/2″ thick in the center.

They have beautiful color and grains. This was a partial tusk bought from Mother of Earth Trading. We have all documentation and are in full compliance with CITES. This is very old estate ivory and we were able to cut about 13 pair of scales with the exterior bark left on the scales. These are very rare!!!

SORRY!!! NO INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING – NO EXCEPTIONS This material will be SOLD AND SHIPPED in the UNITED STATES ONLY!!!

for more information, please visit http://www.artworkbid.com

mengembalikan jati diri bangsa

Ini adalah tradisi di seluruh dunia mengembalikan jati diri bangsa bahwa pengantin wanita Mengembalikan Jati Diri Bangsa harus putih pada hari pernikahan. Tidaklah diragukan bahwa banyak mempelai tampak cantik dalam gaun putih telanjang tetapi wanita-wanita Kebangsaan yang memiliki corak kulit yang adil tidak. Brides ini tampak pucat dan tidak berarti ketika mereka memiliki baju putih. Perempuan berambut merah juga tampak tidak pantas dan Jati Diri Bangsa agak aneh dalam gaun putih tradisional. Cara terbaik untuk menangani masalah ini untuk kedua jenis pengantin disebutkan di atas adalah untuk memakai gaun pengantin gading.

Semua gaya gaun putih tradisional memiliki gaun pengantin gading setara. Gagasan menambahkan sedikit warna ke Bangsa gaun Anda Jati Diri tetapi masih mengenakan amp quot putih amp quot pada pernikahan Anda menarik bagi banyak perempuan. Gaun dalam setelan warna indah ini hampir setiap skin tone dan mereka tidak Mengembalikan Jati Diri membuat wanita mereka terlihat mengenakan dicuci bersih juga tidak pucat.

Banyak wanita ingin memiliki cukup banyak keindahan-meningkatkan prosedur sebelum acara khusus Jati Diri mereka. Jika anda telah kaya rambut gelap dan Anda memiliki kulit kecokelatan menempel di gaun pengantin putih tradisional adalah ide yang baik. Perempuan Bangsa warna Jati Diri bisa juga hanya mendapatkan keuntungan dari memilih gaun putih telanjang untuk hari besar itu sebagai nada kulit yang kaya dan indah. Jika Anda adalah salah satu tipe yang disebut di sini maka Anda tidak perlu khawatir mencari mencuci terlepas dari putih dingin. Kontras hanya bisa membuat Anda terlihat menakjubkan.

Namun ada banyak wanita yang tidak tan tapi mendapatkan terbakar sinar matahari selama musim panas. Wanita-wanita ini disarankan untuk pergi untuk gaun pengantin gading. Tambahan akan mengimbangi warna kulit adil sedangkan putih dingin dicuci hanya akan pergi. Hindari mencuci dari kulit alabaster Anda dengan memilih pakaian pengantin gading.

Wanita berambut merah juga harus mempertimbangkan gading gaun pengantin. Secara umum ada dua jenis gadis berambut merah. Jenis yang pertama adalah merah klasik yang kedua – si rambut merah yang cokelat kemerahan. Sementara yang pertama mempunyai rambut Mengembalikan Jati Diri Bangsa ikal alami dengan kunci oranye-merah yang kedua mungkin terlihat seperti brunette pencahayaan tertentu. I Kebangsaan am an auburn berambut merah jadi pernyataan terakhir perhatian saya.

Meskipun memiliki rambut cokelat kemerahan saya tidak membakar-kulit-bintik. Aku tidak benar-benar khawatir bahwa saya mungkin Jati Diri Bangsa terlihat mencuci di sebuah gaun pengantin putih tradisional. Meskipun saya menemukan bahwa gaun pengantin gading cocok untuk saya lebih baik. Aku harus mencoba Bangsa gaun putih yang banyak untuk beberapa alasan yang tidak benar sampai akhirnya aku mengenakan gaun pengantin gading. mengembalikan jati diri bangsa

Setelah aku mencobanya aku tidak bisa memikirkan memilih gaun putih telanjang lagi. Pakaian pengantin gading cocok bagi cokelat kemerahan highlight rambutku. Meskipun saya tidak benar-benar gaun putih itu tampak sangat putih sebagai pembantu mengenakan gaun merah anggur-anggur. Sebagai kesimpulan menjaga pikiran terbuka ketika memilih gaun pengantin selalu merupakan ide yang bagus.

Slightly homesick for my beautiful, 90-year-old Boston back in California.

———————————————

A long time ago, she hated that thing more than anything. Practice was an endless chore, the pages black and white drained of color and her little feet trudged along to it. She would complain to her mother, lips puckered tight in a pout, and when she could not weasel her way out, she would loathe it that much more.

But when time flashed by, and the people who forced her to it no longer pushed, the keys became a beautiful piece of art and the notes a sweet sound of an angel.  Her hands trailed the old wood and her eyes relished the light on the bronze brass.  And as her fingers brushed over the expensive ivory, they began to slip into a world she had never taken the time to appreciate.

When her fingertips fluttered over black and white, the pieces rushed and without realizing, she found the right keys, like falling into place, the sounds so familiar and so full of warmth, and so could hardly grasp that that was music she was creating with her own 2 hands. Every crescendo, every pianissimo, every sharp, every flat – she fell in love with over and over again even before she reached for the lid. The melodies she drowned in compelled her in all unexplainable ways and it was when her hands connected with the piano and her eyes closed to bask in the glory of the harmonies, that she found her voice.

Between the chaos of the holidays and end of the year deadlines, it was time to weave some relaxation into the mix. We hope that by the end of this entry, you will also feel at least a tinge of calm. What color best encapsulates rest than the soft glow of ivory?

Like the never-forgetful elephant that boldly carries ivory wherever it goes, we too surround ourselves with the color as we make our annual retrospect. Surrounding us is shimmering snow (at least we hope), glowing lights, and radiant smiles – all of which share attributes of ivory.

We consider the relationships that we’ve built with our clients, partners, and each other. We look to the future, a glowing white canvas, and prepare to spread the color of success onto it. We look towards the bright glowing tunnel of fortune and friendship and stay forever thankful for the friends and family around us.

This holiday season, enjoy the color surrounding you and bring this peaceful shade with you through the New Year. Happy Holidays from The Savvy Group! May you have a happy, restful and relaxing New Year!

Two boys made a startling discovery of a dead white rhinoceros in the Nkomazi River. It had been shot dead and two of its horns were missing. The poachers are unknown and the animal is believed to be from South Africa, Songimvelo Game Reserve, which is next to the area. The horn could be worth anywhere from 70,000 to 200,000 Euros, depending on how much it weighs.

To read the full article, click here.

(Inspired by this feature article.)

Old white skin is loose and thin, flimsy between my fingers, like chicken flesh made human. There’s only one patch of skin on a young white woman’s body that even compares to nearly every geriatric inch of an old white woman’s skin — only one… one remote, discreet patch that I can’t recall right now. The first time I stroked old white skin, it felt like the discarded pork fat that killed my pappy. I yearned for it more than Marion Berry craved an 8-ball of cocaine. That singular phrase, “I’m on it like white on rice,” can describe the transparent look and feel of that skin.

Oh, but I had reasons for my craving that were socially sound. For years, I hid behind the notion of young black men leaving their black women under the age of 40 for any white woman with a pulse. A black woman hitting puberty is like Kryptonite to a black man, so I thought. He goes young or younger, average girth or big, average-looking or UGH-LEH or drinks a 40 with his homeys and looking for trouble. Old white women are thrilled to get the black man that they couldn’t get with in their younger, baby-making years, for Civil Rights done happened. It’s not my fault; it’s those black women that wanted me so much that I had to run away.

Well that’s a damn lie. Truthfully, I attract a decent percentage of black women. Heck, some of them aren’t too shabby on the eyes

More than enough black women want me that I could split my paycheck for alimony for a fortnight, but I don’t want them.

I want old white women. And they want me. We look at each other and exchange a sultry glance of lust and fear, passion and purse clenching in those fertile few seconds. And our attraction is based first and foremost on race. Oh, we aren’t one of those pairs who “tear that ass up” with one of a different race or dutifully come together but out of a greater feeling of interracial brotherhood and sisterhood. Not as liberal hippie men and women do we seek each other out. The welfare lines has made it easier to get the mad hookup. Women advertise: ivory frisky for ebony. Men text: I WANT 2 HIT THAT OLD WHYT ASS. We aren’t the same people who cry: Race ain’t all there is, y’all. It is all there is. We want to get with the swirl.

Despite the fact that some amount — I can’t remember the source… let’s say 94 percent — of single Americans have dated outside of their race, that purposeful seeking of the specific other makes some, especially white men, more uncomfortable than Brokeback Mountain.

We are what they blacken and whip: black men and old white women who come together because we want that pasty and dark ass. They are bitter about us taking their unwanted women. Old white women are seventy six and a third times more likely to marry a black man than a white man is to marry one of those… black women. White men can grab statistics out of their air, too, in representing their argument. But in truth, white brothers, we’re after that wrinkled ass, not the commitment and they aren’t long for the Earth anyway.

Yes, that ass!

The men who go after the old white women is a spin-off of black-woman connoisseur Thomas Jefferson’s (also a U.S. president) “always take hold of things by the smooth handle,” for the black man’s handle is large and the old white woman’s handle glove is cavernous. According to some unnamed school of thought, black men turn to white women when baby’s lookin’ fine and they wanna — as the poet Ginuwine once said — “jump on it.” It’s a “damn, girl, you easy” reaction.

When we get to the “damn, girl, you easy” place, they know it, and they are already halfway in the grave. Old white women are more grateful, accommodating and easier to shut up than black women. They know how to cook meatballs, a nearly lost art among the rest of us. An old white women is so damned fine because she knows how to make some meatballs.

Old white women have something black women don’t have anymore: shawls. They clearly know that their necks are delicate. Black women appear to be waiting to catch their death of cold to learn whether they are resilient. Yet old white women know that they are fragile, one step away from fatal pneumonia, something black women would name their child. They make you feel like a man that needs looking after, after you grip it and rip it. I can go all out when I am with them. How many black women can treat a man like a gentleman and a succubus of life energy?

I often felt in my Black period that only during lustful sessions of freakin’ it that the connection between me and the world was as light as cornbread, encompassing my intimacy like a cast iron skillet. It takes a lot of sexin’ for two black people to be in the same room together. These old white women, so alive by the waning days on their calendar, slice through that cornbread and latch on with their delicate bodies, freeing me and I can truly get with it. I am like the driver of a Cadillac hooptie with a fine-ass bitch that can shoot a gun out the window. I know I can yell, “Move bitch, get out the way!” but there’s no need. On the other hand, the last time I waxed some black ass, we chugged along on a crowded bus, and she was like Mabel “Mama” Thomas from What’s Happening, Raj and Dee’s mother that disappeared sometime after the first season and never came up in conversation for some reason.

My current girl, a spry Medicare recipient, seduced me via butterscotch candy at a senior center while I was doing community service. Without saying a word, she felled me under her spell, presented with her drawn-in eyebrows. She didn’t motion me over or ask me to see pictures of her grand kids until she knew that I wouldn’t take her Social Security check. Both quaint and hip, she has a butt that won’t quit. I was asking her if she wanted to go downtown 30 minutes after that candy.

Another afternoon, in that same senior center, a different old white woman, a spry pensioner, asked me to help her off of her feet.

I don’t doubt that there are some old white women who can’t get down on it or make meatballs. Personally, I have not experienced one that can’t. (True, I am not dating some broke-ass woman, but I didn’t do that when I dated black, so clearly and without doubt, I am an equal opportunist.) They look better than black women, they hold, coddle and top it off better than black women. Statistically, their vaginae are only a fraction of a meter larger on average, but they seem friendlier and whiter.

Black women under 40 still have their waistlines and standards — if they ever had them. They carry youth, courage and firm breasts above their plump asses. Perhaps a good part of that firmness is their courage. Even the youngest ones look courageous somehow and deeply fearless. They soldier on despite any setback that would fell the whitest of women. Surely, our culture as much as biology has made them braver, grittier, less-pushover versions of themselves just at the point where black men and old white women and Eskimos are browbeaten within an inch of their lives. Society undervalues the black woman, leaving her scrappy and bold when she realizes under the age of 40 that she’s all that.

With the exception of some college women at Freaknik after a few Mad Dogs, black women don’t turn me on anymore.

That admission put me in the same grouping as the unpopular geek only interested in Asian women. While black men my age will shake their heads at me, not understanding why I’m not chasing down a young, thin white woman, I feel a kinship with the dorky nerds. We are the same, me and that awkward geek, drawn to the exotic object of lust, not caring that the forbidden fruit doesn’t know about the term “baby mama” or prenuptial agreements.

Break down the roots of attractions all you want — like so-called scientists will do, just because — and you won’t be able to formulate a good answer why we want to sink the canoe. Desire pours out like a 40 on Dre Day, and it is delightfully oblivious to others who just don’t know. Yet until just now, I opined that my passion was like affirmative action, because it was a reward for my suffering.

Halfway through my last booty call with a black woman, I realized that little smoke rings of courage and audacity were escaping her ego like fur from a wolf shot down from Sarah Palin’s helicopter. This woman was at least mildly secure in herself, and I wanted to tell her to go fix me some food, submit to me and cater to my every whim. I would have climbed off her and told her to get her ass out, but she seemed to expect that — like she wanted to start a fight. I couldn’t give into her desire and make her louder and angrier. My Northern cousins would describe her general aire as “uptight” or “like the president.” Into the second double dip of ass-freakin’, I wanted to get my ass out and I didn’t notice that she said that she was late because she stopped taking her pill.

What did she think would turn me on more: That I didn’t know she was late because of her not taking her pills since Clinton was president, or that she wanted me to be the father of her baby because we already had three kids?

I cannot even imagine an old white women having a baby without the horrific black magic of modern medicine.

That was my last token black women. I recently came out of my race-exclusive closet and told my friends, “I love old white women. I’m not attracted to uppity black women under 40 and I am not dating them anymore. Really, I don’t love them hoes.”

Nobody was dumbstruck.

CITES secretary general Willem Wijnstekers is expected in Zimbabwe next month for talks with President Robert Mugabe over rampant poaching decimating of wildlife in the southern African country and is said to involve top political and army officials.

Wijnstekers is expected to meet with Defense Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, Police chief Augustine Chihuri and Attorney General Johannes Tomana. Wijnstekers will discuss with Mnangagwa the alleged involvement of senior military officers in poaching while he seeks to establish from Chihuri and Tomana security measures put in place to curb illegal killing of protected wildlife and measures taken against those caught poaching including the levels of sentencing.

Read more, here.

to add more fuel to a crazy and amazing week, the giveaway i’m doing this week with pippipandallthat.com got picked up by snippet & ink this morning. pretty awesome. it ends on monday, 12/14/2009 at 5 PM EST — don’t forget to enter!

photos by kellan studios

December 2009. Kruger National Park (KNP) Rangers and South African National Parks (SANParks) Environmental Crimes Investigations (ECI) units have installed high technology invisible tracking devices to some of the Kruger rhinos. This is one of the many strategies that SANParks are implementing in an effort to intensify anti-poaching efforts after losing 41 rhinos between January and October this year.

KNP Rangers, Veterinary Services and ECI team work around one of the rhinos marked with an electronic tracking device

Thoughtless killing for monetary gain…

Read more here

This is Glamorous; Caroline Seikaly

4-3/8″ long x 1-3/4″ wide x 5/16″ thick in the center

mammoth ivory knife scales

The Elephants accept an invitation to train in Tanzania ahead of African Cup Of Nations in Angola…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: soccer sports. The blog is also related to: world cup.

I wanted him. I needed him. It was so hard for me to think of anything else. Whenever I was away from him it felt as if my stomach would curl into knots around some alien, poisonous, thorny, being in my body. I would cry out in agony. Wake up sweating. Hot, sweat searing into my skin. I could hear it burning. I swear I could hear the sizzling of my skin, like water touching a hot plate. It made me feel as if he was my whole world. As if every being in my body was attached to him. The blood in my veins, adjusted to flow like his blood. The beating of my heart, tuned itself to his.  

My love is alive
Way down in my heart
Although we are miles apart
If you ever need a helping hand
I’ll be there on the double
As fast as I can
Don’t you know that
There ain’t no mountain high enough
Ain’t no valley low enough
Ain’t no river wide enough
To keep me from getting to you

This was one of our favorite December brides.   The reception took place at the Dresser Mansion in Tulsa.  The dark wood in the Dresser paired perfectly with Kendall’s colors of gold and ivory.  It truly was a cozy, winter wonderland inside.  The talented Anne-Marie Foy from The French Bouquet did her beautiful flowers.  A big thanks to Ace Cuervo for sending us these lovely photos.  More winter wedding inspiration boards to come this week!

Ace Cuervo Photography; The French Bouquet; Dresser Mansion; Zinke Design

I had lunch yesterday with Michelle Goad, Merchandiser of Marc Jacobs Collection Accessories, and we talked, among other things, about these Monique Péan earrings which are made…wait for it…from the bones of wooly mammoths. 

Monique Péan Wooly Mammoth Earrings

 

I’m obviously curious about how a designer goes about obtaining ivory from a species that hasn’t walked the earth for about 12,000 years, and I’ll work on that. But in the meantime, I had to share the consistently candid and cute Michelle’s reaction:

“They look like banana chips, basically!  They’re so cool.”

It now looks as if Portugal’s will not have it easy in next summer’s World Cup. Portugal are sharing Group G with North Korea, Ivory Coast, and Brazil. I don’t think that North Korea will give us any problems(not to say they are a bad team), but Ivory Coast will be a challenge. Needless to say, Brazil will be our biggest contenders. The other groups go something like this:

Group A

South Africa
Mexico
Uruguay
France

Group B

Argentina
Nigeria
South Korea
Greece

Group C

England
USA
Algeria
Slovenia

Group D

Germany
Australia
Serbia
Ghana

Group E

Netherlands
Denmark
Japan
Cameroon

Group F

Italy
Paraguay
New Zealand
Slovakia

Group G

Brazil
North Korea
Ivory Coast
Portugal

Group H

Spain
Switzerland
Honduras
Chile

Ivory Coast will face Brazil, Portugal and North Korea in the group stage of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: english football standings. For a different topic see fun soup recipe. The blog is also related to: soccer live scores.

Mark Nevling- Damascus & Mammoth Ivory Linerlock

 @ Php. 70,000

This linerlock folder features Robert Eggerling Damascus blade, blue damascus bolsters, and mammoth ivory scales. Smooth action. Perfect blade seating, detent, and lockup. Excellent fit and finish.

Blade Length:                            3″

Overall Length:                        7 1/4″

Closed Length:                        4 1/4″

Blade Steel:                               Robert Eggerling Damascus

Scale Material:                        Mammoth Ivory

Bolster Material:                     Blued Damascus

Locking Mechanism:             Linerlock

Virunga is truly the crown jewel of Africa’s national parks. The park contains over 50% of sub-Saharan Africa’s biodiversity and is home to about 200 of the earth’s last 720 critically endangered mountain gorillas. Virunga is also the second oldest national park in the world, behind only Yellowstone. Despite this, the forests and amazing animals of the park, most notably the mountain gorilla, are in a desperate fight for their survival.

The park, its rangers and field team have constantly been at war with militia groups and poachers alike. In 2007 seven mountain gorillas were killed in the park, which is shared between Rwanda, the DR Congo and Uganda. Conservationists blame the militias who have also looted property from rangers. Rebel groups such as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and Allied Democratic Force (ADF) guerillas from Uganda have plundered forest resources in the past. Not only that, but with the rapid increase in poaching activities compared to 2008, and the rise in demand for items such as ivory and rhino horn, Virunga Park, it’s inhabitants and rangers continue to fight an ongoing war.

Ranger burning snares in Virunga National Park

Poached Elephant carcass left in the Park

The bodies of Mountain Gorillas killed in the massacre of the Rugendo family in July 2007, Virunga National Park, DR Congo.

To learn more about the conflict or how you can help, please visit their site.

After the Great Fire in 64 AD devastated Rome and destroyed two-thirds of the city, Nero used created a new urban development plan, leading to Roman houses to be more spaced out, built in brick, and faced by porticos on wide roads.

Nero used from 100 to 300 acres of the land that was cleared away by the fire to build himself the Domus Aurea, also known as the “Golden House.” The Domus Aurea was built of brick and concrete and included a man-made lake. His 300 rooms were sheathed in polished white marble. The hallways were decorated almost entirely in gold. The stuccoed ceilings had semi-precious stones and veneers of ivory, and the walls were decorated with many frescoed trompe l’oeuil works. One of the rooms had frescoes of Romans who seemed to be looking at you through painted windows on the walls.

At the entrance of the main palace by the terminus of Via Appia is a colossal bronze statue of Nero. Pliny the Elder writes about the resemblance he saw between Nero and the sun god Sol, and shortly after Nero’s death, the face of the statue was modified to appear more like Sol’s.

Since the Domus Aurea was such a severe embarrassment to Nero’s successors after his death, the palace and grounds were filled in with earth. Within a decade, the Domus Aurea was stripped of its marble, jewels, and ivory.

In 79 BC, Trajan built the Baths of Titus on part of the Domus Aurea site. Also, Emperor Vespasian tore down large parts of Domus Aurea and built the Flavian Amphitheatre on the site of the man-made lake, in the middle of the palace grounds. The Baths of Trajan and the Temple of Venus and Roma were built on the site as well.