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July 11: The moon passes between the sun and the earth during a solar eclipse in Valparaiso City, 75 miles (121 km) northwest of Santiago. The effect was created by shooting part of the image through a piece of exposed X-ray film.

See the full FOX news slide show of the eclipse on Sunday, and in 2009.

Today we may know what causes an eclipse but in ancient times, the explanations were perhaps more inventive or fantastic.

Animals and the reigning mythology of the time and area made for startling tales. In Argentina it was said that a jaguar ate the sun while in Vietnam, it was thought that a giant frog swallowed the fiery ball. A dragon took the honours in India, Indonesia and China, while in Siberia the tales were of sun-swallowing vampires.

ALZHEIMER’S IS a state of mind, of brain, that some people fear more than death itself – whether for themselves or family, partners. It puts a barrier between what we know of a person and our way of getting to know more of them. It confounds communication, blurs memory, sows confusion, produces apparently inexplicable outbursts, nonsensical pieces of expression. Pieces of seemingly unconnected life experience are tossed the way of the caregivers, lovers, friends. It is, in a bizarre way, the poetry of the mind taken to Dadaism.

So why not use poetry as conduit, bridge, translator?

The Alzheimer’s Poetry Project, founded by New York poet Gary Glazner, is not built on the traditional, stand-at-the-podium-and-read poetry recital. Rather, it uses the simple rhymes typically learned in childhood or whimsical works created on the spot with audience participation. The facilitator moves among the seniors, holding their hands, touching their shoulders, gently prodding them to share their thoughts, reawakening long-ago memories.

Silver sketches wants and needs
around blackness,
a frivolity:
a hem, a trimming, a detail
beautifully executed

Rendered light, complex
gradients, fool
the eye -
just so much heavy air
slowly greying

We, caught without
shelter, in a burgeoning
flood, gnaw at
hope

This year has been a wading,
a drowning;
light breaks water
sometimes, or an object
falling
that won’t float

HAITI NEEDS all the help it can get, and everyone is talking the big talk, from Brangelina, Sandra Bullock and other stars pledging millions to help the island, to the Obama-Bush-Clinton plea for dollars to go to the island.

But what about hidden agendas? How will the United Nations and other feet on the ground cope with the lack of infrastructure and resulting distribution obstacles, security concerns? Most of all, how soon will the people stuck in devastation while politicians are fighting over logistics and a bigger say in what gets done, when?

Al Jazeera’s Inside Story asks: Has the world failed Haiti?

.

THE REPUBLIC of Haiti sits side by side with the Dominican Republic on the island of Hispaniola, between the islands of Cuba to the west, and Puerto Rico to the east. On his voyages in 1492 and 1493 Christopher Columbus founded the first European colonies; now Hispaniola, one of the largest islands in the world, is the most populous island in the Americas and the 10th most populous in the world.

Because of its location, the island is a prime target for colonisation, plunder of its natural resources, and strategic occupation. It is also vulnerable to natural disasters like the 2008 hurricanes Gustav, Hanna and Ike, since it sits directly in the hurricane, and prone to devastating earthquakes sometimes occurring many decades apart (e.g. 1751, 1770, 1842, 1946).

IF THE latest allegations by an Italian shutterfly are true, beleaguered celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz isn’t as original as her reputation would have us believe.

Celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz is being sued by an Italian photographer who says she used his pictures without permission. [...]

According to legal papers filed at a New York federal court, Mr Pizzetti said Ms Leibovitz, 59, hired him to scout locations in Italy for an advertising campaign for Lavazza coffee in April 2008.

He said he photographed the Trevi Fountain in Rome and Plaza San Marco in Venice as well as other images which he sent to her digitally, but was later informed Ms Leibovitz would not be travelling to Italy for the photo shoot.

Mr Pizzetti said that in October, when the calendar was released, he noticed two of his photographs had been used, with models superimposed on it.

IN 2005 Neill Blomkamp made a six-minute film that highlights xenophobia and social segregation in South Africa. But instead of using colour as the basis for examining the mechanics of discrimination, Blomkamp’s scenario, set in 1990 when Apartheid was still in effect, has extraterrestrial refugees as the unwanted in South Africa.

The documentary-style Alive in Joburg runs for six minutes and has become known as much for its special effects — remarkable for a short film with a limited budget — as for its subject matter.

More remarkable however is that, according to Blomkamp, all the interview statements which do not explicitly mention extraterrestrials were taken from actual interviews with South Africans:

I was asking black South Africans about black Nigerians and Zimbabweans. That’s actually where the idea came from [...] There are aliens living in South Africa [.] I asked “What do you feel about Zimbabwean Africans living here?” And those answers — they weren’t actors, those are real answers…

YESTERDAY SARAH PALIN announced she was stepping down as governor of Alaska. Her reasons were varied and not presented in a truly convincing, coherent manner.

While the straight-talking former small-town mayor didn’t indicate what she would do after she leaves office this month, Palin’s rambling exit statement offered clues about her political ambitions.

She says she wants to help Republicans win. That means she’s could raise money and earn favors for another campaign.

She says she wants to travel. That means she could to find her way into high-value political centers such as Manchester, N.H., and Des Moines, Iowa.

She says the media are against her. That suggests she’s casting herself as a victim again, a move right out of her campaign playbook.

She says she wants to better serve Alaska by stepping down as its governor. That means she’s going to again buck the system and try to wrap herself in the cloak of change that helped Barack Obama win the White House.

IN THE US there are around 400 apostolic religious institutes of women and some 59,000 “women religious”, in other words, nuns. This year the Vatican is investigating the conduct of U.S. nuns through two “visitations” of religious orders and an umbrella organization.

Mother Clare Millea, Superior General of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, has been appointed to serve as the Apostolic Visitator.

According to Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Women Religious in the United States website, their approach will be undertaken in four phases with the object of examining quality of life, societal impact on the women religious and the nature of their religious works, while protecting the integrity of the church.

But reaction from US nuns has been mixed:

While some nuns say they are grateful that the Vatican is finally paying attention to their dwindling communities, many fear that the real motivation is to reel in American nuns who have reinterpreted their calling for the modern world.

IN WORLD WAR II, America’s women pilots took to the air for the US army, but they received little in the way of either compensation or recognition.

The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) pilots each already had a pilot’s license and were trained in military aviation at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas. More than 25,000 women applied for WASP service; fewer than 1,900 were accepted and those who were, paid their own way to Texas for the months of rigorous military training.

Some 1,078 women earned their wings becoming the first women in history to fly American military aircraft — but for $250 a month. They were not officially part of the military. They received no benefits. They were not honored — until now:

President Obama on Wednesday signed a measure awarding the 300 surviving Women Airforce Service Pilots from World War II the Congressional Gold Medal. [...]

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