Weird and weirder...!

[Avril]

[PigsnieLite]

Do you believe it? Ive seen how some fake fakirs do it in India -- artful use of robes hiding metal seat -- so I dont know about this one. I always think the levitating dude might be in cahoots wid the cameraman. Its sad that I am always suspicious nowadays -- as far as magic is concerned anyway.

[Avril]

I think that's healthy scepticism.

How do you think Criss Angel does his public levitation tricks? Maybe like this: www.metacafe.com/watch/162401/criss_angel_spoiler/

[PigsnieLite]

Hurmmm .. a bit wobbly. Criss Angel probably does it better. But then, I am never amazed by anything Western magicians say becuz they haf access to lots of technology. Is there a video of Tibetan mystic?

[Avril]

I've not seen one, but I did see 'levitation' in a whole bunch of people that appeared to be a series of frog-like jumps on crossed knees. I'm afraid I was trying not to laugh.

[Avril]

This poor man...I thought Western medicine looked hopeful for curing him - unfortunately not.

The shocking ordeal of 'The Tree Man'

July 27, 2010 - 4:55PM The Sydney Morning Herald


Struck by a rare disease ... Dede Koswara with his father Ateng. Photo: Los Angeles Times

Inside a dim living room in the heart of the Javanese forest, Dede Koswara blankly examines his bulky hands, which have morphed to the size of catcher's mitts.

He shuffles along on blackened, bloated feet, a prisoner of his own mutinous body.

For years, the slender construction worker watched helplessly as his limbs broke out in a swath of grotesque barklike warts that sapped his energy and limited his mobility.

At one point, he seemed to sprout contorted yellow-brown branches a metre long. Koswara, it appeared, was becoming half-plant - turning into the verdant green jungle around him.

His mysterious ailment cost him his marriage, career and independence. Begging for coins, he ended up in a traveling freak show, enduring stares, known as the Tree Man of Java.

"They say I'm not human," the 39-year-old says softly. "Whatever they want to say, that's fine. I guess I am a Tree Man."

Then he got lucky. In 2007, after Koswara's picture was posted on the internet, a US dermatologist consulted in the case determined that he suffered from a bizarre medical double-whammy.

Koswara, he said, has the common human papilloma virus, a condition that usually causes small warts in sufferers. But he also has a rare immune deficiency that allowed the lesions to run wild, covering his face and eventually transforming his limbs with rootlike barnacles known as cutaneous horns.

"I'd never seen anything like it - under all those warts was the outline of a human being," said Anthony Gaspari, chairman of the department of dermatology at the University of Maryland's School of Medicine, who examined Koswara.

Gaspari thought he could help. Working with local doctors, he designed a drug treatment program.

Last year, Indonesian surgeons used an electric saw to cut off 5.8 kilograms of warts and decaying matter.

The results were astounding.

For the first time in a decade, Koswara could make out his toes and fingers.

Once again able to hold a pen, he began playing Sudoku and pecked out text messages on a mobile phone.

There was even talk about returning to work.

But complications developed when Koswara fell victim to a medical turf battle.

Indonesian health officials suspected Gaspari of taking blood and tissue samples abroad without authorisation to use them for commercial purposes.

Although Gaspari later smoothed over the misunderstanding, he has since left the medical team.

Since then, Koswara has suffered yet another setback.

After months in remission, his disease has begun to wage a counter-assault, the warts returning to cover his body at a faster rate than ever before.

Koswara was born healthy. But at age 10, after he fell and scraped his knee in the forest, small warts sprouted around the wound. Slowly, they spread to his feet and hands.

The young Koswara, a quiet, studied man, tried to lead a normal life, earning a reputation as a craftsman who renovated houses.

At age 18, he married a village girl and had two children.

But the warts continued to grow. As they thickened, his skin grew as rough as tree bark. While they didn't hurt or itch, they gave off a sickening odour.

They also limited his mobility. Eventually unable to even hold a hammer or walk a few steps without tiring, Koswara lost his job. His wife of 10 years walked out soon afterward, taking their son and daughter.

Koswara moved back home, where his parents bathed him each day and his mother made him shirts with zippers so he could dress himself with his clawlike hands.

In 1996, Indonesian health officials paid for his first surgery. Enduring a series of painful procedures, he remained in hospital for 16 months.

With no cure available, baffled doctors released Koswara to his village, where the warts worsened, spreading to his face.

One day, while he begged for coins in the nearby city of Bandung, Koswara met a carnival owner who hired him for a traveling freak show. He joined the man with the fish scales and the woman whose body was covered with bumps.

"We encouraged each other," he said of his fellow circus attractions. "People stared, they were afraid of us. But it was better than being at home, wasting time."

A photo of Koswara posted on the internet attracted the attention of documentary filmmakers, who consulted Gaspari to provide an answer to the medical mystery.

Under Gaspari's direction, doctors used chemotherapy to bring the virus under control - but the regimen was cut short after Koswara's liver began to fail.

For a few months, he tasted the fruits of independence without the cruel stares - only to have his freedom and dignity once again snatched away by a disease he does not understand.

"My body has again betrayed me," he says, "but what can I do?"

Los Angeles Times

[PigsnieLite]

Ive seen his fellow circus *freaks* too -- I wuz hoping they would also get help. I wish Discovery or National Geo would do something for them besides making them subjects of Freak of the Week tV specials.

[sunfrog]

Staff at one of Edinburgh’s spookiest tourist attractions have been left mystified after a ghostly figure showed up in the photographs of two separate tourists.
news.stv.tv/scotland/east-central/187997-mystery-as-ghost-appears-in-two-photos-from-edinburgh-tours/

[PigsnieLite]

Waaah, its sech a teensy picture! [PLite squints at his computer, nearly upsetting his papa's orange juice.]

[Avril]

Meh, publicity stunt!

[PigsnieLite]

Well, Ive been to Kings Close and I didnt like it one bit. Plus Ive seen videos.

[PigsnieLite]

His Squeely Baseball Capped Holiness!

[PigsnieLite]

Most Giganto Fish Ever Caught! Mekong Giant Catfish caught in Cambodia in 2005, 645 pounds, 9 foot long.

[Avril]

Wow, a lot of villagers will hopefully have a great feast with that giant. I sure hope it's tasty.

[Wart]

My wife loves watching these cable tv schows on Monster Fish or Giant Fish Hunter or Fish Warrior or something like that on Animal Planet. And there's this show about a bunch of scientists tagging great whites.



Not a fish