Pirates - and - Pirates of the Most Ferocious Kind

Given the press coverage about the Somalian pirates off the coast of Africa of late (I find it difficult to believe that the civilized world cannot deal with these criminals once and for all, for Goddessake!), here is a timely article giving a brief history of pirates.

Female pirates - the article mentions two: Anne Bonny and Mary Read (there were more). Some fascinating information about these two female pirates can be found at:

• The Legend of Anne and Mary, by Krewe of Bonney Read
• Wikipedia entry on Anne Bonny (quite sensational)
• Ahoy Matey, That Pirate Has Breasts!, a bio of Anne Bonny by Deanna J. Jones
• Anne Bonny, from Geographica.com

• Life in a Man's World: Mary Read, by Deanna J. Jones
• Wikipedia entry on Mary Read
• Mary Read, Fearless Female Pirate, by Henry Ramsager
• Mistresses of the Sea: Female Pirates Mary Read and Anne Bonny

Waldseemueller: How Did He Know What He Knew?

I am fascinated by the subject of ancient maps. A few very old maps have proven to be quite accurate according to modern-day measurements and techniques. How did those map mapers of the Renaissance know what they knew? Did early explorers record much more accurate details then we give them credit for? Were much older maps - that no longer exist - copied, even though not accurately understood at the time? If so, who made these older maps - and when?

The above isn't the best image of the Waldseemueller Map, but I like it because it it shaped in such a way to show that it should fit over a globe. Compare The Waldseemueller Map to the controversial map said to have been compiled during the voyages of General Zheng He of China dated to 1418. Gavin Menzies wrote an equally controversial book a few years ago about the General's voyages that took him around the world before any of the known European navigators made the trip. Of course, there are always the Phoenicians...

The Waldseemueller Map of the world is now owned by the United States of America and is ensconced in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Here is the story from The Washington Post:

16th-Century Mapmaker's Intriguing Knowledge
By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 17, 2008; Page A07

How was it that a German priest writing in Latin and living in a French city far from the coast became the first person to tell the world that a vast ocean lay to the west of the American continents?

That is one of the bigger mysteries in the history of the Renaissance.

But it is not the only one involving Martin Waldseemueller, a map-making cleric whose own story is sufficiently obscure that his birth and death dates aren't known for certain.

Waldseemueller appears to have also known something about the contours of South America's west coast years before Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and Ferdinand Magellan sailed around the bottom of the continent. History books record them as the first Europeans to bring back knowledge of the Pacific Ocean.

The evidence of this knowledge is in Waldseemueller's world map of 1507, perhaps the most valuable of the 5 million maps owned by the Library of Congress. It was acquired for $10 million in 2003 and went on permanent display last year.

The map -- in near-perfect condition and with no other known copies -- is the oldest document that applies the label "America" to the land mass between Africa and Asia.

This was, of course, in honor of Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine navigator who had sailed to the New World for the Portuguese. (His first name was Latinized to "Americus" and then feminized to "America.") The act of naming was apparently Waldseemueller's alone; there is no evidence that the term was in use at the time.

New research by John W. Hessler of the Library of Congress has made the mystery of Waldseemueller's knowledge deeper and richer. But it hasn't answered the biggest question: How did he know?

"There is some probability that Waldseemueller knew something that is no longer extant -- information that we don't have," Hessler said.

The researcher, 48, brings a diverse set of skills to the task. He took Latin all through parochial school and college (at Villanova University) and reads the language fluently. He is an engineer by training and is equally fluent in the mathematics of cartography.

In a new book called "The Naming of America," Hessler provides the first published translation of the map's text blocks. He has also done a modern translation of Waldseemueller's book, "Cosmographiae Introductio," printed in 1507 in St. Die, France, where the cartographer was canon of the cathedral. Although Waldseemueller gets most of the credit for the map and the book, he had a collaborator, an Alsatian named Matthias Ringmann, who died in 1511.

In the largest block of text on the map, Waldseemueller writes that many things remained unknown to the ancients "in no slight degree; for instance, in the west, America, named after its discoverer, which is now known to be a fourth part of the world." In "Cosmographiae," he uses similar language: "The earth is now known to be divided into four parts. The first three parts are continents, but the fourth part is an island, because it has been found to be surrounded on all sides by sea."

Hessler said he thinks the phrases "now known" and "has been found to be" are crucial. They suggest geographical knowledge that is confirmed and believed, at least in some circles.

"The idea that this was a total guess is far-fetched," he said.

The people who knew were most likely Portuguese explorers (or at least sailed under the Portuguese flag). It was valuable, and most likely secret, knowledge. How it got to a priest-cartographer working under the patronage of the duke of Lorraine is a good question.

Equally intriguing is the shape of South America.

Inscribed along the western edge of that land mass in the 1507 map are the words "terra ultra incognita" -- land most unknown. But the border is not drawn as one long, ignorantly straight line. Instead, it is a series of straight lines meeting at shallow angles, implying a mixture of knowledge and uncertainty.

Using a technique called "polynomial warping," Hessler re-projected the image and compared Waldseemueller's continent with the real one.

There are many differences, of course. But the correlation is about 75 percent, and at two important places -- near the equator and near the place in northern Chile where the coast veers sharply to the northwest -- the width of Waldseemueller's South America and the actual one are almost the same.

Things were perhaps not as ultra incognita as he let on.

That is not the end of the strangeness, however.

In the large text block on the map, Waldseemueller requests "that
those who are inexperienced and unacquainted with cosmography shall not condemn all this before they have learned what will surely be clearer to them later on, when they have come to understand it."

It is a plea. He knows his map is asking a lot.

In 1516, Waldseemueller published his second great map, called the Carta Marina. It shows South America no longer as an island. The continent disappears off the left of the page, implying it is attached to Asia, which is on the right edge.

Hessler has provided the first English translations of the second map's text blocks. In one of them, Waldseemueller says: "We will seem to you reader, to have diligently presented and shown a representation of the world previously, which was filled with error, wonder and confusion. . . . Our previous representation pleased very few people, as we have lately come to understand."

Was this a retraction? It sounds like it. Was a continental America heresy? Hessler said he has found no reason to think it was. So why would Waldseemueller change his new view of the world to an older one?

That's just one more mystery of the mysterious map.

The Valencian "Holy Grail"

I had no idea that Valencia (Spain) laid claim to having the true Holy Grail. Is there even agreement among scholars about what the "Holy Grail" really is and whether it still might exist? This image of the Valencian Grail is from the BBC website on British History - it dates the chalice to the 8th century CE, and identifies it as part of the loot taken by Crusaders during the pillage of Byzantium in 1207 (so much for being true Christians, raping the city where the last true vestiages of original Christianity lay).

Here's the story - fascinating stuff - and it's not even "The Da Vinci Code!"

From Catholic.net
Scholars Urge More Research on Holy Grail
VALENCIA, Spain, NOV. 24, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Though no one knows if Valencia's grail is the true Last Supper chalice, a group of experts says it has tremendous cultural value due to its impact on history and literature.

This was affirmed by members of the international congress "Valencia, City of the Holy Grail," focusing on the chalice traditionally associated with the institution of the Eucharist.

The congress was held Nov. 7-9 at the Catholic University of Valencia and was organized by the Archdiocese of Valencia, the cathedral’s metropolitan chapter, the Catholic University of Valencia, the Spanish Center for Sindonology, the Royal Brotherhood, and the Holy Chalice Confraternity.

Experts from several countries attended the congress. They gave presentations on the ways in which this relic has marked history and literature since its move from Rome to Spain by Lawrence the Martyr in the year 258, as held by tradition.

The body of existing data points to the Valencia grail as the most probable authentic chalice of Christ.

Unique
Antonio Beltrán, professor of archaeology at the University of Zaragoza, noted that the cup is formed by a deep red agate, called "Oriental carnelian," with streaks in the form of flames. By its material he asserts that it must come from a workshop in Palestine, Syria or Egypt between the fourth century B.C. and the first century A.D. The subsequent additions, such as the precious stones and the frame, date from the 13th or 14th century.

Jorge Manuel Rodríguez, president of the Spanish Center for Sindonology, explained that although films have always shown "a wooden Holy Grail, […] that material did not comply with the norms of purification of the Jews."

Another element discussed by the scholars was the journey of the chalice from Rome to Valencia. The experts affirmed that if the chalice arrived in Rome from Jerusalem, it was most likely taken by the Apostle Peter himself.

Jaime Sancho, president of the liturgy commission of the Archdiocese of Valencia, presented a datum that supports the theory that the first popes celebrated the Eucharist with the same chalice that Jesus used.

Sancho explained that in the Roman Canon, which dates back to the second century, it says literally at the moment of consecration "and, taking this glorious chalice in his holy and venerable hands," instead of "the chalice."

This and other proofs contributed by Sancho demonstrate the existence in Rome of a unique chalice.

This was affirmed by José Vicente Martínez, professor of ancient history at the University of Valencia, and American researcher Janice Bennet, doctor in Spanish literature. They both spoke about Pope Sixtus II, martyred in Rome during Valerian’s persecution, entrusting the Holy Grail to Deacon Lawrence to protect it from the emperor.

A manuscript by St. Donatus told of this event, said Bennet, as well as the fact that Lawrence was a native of Valencia, not Huesca, as traditionally believed.

Several presenters gave historical proofs of the presence of the chalice in Spain over many centuries, from the study of various annals and paintings.

German anthropologist Michael Hesemann stated that "as opposed to what many think, the grail legends did not begin with the Anglo-Saxon accounts of King Arthur, but in the rooted tradition that says that the chalice of the Last Supper was already in Spain in the Middle Ages."

Faith and science
The researchers were practically unanimous in supporting research on the chalice with modern scientific techniques to determine its origin, though they emphasized that its religious value does not depend on the resulting discoveries.

Miguel Navarro, doctor in church history from Rome’s Gregorian University, stated that the chalice "is not a magical object, but consecrated by Jesus' use of it and by the faith that perceives it as such, which has great religious value, regardless of the fact that it cannot be proved with absolute scientific certainty that it is the Lord’s chalice."

Relics, he added, are not "simple keepsakes, but something more valuable: palpable evidence of the reality of the human or historical event on which our faith is based, as salvation takes place in history, in the flesh."

Moreover, Father Manuel Carreira, doctor of physical sciences, added that science and faith "are not opposed." However, he specified that "although science can give an explanation of all this, it cannot demonstrate anything literally about what happens in the Eucharist."

Navarro added that the chalice "insofar as relic, is beyond and above science, because its primordial significance belongs to the realm of faith, which does not mean that we approach it in an anti-scientific or fundamentalist way." Rather, "we have the obligation to study it scientifically in its materiality."

Benedict XVI used the chalice during the Mass with which he concluded the World Meeting of Families in Valencia in July, 2006. Pope John Paul II also used it in his visit to the city.

© 2008 Zenit. All rights reserved. Terms of Use available at http://www.zenit.org/

Looks Like...

Uma Thurman... (photo of Uma Thurman from December, 2007, by Odd Andersen)

From The Times
November 26, 2008
Only known painting of Lucrezia Borgia discovered in Australian gallery

Anne Barrowclough in Sydney
A mysterious Renaissance portrait that has hung in an Australian art gallery for 43 years has been identified as potentially the only painting in existence of the infamous femme fatale Lucrezia Borgia

Over four decades after the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) took possession of the oval painting, entitled Portrait of a Youth by an unknown artist, the gallery's director revealed the painting today as a work by the Renaissace artist Dosso Dossi.

"What was previously a portrait of an unknown sitter by an unidentified artist now seems likely to be one of the most significant portraits surviving from the Renaissance, by one of the great Northern Italian painters", said Gerard Vaughan.

He said the portrait could be worth "many millions."

"Dosso Dossi is a very important painter but not known to the general public so it's an important discovery for the art world but the really important thing for the general public is that we have the only known portrait of the most famous and notorious woman in Renaissance history," he said.

Bought by the NGV in 1965, the oval painting mystified experts who always believed it to be of a young male. [Say what? Darlings, I'm no expert, to be sure, but it sure looks like a femme to me!]

But two years of scientific analysis and art history research in Italy, Australia and the US, carried out by the gallery's curator Carl Villis led him to conclude that it could only be of Lucrezia Borgia, painted by Giovanni di Niccolo de Luteri, better known as Dosso Dossi, a contemporary of Titian, Raphael and Michelangelo.

Lucrezia Borgia was the Duchess of Ferrara from 1502 - 1519 but as the illegitimate daughter of the murderous Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, her name, as with all the Borgias, became synonymous with villainy.

Mr. Villis said at first he thought it was "preposterous" that the subject of the painting could be Lucrezia Borgia. "It was the last thing I expected when I started out on the whole process," he told The Times.

Analysis of the painting's pigments indicated that it was most probably painted by Dossi, he said. The clues to the subject of the portrait lay in the detail of the painting. The myrtle bush, highly symbolic in Renaissance painting, refers to the goddess Venus which indicated the figure was a woman, not a man as originally thought. An inscripton at the bottom of the portrait refers to virtue and beauty, another code for the female identity of the sitter.

The dagger held by the figure, although unheard of in Renaissance portraits of women, symbolised the Roman heroine Lucrezia, renowned for plunging a dagger into her chest after being raped by the son of the King of Rome.

While these were interesting but circumstantial pieces of evidence, Mr Villis said one of the deciding factors was the similarity between the portrait and a bronze portrait medal of Lucrezia Borgia, made in 1502 and which remains the only reliable likeness of her features.

"It has been very exciting to unlock the secrets of this beautiful and enigmatic painting, which now has unique standing in view of the fame of its sitter and the strength of the artist," "When you align the details side by side, the facial features are very similar," he said.

David Hulme, a Sydney art expert and valuer, decribed the find as "exciting and extraordinary."

"It's probably worth millions," he said. The last work of Dossi's sold in London in 1999 for £900,000.

There are other portraits which have been said to be of Lucrezia Borgia, but none have been accepted by scholars.

A year ago, the NGV was hugely embarrassed after it was revealed that it had wrongly attributed a painting by an unknown Dutch painter to Vincent Van Gogh.

While this portrait has not been authenticated by other art scholars, Mr Villis said he "has not met anyone who disagreed" with with his discovery. "We are putting it out there so people can consider the ideas behind it," he said.

Busy (and Profitable) Year for Treasure Hunters

Busy year for UK treasure hunters
November 19, 2008

There has been a significant rise in the number of valuable artefacts found by amateur treasure hunters in Britain.

The British Museum says the number of finds containing gold and silver rose by 12.6% to 749 in the last 12 months.

The most valuable discovery was a rare Iron Age necklace found near Newark in Nottinghamshire and worth £350,000.

Experts say the rise is due to the growing popularity of metal detectors and the legal obligation on treasure hunters to report their finds.

Any finds of gold and silver more than 300 years old are legally treasure trove and must be declared and valued by the government's Treasure Valuation Committee. All such treasures ultimately belong to the Crown.

Gold coins
The new figures were revealed in the British Museum's annual report of treasure.

It said the total number of finds was 1,257, which included objects from 2005 and 2006 that have now passed through the treasure process.

In 2001, the report documented just 200 treasures.

The prize find, the gold and silver Iron Age necklace or torc, is believed to be about 2,000 years old. It was unearthed by a man who was looking for parts of crashed World War II aircraft and is the most valuable single item to be discovered by a member of the public for more than a decade.

Its discovery has forced historians and archaeologists to re-think the importance of the Trent Valley area.

Culture minister Barbara Follett said: "The treasures of the past that are found in the fields, farms and fells across the United Kingdom are vital pieces in the jigsaw puzzle of our history."

She also singled out former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman as an "obsessive treasure finder". Mr Wyman has a section dedicated to archaeology on his website.

The oldest object found in the last year was a long, cigar-shaped piece of gold found by a man detecting near Winchester, Hampshire. It is believed to be Bronze Age, potentially dating from as far back as 1500BC.

Among the other discoveries were a gold and garnet Anglo-Saxon "mount" artefact and a collection of more than 3,500 Roman coins.

The Treasure Act in 1996 ruled that finders and landowners would be eligible for rewards for finds. Museums have since reported a 10-fold increase in items of treasure offered to them.

Ancient Georgian Treasures on Display

The Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge University, England, is hosting a one-of-a-kind display of 140 artifacts excavated from the ancient kingdom of Colchis (in modern-day Georgia), many never seen outside of museums in Georgia before. The exhibit is called "From the Land of the Golden Fleece: Tomb Treasures of Ancient Georgia." The exhibit ends soon, on January 4, 2009.

Incredibly intricate and beautiful, reflecting the work of master crafstmen and cross-cultural influences, take a look at the images at the online display at the Fitzwilliam Museum. Here is a link showing some of the artifacts excavated from four 4th century BCE graves in and near the ancient city of Vani. This gold bead necklace is from Grave number 9, c. 330-300 BCE.

2008 World Seniors' Chess Championship

From TWIC, results of the Women's Senior CC, October 28 - November 9, 2008. Here is a link to the final cross-table for the Women's standings. The women's countries were not listed in the final cross-table at the official website, which is really stupid! I want to know where the players were from without having to check at FIDE player lists for each one individually. Photo from official website: WFM Tamara Vilerte, 2008 Women's Seniors CC winner. Top three Women's Senior CC finishers:

1 Vilerte,Tamara WFM 8 51.5
2 Strutinskaya,Galina WIM 7.5 52
3 Fomina,Tatyana WIM 7.5 45

Are Basque Relics Frauds?

Story from the Guardian.co.uk
Oh no. (Calvary image from June, 2006)

Finds that made Basques proud are fake, say experts
Giles Tremlett in Madrid
Monday November 24 2008 00.01 GMT

It was hailed as an archeological discovery of global importance showing, among other things, the oldest representation of Christ on the cross and proof that ancient Egyptian influences had survived deep in Roman Spain.

For traditional Basques the pictures, symbols and words found scraped onto pieces of third century pottery dug up near the town of Nanclares, in northern Spain, included miraculous evidence that their unique language of Euskara was far older than ever thought.

Eighteen months ago the dig's director, Eliseo Gil, claimed that some finds at the Roman town known as Veleia were on par with those at Pompeii or Rome itself. Basque nationalists bristled with pride. This archeological jewel gave them a far greater claim to a distinctive, millennial and Christian culture than they had dreamed possible.

Now a committee of experts has revealed those jewels to be fakes. "They are either a joke or a fraud," said Martín Almagro, a professor in prehistory from Madrid. "How has something like this been taken seriously for so long?" [Who are these experts? Are they Spanish? Are they Basque? Are they of other nationalities who do not have regional politics as their number one agenda???]

The hunt is on for an archeological fraudster who defaced fragments of third century pottery with fake graffiti. [An assumption not yet proven].

The fraudster seems either to have buried the pieces or planted them in a laboratory where experts sifted through finds. [Really?] The fakes left the first people to see them swooning.

The Calvary scene was hailed as both the nearest thing mankind had to a contemporary pictorial account of the crucifixion, and proof that Basques had been relatively early Christians.

The words in Euskera, if genuine, would have predated by 700 years the previous earliest known written form of the language. The hieroglyphics caused speculation about the existence of third century Egyptologists [oh please - why use such a loaded word "Egyptologist" - why is it not possible that third century Egyptians who were Coptic Christians were in the area at the time? We know there was long-term trade between Egypt and Spain dating back thousands of years] who might have created the inscriptions to teach children.

Now experts who have studied the pieces in depth say the fakes, some of which used modern glue [Was modern glue simply used to hold pieces of shards together? Why would this make the inscriptions a fraud?], should have rung warning bells immediately.

References were found to non-existent gods [really? If these gods were not know before from prior references, how do these experts know they are non-existent?], 19th-century names [again, really? place names always present complications in archaeological digs but are often used to substantiate other evidence of antiquity] and even to the 17th-century philosopher Descartes [note that no quotes were provided to substantiate this claim].

Words in Euskara used impossible spellings. [Really? Who are these experts in this ancient language? Have they ever studied ancient spellings in English? The variety of spellings is amazing! Indeed, I believe that in English for instance, standardized spellings weren't established until the 20th century!] The hieroglyphs included references to Queen Nefertiti which would have been almost impossible to make prior to the 19th century. [Really? If the people who were doing the inscriptions had actual knowledge, then it wouldn't be so unusual; it's just us so-called modern westerners who didn't have knowledge of Queen Neftertiti until the 19th century; that doesn't mean other people prior to our time didn't know about her. That's a really arrogant assumption to make, tsk tsk.]

The Calvary scene, meanwhile, included the inscription "RIP". "It is a formula that can only be applied to people who are dead," Almagro told El Correo newspaper. "To say that Jesus Christ is dead would be a heresy. I haven't seen anything quite so funny in the whole history of Christianity." [Well, I don't know about that; Christ actually did die on that cross, otherwise the whole premise of Christianity, i.e., that Christ rose from the dead 3 days after he died, would be a big lie! What else would people put in a Calvary scene representing where Christ died, but RIP?]

Local authorities and sponsors from Basque public companies have poured hundreds of thousands of euros into excavations. Last week they closed the dig temporarily. Eliseo Gil did not return calls from the Guardian but sources said those in charge were not yet fully convinced that their finds were fake.

******************

Based on what is presented in this story, it seems to me that some "experts" are attacking that which would cast their prior academic conclusions into question. If you think that Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, you haven't seen anything to compare to a previously published academician's pet theories scorned!

If these shards are the word of a fraudster, then it was a rather ignorant fraudster. If, as the story implies, it was someone who had access to the dig site and/or the storage facilities for artifacts recovered from the dig, it seems to imply that someone working on the dig is the guilty party. But who would be so stupid as to use modern references in an attempt to fool "experts?" And I still do not get the mention of the use of "modern glue" - just how does that prove that these certain inscribed shards are frauds?

Book Reveals Harsh Reality of Arabic Women

Story from The Korea Times/Arts and Living Section
11-28-2008 22:14

By Chung Ah-young
Staff Reporter
Arabic modern literature has been rarely introduced into Korean publications due to the lack of common values and its exotic background.

But "The Golden Chariot,'' which has been recently published in Korean translated directly from Arabic, is drawing attention as it focuses on the Arabic women's lives under a male-dominated society.

Written by Salwa Bakr, one of Egypt's most respected novelists and short story writers, the book uses Arabic literary values weaving tales together into a contemporary "Arabian Nights.''

Bakr, also known as a feminist, who visited Korea to attend a Korea-Arab literature forum from Nov. 17 to 18, said that she wants to shed light on the male-dominated social system through literature.

"Women's stories in my novel are not only for the Arabic society but also for other societies as almost every civilization has grown based on the male-oriented system in agrarian culture. Particularly, the male-dominated system is prevalent in Asian countries. So I think that can win sympathy from my novel,'' Bakr said.

The novel revolves around 15 women in a prison in Egypt and the motives behind the crimes. An Alexandrian woman Aziza is serving a life sentence for the murder of her mother's husband. She killed the man who seduced her, after her mother's death when he took another woman as his new wife despite his promises to Aziza.

In her cell, Aziza imagines a golden chariot to take her to heaven so that her wishes and dreams come true. But she decides to take other fellow prisoners who deserve a free ride to paradise. Aziza, who is described as a woman obsessed with such an illusion, listens to the stories of her fellow prisoners to select them to ride in the chariot.

Her fellow prisoners were imprisoned for various crimes, including murder, theft, and drug-dealing. Um Ragab is behind bars as she resorted to pick pocketing to support her children. Hana killed her husband one night by leaving on the gas after suffering abuse from him for 45 years as a sexual slave and domestic help. Azima, depicted as a tall woman, became a naddaba (professional mourner), then a vocal performer for religious celebrations and finally a popular singer. She killed her abusive lover. Huda is the 16-year-old youngest prisoner; Zaynab Mansur is well educated; while Shafiqa had been a beggar. Um al-Khayr was a peasant likened to a Pharaonic goddess, and Gamalat assaulted her sister's would-be boyfriend. Various characters in the prison who have suffered from harsh reality pushing them to have no choice but to commit a crime are all to get on board Aziza's golden chariot to the heavens.

The novel focuses on how the women came to the prisons and the salvation they need, symbolized by the golden chariot. But Aziza dies in the last chapter just as she prepares for the chariot's departure.

As the novel's title suggests, the chariot does not ascend to the heavens. It means rather than salvation through a golden chariot to the heavens imagined by Aziza in prison, the author suggests real-life salvation comes from the social and political change begun by the women themselves.

Bakr's is a sarcastic and cynical look at how women of different backgrounds ― some guilty and some innocent ― get together in prison. It is in line with her writing, which mostly depicts life at the grassroots of Egypt's culture, urging women to liberate themselves from poverty and inequality.

Through The Golden Chariot, readers are able to see the injustices of a transitional Arabic society. At the same time, it offers a glimpse of their yearning and longing for a better life. The author also depicts the difficulty that these societies face as honest means rarely solve anything.

Bakr has been concerned about repression in all spheres of Egyptian life and in particular the political sphere. However, she believes that both men and women can be liberated through the contribution of women's writing.

She says that Arabic is a male-dominated language and that "women should create a language for themselves.''

She does not believe in conflict between men and women, but rather sees both genders as victims of traditional society.Born in Cairo in 1949, the daughter of a railway worker, Bakr took a degree in business management in 1972 at Ain Shams University and in literary criticism in 1976 before embarking on a career in journalism.

Her short stories began to appear in the press during the 1970s and her work has been met with much critical acclaim.

Blue Eyed Mummy and Cannabis in Ancient Chinese Grave

I had no idea that most strains of cannabis today originated in China! Fascinating article - and more of those troublesome blue-eyed certainly Caucasian mummies (this one was most likely a shaman) showing up in the far northwest region of China. [Map - shows how close Turpan a/k/a Turfan is to Urumchi a/k/a Urumqi - see prior posts under Mummies of Urumchi: (1) (2)].

Story from The Canadia Press.com
Researchers find oldest-ever stash of marijuana
1 day ago

OTTAWA — Researchers say they have located the world's oldest stash of marijuana, in a tomb in a remote part of China.

The cache of cannabis is about 2,700 years old and was clearly "cultivated for psychoactive purposes," rather than as fibre for clothing or as food, says a research paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany.

The 789 grams of dried cannabis was buried alongside a light-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian man, likely a shaman of the Gushi culture, near Turpan in northwestern China.

The extremely dry conditions and alkaline soil acted as preservatives, allowing a team of scientists to carefully analyze the stash, which still looked green though it had lost its distinctive odour.

"To our knowledge, these investigations provide the oldest documentation of cannabis as a pharmacologically active agent," says the newly published paper, whose lead author was American neurologist Dr. Ethan B. Russo.

Remnants of cannabis have been found in ancient Egypt and other sites, and the substance has been referred to by authors such as the Greek historian Herodotus. But the tomb stash is the oldest so far that could be thoroughly tested for its properties.

The 18 researchers, most of them based in China, subjected the cannabis to a battery of tests, including carbon dating and genetic analysis. Scientists also tried to germinate 100 of the seeds found in the cache, without success.
The marijuana was found to have a relatively high content of THC, the main active ingredient in cannabis, but the sample was too old to determine a precise percentage.

Researchers also could not determine whether the cannabis was smoked or ingested, as there were no pipes or other clues in the tomb of the shaman, who was about 45 years old.

The large cache was contained in a leather basket and in a wooden bowl, and was likely meant to be used by the shaman in the afterlife.

"This materially is unequivocally cannabis, and no material has previously had this degree of analysis possible," Russo said in an interview from Missoula, Mont.

"It was common practice in burials to provide materials needed for the afterlife. No hemp or seeds were provided for fabric or food. Rather, cannabis as medicine or for visionary purposes was supplied."

The tomb also contained bridles, archery equipment and a harp, confirming the man's high social standing.

Russo is a full-time consultant with GW Pharmaceuticals, which makes Sativex, a cannabis-based medicine approved in Canada for pain linked to multiple sclerosis and cancer.

The company operates a cannabis-testing laboratory at a secret location in southern England to monitor crop quality for producing Sativex, and allowed Russo use of the facility for tests on 11 grams of the tomb cannabis.

Researchers needed about 10 months to cut red tape barring the transfer of the cannabis to England from China, Russo said.

The inter-disciplinary study was published this week by the British-based botany journal, which uses independent reviewers to ensure the accuracy and objectivity of all submitted papers.

The substance has been found in two of the 500 Gushi tombs excavated so far in northwestern China, indicating that cannabis was either restricted for use by a few individuals or was administered as a medicine to others through shamans, Russo said.

"It certainly does indicate that cannabis has been used by man for a variety of purposes for thousands of years."

Russo, who had a neurology practice for 20 years, has previously published studies examining the history of cannabis.

"I hope we can avoid some of the political liabilities of the issue," he said, referring to his latest paper.

The region of China where the tomb is located, Xinjiang, is considered an original source of many cannabis strains worldwide.

Copyright © 2008 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Shopping on Black Friday!

Ohmygoddess - I can't believe my sister and I actually went shopping today! We must be crazy!

The mall was packed! We had a ball together. We're about the same size so we were able to comb the racks together for things in our size. I was on the hunt for new shoes and a few more mock turtlenecks or a sweater or two for myself. I bought two pairs of shoes, a new pair of cushy mittens, a new pair of brown slacks (my old ones wore out and I remembered I wanted a new pair), a scented Christmas candle and Christmas sweater for myself, and gifts for two people at the office that I got the most incredible deals on! Three wonderfully scented six-inch candles for one gift; and three highly decorated small wooden boxes for the other gift. The boxes cost $10 - unbelievable. The three scented candles cost me what one would normally cost and were around $10. My own scented candle was also on sale for 50% off and was under $5. I got the candles and the small decorated boxes at Pier 1 Imports; we also shopped at Boston Store and Kohls.

My sister got a pair of shoes at Kohls, a top at Boston Store, and Christmas tree ornaments at Pier 1 Imports.

We are both very happy - and exhausted! Since we had my sister's car (I do not drive or own a vehicle) I also took the opportunity to stock up on wine and liquor for the holidays and other large and/or bulky items that would otherwise have taken me several laborious trips home lugging a few items at a time. We started out shortly after 1:00 p.m. and were home by 4:30 p.m. I had enough time to toss some nuts and peanuts to the squirrels before the sun rushed below the horizon.

The weather cooperated today, too. It was sunny and got above 40 this afternoon although the wind was brisk at times, causing some windchill. I finally pulled out the shovel and scraped down my driveway, and it was appreciably improved by the sun and relatively mild temperatures when we got back home from shopping. As much as 3 more inches of snow is forecast beginning this coming Sunday night so I wanted to get down to bare payment - the snow was not otherwise melting as quickly as I'd hoped and I didn't want more to shovel than necessary!

I don't know about elsewhere in the country - judging from what I've seen on the news this evening there were crowds at stores all across the country today. Southridge Mall was packed - I do not believe I've ever seen it that crowded. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood, though, which made navigating the crowds much more pleasant. There were lot of kids in the crowds - full families were out - mom, dad and kids. Besides "door buster" specials Boston Store had 20% off coupons in the newspaper which both my sister and I clipped (I used 2 of them). I received $20 worth of Kohls dollars as a result of my purchases at Kohls - only stipulation is that they must be spent at Kohls before or on December 6. It just so happens that my friend Ann and I are meeting for lunch at our favorite Olive Garden next Saturday, December 6, and will go shopping after lunch (Southridge Mall is very close by). I need socks and underware (har! Isn't that always what Grandma bought you as a kid). So those Kohls dollars will not go to waste. Pier 1 Imports, which is not part of the mall but is on the same grounds, was also busy and they had fantastic deals on Christmas decorations and ornaments, scented candles, and lots of other items. The candle I bought for myself is called something like "cranberry balsam" and the scent is absolutely delicious and evocative of the holidays. It is a beauty cranberry-ruby red color that will go perfectly with the living room decor.

My sister and I have already made plans to shop the post-holiday sales, lol!

The Saga of the Whipped Sweet Potatoes

For some years, I've made a whipped sweet potato dish that is requested for Thanksgiving dinner. This year, I decided to check for new recipes to see if I could find something better than the recipe I normally use.

After a couple nights of checking around the internet, I did find some interesting recipes, but nothing really radically different than what I was already doing, with one important exception. I have now incorporated that new ingredient into my recipe and I thought it turned out very well! I'm not revealing the contents of this recipe, for state security reasons...

One other interesting bit of information I picked up was to use a food processor (which I do not own) or a blender (which I do own) to do the bulk of the whipping-up work after the initial mash is finished. Ahhh, I thought to myself, this is a good idea. I had been using my old (more than 20 years old now) but faithful electric hand mixer which has the unfortunate tendency to spatter bits of food all over the walls and me at higher speeds.

And so, after doing my initial mash and incorporation of some ingredients, I added the butter, mashed a bit, and then dumped the whole into my blender. Turned it on low. It was running but there was no movement in the chamber. Turned it up a few notches higher; still no movement in the chamber. I turned off the blender and added milk and stirred things up a bit. Turned the blender back on. Still no movement. I repeated this exercise several times before deciding that THIS IS NOT GOING TO WORK, STUPID WOMAN!

And so, I meticulously scraped out every bit of non-whipped sweet potatoes and non-blended bits of butter back into a mixing bowl, pulled out the trusty old electric hand mixer, and set to it.

Approximately one hour later (it takes a LOT of whipping and tasting and whipping and tasting to make my whipped sweet potatoes - sounds rather like a naughty movie, doesn't it, all that whipping and tasting), my dish was finished! Voila!

Lesson learned: I need a food processor.

The Saga of Ka-Nefer-Nefer Continues

The Saint Louis Art Museum Ka-Nefer-Nefer Egyptian Mask Saga Continues
Wed Nov 26, 2008 at 04:58:43 PM

A recent Associated Press article reports that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is now looking into the provenance of the Ka-Nefer-Nefer mask, a 3,000-year-old Egyptian relic acquired in the late 1990s by the Saint Louis Art Museum.

The mask, said to date back to the Nineteenth Dynasty (1293-1185 B.C.), was unearthed early in 1952 by an up-and-coming Egyptian archaeologist named Mohammed Zakaria Goneim. It is at the center of a long-running ownership dispute between the art museum and the Egyptian government. The set-to was the topic of an in-depth Riverfront Times story by Malcolm Gay, "Out of Egypt," published in February 2006.

Wrote Gay:

Goneim announced to the world that he might have uncovered the untouched tomb of a previously unknown pharaoh named Sekhemkhet -- potentially the most significant find since Howard Carter unearthed the virgin tomb of Tutankhamen 30
years before.

Among the many burials Goneim discovered atop the pyramid, one in particular caught his eye: the unmummified body of a woman, wrapped in a simple reed mat. Her remains, which dated to the Nineteenth Dynasty, were badly decomposed, but she wore an elaborate mask over her head and shoulders. Her face, covered by a thin sheet of blended copper and gold, peeked from beneath an intricate resin wig molded into plaits. The diadem that crowned her head was made of glass, as were her eyes and nipples. In each hand she held an amulet symbolizing strength and welfare; etched across her folded arms was a scene depicting the encounter between Osiris, the Egyptian god of the dead, and the woman's spiritual double in the afterlife, known as her ka.

Goneim dubbed the woman Ka-Nefer-Nefer: the Twice-Beautiful Ka.

The AP story updates the fight being waged by Zahi Hawass, secretary general for Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, against the SLAM and its current director, Brent Benjamin. In the current story, Benjamin reiterates the argument he made to Gay in 2006 -- asserting that "[t]o date, we have not seen information that we believe is compelling enough to return the object."

Counters Hawass, per the Associated Press: "This stupid man [Benjamin], he doesn't understand the rules here."

Archaeologist Goneim, meanwhile, never achieved the worldwide fame his discovery had augured: In 1958 he was accused of looting artifacts, and though a friend and colleague came to the rescue with exculpatory evidence, he arrived too late. On January 12, 1959, Goneim threw himself into the Nile River and drowned.-Tom Finkel

******************************

Hmmmm, she certainly sounds like an important person. Regular people weren't buried with elaborate gold death masks, wigs and acoutrements. Who was she? Is she a lost queen?

3000 Year Old Kurdish King Burial?

I'll see if I can find the photo mentioned in the article - it wasn't published in the article!

Kurdish National Congress of North America
An Embalmed Corpse of a King was discovered in Kurdistan-Iran
(California, November 27, 2008). On November 19, 2008, six corpses were discovered in Kurdistan-Iran. Archeologists believe the corpses were buried some 3000 years ago. The corpses belonged to a king and five of his bodyguards, who were buried around him. [Are these bodies male or female?] According to a myth, they were buried around him to protect their king even in death. As the picture shows, the king was buried with jewelry and his crown. A fish plaque with ancient writings placed on his chest requires a scientific study by unbiased archeologists to come up with an authentic and undistorted translation of the historic message.

The king’s picture shows a strong resemblance to the ones of the ancient pictures of the Medes emperors. Also, the geographical area where the corpses were discovered is situated at the heart of what was the Median Empire. Further, the burial timing ties the history to the era of the ancient Medes and their powerful and advanced empire.

Ironically, the Iranian officials have tried to trivialize this historic discovery and publically proclaimed that there was no king’s corpse, but rather a 3000-year old skeleton. This flagrant denial reminds us of Iran’s continuous policies to deflect and obliterate the history of the Kurds, who by many reliable historical sources are the direct descendants of the Medes.
Therefore in order not to distort this ancient history, no Iranian-government appointed archeologist should be the sole source of the translation of the writings.

After the Median Empire became the Medo-Persian Empire in 550 BCE, the Medes’ culture, way of governance, and language were adapted by the Persian rulers and the Medes remained in honor and positions in the empire. However, under King Darius things gradually changed and Persian rule increased. Ever since then, the Persian rulers, ancient and modern alike, have tried to misrepresent Kurdish history and portray the Kurdish culture as Iranian culture and the Kurdish language as a branch of the Persian language.

This recent Iranian effort to suppress the truth about the Kurdish history and civilization is clear evidence that the Persian rulers want to continue their ill-intended maneuver to maintain their ownership of Kurdish history and heritage.

Sadly enough, when the Persians inherited the great Median Empire and Medes’ legacy, their rulers have been relentless in their efforts to keep the Kurdish descendants of the Medes oppressed. They even have been cooperating with other nations such as Iraq, Syria, and Turkey to subject the Kurds to the policies of assimilation and disappearance.

In the new century, when the world is more interdependent and more aware of our common humanity, Iran and other nations that subsumed and now control parts of Media/Kurdistan need to realize that a nation of more than 40 millions cannot and will not disappear off of the face of the earth. A day will come where the Kurds, who are the legitimate descendants of the Medes, will claim their rightful place in the civilized world and will continue to contribute to its enrichment.

Inquiries: 403-200-6310
Contact: Brusk Reshvan

***************************************

Added at 9:18 p.m.: I have found what I believe is the photo referred to in the above article. Here it is - from an article at Payvand's Iran News:

11/20/08
3,000-Year-Old Burial Ground Discovered in Kurdistan Province of Iran
Source: Iranian Cultural Heritage News Agency

A prehistoric burial ground has been discovered near the Iranian city of Sanandaj, which dates back to 3,000 years. Sanandaj is located in the western Kurdistan Province of Iran.

According to a report by the FARS News Agency, the 3,000 year-old cemetery was found during a road construction project, that is located 500 meters from the previously found ancient mound of Zagros.

Kurdistans provincial cultural heritage office confirmed that so far five squat burials have been found in the cemetery along with spears, bronze bracelets and earthenware.

Excavations, which started four days ago at the site, will continue for another week, reports from Press TV indicate.

Irans Kurdistan Province contains 218 natural, cultural, historical and religious sites including numerous historical villages. Ancient bridges, the Safavid Asef Divan monument and the Khosrowabad structure are among Kurdistans many tourist attractions.

Armenian Gold Medalists Awarded State Medals

State Awards of the Republic of Armenia to Chess Olympic Champions
27.11.2008 13:16

On November 26 the President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan signed a decree on awarding Medals “For Services Contributed to the Motherland” of the first rank to the head coach of the men’s chess team of Armenia, International Grand master Arshak Petrosyan, International Grand Master Levon Aronyan, International Grand Master Vladimir Hakobyan, International Grand Master Artashes Minasyan, International Grand Master Tigran Petrosyan and International Grand Master Gabriel Sargsyan for their brilliant victory at the 38th Chess Olympiad, for properly presenting Armenia on the international arena, and promoting the development of chess in Armenia.

According to another presidential decree, Medals “For Services Contributed to the Motherland” of the second rank were awarded to Vice-Presidents of the Chess Federation of Armenia Levon Yolyan and Smbat Lputyan, businessman Artak Sargsyan, Director of the Chess House Hrachya Tavadyan for essential contribution to the development of chess in the republic.

Mary Ann Gomes on her Olympiad

From The Telegraph (Calcutta)
A long way to go: Mary
A STAFF REPORTER
November 28, 2008

Calcutta: Mary Ann Gomes is happy with her performance in the chess Olympiad in Dresden. The Calcutta girl won a silver after scoring six out of eight points and a performance rating of 2437 in the championship.

“This was my second Olympiad. I performed quite well and am happy with my showing,” she said after returning to the city on Thursday.

The WGM, a product of The Telegraph Schools’ Chess Championship, said her experience made the difference this time. “I was very tense in my first Olympiad in 2006. But this time I concentrated on my natural game.

Moreover, two coaching camps organised by the AICF in the lead up to the tournament also helped,” she said.

The performance, however, hasn’t left her complacent. “This is just the beginning… I still have a long way to go. This year I completed my WGM. Now I am aiming for the men’s IM norm and then the GM,” Mary Ann, who has an Elo rating of 2298, said. She, though, will improve her ratings by 21 points by virtue of her performance — five wins, two draws and a loss — in the Olympiad.

“The competition was very tough. All top teams played and it helped me a lot… I think my penultimate round performance was the best in the competition. It was a near flawless game and my moves were perfect,” she recalled.

She also plans to work on her shortcomings with Dibyendu Barua. “I’ve got to work on my openings. The strategic play also needs improvement,” she pointed out.

Pourkashiyan Awarded GM Title

I believe that's a WGM title - quite a difference, but still an achievement for Pourkashiyan. Congratulations!

Iran's Pourkashiyan awarded GM title
Thu, 27 Nov 2008 10:11:25 GMT

Iran's Woman International Master Atousa Pourkashiyan has been awarded the Grandmaster title at the 38th Chess Olympiad in Germany.

The Iranian national earned the title after she gained eight points in 11 games at the end of the Chess Olympiad in Dresden (Germany), IRIB quoted Iran's Chess Federation on Thursday.

Pourkashiyan won seven games and drew two others after competing with four grandmasters and five international masters during the event. In the second round, the Iranian chess master drew with Ukrainian Woman Grandmaster (WGM) Kateryna Lahno but managed to defeat all of her opponents in the next five games.

The world chess organization FIDE awards the title Grandmaster to exceptionally qualified chess masters. Apart from 'World Champion', Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain. Once achieved, the title is held for life.

One hundred fifty-four countries took part in the 38th Chess Olympiad in Dresden, on November 12-25.

HRF/JG/MMN

A Modern Thanksgiving Story

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Today is USA's T-day. There is horror and terror in India, Somalia and elsewhere in the world, but today we Americans sit down with our families and loved ones, enjoying the best meals that we can afford, be it at our own tables or in church halls and homeless shelters where free meals of turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, vegetables and gravy with stuffing and cranberry sauce are served by volunteers. I'll be leaving in a little while to go to one of my sisters' houses for dinner, along with my super whipped sweet potatoes, a family favorite.

Here is a story I found at the New York Times about sudden, unexpected bounty that is allowing thousands of people in New York City to purchase extra food and special food treats that they normally would never be able to afford, just in time for the holidays, because they had been illegally cut off from the Federal food stamp program years before. Many of the beneficiaries of the pay-out from settlement of the law suit are sharing their good fortune with those around them. Stories like this one remind me forcefully that I am very fortunate - I have a lot of equity in a beautiful home, I have employment I deem fairly secure, I can afford meat and potatoes whenever I want and can splurge on feeding $2.99 a pound nuts to the squirrels this time of year, I have adequate fresh water, heat, and light. I'm trying to shed excess fat off my body, I am not chronically malnourished. I have enough "discretionary" funds to be able to buy many items and do other things that some people probably cannot even fathom. I am American middle-class, by no means wealthy, but by the standards of more than 50% of the world, I am a millionaire. I am very blessed.

A Surprise Bounty From a Food Stamp Lawsuit
By LESLIE KAUFMAN
Published: November 26, 2008
Class-action lawsuits, especially the type that drag on for years, are rarely synonymous with sudden joy, serendipitous generosity, or an unexpected Thanksgiving turkey.

But this month Harris v. Eggleston, a lawsuit with its roots in 1990s welfare reform under Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, is the unlikely vehicle for spreading holiday cheer to thousands of the poorest households in the city.

The lawsuit, which charged that thousands of people were illegally denied food stamps after they moved to receive Social Security disability payments instead of welfare benefits, was settled at the end of 2006. Yet only now are the roughly $12 million in awards being distributed to nearly 9,500 households in the five boroughs in the form of credits to electronic benefit cards.

The payback does not quite amount to winning the lottery — the 18 largest reimbursements top $5,000, and most average far less. And all of the credits can be used only for food.

Still, to many who had given up on or forgotten what they were owed, the money in their accounts, some of which arrived before any notice from the government to explain it, has been a rare moment of bounty at an otherwise dismal economic moment.

Monica Ryan learned of her good fortune when she went to her corner bodega in northern Manhattan to buy bread and milk. She was picking up just the necessities because she was conscious of having less than $5 in her account. But when the clerk swiped her card, it appeared that she had hundreds left.

Hundreds?

At first, Ms. Ryan, who says that she has been barely getting by with a monthly benefit of $107, thought it was impossible.

In shock, she called the automated food stamp line, which confirmed that $888 had just been placed in her account. “I didn’t believe it,” she said. “They make so many mistakes.”

It was not until days later, when a government letter arrived confirming that the money was part of the settlement, that she finally relaxed and went out and bought a steak. “It was so delicious,” she said.

Now she is planning on buying a turkey to share with her son, something she had not done in two years because, she said, “it takes half the monthly allowance to buy the groceries for that one meal.”

Ms. Ryan said she once knew about the lawsuit but had completely forgotten about it.

The origin of her ample holiday meal has it roots in federal welfare policy changes that were approved in 1996, when the federal government set five-year limits on its willingness to contribute to welfare payments for the country’s poor. The city, in response, pushed to move the poor who were mentally or physically disabled to the federal Social Security program, which has no time limit.

Many of those transferred, however, were automatically cut off by the city from food stamps, even though the federal law explicitly allowed people to receive both benefits.

City and state officials said the problem was caused by computer errors that they were working to fix, yet it persisted for years despite repeated reprimands from the federal government. So in 2002, the Urban Justice Center, a Manhattan-based nonprofit group that had been working to resolve the issue, sued the city on behalf of one recipient, Barbara Harris, and thousands of others.

In 2006, the parties agreed on a settlement that would involve reimbursement to those tossed out of the food stamp program going back to 1999. The reimbursements were capped at 21 months of lost benefits. It took a year for the settlement to be approved by both the court and the United States Department of Agriculture, which is in charge of the food stamp program and is providing the funds. The benefits started arriving at the end of October.

As important as the payouts is the fact that the city finally began changing the system to prevent disabled people from being removed from the program in the first place, said Bill Lienhard, who was the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs.

“This lawsuit actually helped maximize federal benefits in a time of economic downturn,” he said, “and prevented disruptions in benefits to those who needed them the most.”

Food stamp use in the city is up 65 percent since 2002, according to city officials, and as of September neared 1.3 million recipients. The state under Gov. David A. Paterson has found new ways to maximize what the state and its residents can receive from the federal government program.

Such successes, however, have escaped the notice of Ms. Harris, who still lives in a one-bedroom apartment in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Her food stamp allotment has long been restored, but she says she must be very careful to ration her $176 monthly allowance.

She began crying a bit when she described finally receiving the first half of the $444 she was owed from 1999. “I just went out and got a ham,” she said, “and cooked it with cloves, apple juice and raisins. It was very sweet.”

Others who received the money in the last several weeks said they delayed gratification a bit to make the holidays more festive in a year that has otherwise been very tough.

Luis Rosario, 52, who lives in the Bronx with his mother, received $2,333, because he was cut off in 1999 and was just put back in the program.

He said he would use the money to make a Thanksgiving meal of roast pork and turkey for his sister, daughters and grandchildren.

And, he said, he would also take care of Christmas, too. “We usually go to my sister in New Jersey, but she was laid off,” Mr. Rosario said, “so this year we are going to take care of everyone.”

It is a sentiment that would sit well with Abdelkader Louali, who also lives in the Bronx and got a payout of $550. With that money Mr. Louali, who lives alone, purchased some shrimp as a treat, and he also bought $64 in food for neighbors who were in need.

It was a special pleasure to him, he said, to finally be the one who had enough to share with others. “I have $100 left,” he said, “but it is the holidays and I would give it away. You see, my refrigerator is already full.”

2008 Chess Olympiad: Was Israel's Gold a Fluke?

Not according to the math - good article explaining the from the beginning of creation complicated relationship between math and chess - and not just about tie-breakers, either!

From The Times Online
November 26, 2008
Sexy maths: Skills of a chess grandmaster
Marcus du Sautoy

For a while, the chess Olympiad this year looked like producing a surprise winner but closer inspection of Israel's team sheet revealed that it was pretty much business as usual: half the players were named Boris!

Other than a brief blip in the 1970s, the biennial event has produced remarkably consistent results. From 1952 to 1990, the Soviet Union ruled the contest, and after the superstate's fragmentation either Russia or one of its former union satellites struck gold every time. As it turned out this year, the Soviet diaspora's turn in the spotlight was short-lived and Armenia triumphed for its second successive Olympiad.

Despite being connected by being born under the red flag, those that dominate the game are better categorised by their membership of a different club: the mathematical mafia. Legend has it that the game was invented by a mathematician in India who elicited a huge reward for its creation. The King of India was so impressed with the game that he asked the mathematician to name a prize as reward. Not wishing to appear greedy, the mathematician asked for one grain of rice to be placed on the first square of the chess board, two grains on the second, four on the third and so on. The number of grains of rice should be doubled each time.

The King thought that he'd got away lightly, but little did he realise the power of doubling to make things big very quickly. By the sixteenth square there was already a kilo of rice on the chess board. By the twentieth square his servant needed to bring in a wheelbarrow of rice. He never reached the 64th and last square on the board. By that point the rice on the board would have totalled a staggering 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains.

Playing chess has strong resonances with doing mathematics. There are simple rules for the way each chess piece moves but beyond these basic constraints, the pieces can roam freely across the board. Mathematics also proceeds by taking self-evident truths (called axioms) about properties of numbers and geometry and then by applying basic rules of logic you proceed to move mathematics from its starting point to deduce new statements about numbers and geometry. For example, using the moves [in chess] allowed by mathematics the 18th-century mathematician Lagrange reached an endgame that showed that every number can be written as the sum of four square numbers, a far from obvious fact. For example, 310 = 172 +42 + 22 + 12.


Some mathematicians have turned their analytic skills on the game of chess itself. A classic problem called the Knight's Tour asks whether it is possible to use a knight to jump around the chess board visiting each square once only. The first examples were documented in a 9th-century Arabic manuscript. It is only within the past decade that mathematical techniques have been developed to count exactly how many such tours are possible.

It isn't just mathematicians and chess players who have been fascinated by the Knight's Tour. The highly styled Sanskrit poem Kavyalankara presents the Knight's Tour in verse form. And in the 20th century, the French author Georges Perec's novel Life: A User's Manual describes an apartment with 100 rooms arranged in a 10x10 grid. In the novel the order that the author visits the rooms is determined by a Knight's Tour on a 10x10 chessboard.

Mathematicians have also analysed just how many games of chess are possible. If you were to line up chessboards side by side, the number of them you would need to reach from one side of the observable universe to the other would require only 28 digits. Yet Claude Shannon, the mathematician credited as the father of the digital age, estimated that the number of unique games you could play was of the order of 10/120 (10 to the 120th power, a 1 followed by 120 zeros). It's this level of complexity that makes chess such an attractive game and ensures that at the Olympiad in Russia in 2010, local spectators will witness games of chess never before seen by the human eye, even if the winning team turns out to have familiar names.

[Will they be Russians - har!]

"Buddha's Skull Found in Nanking?"

Geez - who writes these headlines! LOL! Of course it's not the entire skull of Buddha - and actually - it's probably a bit of monkey skull or some such (I probably should not have said that - oh well).

From the Telegraph.co.uk (where else?)
'Buddha's skull' found in Nanjing
Chinese archaeologists have claimed that a 1,000-year-old miniature pagoda, unearthed in Nanjing, holds a piece of skull belonging to Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism.

By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai
Last Updated: 12:26PM GMT 24 Nov 2008

The pagoda was wedged tightly inside an iron case that was discovered at the site of a former temple in the city in August.

The four-storey pagoda, which is almost four feet high and one-and-a-half feet wide, is thought by archaeologists to be one of the 84,000 pagodas commissioned by Ashoka the Great in the second century BC to house the remains of the Buddha.

Ashoka, one of India's greatest emperors, converted to Buddhism after waging a bloody war in the eastern state of Orissa. He is widely credited with spreading Buddhism throughout Asia, and across his kingdom, which stretched from Pakistan through Afghanistan and into Iran.

The pagoda found in Nanjing is crafted from wood, gilded with silver and inlaid with gold, coloured glass and amber. It matches a description of another of Ashoka's pagodas which used to be housed underneath the Changgan Buddhist temple in Nanjing.

A description of the contents of the pagoda was also found: a gold coffin bearing part of Buddha's skull inside a silver box. Although scans have confirmed that there are two small metal boxes inside the pagoda, experts have not yet peered inside. The pagoda is currently on display in the museum.

Qi Haining, the head of archaeology at Nanjing Museum, told state media: "This pagoda may be unique, the only one known to contain parts of Buddha's skull".

But he said there would be a lengthy process before the cases could be opened. In 2001, Chinese authorities found a case that was said to contain a relic of Buddha's hair, but declined to open the welded box in case it damaged the contents.

De Qing, an expert in Buddhism in Nanjing, said: “The discovery of the relic will have a huge influence on the cultural history of Buddhism in China and will establish Nanjing as a premier site. It will be a great encouragement for Buddhists as well as for future studies. It is important for Buddhism as a religion to have these sarira, or relics, to show its followers. The more a Buddhist practises, the more relics will remain of him after his death. I am hugely excited. I think they should take the skull outside of the container, it is a sacred item, but it is not an untouchable item.”

Siddhartha Gautama, who is believed to have been born in the fifth century BC, was a spirit­ual teacher and recognised by Buddhists as the Supreme Buddha of our age. Also known as Shakyamuni, or the Sage of the Sakyas, his teachings are contained in the Tripitaka, the canon of Buddhist thought.

He is said to have attained Enlightenment, or to have become a Buddha, which means "Awakened One", at the age of 35, after 49 days meditating underneath a pipal tree.

The second World Buddhist Forum, a gathering of monks and scholars from around the world, will take place near Nanjing next year in Wuxi.

Red - CCC (Color of Choice for Cavemen)

LOL! Okay, so I had a little fun with that caption - but this is no laughing matter. Through history the color red has been ripe (har!) with meaning. This is an interesting article speculating on the possible use of hematite (which yields red dye, etc.) in Stone Age China:

From China Daily
Red color ruled fashion world 15,000 years ago
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-11-26 23:19

ZHENGZHOU - The color red, which represents luck, happiness and passion in China, could have been used in clothing 15,000 years ago.

Li Zhanyang, a researcher with Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, said in an interview with Xinhua on Wednesday.

Li has been leading an eight-member archaeological team doing excavation and related research on lake-based ruins in Xuchang, central China's Henan Province, in recent years.

The Xuchang ruins made headlines in foreign media in January when State Administration of Cultural Heritage announced that Chinese archaeologists had found a human skull dating back at least 80,000 years in the ruins last December.

According to Li, this month, their excavation team found from the soil strata dating back 15,000 years, or the late Paleolithic Era, at the Xuchang ruins more than 20 pieces of hematite, one of iron oxides commonly used as a dyestuff, alongside three dozen thin instruments made of animal tooth enamel, plus seven needles made of the upper cheek tooth enamel of a rhinoceros sub-species now extinct.

It is the first time in China that iron oxide of such high concentration has been excavated from the ruins of the late Paleolithic Era, claimed Li.

"Through excavation, we are confident that these hematite were deliberately brought to the Xuchang ruins from afar by ancient people, as Xuchang does not produce such minerals," said Li.

The ruins used to be the location of a lake where activities such as clothes making, food preparing, water drinking were clustered, said Li.

"I believe the people who lived there might have used hematite to dye clothes, which was quite different from Upper Cave Man at Zhoukoudian of Beijing who used hematite as a sacrifice to the dead, or from Europe, where ancient people there used hematite to draw cave murals."

Li said lab work proved the thin instruments made of animal tooth enamel might have be used as articles similar to buttons in present times.

"There has been evidence suggesting people dating back 15,000 years could have made advanced fur apparel. If that is true, the most popular color might have been red," said the Chinese archaeologist.

The Paleolithic site at Xuchang was discovered in 1965, when Chinese scientists found animal fossils and stone artifacts from soil dug for a well. The most recent large scale excavation started in June 2005.

The archaeologists declared in January this year that they found the fossil consisted of 16 pieces of the skull with protruding eyebrows and a small forehead from the excavation last December.

That find was heralded as the greatest discovery since Peking Man and Upper Cave Man skulls were found in Beijing early last century.

The Peking Man skull fossil dates back 200,000 to 700,000 years, while the Upper Cave Man skull fossils date back about 18,000 years.

Besides the skull, more than 30,000 animal fossils, and stone and bone artifacts were found in the Xuchang ruins over the past two years. The pieces were fossilized because they were buried near the mouth of a spring, whose water had a high calcium content, according to Li.

Peruvian Finds Date Back to 3500 BCE

Evidence of human civilization in Peru keeps getting pushed back earlier and earlier...

Story at The Latin American Herald Tribune
November 25, 2008
Remains of 5,500-year-old Human Settlement Found in Peru

LIMA -- A team of Peruvian and German archaeologists has discovered the remains of a human settlement 5,500 years old near the southern town of Nazca, south of Lima, the capital daily El Comercio reported Sunday.

The archaeologists, who are members of the Nazca-Palpa project, said that the discovery was made in a sector known as Pernil Alto, some 15 kilometers (9 miles) from Palpa.

The project is headed by Peruvian archaeologists Johny Isla Cuadrado and Elsa Tomasto, and by Germany's Markus Reindel.

"The find consists of a group of homes in which 19 graves were found, including the remains of a child younger than 1 year old with possible evidence of having been mummified," said the daily.

The paper went on to say that the find is the first discovery in southern Peru of an inhabited site corresponding to the late portion of the archaic period some 3,500 years before Christ.

One of the project researchers said that the excavations made at the site since last October enabled the team to find the remains of eight small oval-shaped and circular homes made by digging deep pits in the ground.

Also found were up to 19 graves of children and adults interred individually inside the homes, which would seem to indicate that they were buried there after the homes were abandoned.

In some of the graves, archaeologists found carved bones and snail-shells, deer horns, necklaces and bracelets made from shells, but there was no concrete evidence of offerings to the dead or to dieties.

The researchers are seeking to expand their knowledge about the culture of southern Peru in the early epochs from about 5,500 years ago up to the Inca civilization in the 16th century.

The project is being funded by the German Education and Science Ministry, the Archaeological Commission for Extra-European Cultures and the German Archaeological Institute. EFE

Big Funding Boost for "Internet Archaeology

Great news for those interested in archaeology and making information on current and past discoveries readily accessible to everyone with an internet connection!

Story from the Yorkshore Post
Wednesday, 26th November 2008
US funding boost for web-based archaeology journal
Published Date: 25 November 2008
By Brian Dooks

FUNDING from a New York-based foundation will help York University make academic research material available online.

The Andrew W Mellon Foundation has awarded 250,000 US dollars to the study led by Julian Richards, head of the university's department of archaeology and co-director of online journal Internet Archaeology.

Prof Richards is looking at ways of using online publication to allow researchers to link their work to databases, video, audio and other information as well as stimulating academic debate.

The latest research will build on work completed as part ofan earlier award-winning project, Linking Electronic Archives and Publications, or Leap, which was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council under its ICT Strategy programme.

Prof Richards said: "We're very excited about this project as it will allow us to work with North American archaeologists to create novel ways of publishing their research findings.

"It builds on the success of the original Leap project, which won Best Archaeological Innovation and was highly commended in the Best ICT Project category at the 2008 British Archaeological Awards."

The project will run until March 31, 2011.

Internet Archaeology, hosted by York University, was established in 1996.

It has over 70,000 hits per day to its pages from more than 120 countries.

2008 Chess Olympiad: Some Final Thoughts

It's all over for another two years, thank Goddess! I am now wracking my brain trying to figure out how I can possibly report on all of the news on the chess femmes in this Olympiad in my final column for Chessville. Well, I guess I'll have to make it the biggest (and hopefully the best) column yet, with a special section devoted entirely to the Olympiad. I still have a few days, it's not due to be published until the beginning of December. I foresee a four-day weekend of sleepless nights...

There are now a wide variety of websites that provide first-class information on chess events - some more timely than others (but for those less "timely", always worth the wait, darlings). Here are those I am most familiar with - by no means all of the sites that provide news and insight into the happenings in the world of chess. Special thanks and unending admiration for the following - how the hell do they do what they do day after day after day...

• Kudos to GM Susan Polgar who did triple-duty - not only reporting information at her blog, but also serving as Chess Ambassador and English-Language Press Liason, as well as holding great interviews daily with players and personalities from the Olympiad. Thanks also to Paul Truong, the official photographer for this Olympiad, for his fantastic and candid photographs, round after round, from off days, the official opening, the official close, and everything in-between. I am appreciative of the great job that both Polgar and Truong did.
  
• I was very happy that Chessdom went back to its "live" blog for coverage of Round 11. I did not like the "live chat" experiment - most of the comments were boring, common, and disjointed. It was hard to follow what was going on. In the "live" blog, on the other hand, it was easy to follow the action as the time counted down toward the end of the games.
  
• The Week in Chess has set the standard ever since I've been online (December, 1998) and no doubt from before! Mark Crowthers lets nothing stand in his way of going the extra mile, whether it be going over games move by move to create and/or correct PGN notations or correctly identifying otherwise sometimes obscure players.
  
• I was very impressed with Chess Vibes - very current reports, great photographs and a slamming lay-out. How'd you do that?
  
• Europe E'checs provided much-needed information - in French (but they have English translation on some pages).
  
• Mig Greengard has such a wicked sense of humor! His Daily Dirt blog (part of Chess Ninja) provides much-needed insight and lots of laughs, but be warned: all types hang out there, compensated for with a collection of wits and sparkling commentators, most of whose commentary probably whizzes over the ignoramus heads of the thankfully relatively few a-holes. I believe (but have no proof) that a lot of chess femmes read the commentary there but generally refrain from commenting themselves - only a brave few every now and then wade in.
  
• Daaim Shabazz's The Chess Drum is a must-read for keen insights into the chess world in general and, in particular, for news about chess players that generally aren't covered elsewhere.

A few final thoughts: I'm still absolutely amazed that the American men were able to repeat their miracle Bronze performance from 2006 in 2008 Dresden! More incredible, at least to me, is the US Women's Team performance. I honestly did not think they had a prayer of winning a medal. I'm quite happy to say I was SO SO WRONG. And I will eat my wool beret tonight for supper. Hell, I need a new one anyway, this one was looking rather ratty...

I am absolutely convinced that what happened to the Russian Teams (Men - oh, I mean "Open" - and Women) was Divine Justice being meted out to Miniputin, the ass! LOL - do you hear laughter, Pharaoh er, Miniputin? That's the sound of millions of chess fans falling off their chairs and rolling on the floor busting a gut in hilarity at the performances of the oh-so-vaunted #1 ranked teams entering the Olympiad: Russian Men and Russian Women. Bwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaahhhhhhaaaaaaaa!

The Georgian Women won the Gold Medal
The Georgian Women won the Gold Medal
The Georgian Women won the Gold Medal

They're the only team other than USA and India I would care to see win the Gold. Sweet! Particularly Sweet since the Russian mobsters who put together the Women's World Chess Championship INSISTED that the female chessplayers of the world assemble in Nalchik, Russia, mere miles away from the GEORGIAN WAR ZONE after Russian invaded Georgia in August, 2008 a few weeks before the Championship was to convene. Those Russians particularly pooh-poohed the Georgian Women chessplayers' concerns - and the concerns of other Federations on behalf of their players - about sending their players to Nalchik.

Ha ha, Miniputin. The best is yet to come. Just watch what happens to your "vaunted" Ruble (Rubble?) in the coming months. Nothing personal against the players on the Russian chess teams - I suggest you emmigrate to Manhattan before President-Elect Obama takes office on January 20, 2009...

High Jinks at Politkovskaya Trial

From The New York Times:

Bid to Remove Politkovskaya Judge
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
Published: November 25, 2008
MOSCOW— Russian prosecutors requested a new judge Tuesday in an increasingly confused trial of three suspects accused in the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, a prominent investigative journalist, after the judge flip-flopped twice on whether to allow press coverage.

The judge, Yevgeny Zubov, is accused of “violating procedural rules,” said Marina Gridneva, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor general’s office. She would not elaborate on the alleged violations, though she said Judge Zubov would be given the chance to decide whether to recuse himself on Wednesday.

In a hearing on Tuesday, the judge once again decided to open the trial to the media, a second reversal on the issue, after 19 of the 20 jurors signed a statement saying they had made no official complaints about the presence of journalists in the courtroom, in opposition to the judge’s previous statements.

Last week, Judge Zubov cited jurors’ fears about media coverage of the trial to bar journalists from the proceedings, overturning an earlier decision.

The request to remove Judge Zubov adds to the confusions that have come to typify this closely watched trial, as well as the two-year investigation that preceded it.

Supporters of Ms. Politkovskaya, a prominent investigative journalist and pugnacious Kremlin critic, accuse officials of botching the investigation into her killing, and have suggested tacit government complacency in her death.

The three defendants are all accomplices. The police say they have yet to capture the person who shot Ms. Politkovskaya to death two years ago in a hallway of her apartment building, and investigators also say they have little information on who ordered the killing.

In another twist on Tuesday, however, a defense lawyer in the case caused a stir in the Russian media when he announced that court documents indicated that an unidentified politician inside Russia had ordered the killing, contradicting authorities’ claims that a Kremlin enemy abroad was responsible.

“During the investigation, the prosecutor general said that this was some great and horrible figure from abroad, but in the indictment we see that this is someone not so great and horrible, but a political figure inside the country,” Murad Musayev, the lawyer, said, according to Russian media.

In a later interview, Mr. Musayev downplayed his statement, saying his remarks were meant to highlight the lack of evidence in the prosecution’s case. He denied that court documents identified any specific individual who ordered the killing.

“This was the speculation of the investigator, who, for some reason, wrote this in the indictment,” he said by telephone. “About 98 percent of this case consists of guessing by the investigators.”

***************************

So, it was just a guess that a high ranking political figure in Russia had anything to do with Politkovskaya's murder. Yeah, right.

Taliban Terrorists - Allah Will Spit in Their Faces for This

From The New York Times:

10 Arrested for Afghan Acid Attack
By ABDUL WAHEED WAFA
Published: November 25, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan — The police in Kandahar Province arrested 10 Taliban militants they said were involved in an attack this month on a group of Afghan schoolgirls whose faces were doused with acid, officials in Kandahar said Tuesday.

The officials said that the militants, who were Afghan citizens, had confessed to their involvement in the attack on the schoolgirls and their teachers on Nov. 12 and that a high-ranking member of the Taliban had paid the militants 100,000 Pakistani rupees ($1,275) for each girl they managed to burn.

The girls were assaulted by two men on a motorcycle who were apparently irate that the girls had been attending high school. The men drove up beside them and splashed their faces with what appeared to be battery acid.

Zalmay Ayobi, the spokesman for Gen. Rahmatullah Raufi, the governor of Kandahar, said the orders to carry out the attack had been given from a foreign country, although he did not identify it.

The militants were arrested by the police last week. Mr. Ayobi said a joint delegation from the Interior Ministry and the office of the attorney general in the capital, Kabul, had arrived in Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan, on Monday to evaluate the cases of the suspects.

The delegation, led by the deputy interior minister along with the governor of Kandahar, announced today that the suspects confessed their involvement in the attack, Mr. Ayobi said.

He said Afghanistan’s courts would decide the attackers’ fate after the investigation was completed.

At least two of the girls were hospitalized by the attack, their faces blackened and burned.

The attack was condemned at the time by Laura Bush, who described the Taliban as “cowardly and shameful” for carrying out the attack.

“The Taliban’s continued terror attacks threaten the progress that has been made in Afghanistan,” the first lady said in a statement, adding, “These cowardly and shameful acts are condemned by honorable people in the United States and around the world.”

Mrs. Bush has been an advocate for the women of Afghanistan during her husband’s tenure. She has visited Afghanistan three times to put a spotlight on development and women’s issues, most recently in June, a trip cloaked in secrecy so she would not become a target of terrorists.

Southwest Chess Club of Hales Corners NEEDS HELP!

Oh no, disaster has struck! On this most wonderful of days, when BOTH U.S. chess teams earned Bronze Medals at the Chess Olympiad in Dresden (and IM Anna Zatonskih earned a Gold Medal for her performance on Board 2, and WGM Rusudan Goletiani earned a Silver Medal for her performance on Board 3 - that's 10 medals - count 'em darlings, TEN! for the good old under-funded USA), I received this email from Tom Fogec of my adopted chess club, the Southwest Chess Club of Hales Corners:

The Southwest Chess Club needs your help in finding a new meeting location. As many of you know, we are currently meeting at the Layton State Bank in Greendale. Starting with the new year in 2009, that facility will no longer be available to us. We are asking members and friends of the club for any thoughts, ideas, or suggestions regarding a new playing site. Previously we met at the Village Hall in Hales Corners, which is still being renovated. Both sites were provided to the club at no cost, although the club might be able to pay a nominal rent. Sites such as community rooms, schools, colleges, churches, ethnic clubs, recreation centers, corporate meeting rooms etc. are often good choices. It would be very helpful if your suggestion included the name and phone number of a contact. Specifically we need a facility that can accommodate 25 to 40 chess players on Thursday nights from 6 to 11 PM.

Please send me an e-mail or call me at 414-425-6742 with any suggestions. Thank you in advance for any assistance you can render.

Tom Fogec
Southwest Chess Club

**********************************

I am going to wrack my tired brain to see if I can come up with some plausible suggestions. Anyone out there reading this post - suggestions are welcome. What we really need is a rich landlord who is a chess fan with a vacant commercial space of adequate size with restroom facilities for men and women who is willing to dedicate this space to my adopted club for free - or a nominal rent. I'll pay $100 for a year...

BTW, Tom Fogec is a life member of USCF and rated 1618. He is one of the pillars of the Southwest Chess Club.

Testers Needed for a New Chess Game

Hola darlings!

Out of the blue I received an email earlier today from a perfectly agreeable gentleman who is looking for people to try out a new chess game (and give critical feed-back) that is accessible for playing on an ipod or cell phone. I am ignorant of such devices, not owning either, so I cannot help. But I offered to post his company's offer here, and he accepted, so here is the information:

My name is David Calkins and I'm with Newtoy Inc., a small startup game developer in Dallas, TX.

I have an unusual request...We make games for the iPhone and iPod Touch and our first game is called Chess With Friends. It's a correspondence-style game that aims to reintroduce the joy of chess to a broad audience by giving players a game of chess in their pocket that they can play with their friends anywhere, anytime.

The first version of Chess With Friends was released two weeks ago. It's gotten some good reviews so far, but we want to take it a step further and create something that chess-lovers will really love. Seems like the best way to do that is solicit some expert feedback. That's where you come in :)

I was wondering if you (or any chess-playing friends, for that matter) have an iPhone or iPod Touch and would be interested in checking out a free version of our game? We'd really like to hear what you think.

You can find out more about the game here.

The game is currently offered free at the app store via this link:http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=295436227&mt=8

Please send your feedback to David Calkins.

Our legions of fans (all four of you), be kind to David and volunteer!

Smooches,
Jan

2008 Chess Olympiad - NEWS FLASH

UNBELIEVABLE. It seems US Women and Open Teams have tied for third place in their respective Olympiads after R11. Now it's up to tie-breaks to see who takes home bronze medals and in the Women's section, the gold.

In the Open, Armena wins gold, Israel (!!!) takes silver. Russia goes home empty handed, drawing all their last games. In the Women's event, Poland and US are tied for 3rd place, Georgia and Ukraine are tied for 1st.

Added 10:39 A.M.

It's official - USA Men and Women each win Team Bronze medals. In addition, Anna Zatonskih wins an individual Gold medal for her performance on Board 2, and Rusudan Goletiani wins an individual Silver medal for her performance on Board 3! Congratulations to the US chess Femmes and to the US chess dudes, too. The medals are excellent news for U.S. chess. Now if only the USCF Executive Board could stop all the law suits and really start doing what is good for chess in this country - like coming up with some cash to back their players and offer better prizes at national events!

Kim Cattrall as Titian's Diana

(Photo of Kim Cattrall, 2007, from the Do Something blog)

What a great story! I've never seen Sex in the City - not even in re-runs! I did add the recent movie to my Netflix list and it will be delivered in due course. I remember Cattrall for remarkable green eyes and being incredibly gorgeous and a good sport in "Big Trouble in Little China."

Cattrall recreates art masterpiece
4 hours ago
Sex And The City star Kim Cattrall has posed semi-naked in a recreation of Titian's masterpiece Diana and Actaeon.

BBC Two's The Culture Show challenged Tom Hunter to create a 21st century version of the painting after he backed the campaign to raise £50 million to keep the artwork on public display.
The painting shows Actaeon, while out hunting, accidentally happening upon the secret bathing place of Diana, chaste goddess of the hunt, incurring her fury.

The National Galleries of Scotland and the National Gallery, London, have until the end of the year to raise the total sum to buy it, after which time it may be sold on the open market.

Cattrall, who is from British descent, is a regular visitor to the National Gallery and a huge admirer of Titian's work. She said that viewing this painting is "like being in the presence of genius... it would be a tragedy if it were not on public view".

Hunter is known for his recreation of old masters and is the only photographer to have had an exhibition at the National Gallery.

He rose to the challenge of recreating Diana and Actaeon, enlisting Cattrall, who plays man-eater Samantha in Sex And The City, to take the starring role.

Hunter said: "Kim is the perfect Diana. Just like the Greek goddess, she combines beauty with a sense of threat. She was a great sport and at 52 made an amazing Diana. She more than held her own among a room full of twentysomethings.

"The picture can't of course hold a candle to the original which deserves to remain on public view. This painting is sublime and to lose it to a private collection would be a tragedy."

Also featured in Hunter's version of Titian's painting are arts students from the Courtauld Institute and performers from West End burlesque show La Clique. The photograph was taken at the Arts Club in London's Mayfair.

Copyright © 2008 The Press Association. All rights reserved.

Redefining the Goddess

Salt Lake Community College
Redefining the goddess
Dominique Snow
Issue date: 11/24/08 Section: Campus

On Wednesday evening, Dr. Margaret Toscano, Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Utah, spoke at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts about images of the female body.

Utah artist Shauna Cook Clinger introduced Toscano while promoting her own exhibition. Clinger's exhibit is currently showing at the UMFA. Her exhibition is called "An Innermost Journey." It explores the female body.

"I know for certain that the paintings and drawings would love to meet you," Clinger said to her audience.

Clinger and Toscano met in 1989 at a symposium. Clinger said that the power of Toscano's ideas and intellect soaked into the deepest part of her being. Toscano has taught since 1996, and has received two teaching awards at the U of U. Gender, mythology and religion are her focuses for study. She has written an article titled "The eyes have it," which explores the sexual desires of ancient Greek women.

She ignores assumptions that are made of women. She thinks that Clinger's work rejects prisoners of biological destiny.

"We live in a material world where we perceive ourselves as our bodies," Toscano said.

The great power in visual and spoken images became realistic for us. They reflect a world where the universe is seen as organic and alive.

In the Paleolithic period depictions of the human body have an emphasis on fertility. Scholars believe that these deities are goddesses. Inanna was the first goddess representing fertility, dignity, and strength. She was the queen of seven temples in ancient Sumar. Athena, Aphrodite, Artemis were goddesses that controlled the vital aspects of life.

Females depicting goddesses were prevalent in religion until the Judeo-Christian times. The Western world speaks of God in male terms. Some see the return of the goddess in the Virgin Mary. She has a divine status - incorporating nurturing and compassionate qualities.

Toscano said that Mormons also believe in a heavenly mother. Many people search for the female face of God. The Native American religion has Buffalo Woman, Spider Woman and the Corn Mothers. Pictures are able to change the way we see the world, so we no longer see women as objects. We have to be able to view everything from multiple points of view.

There are both essentialist and constructivist views that define our definition of reality. Bodies and shapes change to fit the ideal in culture. Toscano sees this as society writing codes on our bodies.

Throughout time, art depicting the female body has shown females differently. In 30,000 BCE, women held Venus of Willendorf during childbirth. The deity emphasized breasts and genitalia.

Titian's Venus of Urbino showed the goddess humanized, exhibiting appropriate female behaviors. Manet's Olympia sexualized the female showing an even greater decline in the female deity. Olympia was seen as a prostitute and encompassed with shame. Toscano takes offense to the exclusive male control of female sexuality.

Clinger uses her own body to convey her own truth. She reworks dark and light as important aspects of reality. According to Toscano, women cannot be defined by generalizations. Contradicting this, portraits will have a universal appeal. Stereotypes control and dismiss, while archetypes liberate and understand. There are many metaphors that deal with female power.

"We experience life through our bodies, we see our bodies as conduit to a beautiful physical world we're a part of," Toscano said.

Traditionally women have been given limited choices. Women are now being resexualized, breaking the simplistic pattern. Toscano has seen Eve be redeemed as a powerful symbol of feminism, instead of the depiction of a shameful temptress. Toscano finds one of the most powerful female images to be the birth of the goddess. She lifts her arms as the forgotten yet significant women of the past lift her out of the water.

Mother earth and father sky need to unite to complete the myth of sacred marriage. This unites rationalism and intuitiveness. Toscano believes that mutual healing and blessings will be bestowed to those women who accept the masculine and men who accept the feminine.

News, Chess News and 2008 Chess Olympiad

Hola! dondelion has published a new edition of Random Round-up. This week's focus is China. At Goddesschess, RR is in the right-hand column, below Axis Mundae. This isn't chess news - but it's great stuff!

2008 Chess Olympiad: Round 10 Action reviewed at Chessvibes.com.

At Chess FM, a video interview with GM Veselin Topolov.

US keeps chess medal hopes alive in Chess Olympiad, an AP report from November 23, 2008 on the US Teams' Round 10 action.

Tanraj Sohal Wins BC Junior Chess Championship
24 Nov 2008 by editor
SURREY – Chess champ Tanraj Sohal, a Grade 7 student from Surrey, has done it again. The chess wizard has won the 2008 BC Junior Chess Championship held in New Westminster on November 8-9, 2008. He is the youngest BC Junior Chess Champion ever to win this trophy. This championship is open to all the BC junior chess players under the age of 20.

The remarkable and gifted Tanraj just celebrated his twelfth birthday in October and is still in his last year at elementary school. Tanraj recently returned from a successful trip in Vietnam where he represented Team Canada at the World Youth Chess Championship (WYCC) held at Vung Tau Resort, near Hi Chi Minh City from October 19-31, 2008. His dad, Dr. Parmjit Sohal, was the Head of Team Canada Delegations which represented 24 players from all across Canada at WYCC in Vietnam.

Just to keep things in perspective about the 2008 Chess Olympiad, where we focus on our favorite teams, of course, but mainly the top teams garner the bulk of publicity, an article about the Women's and Open Teams from Kyrgyzstan:

Kyrgyz female chess team wins twice on World Chess Olympiad
24/11-2008 08:52, Bishkek – News Agency “24.kg”, By Ksenia TOLKANEVA
Kyrgyz combined girls’ chess team won twice in the framework of the ninth and tenth regular tours of the World Chess Olympiad in Dresden, Germany, Kyrgyz Chess Federation reported to the news agency “24.kg”.

Kyrgyz girls’ team defeated Norway 3:1. The victorious points were brought by Greta Lim and Irina Ostriy. Chyngyz kizi Ayjarkyn and Janyl Tilenbaev were tied.

On November 23 our girls’ team met with Columbian chess players. In the result Kyrgyzstan has 2.5 points against the Columbian 1.5. However, they could not withstand to Croatia team. Only Irina Ostriy managed to make a draw, others failed- 0.5:3.5. Kyrgyz chess players will meet Israel rivals in the framework of the eleventh round.

Kyrgyz men’s combined team met with Singapore rivals and defeated them, scoring 3:1. Bolot Takyrbashev and Tologon tegin Semetey finished their games with victory. Nurdin Samakov and Sadam Davletbakov were tied with Singapore chess players, gaining 0.5 points for the Kyrgyz team.

Besides that, our athletes met with Uzbek chess players. The latter considered as one of the strongest ones. Only Tologon tegin Semetey managed to tie with Aleksey Barsov, 0.5:3.5.

Tomorrow, November 25, Kyrgyz men’s team will play against the United Arab Emirates.

Susan Polgar's column:
Chess champ gives update from World Chess Olympiad in Germany
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Story last updated at 11/23/2008 - 3:08 am

2008 Chess Olympiad

Now I know - I don't know how to read those charts at chess-results.com after all! Here's a new AP article mostly focusing on the U.S. team results in Round 10:

US keeps chess medal hopes alive in Chess Olympiad
By ROBERT HUNTINGTON – 4 hours ago
DRESDEN, Germany (AP) — The U.S. men and women teams kept their slim hopes for a medal alive on Sunday after the men beat Germany 2.5-1.5 and the women rolled over Uzbekistan 3.5-0.5 in the 10th and penultimate round of the Chess Olympiad.

On the top board in the open section, Ukraine edged Israel on the strength of Zahar Efimenko's win over Evgeny Postny to move into a tie for first-place with Armenia, which defeated Serbia 3-1.

China moved into a tie with Israel for second, one half match point behind the leaders, after beating England 2.5-1.5.

The Netherlands, Russia, Spain and the U.S. are all tied for fifth, a full point behind the leaders.

In the final round on Tuesday, China will play Armenia, the U.S. faces off against Ukraine, Israel plays the Netherlands, and Russia is paired with Spain.

On first board for the Americans, Gata Kamsky successfully defended the Exchange Variation of the Ruy Lopez and drew against Arkadij Naiditsch. On board two, American Hikaru Nakamura defeated Igor Khenkin.

The Germans picked up their only win of the day on board three when Daniel Fridman shredded Alexander Onischuk's kingside pawn structure and outplayed him in a long rook-and-pawn endgame.

The U.S. also won on board four on Yuri Shulman's kingside attack against David Baramidze.

In other open section results, Russia rolled over Slovenia 3.5-0.5; Spain defeated Bulgaria 3-1; Australia beat Brazil 2.5-1.5, and Canada took no prisoners in a 4-0 drubbing of Nicaragua.

In the women's section, Poland moved into first place by edging Armenia 2.5-1.5 while the other leaders before the round, Serbia and Ukraine, tied 2-all. Georgia improved its medal chances by beating China 2.5-1.5.

The American women's team got wins from Irina Krush, Anna Zatonskih and Rusudan Goletiani on the top three boards, against Nafisa Muminova, Irina Gevorgyan and Hulkar Tokhirjanova, respectively.

Zatonskih and Goletiani are almost assured of individual medals on their respective boards.

Katerina Rohonyan gave up the only draw for the U.S. on fourth board against Nodira Nodirjanova.

Just a point separates the top six teams with one round to go. Poland has 8.5 match points; Georgia, Serbia, and Ukraine each have eight; Russia and the United States have 7.5.

In the last round, Poland plays Ukraine, Georgia faces Serbia, the United States gets France, and Russia is paired the Netherlands.

The 11th and final round is on Tuesday with no matches scheduled for Monday.

Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

2008 Chess Olympiad

The grass is cut and the leaves are duly chopped up into bits - at least on the front lawn :) It was actually tolerable outdoors today, dressed with turtleneck, sweatshirt, winter jacket, globes, scarf and hat on - jeans too (I was not naked from the waist down, darlings). It took forever to chop up the leaves, and the tree on the next store neighbor's lot kept dropping more leaves on to my newly cleared grass with every little puff of breeze; I swear it was baiting me :) It took forever! Back and forth, back and forth...but at last, it was done. I got my work-out for the day, and I was pooped! The backyard is a mess - hopefully the day after Thanksgiving will be temperate enough to pull out the lawn mower and give it a last going-over for the season. We'll see.

Here are the current Women's Olympiad standings after R10:

Rk. SNo Team Team Games + = - TB1 TB2 TB3 TB4
1 9 Poland POL 10 8 1 1 17 302,0 125,0 26,0

2 2 Ukraine UKR 10 6 4 0 16 343,0 122,0 27,5
3 4 Georgia GEO 10 7 2 1 16 330,5 121,0 28,0
4 10 Serbia SRB 10 7 2 1 16 277,5 119,0 25,5

5 7 United States of America USA 10 7 1 2 15 321,0 119,0 28,0
6 1 Russia RUS 10 6 3 1 15 298,0 121,0 27,0

7 3 China CHN 10 6 2 14 328,0 133,0 25,5
8 6 Armenia ARM 10 7 0 3 14 288,5 122,0 25,5
9 5 France FRA 10 6 2 2 14 275,0 108,0 28,0
10 11 India IND 10 6 2 2 14 274,5 120,0 23,5
11 16 Romania ROU 10 7 0 3 14 251,0 118,0 24,5
12 17 Netherlands NED 10 7 0 3 14 246,0 118,0 22,5

13 8 Hungary HUN 10 6 1 3 13 268,5 122,0 24,5
14 19 Greece GRE 10 6 1 3 13 260,0 99,0 28,0
15 26 Belarus BLR 10 5 3 2 13 252,0 99,0 26,5
16 47 Mongolia MGL 10 6 1 3 13 247,5 114,0 21,5
17 21 Israel ISR 10 5 3 2 13 239,0 111,0 23,5
18 13 Bulgaria BUL 10 6 1 3 13 235,0 105,0 24,5
19 29 Argentina ARG 10 6 1 3 13 222,0 99,0 26,0
20 33 Italy ITA 10 5 3 2 13 220,5 105,0 24,0
21 43 Uzbekistan UZB 10 6 1 3 13 217,5 113,0 22,0

If I'm reading this correctly, USA and Russia each have 15 points, #1 Poland has 17 points; Ukraine, Georgia and Serbia each have 16 points.

Tomorrow USA plays France, which is in 9th place with 14 points. Any odds-makers out there figuring out who could possibly win? Here are the top match-ups for the Women for the final round tomorrow:

1 9 POL Poland 26 17 : 16 27½ Ukraine UKR 2
2 12 GER1 Germany 1 21½ 12 : 12 25½ Sweden SWE 20
3 4 GEO Georgia 28 16 : 16 25½ Serbia SRB 10
4 7 USA United States of America 28 15 : 14 28 France FRA 5
5 17 NED Netherlands 22½ 14 : 15 27 Russia RUS 1
6 16 ROU Romania 24½ 14 : 14 25½ China CHN 3
7 11 IND India 23½ 14 : 14 25½ Armenia ARM 6
8 8 HUN Hungary 24½ 13 : 13 22 Uzbekistan UZB 43
9 33 ITA Italy 24 13 : 13 28 Greece GRE 19
10 29 ARG Argentina 26 13 : 13 26½ Belarus BLR 26

In contention for individual medals:

Board 1: IM Irina Krush in 10th place, with 6.5/9. In first place after R10, is GM Maia Chiburdanidze with 6.5/8.

Board 2: IM Anna Zatonskih is holding down 1st place, yippee! with 7.5/9.

Board 3: WGM Rusudan Goletiana is holding down 2nd place, yippee! with 8.0/10.

Here are the top women by performance rating after R10:

1 GM Chiburdanidze Maia 2489 Georgia 2697 6,5 8 81,3 1
2 IM Fierro Baquero Martha L 2361 Ecuador 2613 7,5 8 93,8 1
3 WIM Linares Napoles Oleiny 2261 Cuba 2603 8,5 9 94,4 4
4 WIM Majdan Joanna 2284 Poland 2592 8,5 10 85,0 4
5 IM Zatonskih Anna 2440 United States of America 2591 7,5 9 83,3 2
6 WGM Hou Yifan 2578 China 2588 7,0 10 70,0 1
7 IM Socko Monika 2434 Poland 2574 6,0 9 66,7 1
8 GM Cramling Pia 2550 Sweden 2569 7,5 8 93,8 1
9 IM Kosintseva Nadezhda 2468 Russia 2567 7,5 9 83,3 3
10 IM Mkrtchian Lilit 2443 Armenia 2562 7,5 10 75,0 2
11 GM Stefanova Antoaneta 2548 Bulgaria 2549 7,0 9 77,8 1
12 IM Dzagnidze Nana 2503 Georgia 2538 6,5 9 72,2 2
13 GM Peng Zhaoqin 2455 Netherlands 2538 6,0 9 66,7 1
14 GM Hoang Thanh Trang 2483 Hungary 2534 7,0 10 70,0 1
15 WGM Zdebskaja Natalia 2419 Ukraine 2528 7,0 8 87,5 5
16 WGM Zhukova Natalia 2488 Ukraine 2528 6,0 9 66,7 2
17 IM Moser Eva 2376 Austria 2527 7,5 9 83,3 1
18 WGM Goletiani Rusudan 2359 United States of Amer. 2513 8,0 10 0,0 3
19 IM Krush Irina 2452 United States of America 2511 6,5 9 72,2 1
20 IM Khukhashvili Sopiko 2409 Georgia 2511 5,0 6 83,3 5

Can the US Women pull off a medal in this Olympiad? My hat (well-spiced) is ready for munching, ladies...

How'd the US chess duds, er, dudes do? They're in 8th place with 15th points. In 1st is Armenia with 17, in 2nd is Ukraine also with 17, and in 3rd is Israel with 16. Where's Russia? Holy crap, in 5th place with 15 points, behind 4th place China also with 15 points. Guess the Americans aren't the only super-GM duds (although to be fair, the US duds aren't super-GMs).

2008 Chess Olympiad

Here is a photo of Narmin Kazimova playing Board 4 for Azerbaijan, in R10 playing against WGM Maria Leconte of France. They drew their game. Photo from the website europe-echecs.com. They have a nice spread put together. I tried the official Dresden website out of desperation to see if I could find out what was going on with the women's teams. What a nightmare! Only the top six teams showed up on the page, no matter what I did I could not get the USA teams to show up under either the Open section or the Damen's section! Narmin, what a head of hair! I'm jealous.

As of now, the Russian women are beating the Hungarian women 2:0; France is beating Azerbaijan 2 1/2:1/2; Anna Zatonskih defeated Irina Gevorgyan of Uzbekistan for the only game score thus far in USZ v. UZB; China v. Georgia is at 1:1; Serbia and Ukraine are tied with 1/2 point each; and Poland is leading Armenia 1:0. Now I really must go out and mow over those leaves...

Go Anna! She's in good stead for a medal on Board 2 with 1 round to go.

2008 Chess Olympiad: Krush v. Kosteniuk

The Internet Chess Club has started up a blog and at least for the time being everyone can see it, even if you are not a member. Macauley Peterson (I hope I spelled his name correctly) put together a piece on IM Irina Krush after she defeated Women's World Chess Champion GM Alexandra Kosteniuk in R8 action, leading the US Women's Team to an upset defeat of the powerful Russian team. They were catapulted into 2nd place, but didn't stay there more than one night, unfortunately, as they lost their R9 match and fell back to 7th place. Today I've been trying to find commentary on the action but can't find it anywhere! The usually reliable Chessdom has gone to a "live chat" thing that is absolutely awful. Sigh. So, I'm going to go out and chop up leaves with the lawn mower. We're supposed to get snow tomorrow - I'd better get it done!

Anyway, here is the link to the ICC Blog interview with Krush and the blog also has a link where you can play through the game.

2008 Chess Olympiad: R8 India News

The photograph says it all.

Indian men held, women lose in Chess Olympiad
Dresden, Nov 22:
The Indian medal hopes in the 32nd chess Olympiad suffered a severe jolt after the men could only manage a 2-2 draw with Slovenia while the women lost 1.5-2.5 to Serbia in the eighth round here.

For the men, Grandmaster P Harikrishna scored over Dusko Pavasovic but on the fourth board Grandmaster Sandipan Chanda lost with white pieces against Jure Borisec. The other two boards ended in draws with Krishnan Sasikiran signing peace with veteran Alexander Beliavsky and G N Gopal achieving the same result against Lenik Luca on the third board.

Among the women, Tania Sachdev and Mary Ann Gomes ran out of steam and that cost the team dearly even as D Harika struck hard on the top board for the eves and defeated Alisa Maric.

Tania lost to Natasa Bojkovic while Mary Ann found her nemesis in Irina Chelushkina. The other game between Swati Ghate and Andjelija Stojanovic ended in a draw.

The Indian men slipped to joint 14th spot in the standings on 11 points out of a possible 16 and now face an uphill task to keep their medal hopes alive.

Armenia remained in sole lead in the open section with a 3.5-0.5 drubbing of France and took their tally to 15 points. Israel follow the leader closely on 14 points with a fine 2.5-1.5 victory over Germany while Russia and Ukraine are now joint third on 13 points each with just three rounds remaining in the biggest chess event. The Indian eves slipped to joint 10th spot after the debacle against Serbia and they too will need excellent score in the remaining matches to come within striking distance of a medal.

Chinese ladies played out a draw with Ukraine on the top table and remained in sole lead on 14 points here. The four-way tie for the second spot is currently shared by United States, Serbia, Poland and Ukraine who all have 13 points apiece.

Harikrishna outplayed Pavasovic from the white side of a Reti Opening. The middle game saw the Indian initiating an attack through the center and everything fell in place thereafter. Harikrishna wrapped the issue in 53 moves.

Sandipan Chanda missed out some chances against Jure Borisec in a Ruy Lopez game. Playing white the Indian sacrificed a Bishop in the middle game and had a certain draw in hand. However, playing for a win proved futile in the end as Borisevic found some defensive resources and won in 54 moves.

The Olympiad is an 11-round Swiss with 144 teams in the open and 111teams in the women section.

Bureau Report

2008 Chess Olympiad

AP news:
First-place teams defeated in chess round 9
By ROBERT HUNTINGTON – 3 hours ago

DRESDEN, Germany (AP) — The mighty were brought low as the first-place teams in both the open and women's divisions fell in round nine on Saturday. In the open division, Israel played the role of David, knocking off Armenia 2.5-1.5. On the women's side, Serbia edged China 2.5-1.5.

The U.S. women's medal hopes suffered a severe setback as Poland beat them 3-1. The U.S. men, already virtually eliminated from contention by Russia in round eight, crushed India 3.5-1.5.

There were a number of other upsets in the open section.

Ukraine downed top-seed Russia 2.5-1.5; 22nd-seed Serbia beat fourth-seed Azerbaijan by the same score. Sixteenth-seed Vietnam held fifth-seed Hungary to a 2-all tie; and Slovenia beat Norway 3-1.

England kept its medal hopes alive by beating Vietnam 3-1 on wins from Michael Adams and Nigel Short on the top two boards.

Veteran Boris Gelfand led the way for the Israelis on board one defeating the world's seventh rated player Levon Aronian with Black, exploiting his opponent's weakened king position to win a pawn and then winning the ensuing rook-and-pawn endgame. Israel's other win came from Maxim Rodshtein on board four over Tigan L. Petrosian.

The American men put on a strong performance that was probably too little, too late. Gata Kamsky beat Krishnan Sasikiran on board one when Sasikiran apparently missed an interpolation on move 34 and had to resign just two moves later. On board two, Hikaru Nakamura won a powerful game out of an unorthodox opening against Penteala Harikrishna.

The American's other win came on board four where Varuzhan Akobian won a tactical melee against Geetha Narayanan Gopal.

Today's results put Israel in first place with eight points. Armenia and Ukraine are tied for second with 7.5 points. China, England, and Serbia each have seven points.

Ten teams, including the United States and Russia, have 6.5 points.

On the women's side, Poland, Serbia, and Ukraine have leapfrogged China into a first place tie with 7.5 points. Armenia, China, and Georgia have seven points each. Hungary, Russia, the United States, and Uzbekistan have 6.5 points each.

Round 10 of the 11-round event takes place here on Sunday.

In other news, the president of the world chess organization FIDE, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who was injured in an automobile accident just before the event started, has arrived in Dresden for the FIDE Congress after being released from a Moscow hospital.

Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Friday Night Miscellany - One Day Late

Hola Darlings!

I worked last week Saturday 3.5 hours; today I worked 5 full hours. I could work 125 full hours and not get caught up, eek! The problem, of course, is the relatively new (but undeclared) firm policy that all administrative staff must "support" three people with billable hours. New support staff is not being hired, nor are admin people. Those of us who are here are expected to just "do more." Well, there is only so much one can do for three very busy billers in 37.5 hours a week. All the admin stuff I used to have time to do (years ago) during regular working hours is now done hit-or-miss as I can squeeze it in - or not at all. So, I decided recently to work a few Saturdays a month, in an attempt to put a dent in the backlog of work I have. Believe me, I HATE giving up any portion of my precious Saturdays and no amount of overtime pay can make up for that, but things are a horrid mess in my office. I cannot get done what needs to be done between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. As long as the firm wants to pay me for OT, I will grudgingly put in the extra hours. Sigh.

I did not get home from the office (with a stop at the supermarket) until 3:50 p.m. this afternoon. My whole day - gone! Now I'm frantically playing catch-up! However, I did take some time out to feed my fat and sassy squirrels. I whistled out the patio door when I got home, loaded down with a fresh pound of mixed nuts (in shell), and they came running! Walnuts are the big favorite, but pecans are a close-second. Any of the mixed nuts, though, is preferred over the lowly peanuts that I also toss out in abundance. Geez - I'm spending a fortune on the best fed squirrels in Milwaukee County! LOL!

There is good news, though. This morning, I pulled out a pair of jeans I had not worn for probably four years (they were far too tight around the waistline) and I was able to jump into them with practically no struggle at all! Wow - this weight loss/exercise program is showing tangible results in the figure department! Used to be I'd have to tug and pull and then more tug and pull and then lay down on top of the bed and shimmy/pull the rest of my way into those jeans, and then getting the waist band snapped close - that was a whole 'nother chore! No more - that's a thing of the past! WOW! I hardly had to suck it in at all to get the waist band snapped close. Amazing!

So - although I have not dropped any more pounds (can you spell P-L-A-T-E-A-U) my body is definitely shifting the rest of its fat reserves around thanks to dancing to the Moulin Rouge version of Lady Marmalade five nights a week! I also do the We Will Rock You commercial featuring Britney Spears (I can never remember how the heck to spell her name), Beyonce and Pink. Let me tell you, Pink really rocked in that commercial, holy smoke! I play all three parts and dance around the den like a maniac, shaking my booty like there's no tomorrow, shimmying, stretching, pumping my arms, swishing my hips 180 degrees, snapping my hair as if it were long (it isn't -- I had it cut off in a short version of Victoria Beckham), all the while shouting at myself in between breaths 'MOVE MOVE' when I think I'm going to have a heart attack and drop dead on the spot. It's working. I'm up to 30 minutes of mostly high intensity "dancing" and curves are starting to appear out of what used to be blubber. There's still blubber to get rid of - it will take awhile - but it took awhile to put this blubber on. I proudly earned every pound, darlings, and enjoyed each and every ounce along the way! When I started out this "excercise" program (a desperate attempt to increase physical activity since the weather rules out yard work and any length of walking during lunch hour), I could not even dance to the entire rendition of "Smooth." Now I can do five "Smooth"s in a row with less than a minute breather in between, but that's a bit boring, I like to mix up my music videos. Thank Goddess for YouTube!

Here's some "Miscellany" stuff for your pleasure. Take a look at these totally misleading headlines! Ridiculous!

"Screaming Mummy" Is Murderous Son of Ramses III?

This week's contribution from the National Geographic - which used to be a class act but, unfortunately, has degenerated in a desperate attempt to make money. Hell, memberships, which used to cost $35 a year (including the magazine), are now going for $15 a year! What? It's true, darlings! The Great Depression really IS here!

Back to topic - the article DOES explain (several paragraphs in) that the "death scream" is the result of a very natural process of decomposition/decay of a corpse (even in a supposedly "frozen in time" mummy). In historical times - well into the early 20th century before "wiring" of jaws became commonplace in embalming procedures, it was routine to tie a red cloth underneath the jaw tied in a bow at the top of the head, in an attempt to prevent the "yawn of death" from occurring in the death. (the use of the color red is a whole different topic). That is why, for instance, in the 1951 version of the movie "Scrooge" (based on "A Christmas Carol," written by Charles Dickens in the early-mid 1800's) you see the ghost of Jacob Marley untie what looks like a rag from around his face, and then his jaw drops in a horrible exaggerated manner! The death scream or yawn of death - seen on the cinema screen! I can imagine the screams that evoked back then! I certainly has a certain YECH factor.

I also recall seeing in the 1990's version of "Scrooge" a scene where Scrooge (played by the actor formerly known as Captain Jean-Luc Picard of Star Trek, the Next Generation) is at the funeral and they show the body of Marley in the coffin, Marley's face tied up with a red cloth (true to what was written in the original novel).

What is misleading, of course, is that even if one dies a horrible death by slow poison or torture, or the worst possible death you can possibly imagine, once rigor mortis releases its grip on the body (and it always does), the corpse is totally maleable. So even if one dies screaming with eyeballs bulging out of the sockets, that is not what one sees in the coffin. This is a basic lesson from CSI:101. We, in the western world of the 2oth and 21st century, so removed from death and what follows with respect to the corpse make horror movies out of a basic natural process. Geez.

**********************************************

Here is the second headline:

Were Neanderthals stoned to death by modern humans?

Makes it sound like a bloodthirsty horde of so-called "modern" humans deliberately hunted down and stoned to death the last few survivors of "primative" Neanderthal man. What a bunch of crap!

The actual article is about innovation in the crafting of stone tools that may have given so-called "modern" humans an edge in hunting, etc. over so-called "Neanderthal" man. A lot of bunkum, but heck, maybe they get paid per word, just like Charles Dickens did back in the day, darlings.

Okay, I'm starving, nothing to eat all day but 2 pieces of toast with my coffee this morning. I didn't intend to work as long as I did and I always intended to run out and get a Jimmy John's sub (they are lower fat than Cousins), but I never did. Now it's time to go downstairs and cook up some oven-baked pork chops - low fat, nutritious and, best of all, delish!

2008 Chess Olympiad

Bad news!

The US women fell to Poland in R9 today, 3:1. Boo, hiss, boo! They have fallen from 2nd place all the way to 7th, with only 2 round left! And - get this - China was knocked out of first place, all the way down to 4th! Here are the current top 10 after R9:

Rk. SNo Team Team Games + = - TB1 TB2 TB3 TB4
1 2 Ukraine UKR 9 6 3 0 15 268,0 97,0 25,5
2 9 Poland POL 9 7 1 1 15 249,5 104,0 23,5
3 10 Serbia SRB 9 7 1 1 15 232,5 97,0 23,5
4 3 China CHN 9 6 2 1 14 278,5 109,0 24,0
5 4 Georgia GEO 9 6 2 1 14 269,5 97,0 25,5 6
6 Armenia ARM 9 7 0 2 14 230,0 97,0 24,0
7 7 United States of America USA 9 6 1 2 13 248,5 96,0 24,5
8 1 Russia RUS 9 5 3 1 13 245,0 100,0 24,0 9
8 Hungary HUN 9 6 1 2 13 229,5 97,0 23,5
10 43 Uzbekistan UZB 9 6 1 2 13 188,5 87,0 21,5

Uzbekistan??? Russia in 8th place? Stock market crash being compared to the Great Depression. THE END MUST BE NEAR. Everyone - pray to the Goddess - quick!

2008 Chess Olympiad

USA has jumped into the #2 spot by virtue of their winning the match today against the Russian Women's Team, which fell all the way to #10. Wow! Here are the top 10 after Round 8 - 3 more rounds to go.

Rk. SNo Team Team Games + = - TB1 TB2 TB3 TB4
1 3 China CHN 8 6 2 0 14 232,0 82,0 22,5
2 7 United States of America USA 8 6 1 1 13 215,5 74,0 23,5
3 2 Ukraine UKR 8 5 3 0 13 206,0 77,0 22,5
4 9 Poland POL 8 6 1 1 13 187,5 82,0 20,5
5 10 Serbia SRB 8 6 1 1 13 178,0 74,0 21,0
6 4 Georgia GEO 8 5 2 1 12 200,5 76,0 21,5
7 6 Armenia ARM 8 6 0 2 12 182,0 77,0 20,5
8 14 Slovenia SLO 8 5 2 1 12 170,5 66,0 22,5
9 16 Romania ROU 8 6 0 2 12 168,0 74,0 21,0
10 1 Russia RUS 8 4 3 1 11 191,0 81,0 21,0

Round 9 match-ups for the Top 10:
China (#1) meets Serbia (#5)
Poland (#4) meets USA (#2)
Ukraine (#3) meets Romania (#9)
Georgia (#6) meets Slovenia (#8)
Argentina (#17) meets Armenia (#7)
Russia (#10) meets Lithuania (#18)

How are the US chess femmes now standing in contention for earning an individual medal?

On Board #1, IM Irina Krush is currently in 5th place
On Board #2, IM Anna Zatonskih is currently in 1st place
On Board #3, WGM Rusudan Goletiani is currently in 1st place
On Board #4, WGM Katerine Rohonyan is currently in 11th place

On the Best Performance List, USA now has 2 players in the top 10:

IM Anna Zatonskih is in 2nd place, with a PF of 2634 (her ELO is 2440)
IM Irina Krush is in 7th place, with a PF of 2578 (her ELO is 2452)

In addition, WGM Rusudan Goletiani is in 20th place with a PF of 2532 (her ELO is 2359), outshining a veritable galaxy of chess femme stars, including Stefanova, Sachdev, Ushenina, Cimilyte, and others.

Getting ready to eat that hat...

Another Thracian Chariot Uncovered

From AP
Bulgarian archaeologists discover ancient chariot
10 hours ago

SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — Archaeologists have unearthed a well-preserved 1,800-year-old bronze chariot at an ancient Thracian tomb in southeastern Bulgaria, the head of the excavation said Friday.

"The lavishly ornamented four-wheel chariot dates back to the end of the second century A.D.," Veselin Ignatov told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from the site, near the southeastern village of Karanovo.

He said it was found in a funerary mound that archaeologists believe was the grave of a wealthy Thracian aristocrat, as he was buried with his belongings.

Along with the chariot, which was decorated with scenes from mythology, the team unearthed well-preserved wooden and leather objects, some of which the archaeologists believe were horse harnesses.

In August, excavations at another ancient Thracian tomb in the same region revealed another four-wheel chariot.

About 10,000 Thracian mounds — some of them covering monumental stone tombs — are scattered across Bulgaria.

The Thracians were an ancient people who inhabited the lands of present-day Bulgaria and parts of modern Greece, Turkey, Macedonia and Romania between 4,000 B.C. and the 6th century A.D., when they were assimilated by the invading Slavs.

Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Erosion May Spell Future Famine for China

China's crops at risk from massive erosion
Fri Nov 21, 2008 9:13am EST

BEIJING (Reuters) - Over a third of China's land is being scoured by serious erosion that is putting its crops and water supply a risk, a three-year nationwide survey has found.

Soil is being washed and blown away not only in remote rural areas, but near mines, factories and even in cities, the official Xinhua agency cited the country's bio-environment security research team saying.

Each year some 4.5 billion tonnes of soil are lost, threatening the country's ability to feed itself.

If the loss continues at this rate, harvests in China's northeastern breadbasket could fall 40 percent in 50 years, adding to erosion costs estimated at 200 billion yuan ($29 billion) in this decade alone.

"China has a more dire situation than India, Japan, the United States, Australia and many other countries suffering from soil erosion," Xinhua quoted the research team saying.

Beijing has long been worried about the desertification of its northern grasslands, and scaled back logging after rain rushing down denuded mountainsides caused massive flooding along the Yangtze in the late 1990s.

But around 1.6 million square km of land are still being degraded by water erosion, with almost every river basin affected. Another 2.0 million square km are under attack from wind, the report said. The survey was the largest on soil conservation since the Communist Party took control of China in 1949.

($1=6.835 Yuan)
(Reporting by Emma Graham-Harrison)

2008 Chess Olympiad

Holy Caissa!

Chessdom reports:

USA (#4) wins against Russia (#3) 3:1 in the women section.
IM Krush Irina 2452 - GM Kosteniuk Alexandra 2525 1 : 0 IM Zatonskih Anna 2440 - IM Kosintseva Tatiana 2513 1 : 0 WGM Goletiani Rusudan 2359 - IM Kosintseva Nadezhda 2468 ½ : ½ WGM Rohonyan Katerina 2334 - IM Korbut Ekaterina 2459 ½ : ½

If the US chess femmes had played this way in the World Chess Championships, they'd have been battling for the title!

#1 Team is China, #2 Team is Ukraine. USA has already played China and tied 2:2. USA has not played Ukraine.

I'm going shopping for some allspice tonight just in case I have to eat my wool beret after all...

2008 Chess Olympiad

USA Women's Team has moved into 4th place overall after another solid round - holding China to 2:2! Could this team actually pull off a medal? I'd be the first to eat my hat if they do! USA Men's Team is in 9th place. Four rounds left to play.

IM Irina Krush is in contention for an individual medal on Board 1, as is IM Anna Zatonskih on Board 2, WGM Rusudan Goletiani on Board 3 AND WGM Katerine Rohonyan on Board 4!

2008 Chess Olympiad

I've been reporting what I consider highlights at Chess Femme News at Goddesschess. Here are the top 20 women by performance rating after Round 6:

1 Tan Zhongyi 2395 China 2946 5,0 5 100,0 5
2 WGM Pogonina Natalija 2474 Russia 2835 4,0 4 100,0 5
3 WGM Zdebskaja Natalia 2419 Ukraine 2808 5,0 5 100,0 5
4 IM Vajda Szidonia 2380 Hungary 2710 4,5 5 90,0 2
5 IM Krush Irina 2452 United States of America 2632 4,5 5 90,0 1
6 GM Cramling Pia 2550 Sweden 2630 4,0 4 100,0 1
7 WGM Calzetta Monica 2328 Spain 2628 4,5 5 90,0 1
8 GM Peng Zhaoqin 2455 Netherlands 2628 4,0 5 80,0 1
9 WGM Goletiani Rusudan 2359 United States of America 2623 5,5 6 91,7 3
10 WGM Munguntuul Batkhuyag 2410 Mongolia 2623 5,0 6 83,3 1
11 WGM Hou Yifan 2578 China 2619 4,5 6 75,0 1
12 IM Zatonskih Anna 2440 United States of America 2615 4,5 5 90,0 2
13 IM Houska Jovanka 2399 England 2611 4,0 5 80,0 1
14 GM Chiburdanidze Maia 2489 Georgia 2589 3,5 5 70,0 1
15 WGM Zhukova Natalia 2488 Ukraine 2570 4,5 6 75,0 2
16 WGM Shen Yang 2450 China 2567 4,0 5 80,0 3
17 WIM Linares Napoles Oleiny 2261 Cuba 2565 5,5 6 91,7 4
18 WGM Voiska Margarita 2318 Bulgaria 2564 5,5 6 91,7 3
19 IM Moser Eva 2376 Austria 2562 4,5 5 90,0 1
20 IM Socko Monika 2434 Poland 2562 3,5 5 70,0 1

Hubei Bronze Horse - A Beauty!

Real life large bronze horse unearthed in Hubei
WATCH VIDEO
Source: CCTV.com
11-19-2008 09:47

An excavation of a tomb has unearthed the largest bronze horse ever discovered in an ancient ruin. The discovery was made in Xiangfan, in Central China's Hubei province.

The bronze horse was found recently in a tomb from the Eastern Jin Dynasty. The dynasty dates back around 16-hundred years. The life-sized horse wears a spirited expression.

Experts say the piece is beautifully cast. It is a work of primitive simplicity, characterizing the style of the Han dynasty. Although the hind quarters of the statue have been damaged, the work is expected to make an important contribution to the study of the art of its era.

The horse, reportedly is even larger than those unearthed in the tomb where the Terra Cotta warriors were discovered.

Editor:Liu Fang

The Mummies of Urumchi Make the New York Times!

Great story on one of my favorite subjects: the mummies of Urumchi in the Tarim Basin.

The Dead Tell a Tale China Doesn’t Care to Listen To
By EDWARD WONG
Published: November 18, 2008

URUMQI, China — An exhibit on the first floor of the museum here gives the government’s unambiguous take on the history of this border region: “Xinjiang has been an inalienable part of the territory of China,” says one prominent sign.

But walk upstairs to the second floor, and the ancient corpses on display seem to tell a different story.

One called the Loulan Beauty lies on her back with her shoulder-length hair matted down, her lips pursed in death, her high cheekbones and long nose the most obvious signs that she is not what one thinks of as Chinese.

The Loulan Beauty is one of more than 200 remarkably well-preserved mummies discovered in the western deserts here over the last few decades. The ancient bodies have become protagonists in a very contemporary political dispute over who should control the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.

The Chinese authorities here face an intermittent separatist movement of nationalist Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim people who number nine million in Xinjiang.

At the heart of the matter lie these questions: Who first settled this inhospitable part of western China? And for how long has the oil-rich region been part of the Chinese empire?

Uighur nationalists have gleaned evidence from the mummies, whose corpses span thousands of years, to support historical claims to the region. Foreign scholars say that at the very least, the Tarim mummies — named after the vast Tarim Basin where they were found — show that Xinjiang has always been a melting pot, a place where people from various corners of Eurasia founded societies and where cultures overlapped.

Contact between peoples was particularly frequent in the heyday of the Silk Road, when camel caravans transported goods that flowed from as far away as the Mediterranean. “It’s historically been a place where cultures have mixed together,” said Yidilisi Abuduresula, 58, a Uighur archaeologist in Xinjiang working on the mummies.

The Tarim mummies seem to indicate that the very first people to settle the area came from the west — down from the steppes of Central Asia and even farther afield — and not from the fertile plains and river valleys of the Chinese interior. The oldest, like the Loulan Beauty, date back 3,800 years.

Some Uighurs have latched on to the fact that the oldest mummies are most likely from the west as evidence that Xinjiang has belonged to the Uighurs throughout history. A modern, nationalistic pop song praising the Loulan Beauty has even become popular.

“The people found in Loulan were Uighur people, according to the materials,” said a Uighur tour guide in the city of Kashgar who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of running afoul of the Chinese authorities. “The nationalities of Xinjiang are very complicated. There have been many since ancient times.”

Scholars generally agree that Uighurs did not migrate to what is now Xinjiang from Central Asia until the 10th century. But, uncomfortably for the Chinese authorities, evidence from the mummies also offers a far more nuanced history of settlement than the official Chinese version.

By that official account, Zhang Qian, a general of the Han dynasty, led a military expedition to Xinjiang in the second century B.C. His presence is often cited by the ethnic Han Chinese when making historical claims to the region.

The mummies show, though, that humans entered the region thousands of years earlier, and almost certainly from the west.

What is indisputable is that the Tarim mummies are among the greatest recent archaeological finds in China, perhaps the world.

Four are in glass display cases in the main museum here in Urumqi, the regional capital. Their skin is parched and blackened from the wear and tear of thousands of years, but their bodies are strikingly intact, preserved by the dry climate of the western desert.

Some foreign scholars say the Chinese government, eager to assert a narrative of longtime Chinese dominance of Xinjiang, is unwilling to face the fact that the mummies provide evidence of heterogeneity throughout the region’s history of human settlement.

As a result, they say, the government has been unwilling to give broad access to foreign scientists to conduct genetic tests on the mummies.

“In terms of advanced scientific research on the mummies, it’s just not happening,” said Victor H. Mair, a professor of Chinese language and literature at the University of Pennsylvania who has been at the forefront of foreign scholarship of the mummies.

Mr. Mair first spotted one of the mummies, a red-haired corpse called the Cherchen Man, in the back room of a museum in Urumqi while leading a tour of Americans there in 1988, the first year the mummies were put on display.

Since then, he says that he has been obsessed with pinpointing the origins of the mummies, intent on proving a theory dear to him: that the movement of peoples throughout history is far more common than previously thought.

Mr. Mair has assembled various groups of scholars to do research on the mummies. In 1993, the Chinese government tried to prevent Mr. Mair from leaving China with 52 tissue samples after having authorized him to go to Xinjiang and to collect them.

But a Chinese researcher managed to slip a half-dozen vials to Mr. Mair. From those samples, an Italian geneticist concluded in 1995 that at least two of the mummies had a European genetic marker.

The Chinese government in recent years has allowed genetic research on the mummies to be conducted only by Chinese scientists.

Jin Li, a well-known geneticist at Fudan University in Shanghai, tested the mummies in conjunction with a 2007 National Geographic documentary. He concluded that some of the oldest mummies had East Asian and even South Asian markers, though the documentary said further testing needed to be done.

Mr. Mair has disputed any suggestion that the mummies were from East Asia. He believes that East Asian migrants did not appear in the Tarim Basin until much later than the Loulan Beauty and her people.

The oldest mummies, he says, were probably Tocharians, herders who traveled eastward across the Central Asian steppes and whose language belonged to the Indo-European family. A second wave of migrants came from what is now Iran.

The theory that the earliest mummies came from the west of what is now modern China is supported by other scholars as well. A textile expert, Elizabeth Wayland Barber, in a book called “The Mummies of Urumchi,” wrote that the kind of cloth discovered in the oldest grave sites can be traced to the Caucasus.

Han Kangxin, a physical anthropologist, has also concluded that the earliest settlers were not Asians. He has studied the skulls of the mummies, and says that genetic tests can be unreliable.

“It’s very clear that these are of Europoid or Caucasoid origins,” Mr. Han, now retired, said in an interview in his apartment in Beijing.

Of the hundreds of mummies discovered, there are some that are East Asian, but they are not as ancient as the Loulan Beauty or the Cherchen Man.

The most prominent Chinese grave sites were discovered at a place called Astana, believed to be a former military outpost. The findings at the site span the Jin to the Han dynasties, from the third to the 10th centuries.

Further clouding the picture, a mummy from the Lop Nur area, the 2,000-year-old Yingpan Man, was unearthed with artifacts associated with an entirely different part of the globe. He was wearing a hemp death mask with gold foil and a red robe decorated with naked angelic figures and antelopes — all hallmarks of a Hellenistic civilization.

Despite the political issues, excavations of the grave sites are continuing. Mr. Abuduresula, the Uighur archaeologist, made a trip in late September to the desert site at Xiaohe, where 350 graves have been discovered. The bottom layer of graves dates back nearly 4,000 years. More recent graves point to a matriarchal herding society that worshiped cows, Mr. Abuduresula said.

Somewhere in those sands, he said, archaeologists have discovered a woman as striking as the Loulan Beauty. She is called the Xiaohe Princess, and even her eyelashes are intact.

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The Xiaohe Princess? When was she discovered? I don't recall reading about her!

The Legendary Korchnoi

GM Victor Korchnoi has quite the reputation for hating to lose. He has unleased barbed comments on more than one unsuspecting player through the years. One of the most recent players to experience the lash of Korchnoi's tongue was GM Fabiano Caruana of Italy.

While doing research on a somewhat related topic in answer to an inquiry from one of the few readers of L'eches des Femmes at Chessville, I came across this video at You Tube, showing that The Great One does have a sense of humor and an exquisite sense of irony :) Kudos to Korchnoi! This is no doubt blasphemy to say but in some ways, he reminds me of my Grandpa Newton; I was very close to him as a girl verging on the edge of adolescence in the early 1960's. He didn't let me get away with any crap when we played poker, checkers or cribbage!

Found: An Ancient Monument to the Soul

Story from The New York Times
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Published: November 17, 2008

In a mountainous kingdom in what is now southeastern Turkey, there lived in the eighth century B.C. a royal official, Kuttamuwa, who oversaw the completion of an inscribed stone monument, or stele, to be erected upon his death. The words instructed mourners to commemorate his life and afterlife with feasts “for my soul that is in this stele.”

University of Chicago archaeologists who made the discovery last summer in ruins of a walled city near the Syrian border said the stele provided the first written evidence that the people in this region held to the religious concept of the soul apart from the body. By contrast, Semitic contemporaries, including the Israelites, believed that the body and soul were inseparable, which for them made cremation unthinkable, as noted in the Bible.

Circumstantial evidence, archaeologists said, indicated that the people at Sam’al, the ancient city, practiced cremation. The site is known today as Zincirli (pronounced ZIN-jeer-lee).

Other scholars said the find could lead to important insights into the dynamics of cultural contact and exchange in the borderlands of antiquity where Indo-European and Semitic people interacted in the Iron Age.

The official’s name, for example, is Indo-European: no surprise, as previous investigations there had turned up names and writing in the Luwian language from the north. But the stele also bears southern influences. The writing is in a script derived from the Phoenician alphabet and a Semitic language that appears to be an archaic variant of Aramaic.

The discovery and its implications were described last week in interviews with archaeologists and a linguist at the University of Chicago, who excavated and translated the inscription.

“Normally, in the Semitic cultures, the soul of a person, their vital essence, adheres to the bones of the deceased,” said David Schloen, an archaeologist at the university’s Oriental Institute and director of the excavations. “But here we have a culture that believed the soul is not in the corpse but has been transferred to the mortuary stone.”

A translation of the inscription by Dennis Pardee, a professor of Near Eastern languages and civilization at Chicago, reads in part: “I, Kuttamuwa, servant of [the king] Panamuwa, am the one who oversaw the production of this stele for myself while still living. I placed it in an eternal chamber [?] and established a feast at this chamber: a bull for [the god] Hadad, a ram for [the god] Shamash and a ram for my soul that is in this stele.”

Dr. Pardee said the word used for soul, nabsh, was Aramaic, a language spoken throughout northern Syria and parts of Mesopotamia in the eighth century. But the inscription seemed to be a previously unrecognized dialect. In Hebrew, a related language, the word for soul is nefesh.

In addition to the writing, a pictorial scene chiseled into the well-preserved stele depicts the culture’s view of the afterlife. A bearded man wearing a tasseled cap, presumably Kuttamuwa, raises a cup of wine and sits before a table laden with food, bread and roast duck in a stone bowl.

In other societies of the region, scholars say, this was an invitation to bring customary offerings of food and drink to the tomb of the deceased. Here family and descendants supposedly feasted before a stone slab in a kind of chapel. Archaeologists have found no traces there of a tomb or bodily remains.

Joseph Wegner, an Egyptologist at the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the research, said cult offerings to the dead were common in the Middle East, but not the idea of a soul separate from the body — except in Egypt.

In ancient Egypt, Dr. Wegner noted, the human entity has separate components. The body is important, and the elite went to great expense to mummify and entomb it for eternity. In death, though, a life force or spirit known as ka was immortal, and a soul known as ba, which was linked to personal attributes, fled the body after death.

Dr. Wegner said the concept of a soul held by the people at Sam’al “sounds vaguely Egyptian in its nature.” But there was nothing in history or archaeology, he added, to suggest that the Egyptian civilization had a direct influence on this border kingdom. [What? Like these people would have neve heard of the Egyptians or their religious beliefs? That's a lot of baloney! They haven't found the proof yet - may never do so - that doesn't mean contact and cultural blending did not happen, it just means we can't prove it. We know it happens today; people haven't changed since the beginning of human history, the same things happened back then as today. As the writer of the biblical book of Ecclesiastes succinctly wrote: There is nothing new under the sun.]

Other scholars are expected to weigh in after Dr. Schloen and Dr. Pardee describe their findings later this week in Boston at meetings of the American Schools of Oriental Research and the Society of Biblical Literature.

Lawrence E. Stager, an archaeologist at Harvard who excavates in Israel, said that from what he had learned so far the stele illustrated “to a great degree the mixed cultural heritage in the region at that time” and was likely to prompt “new and exciting discoveries in years to come.”

Gil Stein, director of the Oriental Institute, said the stele was a “rare and most informative discovery in having written evidence together with artistic and archaeological evidence from the Iron Age.”

The 800-pound basalt stele, three feet tall and two feet wide, was found in the third season of excavations at Zincirli by the Neubauer Expedition of the Oriental Institute. The work is expected to continue for seven more years, supported in large part by the Neubauer Family Foundation of Chicago.

The site, near the town of Islahiye in Gaziantep province, was controlled at one time by the Hittite Empire in central Turkey, then became the capital of a small independent kingdom. In the eighth century, the city was still the seat of kings, including Panamuwa, but they were by then apparently subservient to the Assyrian Empire. After that empire’s collapse, the city’s fortunes declined, and the place was abandoned late in the seventh century.

A German expedition, from 1888 to 1902, was the first to explore the city’s past. It uncovered thick city walls of stone and mud brick and monumental gates lined with sculpture and inscriptions. These provided the first direct evidence of Indo-European influence on the kingdom.

After the Germans suspended operations, the ruins lay unworked until the Chicago team began digging in 2006, concentrating on the city beyond the central citadel, which had been the focus of the German research. Much of the 100-acre site has now been mapped by remote-sensing magnetic technology capable of detecting buried structures.

This summer, on July 21, workers excavating what appeared to be a large dwelling came upon the rounded top of the stele and saw the first line of the inscription. Dr. Schloen and Amir Fink, a doctoral student in archaeology at Tel Aviv University, bent over to read.

Almost immediately, they and others on the team recognized that the words were Semitic and the name of the king was familiar; it had appeared in the inscriptions found by the Germans. As the entire stele was exposed, Dr. Schloen said, the team made a rough translation, and this was later completed and refined by Dr. Pardee.

Then the archaeologists examined more closely every aspect of the small, square room in which the stele stood in a corner by a stone wall. Fragments of offering bowls to the type depicted in the stele were on the floor. Remains of two bread ovens were found.

“Our best guess is that this was originally a kitchen annexed to a larger dwelling,” Dr. Schloen said. “The room was remodeled as a shrine or chapel — a mortuary chapel for Kuttamuwa, probably in his own home.”

They found no signs of a burial in the city’s ruins. At other ancient sites on the Turkish-Syrian border, cremation urns have been dated to the same period. So the archaeologists surmised that cremation was also practiced at Sam’al.

Dr. Stager of Harvard said the evidence so far, the spread of languages and especially the writing on stone about a royal official’s soul reflected the give-and-take of mixed cultures, part Indo-European, part Semitic, at a borderland in antiquity.

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Well, I think that last paragraph is baloney too, because if I remember my history correctly, Indo-European speaking peoples invaded Persia and India about 1,000 years before, and I'll eat my wool beret if it took 1,000 years for the intermixture of language, writing and culture to occur in this dynamic region.

Ancient Jewelry: Earrings

Ancient earrings found in Jumilla By h.b. - Nov 16, 2008 - 9:29 AM

The 2,300 year earrings found in Jumilla - Photo EFE
Their grape design confirms the tradition of wine making in the area.

Some earrings in the form of grapes and thought to date from 2,300 years ago have been found in Jumilla, Murcia. They are being used to confirm the wine-making tradition and activities in the area. The find came as excavation work continues at the necropolis at Coimbra del Barranco Ancho. Work at the site continues.

Illegal Antiquities in Chicago - Or Not...

From The Chicago Tribune

Loot! Chicago at center of battle between archeologists, collectors
A 4,000-year-old artifact turns up at O'Hare. Stolen property or museum piece?
By Tom Hundley
November 9, 2008

On April 11, 2003, three days after American tanks rumbled into Baghdad and the day after looters swarmed the Iraq National Museum like a plague of locusts, Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon press corps enjoyed a little laugh at the expense of Iraq's catastrophe. "The images you are seeing on television you are seeing over and over and over, and it's the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase, and you see it 20 times and you think, 'My goodness, were there that many vases?' Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?" the defense secretary asked with mock astonishment. This was vintage Rumsfeld, and the journalists chuckled appreciatively. The looting would continue for two more days.McGuire Gibson, a man who may know as much about ancient Mesopotamian archeology as anyone on the planet, was horrified by the events in Baghdad and by Rumsfeld's cavalier attitude, but he wasn't particularly surprised. In the months leading up to the U.S. invasion, the distinguished University of Chicago scholar had repeatedly warned the Pentagon and State Department about the likelihood of looting. n The warnings fell on deaf ears. n I had been hearing about the legendary Mac Gibson for years, but I did not meet him until a month after the ransacking of the museum, when I was in Baghdad as a Tribune correspondent and he traveled to that benighted city to inspect the damage for himself.Glass from shattered display cases crackled underfoot as we walked the museum's devastated galleries, Gibson with the aid of a cane, which he occasionally used as a pointer."This chunk of rock is extremely important. We were very worried about it," he said, indicating a 5,000- year-old carved frieze that the looters had ignored. "It shows a guy killing a lion with a bow and arrow. It's important because it is one of the earliest examples of someone acting like a king. All through history, this is what kings do. They hunt," he explained.

Gibson, who is 69 and can sometimes come across as ornery, has been sifting through the ruins of Iraq's ancient civilizations for more than four decades. He is president of the American Academic Research Institute in Iraq. His first dig in the country was in 1964, and he has been back pretty much every year since then.After the walk-through, Gibson pronounced his verdict: "We dodged a bullet."This didn't appear to jibe with the mess that I had just seen, but at the time Gibson knew much more about the precarious state of Iraq's archeological heritage than the media or the general public. He knew, for instance, that some of the museum's most precious treasures had been stored for more than a decade in the basement vaults of Iraq's Central Bank. He also knew that something far worse was afoot, that the sack of the National Museum was only a symptom of a much more serious crisis that had been building for more than a decade, ever since Saddam Hussein's defeat in the first Persian Gulf War, a crisis that would soon reach a new crescendo.At the close of the war in 1991, as Saddam fought off insurrections from the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south, the U.S. government imposed a no-fly zone over large swaths of Iraq. This, along with strict UN trade sanctions, created a kind of perfect storm. With the weakened Baghdad regime unable to control large parts of the country, impoverished Iraqi villagers—often with the blessing of village elders—turned to the only source of income available to them: scavenging the hundreds of archeological sites that dot the landscape between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.In some areas, the trade in looted antiquities accounted for almost 85 percent of local economic activity. Meanwhile, a weak U.S. economy at the end of George H. W. Bush's presidency was encouraging the truly rich to look for alternatives to stocks and bonds. Art and antiquities fit the bill. As supply obligingly met demand, the market for Mesopotamian antiquities blossomed. Within months of the war's end, a treasure trove of Mesopotamian antiquities began to show up in the gilded display rooms of auction houses in London and New York, no questions asked."In the 1990s, you couldn't buy a bag of dates from Iraq, but you could buy almost any antiquity you wanted," Gibson said during a recent interview at his musty, book-cluttered office on the second floor of the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute.In the years since the first Gulf War, the ransacking of Iraq's archeological heritage has proceeded at a breathtaking pace. If it has slowed slightly in the last year or so, it is only because the market has become saturated. Archeologists have decried this as a terrible loss to all humanity. Museum directors, whose institutions are the repositories for the most important archeological finds, agree. But a war of words has broken out between the two camps. Archeologists argue that major museums and the wealthy private collectors who often sit on their boards have hastened the destruction of archeological sites by their willingness to pay high prices for objects that have almost certainly been looted. The museum directors and private collectors contend that by rescuing these artifacts from the vicissitudes of the black market they are giving safe shelter to the historical patrimony of all mankind.The high-end trade in illegal antiquities is centered in New York and London, but Chicago has emerged at the vortex of the debate. Earlier this year, the Oriental Institute mounted an important exhibition called "Catastrophe! The Looting and Destruction of Iraq's Past." It will run through the end of the year. On the other side of the argument, James Cuno, director of the Art Institute of Chicago, has recently published a book called "Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle over Our Ancient Heritage." In it, Cuno reflects on the meaning and origins of culture, and attempts by government to manipulate culture for political advantage. He also suggests that archeologists are a self-interested group guilty of working all-too-cooperatively with the dodgy regimes that happen to rule the territory where some of the world's most significant archeological sites are located.As president and director of the Art Institute, Cuno presides over a world-class art collection that cuts across the centuries from the ancient to the modern. With thousands of masterpieces to choose from, one of Cuno's favorites is a 14th-Century German monstrance, an 18-inch-tall silver reliquary whose design resembles a Gothic church. Its focal point is an exquisite rock crystal bottle that contains a tooth said to belong to John the Baptist. The bottle, made in medieval Egypt during the Fatimid Caliphate, was originally a vessel for perfume. With the collapse of the Fatimids, it probably ended up in Constantinople, and from there was carried off to northern Europe after Crusaders sacked Byzantium—a textbook example of cultural cross-fertilization producing an artistic masterpiece."Here you have a secular object, made in a Muslim context, transformed into a sacred reliquary for the holiest of Christian saints," explains Cuno.The lesson, he says, is that culture doesn't occur in a vacuum. Items such as the monstrance demonstrate what he describes as the "hybridity and interrelatedness" of the world's cultures."My argument is that there is no such thing as autonomous culture," he says. "Culture has never been ethnically pure; culture is not national."Cuno, 57, is a compact man who inhabits a spacious and tastefully decorated office at the Art Institute. Soft-spoken and solicitous, he carries himself with the air of a slightly distracted Ivy League professor. He arrived in Chicago four years ago after stints as director of the Harvard University art museums and the University of London's prestigious Courtauld Institute of Art.Earlier this year, Cuno was on almost everyone's shortlist to become the next director of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art after the aristocratic and long-reigning Philippe de Montebello announced that he was stepping down. Although the Met ultimately picked one of its own curators for the post in September, Cuno's book, which features a photo of the heavily guarded entrance of the Baghdad Museum on the front cover and a ringing endorsement from de Montebello on the back, was seen by some as a not-so-subtle pitch for the job. As it turned out, the controversy that has grown up around book may have hurt his chances.The book is a spirited attack on what Cuno calls "nationalist retentionist cultural property laws." These are the laws that virtually every country in the world uses to protect its archeological sites and claim sovereignty over culturally significant artifacts on its territory. Most of these laws are based on the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, which has been signed and ratified by 93 nations (but not the U.S.), and the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, signed and ratified by 111 nations (including the U.S.).Cuno argues that cultural property laws are chauvinistic and elitist, and that governments use these laws to impose a bogus national identity on cultural objects. The result, he says, is that the world's ancient artistic legacy is in danger of being held hostage to the nationalist agendas of petty tyrants.

Rest of article.

2008 Chess Olympiad

USA Results:

Bo. 32 Moldova (MDA) Rtg - 7 United States of America (USA) Rtg 1 : 3
16.1 IM Petrenko Svetlana 2285 - IM Krush Irina 2452 0 - 1
16.2 WGM Smokina Karolina 2235 - IM Zatonskih Anna 2440 ½ - ½
16.3 WGM Partac Elena 2168 - WGM Goletiani Rusudan 2359 0 - 1
16.4 WIM Bulmaga Irina 2287 - WGM Rohonyan Katerina 2334 ½ - ½

Bo. 4 Azerbaijan (AZE) Rtg - 10 United States of America (USA) Rtg 3 : 1
6.1 GM Radjabov Teimour 2752 - GM Kamsky Gata 2729 1 - 0
6.2 GM Mamedyarov Shakhriyar 2731 - GM Nakamura Hikaru 2704 1 - 0
6.3 GM Gashimov Vugar 2703 - GM Onischuk Alexander 2644 ½ - ½
6.4 GM Huseynov Gadir 2650 - GM Shulman Yuri 2616 ½ - ½

2008 Chess Olympiad

Photo: Round 4, from official photos, two chess legends: GM Susan Polgar and GM Maia Chiburdanidze

Some results from Round 4. I am watching the Packers/Bears game on television right at the moment, I wil be doing an update of the Round 4 results at Chess Femme News later this afternoon (after a nice long nap).

Indian Women defeat the German Women:
IM Harika Dronavalli 2462 - IM Paehtz Elisabeth 2471 ½ : ½
IM Tania Sachdev 2425 - IM Kachiani-Gersinska Ketino 2371 1:0
WGM Swathi Ghate 2320 - WGM Michna Marta 2399 ½ : ½
WGM Gomes Mary Ann 2298 - WFM Hoolt Sarah 2274 1:0

Photo: Round 4, from official photos, GM Polgar, GM Aronian, GM Shirov.

Korchnoi, the old warrior playing for Switzerland on Board 1, lost to GM Caruna of Italy, but I don't know what colors they were playing (I'm not following the games live, just logging in to various websites and reading what is being posted). Caruna had a rough start the first couple of rounds, but seems to be finding his stride.

China shows muscle against the Armenian Women's Team, with Mkrtchian on Board 2 (she had a very impressive result at the Women's World Chess Championship earlier this year):
WGM Hou Yifan 2578 - IM Danielian Elina 2513 1 : 0
GM Zhao Xue 2518 - IM Mkrtchian Lilit 2443 *
WGM Shen Yang 2450 - WGM Aginian Nelly 2325 1 : 0
Tan Zhongyi 2395 - WIM Galojan Lilit 2305 1 : 0

D'Artagnan Buried in The Netherlands?

Only goes to show, the old saying is true: I learn something new every day! I thought the "The Three Musketeers" (plus one, sometimes) were purely fictional characters! Wrong! Dumas based his novel on a biography of a real D'Artagnan written about 25 years after his death. This is a fascinating story.

Story from the Ottawa Citizen (Canada)

Musketeer D'Artagnan's grave in Netherlands, historian says
Adam Sage, The Ottawa CitizenPublished: Saturday, November 15, 2008

PARIS - A five-year quest to locate the tomb of d'Artagnan -- the inspiration for Alexandre Dumas's novel The Three Musketeers -- has led to a small Dutch church where new research suggests the swashbuckling hero is buried.

Charles de Batz de Castelmore d'Artagnan died during the Siege of Maastricht on June 25, 1673, and, according to a leading French historian, was laid to rest only few kilometres away at Saint Peter and Paul Church in Wolder.

"The trail is very precise," said Odile Bordaz, the author of several works on the musketeer.

Ms. Bordaz discounted theories that d'Artagnan's body was brought back to France, and is pressing the Dutch authorities and the Catholic Church to approve an archaeological dig of the site.

"I would rate the chance of success at 50/50," she said. "But it would be wonderful to find him. It's like a police inquiry."

Dumas wrote The Three Musketeers in 1844 after reading about d'Artagnan's exploits in Les Memoires de Monsieur d'Artagnan, which was published almost 150 years earlier. Although he brought the action forward by 15 years and invented much of the storyline, the main characters are rooted in history.

D'Artagnan was born in southwestern France between 1611 and 1615 and became a member of the King's musketeers by the age of 20. Athos, Porthos and Aramis were among his comrades. He engaged in cloak-and-dagger operations for Louis XIII and then for Louis XIV, the Sun King, who appointed him to lead the musketeers in 1658.

Ms. Bordaz said that his reputation as a lady-killer was justified: "The musketeers and their officers led joyous lives and multiple conquests not only on the battlefield but also in the secret of the alcoves."

D'Artagnan was killed during a charge led by the Duke of Monmouth, who was at the head of an English contingent allied to France. For decades, historians assumed that his body had been repatriated but Ms. Bordaz said she could find no trace of his tomb in France. She argued that because the hot, humid weather in June 1673 would have caused corpses to putrify rapidly, embalming would have been too costly and time-consuming.

During the siege the bodies of French officers were buried in the nearest Catholic church and recently discovered documents revealed that d'Artagnan's camp was close to Wolder. This almost certainly meant that he was buried in Saint Peter and Paul Church, Ms. Bordaz said.

Rev. Peter van der Aart, the parish's priest, said that there was a good possibility d'Artagnan was buried in or near the church, but said that an excavation would only be authorized if historians could be sure of the exact location of the tomb. "I don't think we could dig up everything to look for him."

© The Ottawa Citizen 2008

Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt

Book review.

Who was Cleopatra? British historian Joyce Tyldesley tries to tell us.
By Randy Dotinga November 14, 2008 edition

With the help of everyone from William Shakespeare to Elizabeth Taylor, history has found plenty of ways to depict the ancient world’s most famous woman. Who was Cleopatra? Take your pick: Fearless leader. Sly seductress. Brazen hussy.

Separating the truth from myth about Cleopatra is no easy matter. British historian Joyce Tyldesley makes a valiant attempt in her new biography, Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt, but she has trouble giving us a full portrait of this most mysterious of monarchs.

The challenge lies in the scarcity of reliable accounts of Cleopatra’s life, including her flings with Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony, two of the most powerful men on earth. Much of what we think we know about Cleopatra comes from Roman historians with axes – or asps – to grind.

“There are simply too many details missing” to write a conventional biography of Cleopatra’s life, Tyldesley admits.

Even so, Tyldesley notes that some basic facts of the queen’s life seem clear, although perhaps not well-known amid two millennia of speculation about her love life.

Cleopatra was “ambitious and ruthless,” as Tyldesley puts it; she most likely had two of her siblings killed. Smart and savvy, and hardly the emotion-driven female of history, she ruled as a living incarnation of the goddess Isis. And while she’s known for her supposed lusty liaisons, it appears she had no intimate relations with men other than Caesar and Anthony.

There are other surprises. It turns out that the queen probably wasn’t much of a looker; depictions on coins show a woman lacking natural beauty by ancient or current standards. But she was rich, intelligent, and powerful, and all these things made her irresistible.

While Tyldesley provides occasional doses of wit, “Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt” is a bit of a slog at times, especially when Tyldesley delves into the complicated politics of ancient Egypt. Readers must cope with 15 Egyptian kings named Ptolemy – Cleopatra alone co-ruled with three of them – and a slew of royals also named Cleopatra. (The queen in question was No. VII.)

Tyldesley is careful to avoid turning Cleopatra into a doomed romantic, noting that it’s impossible to know whether she and Anthony shared “genuine passion.” But this cautious approach saps life from the Queen of the Nile, turning her into an interesting but remote character, one whose motivations may be forever veiled by time and myth.

Ultimately, the most vivid and fascinating version of Cleopatra will always be found in our imaginations.

Randy Dotinga is a freelance writer in San Diego.

Treasure Trove in The Netherlands!

Ancient Celtic coin cache found in Netherlands
By TOBY STERLING Associated Press Writer © 2008 The Associated Press
Nov. 13, 2008, 12:22PM
(Photo: This hand out image made available by Amsterdam's Free University or VU and the city of Maastricht, Netherlands, Thursday Nov. 13, 2008, shows gold and silver coins. A hobbyist with a metal detector has found a cache of ancient Celtic and Germanic coins in a cornfield in the southern city of Maastricht. The city says the trove of 39 gold and 70 silver coins are dated to the middle of the first century B.C. The hobbyist, Paul Curfs, 47, found several coins this spring and called attention to the find, which eventually led to an archaeological investigation by Amsterdam's Free University. (AP Photo/ VU/Gemeente Maastricht, HO)

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — A hobbyist with a metal detector struck both gold and silver when he uncovered an important cache of ancient Celtic coins in a cornfield in the southern Dutch city of Maastricht.

"It's exciting, like a little boy's dream," Paul Curfs, 47, said Thursday after the spectacular find was made public.

Archaeologists say the trove of 39 gold and 70 silver coins was minted in the middle of the first century B.C. as the future Roman ruler Julius Caesar led a campaign against Celtic tribes in the area.

Curfs said he was walking with his detector this spring and was about to go home when he suddenly got a strong signal on his earphones and uncovered the first coin.

"It was golden and had a little horse on it — I had no idea what I had found," he said.

After posting a photo of the coin on a Web forum, he was told it was a rare find. The following day he went back and found another coin.

"It looked totally different — silver, and saucer-shaped," he said. Curfs notified the city of his find, and he and several other hobbyists helped in locating the rest of the coins, in cooperation with archaeologists.

Nico Roymans, the archaeologist who led the academic investigation of the find, believes the gold coins in the cache were minted by a tribe called the Eburones that Caesar claimed to have wiped out in 53 B.C. after they conspired with other groups in an attack that killed 6,000 Roman soldiers.

The Eburones "put up strong resistance to Caesar's journeys of conquest," Roymans said.

The silver coins were made by tribes further to the north — possible evidence of cooperation against Caesar, he said.

Both coin types have triple spirals on the front, a common Celtic symbol.

The two other known caches of Eburones coins have been found in neighboring Belgium and Germany.

Maastricht city spokeswoman Carla Wetzels said the value of the coins is not known — their worth is primarily historical. The Belgian cache of similar size was estimated at around 175,000 euros ($220,000).

The farmer who owned the land agreed to sell his interest to the city for an undisclosed sum.

Curfs, a teacher at a nearby junior college, continues to own the 11 coins he found, but has lent them to the City of Maastricht on a long-term basis. The coins will go on display at the Centre Ceramique museum in Maastricht this weekend.

Curfs said he considers his metal detector habit a meditative hobby and not an obsession.

"I have advice for anybody hoping to get rich like this," Curfs said. "Forget it."

Viva Las Vegas!

With this horrid recession digging in for what looks like a long stay (would not be surprised at all, darlings, to see unemployment reach 10.5% in six-seven months), I have been reading article after article about the big hit that Las Vegas has taken -- tourists aren't visiting! Well, hell, who has the money?

This is worrying to me, though, because our Goddesschess partner Isis and, of course, our fabulous friends the Las Vegas Showgirls (Bambi Darlin and Candy Kane), live in Las Vegas. Hotels and casinos have been cutting hours and staff. Tips are way down (dealers in many of the hotels make mininum wage, relying on tips to earn a living wage, the same holds true for housekeeping help and other hotel staff). Building projects have sputtered to a halt; large condos have gone off the board and those underway are being pummeled by worried buyers demanding back their downpayments. Because of the credit freeze, commercial project financing is more scarce than water on the Sun. The Wall Street suits (and criminals - one in the same if you ask me) who run the mega-conglomerates that now own most of Las Vegas and BIG gambling all around the world are actually worried! Of course, they are mostly insulated - suits don't generally lay off other suits - and they inflict the most pain on those far down the economic ladder from where they perch. When I practiced law these types of people were called New York snakes. Gave snakes a bad name.

delion and I last visited Las Vegas in November, 2003. We were planning a trip to visit our friends NEXT November (2009). But after being bombarded the past couple of weeks with emails from Travelocity advertising cheap airfares and hotel deals to LV, I spent most of last night checking out hotel room rates and "last minute" airfares to Las Vegas. I started at Travelocity but soon moved to Kayak to check out the airfares, and then direct-shopped the hotels on the Strip to see what rates were being offered.

The upshot is that dondelion and I will be headed to Vegas, Baby, for Christmas, arriving on 12/24 and departing on 12/26. We'll visit our friends Isis and Michelle and check out the latest changes since our 2003 visit. At least three major new hotels/resorts have opened up along the Strip since our last visit - plenty to see and do and cram into our short time in LV. We're not gamblers, we may plug some nickles into the slots if we can find nickle slots anywhere on-Strip (the last time we played nickle slots was at the Westward Ho in November, 2003, now torn down and replaced by an expensive mega resort).

Unbelievable room rate for a "deluxe" (i.e., standard room with two queen sized beds) obtained at the Imperial Palace of $35 and $39 special online rate a night for the two nights we'll be in town. Also got a decent round trip airfare on AirTran (but I would not consider it "fantastically cheap") although AirTran did charge me $6 extra for each seat for selecting online seat assignments for dondelion and I! RIP OFF! That added $24 to our round trip fare total. Yeah, I'm a cheapskate! Times are tough! Money is tight! You know things must really be tough in LV when the reservations clerk at a giant hotel (Imperial Palace is part of the Harrah's franchise) chats you up like you're a long-lost friend! I do have to say that she was very sweet and friendly, and I enjoyed talking with her a lot.

So, I envision dondelion and I sharing a quiet steak and turkey dinner at the Sahara steak house with Isis and Michelle on Christmas day, and driving their neighborhood nuts by going around singing Christmas carols off-key while dressed in shorts (where we're coming from, 50 degrees in LV will feel positively tropical!)

Viva Las Vegas, Baby! I just love that city. It energizes me just like New York does.

2008 Chess Olympiad

Hola! No posts last night, I was just too tired after spending some time reporting on Round 2 of the Olympiad at Chess Femme News. I just concluded updating Chess Femme News with Round 3 information - on the link above click on November, 2008 and then click on November II for the latest news.

There are plenty of photographs available through links at Susan Polgar's blog, there is also lots of photos at Chessdom and Chessbase.

I find the level of press coverage on this Olympiad has been - quite frankly - remarkable! I've been writing about the chess Olympiads for years, in current and defunct websites and I've never seen this level of interest before. I have no explanation for it - perhaps something is going on behind the scenes with Susan Polgar (in charge of English-speaking press relations and serving as an Ambassador at Large for the Dresden organizers) pushing for coverage in the international media.

In any event, the Associated Press has been publishing stories every day (thus far); press in India always follows events where they're countrymen and women are participating closely (USA papers could take a lesson from the Indian chess coverage); press in the Philippines is eagerly following young GM Wesley So's and their national team's progress. Jamaica has press coverage. So does Indonesia. A young Indonesian female player, Irene Kharisma Sundakar, is a star in her home country and has generated lots of interest in the Olympiad.

The UK; Azerjaiban; Armenia; etc.

Record Oracles Bones Discovered in China

Dem bones, dem bones...

Story from China Daily
Record find of oracle bones in Shaanxi
By Ma Lie (China Daily)Updated: 2008-11-12 07:10

XI'AN -- Archaeologists in Shaanxi province have unearthed more than 1,100 oracle bone characters, shedding new light on the number of such inscriptions in existence.

The find was made at a cluster of tombs in Qishan county that date back to the Western Zhou Dynasty (c. 11th century-771 BC).

Lei Xingshan, head of the dig team, said in Xi'an yesterday: "Prior to our discovery at the Temple of Duke Zhou, less than 1,100 Chinese characters written on pieces of bone and tortoiseshell had ever been found."

Members of the team have been unearthing scripts almost every day since the excavation began on Sept 1, and there are now more than 1,100 readable words, which is a new record, he said.

Among the finds is the character for "king", which could help archaeologists learn more about the lives of the Zhou kings and the region in which they lived, Lei said.

Also, after excavating more than 100 commoners' tombs in the area around the duke's temple, the team has built up a large collection of pottery and bronze ware that will help paint a better picture of the lives of ordinary people during the Western Zhou period, he said.

"Coincidentally, we also found several items from the Yangshao period of the neolithic era (5,000-7,000 years ago); the first time such relics have been found near the Temple of Duke Zhou," he said.

Zhou Chunmao, a researcher with the Shaanxi archaeology research institute, told China Daily Tuesday that the discovery of the new oracle bone scripts has great significance for the understanding of the formation of the Western Zhou dynasty and the structure of society at that time.

Since the first oracle bones were found in 1898, Chinese archaeologists have unearthed more than 100,000 pieces of bone and tortoiseshell inscribed with characters.

Archaeologists' interest in the area around the Temple of Duke Zhou was aroused in December 2003, after a team led by Peking University Professor Xu Tianjin found two inscriptions featuring 55 characters there.

Prior to the record haul by Lei's team, 760 inscriptions dating from the Western Zhou Dynasty had been found in the area.

Duke Zhou was the fourth son of the founding King Wenwang of the Western Zhou Dynasty, and regent to to his nephew King Chengwang.

***************************

Divination may be at the root of the earliest forms of "board" games. Chess historians pay scant attention to this aspect of the development of games, seeming to insist that chess is somehow "different" (hint: it's not, darlings). Theory suggests that the earliest "boards" were drawn in the earth with a stick or a finger. The shamans of the Dogon to this day continue to construct complex board-like structures by drawing in the earth in preparation for divination. Another line of thought traces the earliest development of "board" games to the development of agriculture - it is fascinating to see depictions of "fields" and the layout of entire towns along "chessboard" like grids that date back to 8000 years ago.

Women Gain in Education but Not Power

New study.

By REUTERS
Published: November 12, 2008
GENEVA (Reuters) — Women still lag far behind men in top political and decision-making roles, though their access to education and health care is nearly equal, the World Economic Forum said Wednesday.

In its 2008 Global Gender Gap report, the forum, a Swiss research organization, ranked Norway, Finland and Sweden as the countries that have the most equality of the sexes, and Saudi Arabia, Chad and Yemen as having the least.

Using United Nations data, the report found that girls and women around the world had generally reached near-parity with their male peers in literacy, access to education and health and survival. But in terms of economics and politics, including relative access to executive government and corporate posts, the gap between the sexes remains large.

The United States ranked 27th, above Russia (42nd), China (57th), Brazil (73rd) and India (113th). But the United States was ranked below Germany (11th), Britain (13th), France (15th), Lesotho (16th), Trinidad and Tobago (19th), South Africa (22nd), Argentina (24th) and Cuba (25th).

“The world’s women are nearly as educated and as healthy as men, but are nowhere to be found in terms of decision-making,” said Saadia Zahidi of the World Economic Forum

Middle Eastern and North African countries received the lowest ratings over all. The rankings of Syria, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia declined in 2008. The report said the inequalities in those countries were so large as to put them at an economic disadvantage. [Heh heh, they think their oil will last forever, foolish men.]

“A nation’s competitiveness depends significantly on whether and how it educates and utilizes its female talent. To maximize its competitiveness and development potential, each country should strive for gender equality.”

Population Control in the 21st Century

We'll just choke the "excess population" to death with pollution. I mean, who gives a flying rip, right?

Report Sees New Pollution Threat
By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: November 13, 2008
BEIJING — A noxious cocktail of soot, smog and toxic chemicals is blotting out the sun, fouling the lungs of millions of people and altering weather patterns in large parts of Asia, according to a report released Thursday by the United Nations.

The byproduct of automobiles, slash-and-burn agriculture, cooking on dung or wood fires and coal-fired power plants, these plumes rise over southern Africa, the Amazon basin and North America. But they are most pronounced in Asia, where so-called atmospheric brown clouds are dramatically reducing sunlight in many Chinese cities and leading to decreased crop yields in swaths of rural India, say a team of more than a dozen scientists who have been studying the problem since 2002.

“The imperative to act has never been clearer,” said Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, in Beijing, which the report identified as one of the world’s most polluted cities, and where the report was released.

The brownish haze, sometimes in a layer more than a mile thick and clearly visible from airplanes, stretches from the Arabian Peninsula to the Yellow Sea. In the spring, it sweeps past North and South Korea and Japan. Sometimes the cloud drifts as far east as California.

The report identified 13 cities as brown-cloud hot spots, among them Bangkok, Cairo, New Delhi, Tehran and Seoul, South Korea.

It was issued on a day when Beijing’s own famously polluted skies were unusually clear. On Wednesday, by contrast, the capital was shrouded in a thick, throat-stinging haze that is the byproduct of heavy industry, coal-burning home heaters and the 3.5 million cars that clog the city’s roads.

Last month, the government reintroduced some of the traffic restrictions that were imposed on Beijing during the Olympics; the rules forced private cars to stay off the road one day a week and sidelined 30 percent of government vehicles on any given day. Over all, officials say the new measures have removed 800,000 cars from the roads.

According to the United Nations report, smog blocks from 10 percent to 25 percent of the sunlight that should be reaching the city’s streets. The report also singled out the southern city of Guangzhou, where soot and dust have dimmed natural light by 20 percent since the 1970s.

In fact, the scientists who worked on the report said the blanket of haze might be temporarily offsetting some warming from the simultaneous buildup of greenhouse gases by reflecting solar energy away from the earth. Greenhouse gases, by contrast, tend to trap the warmth of the sun and lead to a rise in ocean temperatures.

Climate scientists say that similar plumes from industrialization of wealthy
countries after World War II probably blunted global warming through the 1970s. Pollution laws largely removed that pall.

Rain can cleanse the skies, but some of the black grime that falls to earth ends up on the surface of the Himalayan glaciers that are the source of water for billions of people in China, India and Pakistan. As a result, the glaciers that feed into the Yangtze, Ganges, Indus and Yellow Rivers are absorbing more sunlight and melting more rapidly, researchers say.

According to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, these glaciers have shrunk by 5 percent since the 1950s and, at the current rate of retreat, could shrink by an additional 75 percent by 2050. [I fully intend to live this long - I will be 99 years old in 2050].

“We used to think of this brown cloud as a regional problem, but now we realize its impact is much greater,” said Veerabhadran Ramanathan, who led the United Nations scientific panel. “When we see the smog one day and not the next, it just means it’s blown somewhere else.”

Although the clouds’ overall impact is not entirely understood, Mr. Ramanathan, a professor of climate and ocean sciences at the University of California, San Diego, said they might be affecting precipitation in parts of India and Southeast Asia, where monsoon rainfall has been decreasing in recent decades, and central China, where devastating floods have become more frequent.

He said that some studies suggested that the plumes of soot that blot out the sun have led to a 5 percent decline in the growth rate of rice harvests across Asia since the 1960s.

For those who breathe the toxic mix, the impact can be deadly. Henning Rodhe, a professor of chemical meteorology at Stockholm University, estimates that 340,000 people in China and India die each year from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases that can be traced to the emissions from coal-burning factories, diesel trucks and wood-burning stoves. “The impacts on health alone is a reason to reduce these brown clouds,” he said.
Andrew C. Revkin contributed reporting from New York.

$250,000 Chess Program - Out of Business

Ohmygoddess! How low-life can you get - ripping off parents and kids who just want to play chess. Where is the money?

Families Duped Out of Money
Popular After-School Chess Program Suddenly "Checks Out"
November 13, 2008

FREMONT, CA (KGO) -- Parents from as many as three dozen Bay Area schools are wondering tonight if they'll ever get the estimated $250,000 they're owed from an afterschool program. A popular children's chess program has suddenly closed up shop.

Know Chess rented space from public and private schools in the East Bay, South Bay and the Peninsula. The closures came without warning.

Shubham Mandal of Palo Alto enjoys a game of chess with his dad. The 8-year old is one of an estimated 1,300 Bay Area children enrolled this semester in Know Chess.

But the afterschool program suddenly closed down a few weeks ago.

"It feels bad because I like chess a lot and they're stopping it," said Mandal.

The closure left parents like Michelle Biche disappointed for her child and wondering about a refund of her $204 tuition payment.

Her son Owen attends first grade at Delaine Easton in Union City.
"I want to get better and beat my dad once," said Michelle's son Owen Biche.
"I hope other people see this, and other people get involved. And that this woman doesn't go on and continue to do this because it's just going to disappoint children," said Michelle Biche.

The Know Chess' office in Fremont appears closed. A neighbor says he hasn't seen anyone there in a month. Calls and e-mails by parents to Know Chess have gone unreturned. So 7 On Your Side went to owner Angela Hughes' condo in Fremont.

There, we found a Know Chess parent also looking for Hughes. We followed her to Hughes front door. Hughes refused to open the door, but later told 7 On Your Side she's been busy responding to e-mails and phone calls and promised refunds in six to eight weeks.

"It sounds like she's trying or wants to refund people their money. I'm not sure she knows when that's going to happen, and that's causing the anxiety," said Suzanne Ogawa.

Meanwhile back at Delaine Easton, Know Chess is being replaced by a competing program, U.S. Chess Mates.

The school district's nonprofit foundation has stepped in to cover the tuition for parents.

"It's the right thing to do. Our job as a foundation is to work with the community to provide access to extracurricular, pro-curricular activities," said the president of the New Heaven School Foundation Phillip Crosby.

We were the first to break the news to some of the parents.

"This is nice. It's nice to see that you know our district cares as much about the kids that they say," said Michelle Biche.

The donation covers children at Delain Easton. But the parents of 1,200 other children are still waiting for their refunds. We'll keep you posted.
(Copyright ©2008 KGO-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)

2008 Chess Olympiad

I've put up a brief report on the chess femmes Round 1 results at Chess Femme News at Goddesschess (find it on the navigation bar).

Both American Teams won their respective matches today, hooray. After a quick perusal, it appears that the favorites did what they were advertised to do. I saw that GM Wesley So of the Philippines won his game behind the black pieces against a much higher rated player. The official website is a hopeless mess - I got my news directly from Susan Polgar's blog and chess-results.com. I just do not understand how a website cannot offer current results! I don't want to see "live" games 12 hours after they were held! I want to see the team match-ups and the scores! Is that too much to ask, Dresden organizers? Whatever you have paid your web designer, it's too much!

First Edition of "My 60 Memorable Games" Discovered

I was visiting YouTube tonight and did a search under "chess" when up pops this video, about a fellow's visit to a "dollar" store, where he visits the used books shelves and discovers a nearly pristine first edition of Bobby Fischer's "My 60 Memorable Games." I don't know if it is for real or not but it was interesting! He paid $1.00 for the book. Yes, that is One Dollar American. Amazing, absolutely amazing.

Egyptian Goddess - Who Knew?

Intellectual Property Watch
12 November 2008
Egyptian Goddess Puts Teeth Back In US Industrial Design Rights
Posted by William New @ 5:17 pm
By Steven Seidenberg for Intellectual Property Watch

For the past two decades, industrial design rights have received little respect in the United States. But no longer.

The recent court ruling in Egyptian Goddess, Inc v Swisa, Inc has dramatically strengthened industrial design rights in the US, bringing the country’s protections for these rights back into line with international standards, according to many experts.

Please note: this article is password protected and only available for IP-Watch Subscribers.

Well, I'm not a member of IP-Watch Subscribers but I did read the decision simply by clicking on it and voila! There it was in PDF! Ah, it brought back pleasant memories of the days of my own brief writing and oral argument! Of course, the opinion is boring as hell and after having been out of it for over 20 years, it took a bit to track, but I guess once a lawyer, always a lawyer. Damn!

2008 Chess Olympiad

I'm impressed - AP has actually put out a press release on the opening of the event! Of course, it's only about the men's teams (they euphimistically call them "open" teams now, but we all know they're men's teams, with an occasion chess femme thrown in for a little spice) but it's international press coverage.

The Indian press is already putting out articles - here's one from the English-language The Hindu: New format to help India in Chess Olympiad. The Indian women's team is very strong: reigning World Junior girls champion Dronavalli Harika,Tania Sachdev, Swati Ghate, Nisha Mohota and Mary Ann Gomes. The Indian Women's Team finished in 12th place at the Turin Olympiad in 2006.

Tonight is the grand opening. GM Susan Polgar was the torch lighter for this Olympiad. Here is a photo from her blog, which I presume was taken by Paul Truong, who is acting as the official photographer for the Olympiad. Truong has taken many of those great photos at SP's blog.

Chess News

Hola! L'echecs des Femmes November 1st column is now up and running at Chessville. dondelion has posted a brand new Random Round-up (right hand column, scroll down to RR) at Goddesschess, and I've done some updating of October and November news at Chess Femme News. Enjoy!

The 2008 Olympiad opens tomorrow in Dresden with play starting 11/13. GM Susan Polgar is acting as a sort of ambassador at large and the English-language news liason with the press and I understand she'll be publishing a daily review in Dresden's largest newspaper and also doing a daily television spot (this is per the Parrot at Chessville).

Katherine Neville "The Fire": Another Review

I've lost count!

Book - The Fire: A Novel

By Elizabeth de Jager Nov 11, 2008, 9:20 GMT

Twenty years ago, Katherine Neville's book, The Eight was published to great acclaim. It defied genre - it was a swashbuckling adventure, it had romance, the epic worldwide settings, intricate mysteries, strong female characters and sexy Russian chess masters.

I have tried reading The Eight at least once every two years since I first picked it up in high school. If I had to choose a book that changed the way I saw authors and their skill, it would be The Eight. Because of The Eight, I learned to play chess (badly), my love for adventure and mystery novels were born, and importantly my obsession with quest novels - I can't get enough of them.

The long wait for the sequel has been worth it. We are introduced, from the very first pages, to Alexandra, Cat and Sasha's daughter. Through Alexandra we take each step forwards to uncovering the mystery surrounding her mother's disappearance. The Game has begun again - pieces of the mysterious and beautiful Montglane Service has reappeared, triggering the start of a new adventure for the various players.

The author deftly describes far-flung places as if it is her habit to take weekend jaunts there. She pulls us effortlessly into the past and history comes to life as she uses real events to elaborate on her storyline.

Ms. Neville has always excelled in drawing vibrant characters and in The Fire she reprises the roles of many of the characters from The Eight. Favourites are Lily Rad, Alexandra's one-time chess tutor and the other is Ladislaus Nim, Alexandra's uncle, enigmatic recluse and computer genius.

Ms. Neville is also one of the best dialogue writers I've ever seen. The dialogue rolls and characters' stories are told in flashbacks that do not detract from the existing urgency in the novel - and that in itself is hard to do! (Read ANY book on writing and you will see that they warn aspiring writers about flashbacks/back stories - they slow the story down, they are boring and should be used sparingly, etc. etc. ) Ms. Neville flies in the face of all of this and comes out trumps.

The action is relentless. Intermingled with chess analogies you are taught bits of history, alchemy, the occult, poetry, religion and cooking and you are never bored by any of the characters as they all manage to hold their piece of stage by being plotted and created with a deft hand. If you've not had the chance to read The Eight, but you would like to get stuck into The Fire, do so - although it would be an advantage to have read The Eight, The Fire is very much its own creature and stands alone very nicely.

The Fire is a feast - it delves deep into mythology and legend and demands your attention - there are no skipping scenes here, because if you do, you will miss crucial information to help uncover the new players of The Game. The story is multi-layered and it a strong compelling read.

2008 Chess Olympiad

Here is the Indonesian Women's Team:

Sebastian Simanjuntak heads the women's team, which consists of Irene Kharisma Sukandar, Evi Lindiawati, Kadek Iin Dwijayanti, Desi Rachmawati and Dewi Citra.

Irene Kharisma Sukandar is one to watch. She has been playing against male players in various events in addition to women-only events and has been sharpening her skills.

Full article.

2008 Chess Olympiad

Here is the Azerbaijani Women's Team:

Zeynab Mammadyarova, Turkan Mammadyarova, Nargiz Umudova, Narmin Kazimova (the main staff) and Khayala Iskandarova (a reserve player) will perform within the Azerbaijani female combined team.

Anar Allahverdiyev is the chief coach of the women’s combined team.

Full article.

I'll be keeping my eye on Narmin Kazimova. She had some sparkling moments at the 2008 European Individual Women's Chess Championship.

Our Lady of Kazan: Another Black Madonna

I read about this Marian icon of Kazan earlier this evening in Katherine Neville's "The Fire." This image is from Wikipedia - see entry below.

She is one of the "black" Madonnas - so-called both because of the often dusky color of their skin (in some cases, after cleaning, attributed to the accumulation of generations of soot from candles burnt under the images) and because in many cases they were either excavated from underground ruins or were originally worshipped in underground caverns, perhaps due to Marian persecutions.

A famous Black Madonna around these parts is "Our Lady of 'Chestakowa' (spelled phonetically), revered by generations of Polish Catholic immigrants - Milwaukee's south side was originally settled by Polish immigrants and the grand basilica of St. Josephat's on South 6th Street and West Lincoln Avenue stands as a testimony to their dedication to the Roman Catholic Church. There is a Roman Catholic Church on the corner of South 6th Street and West Mitchell Street (don't know the name), with a large mosaic representation of Our Lady of 'Chestakowa' on its south side, just around the corner from the main entranceway stairs.

Here is information from Wikipedia on the Black Madonna of Kazan:

Our Lady of Kazan, also called Theotokos of Kazan (Russian: Казанская Богоматерь), is a holy icon of the highest stature within the Russian Orthodox Church. It has been considered a palladium of Russia for centuries. Two major Kazan Cathedrals, in Moscow and in St Petersburg, are consecrated in her name, as are numerous churches throughout the land. Her feast days are July 21 and November 4, (which is also the Day of National Unity).

The icon was credited by the Russian commanders - Dmitry Pozharsky and Mikhail Kutuzov - with helping the country to repel the Polish invasion of 1612, the Swedish invasion of 1709, and Napoleon's invasion of 1812.

The icon was discovered on July 8, 1579, underground in the city of Kazan, after the Theotokos, the Blessed Virgin Mary, in a Marian apparition revealed its location to a little girl, Matrona. The original icon was kept in one of the monasteries in Kazan, whereas its ancient and venerated copies [my emphasis added] have been displayed at the Kazan Cathedral of Moscow, at Yaroslavl, and at St. Petersburg.

In the night on June 29, 1904 the icon was stolen from a cathedral in Kazan where it had been kept for centuries. Thieves apparently coveted the icon's golden setting, which featured many jewels of highest value. When several years later Russian police finally apprehended the thieves and recovered the precious setting, they declared that the icon itself had been cut to pieces and burnt. The Orthodox church interpreted the disappearance of the icon as a sign of tragedies that would plague Russia after the Holy Protectress of Russia had been lost.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, there were plenty of theories speculating that the original icon was in fact preserved in St. Petersburg and later sold by the Bolsheviks abroad. Although such theories were not credited by the Russian Orthodox church, one of several reputed originals [this should be - copy] (dated by experts to ca. 1730) was acquired by the Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima and enshrined in Fátima, Portugal in the 1970s.

In 1993, the icon was given to Pope John Paul II, who took it to the Vatican and had it installed in his study, where it was venerated by him for eleven years. In his own words, "...it has found a home with me and has accompanied my daily service to the Church with its motherly gaze."[1] John Paul II wished to visit Moscow or Kazan in order to return the icon to the Russian Orthodox Church. When these efforts were blocked by the Moscow Patriarchate, the icon was presented to the Russian Church unconditionally in August 2004. On August 26, 2004 it was exhibited for veneration on the altar of St. Peter's Basilica and then delivered to Moscow.

On the next feast day of the holy icon, July 21, 2005, Patriarch Alexius II and Mintimer Shaymiev, the President of Tatarstan, placed it in the Annunciation Cathedral of the Kazan Kremlin.

The icon is enshrined in the Church of the Elevation of the Holy Cross, the site where the original icon of Our Lady of Kazan was found. Plans are underway to make the monastery where the icon was found into an international pilgrimage center.

References
"Liturgy of the Word in honour of the Icon of the Mother of God of Kazan - August 25, 2004". Retrieved on 2008-10-13.

External links
John Paul delivers Our Lady of Kazan to the russian church, july 18 2005
(English) Rediscovered Holy Treasure.
(English) Ikons: Windows into Heaven.
(English) The Miraculous Icons—an entry on Our Lady of Kazan at OrthodoxWorld.ru.
(English) OrthodoxWiki entry on Our Lady of Kazan.

2008 Chess Olympiad

Here is the Philippines Women's Team:

Catherine Perena
Shercila Cua
Daisy Rivera
Cheradee Chardine Camacho
Christy Lamiel Bernale

The 60th ranked 2006 Team finished in 23rd place (a very good showing), composed of the following players:

Sherrie Joy Lomibao
Sherily Cua
Beverly Mendoza
Catherine Perena

Full article.

More Ancient Coins Discovered

Treasure trove!

From BBC News
Page last updated at 13:59 GMT, Monday, 10 November 2008
700-year-old coins found in field

Three 700-year-old coins which were found in a field have been declared treasure by a coroner at Flint.

The silver pennies date back to between 1307 and 1314, to the reigns of both Edward I and his son Edward II.

Archaeology enthusiast Peter Jones, from Holywell, found a coin in 2006, then returned to the same spot a year later, when the other two were found.

The coins were analysed by experts at Cardiff's National Museum of Wales who discovered they were 90% silver.

Mr Jones regularly scours a field owned by his friend Ron Davies, for pre-historic items.

He said he has found hundreds of old tools, made from flint, some of which dated back thousands of years before Christ.

He told the inquest he did not usually use a metal detector and found the first coin in 2006 just "lying on the surface".

The following year he took a metal detector to the same spot, and again found two similar coins on the surface.

He said: "I just rubbed them with my hand and they came clean."
John Gittins, Deputy Coroner for North East Wales, declared the coins treasure under the Treasure Act 1996.

He said the coins were now the property of both Mr Davies and Mr Jones, and they were entitled to have them back.

The inquest heard there was also interest from the Flintshire County Museum Service to put them on public display.

Mr Jones, who is still deciding where the coins should go, said after the hearing: "Back in those days, this would have been a couple of days' wages for a soldier.

"Whoever lost them would not have been happy."

The inquest was not told where the coins were found, although Mr Jones described it as a "cracking site".

Breathtaking Pearl and Gem Earring Discovered

This was all over the news today - with good reason. This earring is a timeless creation, breathtakingly beautiful. Imagine wearing a pair of these beauties - the hair would have been up-swept or swept away from the face so that the earrings would be clearly visible; they would have dangled against the wearer's jawline.

I love pearls - these, of course, are all-natural pearls from a time way before cultured salt and freshwater pearls were invented. I'm not an emerald fan - but these emeralds are not faceted (I believe they did not have the technology back then to facet gemstones like emeralds, sapphires, rubies, diamonds, etc.) and the color reminds me a lot of the semi-precious stone malachite, which has a rich varigated/streaked green color that I find irresistible -- like grass and budding leaves in spring.

November 10, 2008
2,000-year-old gold earring found in Jerusalem
By SHAWNA OHM – 11 hours ago

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli archeologists have discovered a 2,000-year-old gold earring beneath a parking lot next to the walls of Jerusalem's old city, the Israel Antiquities Authority said Monday.

The discovery dates back to the time of Christ, during the Roman period, said Doron Ben-Ami, director of excavation at the site. The piece was found in a Byzantine structure built several centuries after the jeweled earring was made, showing it was likely passed down through generations, he said.

The find is luxurious: A large pearl inlaid in gold with two drop pieces, each with an emerald and pearl set in gold.

"It must have belonged to someone of the elite in Jerusalem," Ben-Ami said. "Such a precious item, it couldn't be one of just ordinary people."

In a statement released Monday, the authority said the piece of jewelry was "astonishingly well-preserved." Finds from the Roman period are rare in Jerusalem, Ben-Ami said, because the city was destroyed by the Roman Empire in the first century A.D.

Shimon Gibson, an American archaeologist who was not involved in the dig, said the find was truly amazing, less because of its Roman origins than for its precious nature.

"Jewelry is hardly preserved in archaeological context in Jerusalem," he said, because precious metals were often sold or melted down during the many historic takeovers of the city.

"It adds to the visual history of Jerusalem," Gibson added, saying it brings attention to the life of women in antiquity.

Though Gibson dates the piece slightly later than the antiquities authority, to sometime between the second and fourth centuries A.D., he said its quality and beauty were impressive.

Ben-Ami added that he expects more small, luxury items to turn up in future excavations.

Earrings similar to this one have been found at archaeological sites throughout Europe, Ben-Ami said, where the Roman Empire also flourished. The authority said the earring to be crafted using a technique similar to that depicted in portraits from Roman-era Egypt.

Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

The Bend and Snap

I'm rolling on the floor right now watching "Legally Blonde" - the 2001 movie that I laughed my way over the Atlantic Ocean watching on our flight to Amsterdam a few months after 9/11 in 2001.

Elle gave a lesson at the beauty salon on the "bend and snap" maneuvere. Check it out - good for what ails you, darlings! I particularly appreciated the male hairdressers getting into the spirit of the moment...

Review of Katherine Neville's "The Fire"

Another review of "The Fire."

I'm a little more than half-way through the book now, savoring a section of a chapter at a time, usually wrapped in an afghan with a glass of wine near by, late at night, when the house is creaking and groaning with noises you never hear during the day. Great read - and, yes, even more complex as far as "puzzle" and working one's way through the symbolism to get to the truth of the matter. Neville is a few years older than I am and may want to retire - can she write a sequel to the sequel? I'm not ready to say goodbye to this "never-ending" game on the global chessboard and the unique insights she brings to her readers! Please, KN, bring us more!

'Fire' more complicated than 'Eight'
By OLINE H. COGDILLSouth Florida Sun-Sentinel
Published: November 09. 2008 12:01AM

Before "The Da Vinci Code," there was Katherine Neville's "The Eight."

More than 20 years ago, this ambitious debut by a computer consultant mixed a magical chess set dating back to Charlemagne with mythology, music and math. Set during 1972 and 1790, "The Eight" flitted from New York and Algeria back to the French Revolution. It featured more than 60 characters, many of them historical figures such as Robespierre and Napoleon.

With such far-flung settings and a plot that at first blush would seem to be a mess, "The Eight" should not have worked. Yet it became a cult classic, one of the finest, most original examples of historical thrillers, opening the door for novels steeped in mythology, before it all got tangled up with Dan Brown.

While Neville has written two other novels, "The Fire" (Ballantine Books, $26) is the long-awaited sequel to "The Eight." Just as ambitious and far-reaching as its predecessor, Neville re-creates her fresh approach to storytelling.

In "The Fire," the search for the chess set is now up to Alexandra Solarin, the daughter of "The Eight's" heroine Catherine Velis, and her mother's best friend, Lily Rad. The story smoothly moves from contemporary Colorado, Washington, D.C., Russia and Algeria, then back to the 1800s Rome, the Loire Valley and Morocco. Lord Byron, Keats and Napoleon make cameo appearances.

A chess set has never been more exciting than this one created by Neville. Characters and the scenery are vividly portrayed.

However, "The Fire" is even more complicated than "The Eight" and it is easy to get lost in the story's various mythologies and myriad of characters. The plot lags in the middle before Neville gets her elaborate chess game back on track.

A 20-year wait for a sequel is too long, though "The Fire" nicely wraps up some secrets and twists that were never solved in "The Eight." Readers will want to first learn what "The Eight's" fuss was all about before tackling "The Fire."

The Phoenix

Here is a beautiful example of cross-cultural influence on artwork in ancient Persia (Iran) after the Mongol invasion - evidence that Islam did not prohibit the production of images of living beings in art and artifact; indeed, Islamic artists were masters at producing beautiful works of art incorporating elements of eastern and western design, depicting animal and human figures and along with intricately composed geometric patterns.

This piece was featured today at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's website. here are the particulars about the piece:

Tile, frieze, ca. 1270–80; Ilkhanid period (1206–1353)
Made in Probably Kashan, IranFritware, molded, painted in luster and blue under a transparent glaze; H. 14 3/4 in. (37.5 cm) W: 14 1/4 inl (36.2 cm)Rogers Fund, 1912 (12.49.4)

Description
This tile, with its bold design of a phoenix soaring on a background of cloud bands and its lotus border, is an excellent example of the Chinese influence on Iranian iconography following the thirteenth-century Mongol conquest. The tile, one of a long frieze with alternating phoenixes and dragons, most likely was once set on the walls of the Ilkhanid summer palace known as Takht-i Suleiman ("The Throne of Solomon") in northwestern Iran, built in the 1270s.

Provenance
Takht-i Sulaiman, Iran

A "Real American" Squirrel

A "real American" squirrel, the kind Sarah Palin would just love, you betcha. Of course, he's jes doin' what squirrels do all over the world - he's trying to snatch some of the flag material for his nest. Maybe he's actually a S-O-C-I-A-L-I-S-T...

Photo: From Crescentnews.com, Omaha, Nebraska, November 6, 2008.

Lakshmi - A Year Later

How is the little girl who was born with eight limbs doing a year after surgery to remove the extra arms and legs? Little Lakshmi touched everyone with her story and her megawatt smile. Here's how she is doing now:

From The Sunday Times
November 9, 2008
One year on: Lakshmi Tatma
An Indian girl born with eight limbs beats all the odds to live a normal life
Dean Nelson

”It’s a miracle!” says Poonam Tatma, beaming proudly at her daughter Lakshmi. Her little girl laughs and runs around in the grounds of the school for the disabled in Jodhpur where she lives with her family. She seems like any normal toddler — but only a year ago Lakshmi’s parents faced the likelihood that their daughter would never live a normal life. Born with eight limbs, she was the result of a rare condition in which a foetus is joined at the pelvis to a “parasitic” twin who has stopped developing in the mother’s womb. In Lakshmi’s case, she was born having absorbed the limbs and other body parts of her undeveloped sibling.

Poonam and her husband, Shambhu, were raising their son, Mitilesh, on Shambhu’s labouring wage of 25 rupees (27p) per day, and living in a mud hut in the rural Indian village of Bihar. Their world had no electricity, running water or cars, and was steeped in ignorance and superstition.

“At the time of the birth I was unconscious,” says Poonam, “but when I woke up my mother said to me, ‘You’ve given birth to the goddess Lakshmi.’ ” Not only had the girl been born on the day of Diwali, when Indians pray to Lakshmi for wealth, but, like the goddess herself, she had four extra limbs.

“It was a shock,” says Poonam. “But people said, ‘Don’t worry, Goddess Lakshmi has come into your home.’ ” As the news spread, people flocked in their thousands to see this reincarnated goddess, transforming the family’s mud hut into a makeshift temple.

But Poonam’s priority was her child’s health. Shambhu borrowed 7,000 rupees (£87) — almost a year’s wages — and they travelled to Delhi to see a specialist. He told them the operation would be too expensive for them to even dream about. Back home, worshippers continued to gather, leaving offerings outside their hut. “So many people came, I was scared,” says Poonam. “But I thought, ‘Maybe someone will hear, and my daughter will get help.’ ”

Lakshmi’s story eventually reached a British tabloid agency specialising in pictures of India’s many unfortunate medical curiosities. In the wake of this, Channel 4 signed Poonam and Shambhu to a contract, and a TV documentary team flew in with a surgeon, who had agreed to carry out the operation free. But the villagers became angry. “They came to me waving their fingers and shouting, ‘Lakshmi is a god! If you allow them to operate on her, the whole village will be cursed.’ But I needed a good life for my daughter.”

With the help of Dr Bhairoon Singh Bhati, the family went to Bangalore, where surgeons worked for 27 hours to separate Lakshmi’s spine from the conjoined twin’s, to remove four limbs and a parasitic trunk, and move a kidney from the twin to Lakshmi’s body. While her daughter was being operated on, Poonam became paralysed, unable to speak or move.

In December last year, when Lakshmi was discharged, the family moved into Dr Bhati’s school for the disabled, SKSN, near Jodhpur, where they now live. They enjoy a new sense of security: the school will provide free education for Lakshmi, her brother and their new little sister, Saraswati, and the accommodation that goes with Shambhu’s job as a kitchen hand and gardener. In June, Lakshmi took her first steps. “I never believed it was possible,” says Poonam. “Before the operation, she could not stand or walk. Now she can play and she is starting to write.”

But despite this year of miracles, there are battles ahead. “Lakshmi still has only one functioning kidney, and she needs surgery to construct a bowel so she can go to the toilet normally,” says Poonam. She will also need further operations on her legs, spine, and reproductive organs.

But the family’s immediate concern is: how will it all be paid for? A fund set up by her school has little money left. Poonam is torn between gratitude and anxiety. But she remains optimistic. “We have seen cars, computers, fridges, schools for the first time. This would not have happened if Lakshmi had not been born,” she says. “She is both a goddess and a normal little girl to me. My hope for our daughter is good health and a good education. The rest is up to God.”

To donate to the Lakshmi After Care Fund, visit: http://www.sksn.org

Doomed by Climate Change

Climate change ‘doomed ancient Argyll site'
November 7, 2008

An ancient Scots religious site predating the Pyramids and Stonehenge may have been abandoned because of climate change, according to archaeologists. Kilmartin Glen, in Argyll, has one of the most important concentrations of Neolithic and Bronze Age remains in Europe.

The glen - a place of sacred rites from 3700BC or earlier - contains at least 350 ancient monuments, including burial cairns, rock carvings and standing stones. The most spectacular of the remains is the fortress of the Scots at Dunadd, capital of the kingdom of Dalriada.

But archaeologists have identified a period of almost 1,000 years in which no monuments were erected and the population virtually disappeared.

Alison Sheridan, head of early prehistory at the National Museum of Scotland, said: “Kilmartin Glen is one of the richest archaeological areas in Scotland, with a very high concentration of ritual sites.” She added that the earliest activity dated back to hunter-gatherers about 4500BC, who left behind nothing more than a few pits, charcoal and some flint. It was a sacred landscape from at least as early as 3700BC until as late as 1100BC.

Dr Sheridan said: “It was a place for ceremony, for burying people, and observing the movements of the Sun and the Moon. We are not too certain what happened between 1100BC and 200BC. A hoard of swords has been found and a few artefacts buried as gifts to the gods in the late Bronze Age between 1000 and 750BC. But there are few structures and no settlements. When you start getting settlements again around 200BC they are in little fortified settlements ... It was no longer a happy valley, and people raided each other.”

Treasure Trove in India!

Labourers unearth gold coins in Maharashtra school
8 Nov 2008, 2030 hrs IST,IANS

PUNE: Labourers digging at a school campus in Maharashtra stumbled upon a minor treasure, a cache of 847 gold coins of an unknown period, bearing inscriptions in Greek and Urdu, and worth roughly Rs.4.2m, the police said on Saturday. The labourers tried to keep secret their find but were apprehended. The treasure trove weighs 2.47kg and is worth about Rs.4.20m, an investigating officer said.

The gold coins were recovered on Friday when some labourers were digging to construct a new swimming pool on the campus of the Gadgil Municipal High School at Shaniwarpeth in Pune. Three labourers attempted to steal the coins but were later arrested by the police. The entire cache was recovered from the accused. Shivappa Husanappa Godekar, 40, of Pune, Mallesh Pareshram Nadavikari, 25, of Karnataka and Bhimsha Tirappa Bansode of Sholapur were presented in a city court and released on bail Saturday.

The police have called archaeological and history experts to ascertain the historic origins and the exact value of the gold coins.

Jamaican Chess News

This article mentions a couple of chess femmes who participated in this event.

From The Jamaica Observer
Stuart James wins Clarendon Chess Open
Saturday, November 08, 2008

Fifteen-year-old Wolmer's Boys student Stuart James scored five points from six games to win the sixth staging of the Clarendon Chess Open, held at Glenmuir High School in May Pen, Clarendon over the weekend.

James topped the Open section ahead of Mikhail Solomon and Paul Brooks, who each ended on four and a half points to take joint second. Five players secured four points each to tie for fourth - National Master Malaku Lorne, Laurence Davy, Zachary Ramsay, Peter Thomas and Lucien Rowe.

The award for best female entrant in the Open section went to Krishna Gray of Wolmer's Girls, the prize for best player under 1800 was shared between Andrew Ellis, Terence Lindo and Shandar Sybron, while Laurence Davy and Lucien Rowe shared the award for best player from Clarendon.

The section for entrants with a Jamaica Chess Federation (JCF) rating under 1600, saw veteran Oral Wright scoring five points from six games to take the section over Kevron Campbell and Demain Patrick, who also scored five points, but took the second and third, respectively, on tiebreak. Alethia Edwards and Noel Brown shared fourth place with four and a half points each.

Category winners in the Under 1600 section included:

Alethia Edwards - Best Female; Kevron Campbell and Demain Patrick - Best Player from outside the Corporate Area; John Lord - Best Under-14; John Lord - Best Under-12; John Lord - Best Under-10; and Kevron Campbell - Best New Player.

The tournament, which was organised by the Clarendon Chess Association (CCA) and the Jamaica Chess Federation, had a field of 66 entrants, the largest since its inception in 2003.

Katherine Neville "The Fire"

Nov. 7, 2008
BOOK REVIEW: 'The Fire': A Powerful Sequel to Katherine Neville's Genre-Twisting 'The Eight'
By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic

Twenty years is a long time for Katherine Neville's fans to wait for a sequel to her genre-bending historical thriller "The Eight," but her devotees will find that "The Fire" (Ballantine Books, $26, 464 pages) was worth the wait. When "The Eight" was published in 1988, it combined elements of romance novels, historical novels and thrillers -- long before Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" (2003) and Elizabeth Kostova's "The Historian." (2005). It was part of Ballantine's entry into hard-cover books by an imprint -- owned by the world's largest publisher, the Random House group -- that had long been noted for publishing mass-market paperbacks. With a massive first printing and a main selection of the Book of the Month Club, "The Fire" is review proof. The only thing that could hold back sales of this novel is the recession, but fans of this genre are a loyal bunch, so I predict a top position on all the bestseller charts. It was No. 12 on the New York Times Nov. 2 fiction list. The world-wide chess game that was the centerpiece in "The Eight" has started in "The Fire" as Alexandra "Xie" Solarin, a now grown-up child chess prodigy, is invited to her mother's birthday party in a remote Colorado lodge in the Four Corners area where New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah converge. It's the spring of 2003 and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq is underway. Ancient Mesopotamia -- today's Iraq -- was where the legendary Montglane Service chess set was made almost 1,500 years ago, so the timing is crucial. Cat's birthday, April 4, is the direct opposite of Xie's Oct. 4 birthday and it's been almost 10 years since Xie's father, Alexander Solarin, has been slain at a chess tournament in Russia.

One of her opponents at the tournament shows up at the party, along with other unlikely -- to Xie -- guests. Xie blames the opponent, Vartan Azov, a handsome twenty-something Ukrainian, for the tragic events at the tournament held in the autumn of 1993 in the remote Russian monastery of Zagorsk. Cat Velis, who's been estranged from Xie for at least five years, doesn't appear at her own party and the game is afoot, as Arthur Conan Doyle would have written. I'm not going to divulge the twists and turns of the plot, but it hinges on Xie finding Cat Velis and the remaining pieces of the Montglane Service that have been scattered around the world. Among the historical figures in the novel are Thomas Jefferson, his friend (and possible lover) in 18th Century Paris, English painter Maria Cosway; Talleyrand, the ultimate French survivor; Napoleon's sister; Charlemagne; Lord Byron and his friend and fellow poet Percy Shelley, and many more -- along with dozens of eccentric characters created by Neville. One of the most intriguing figures in "The Fire" is a Basque restaurant owner named "Rodo" Boujaron, who employs Xie as a sous chef at his open hearth restaurant, Sutalde (the Hearth) in the Georgetown district of Washington, DC. He's a perfectionist who treats his employees like slaves, but they seem to love it. Another is Xie's friend since she was a child, Nokomis Key, a geothermal scientist and bush pilot who has Francis Scott Key, the composer of the national anthem, as one of her ancestors, along with American Indian roots. Nokomis is named after a character in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's epic poem "The Song of Hiawatha": By the shores of Gitchie Gumme,By the shining Big-Sea-Water,Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.Dark behind it rose the forest,Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,Rose the firs with cones upon them;Bright before it beat the water,Beat the clear and sunny water,Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water. Although Neville provides plenty of help deciphering the puzzles and mythological references -- as well as heaping quantities of numerology -- in headnotes and in the narrative of "The Fire," I found my well-thumbed copy of Hans Biedermann's "Dictionary of Symbolism" helpful as I read the novel. Each chapter ends with a "ka-ching" surprise, which could be off-putting to some readers. But formulaic writing didn't affect the sales of books by Michael Crichton ("The Andromeda Strain," "Jurassic Park," "State of Fear" and many more techno thrillers) who just died at the age of 66, and I don't think it will hurt the sales of "The Fire." I read the book as a guilty pleasure and enjoyed it immensely. About the Author: Born in the Midwest in 1945, Neville is the author of "A Calculated Risk," and "The Magic Circle," in addition to "The Eight" and "The Fire." She has been an international computer consultant, a vice president of the Bank of America, a restaurant wait person, a model and a commercial photographer -- all careers that have contributed to her writing. She lives in Washington, DC, and the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Publisher's web site: www.ballantinebooks.com

*******************

Yeah, 20 years was a hell of a long time to wait for a sequel, but it took me that long to learn and grow in knowledge in symbolism and feminine mythologies to the point where I am now savoring nearly every word in "The Fire" as one would savor a wine that comes along once in a thousand years.

Casino de Barcelona

Oh crap. Is there no good news in the world tonight to cheer me up a little bit? Stefanova lost her last round game to Dreev (tournament leader in Round 8), so she finishes with 4.5/9. 50% - not bad - but not so good, either. The final cross-table has not yet been posted at the official website, so I don't have final standings.

Friday Night Miscellany

Hola Darlings!

Whew - what a week. The election is FINALLY over with, Thank Goddess! we're free of those horrid lying, sleezy political advertisements (both sides, but especially on the Republican side, unfortunately) for the next 2 years, I hope!

Speaking of sad, check this out. The Governor's Feelings Are Hurt. Boo Hoo. Lady, it hurts my feelings that you are so far right Hitler would feel uncomfortably LIBERAL next to you. Er, shouldn't those balloons be red (photo above)? But maybe the Alaskans who decorated Sarah Palin's governor office think red means "Communist" - or possibly, "Socialist" and so they didn't want to use the Republicans' TRUE COLOR. I mean, darlings, what could possibly be more Socialist or even outright COMMY RED than spending a trillion dollars and more of taxpayer money to bail out Wall Street and the rich sons of bitches who pitched this country headlong into probably the worst "recession" (it's actually going to be a Depression, as in Great Depression) in living memory. This COMMUNISM under the Bushites. Make no mistake, the Bushites' motto is SCREW THE MIDDLE CLASS INTO NON-EXISTENCE, and isn't that exactly what the Communist goal was? Of course! So, we have Socialist/Communism for the rich bastards, and everyone else is screwed. It will take at least eight years, and quite possibly the rest of my life, to recover from the incredible destruction that the Bushites have wrought upon this country. The Bushites, starting with Carl Rove and the Vice-President, should be taken out and shot as traitors to this country. All current descendants of George Bush, Sr. should be sterilized so they can no longer reproduce and pass along their defective genes to another generation. Of course, we're civilized, so we won't do that. Sometimes -- if we could only be just a little bit more "Russian" as in Putin-Russian, the evil smut, where "enemies" of the state get poisoned or shoved down stairwells or out of a window from the 29th floor in a building somewhere. Oh well. In a neat trick of reversal, which the Bushites are very good at, one can only hope that someone will do the world a favor and shove Miniputin down a bottomless pit - with a stake through his heart.

I'll be working probably until I drop dead around age 100 to make up for the money my 401(k) plans have lost since October, 2007 when the Great Bear Market began, just to try and maintain my current standard of living (such as it is). Food prices up 30 to 40%; natural gas prices up 40%; electric bill up 30%; water bill up 35%; sewer bill up 20%. Just in the past 12 months. Who knows what the hell my property taxes will be? One thing I know for sure - they will not GO DOWN! Health insurance coverage costs for 2009 - up 90%. That's not a mistake. My monthly premiums are increasing from around $61 a month to $110 a month if I want to maintain the same coverage (I won't be able to do that - I cannot afford it). My raise - I won't know until early January, 2009, but suffice to say it won't be anywhere NEAR the cost of living increase during the past 12 months. Let's see, I'll probably lose about 32% total purchasing power - but I should count myself lucky, because I still (may) have a job. Silly me - what am I thinking. There probably won't be a raise. In 2009, they may even ask me for money back - well, those first years who are earning $150,000 must be fed, and I do have to lose more weight...

Things are so bad, even the state of Wisconsin is telling their very well-pensioned retirees that their checks will be smaller this year. The screams of rage are still echoing around the hills and valleys. I suppose I shouldn't wish that some of those retired hunters and members of the NRA would go "bear hunting" on Wall Street. Perhaps all MBA degrees should be banned in this country. Think of it - people with common sense and everyone's interests at heart actually running things in the banks and financial industry if all of the pricks and greedy Gordon Gekko wannabes were wiped out. Hell, even if we killed every single one of the sods tomorrow, their claims for deferred compensation and company-paid life-insurance would probably bankrupt the country. Expect full employment for lawyers for the next 500 years, but a vicious cycle of declining beginning wages for first years who may actually have to WORK 60 hours a week in order to earn their $150,000. Oh oh, they may even have to do their own typing, copying, mailing, filing, scanning, archiving, taking abuse from irate clients. I may be out of a job soon - growing vegetables in my upstairs bedrooms under green lights until the power is cut off, chopping down my trees for firewood to keep warm in the winter, luring my currently fat and sassy squirrels into traps for meat. Thank heaven the Family has lots of land up north. We can hold out up there for years, I'll just have to get used to using an outhouse while holding my nose. dondelion and I may be relocating sooner than we thought...

The President of Italy is being hoisted, roasted, and everywhichway toasted over a big fat Italian fire for a joke that is silly, juvenile and absolutely inane, but harmless. So Barack Obama has a "suntan" - so what? How can this be an insult in the United States where every day on the bus and in populars videos and music I hear dark-skinned kids and pale-skinned Polish descended kids calling each other NIGGAH. So now sudddenly the WORLD is getting sensitive about noticing the color of someone's skin? Hey, music video and record producers, better sit up and take notice, darlings. There's a new world dawning where words really DO mean something, so get rid of the racist crap. Yeah, right.

Times are tought all over. Even the plastic surgeons - oh, excuse me - costmetic artistes - are offering discounts to keep their pockets flush during this economic catastrophe some pundits are euphemistically calling a "downturn."

The first "measureable" ice/sleet/snow is expected here tonight. The house is exactly the same temperature it is at all times throughout the five month heating season (64 degrees F), but it feels COLD! I'm going to do a Mr. Cratchet (Bob Cratchet from "Scrooge") and light a candle at my computer desk to warm my hands over! Hopefully I'll acclimate as the temperatures continue to drop and the snow begins to pile up. But every year it gets harder. Retirement, which used to be 10 years away before the geniuses on Wall Street decided to do their best Stalin imitation of wiping out all and asking questions never, is now an impossible dream. Good bye, warm, dry, climate - the dream that never was... Hmmm, what was the name of that Jodi Foster movie where she learns how to shoot and fight dirty in order to get revenge on the assholes who killed the love of her life? I think I need to watch that movie, and sign up for some lessons... I have LOTS OF REVENGE I want to work out.

Good night darlings, if you can.

USCF Shows Some Stones

Well, this is rather ironic given the USCF's own history, I can't stop snickering. But Hooray for the USCF showing some stones in standing up for GM Gata Kamsky's rights in the on-again/off-again match with GM Veselin Topolov of Bulgaria. FIDE made a public declaration on June 1, 2008 published at its official website and at numerous chess websites and blogs that its President guaranteed a $750,000 prize fund for the match to be held in Lvov, Ukraine, which is presently scheduled to start near the end of this month.

The organizer failed to come up with the money and FIDE has now requested an offer from the Bulgarian Chess Federation of $300,000 - $250,000 for prize money and $50,000 for FIDE - why FIDE deserves even a penny under the circumstances is unclear and simply outrageous. Fearless Leader Kirsan has publicly reneged on his guarantee of the Lvov prize fund of $750,000!!! Altogether now, can you say S-C-H-M-U-C-K? What part of the concept of guarantee does he not understand? It's clear he doesn't understand anything about honoring his word.

Bill Goichberg, President of the USCF, in an open letter to Kirsan, is rightly taking him to task for reneging on his publicly-stated promise. Kirsan should front the money so that the match can go on as scheduled, in Lvov. Shame, shame on Kirsan. How CAN this man be in control of FIDE? He is a walking, talking disaster and embarrassment to the world! No lie is too blatant, no promise is too large or small not to keep, he continues to rape chess for his and his cronies' own personal gain - and he (and they) get away with it, laughing all the way to the bank. Geez.

Chess Politics in Pakistan

When it comes to disfunctional chess federations, the USCF has plenty of company. Here's an interesting article about the Pakistan Chess Federation and the Sindh Chess Federation (a member federation of CFP). I'm happy to read that Pakistan selected teams for the Olympiad - I hope they raise enough money to actually get there!

Sindh chess body media briefing turns sour
Friday, November 07, 2008
By Syed Khalid Mahmood

KARACHI: The media briefing of the Sindh Chess Association (SCA) meant to introduce the members of the national men and women squad for the 38th Chess Olympiad, to be held later this month in Dresden, Germany, turned sour on more than one count.

The fiery speech of one of the officials, Mohammad Wasif, in which he openly ridiculed the policies of the Chess Federation of Pakistan (CFP) caught the media by surprise because the SCA was itself one of the affiliated units of the federation.

The men squad comprises National Masters Wahid Hussain (Hyderabad), Aamir Karim (Lahore), Mohammad Waqar (Karachi), Khalil-ur-Rahman Butt (Lahore) and Hasib Ahmed (Karachi). All the five members of the women team, Zenobia, Nida Shiraz, Sharjeela Kiran, Arsalana Tanvir and Sabica Shiraz, belong to Karachi.

The SCA office-bearers could not give a convincing answer when questioned if the provincial body was sending the national men and women squad for the 38th Chess Olympiad on behalf of the federation.

It was revealed that the SCA, after having failed to get any kind of assistance from the CFP, had approached various government and private organisations for financial support by means of sponsorship.“We have been assured financial support from the Government of Sindh, the City District Government Karachi (CDGK) as well as a few commercial establishments. Their support will enable us to cover a part of the costs to be incurred in sending the men and women squads for the Olympiad,” Mohammad Aslam, Secretary SCA, stated.

He did not disclose the amount they were expected to raise for this event through sponsorship. Neither did he deem it proper to reveal the total amount needed to send the squads to Germany. When asked specifically, he said around Rupees one lac would be needed for each participant.

Aslam, who is also the Vice President of the CFP, clarified that the SCA had differences with the federation only in the matter pertaining to the women squad while all was well as far as the selection of the men team was concerned.

He added that the reigning national champion Mahmood Ahmed Lodhi, an International Master, had declared himself unavailable for the Olympiad due to personal reasons.

Casino de Barcelona

GM Antoaneta Stefanova, the sole chess femme at this invitational, has not lost a game. She is at 4.5/8 and has moved up in the standings, with one round to go; she is either in 4th or 5th.

Alexey Dreev is in clear first with 6.0
Georgiev Kiril is in clear second with 5.5
USA's Boris Gulko is in clear third with 5.0
Baadur Jobava and Stefanova each have 4.5

Drought Caused Collapse of Chinese Dynasties

What happened before happened many times, and is happening now...

Ancient China: Lack Of Rainfall Could Have Contributed To Social Upheaval And Fall Of Dynasties

ScienceDaily (Nov. 7, 2008) — Chinese history is replete with the rise and fall of dynasties, but researchers now have identified a natural phenomenon that may have been the last straw for some of them: a weakening of the summer Asian Monsoons.

Such weakening accompanied the fall of three dynasties and now could be lessening precipitation in northern China.

Results of the study, led by researchers from the University of Minnesota and Lanzhou University in China, appear in the journal Science.

The work rests on climate records preserved in the layers of stone in a 118-millimeter-long stalagmite found in Wanxiang Cave in Gansu Province, China.

By measuring amounts of the elements uranium and thorium throughout the stalagmite, the researchers could tell the date each layer was formed. And by analyzing the "signatures" of two forms of oxygen in the stalagmite, they could match amounts of rainfall--a measure of summer monsoon strength--to those dates.

The stalagmite was formed over 1,810 years; stone at its base dates from A.D. 190, and stone at its tip was laid down in A.D. 2003, the year the stalagmite was collected.

"It was unexpected that a record of surface weather would be preserved in underground cave deposits," said David Verardo, director of the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Paleoclimatology Program, which funded the research. "These results illustrate the promise of paleoclimate science to look beyond the obvious and see new possibilities."

"Summer monsoon winds originate in the Indian Ocean and sweep into China," said Hai Cheng, author of the paper and a scientist at the University of Minnesota. "When the summer monsoon is stronger, it pushes farther northwest into China."

These moisture-laden winds bring rain necessary for cultivating rice. But when the monsoon is weak, the rains stall farther south and east, depriving northern and western parts of China of summer rains.

A lack of rainfall could have contributed to social upheaval and the fall of dynasties.

The researchers discovered that periods of weak summer monsoons coincided with the last years of the Tang, Yuan and Ming dynasties, which are known to have been times of popular unrest.

Conversely, the scientists found that a strong summer monsoon prevailed during one of China's "golden ages," the Northern Song Dynasty.

The ample summer monsoon rains may have contributed to the rapid expansion of rice cultivation from southern China to the midsection of the country. During the Northern Song Dynasty, rice first became China's main staple crop, and China's population doubled.

"The waxing and waning of summer monsoon rains are just one piece of the puzzle of changing climate and culture around the world," said Larry Edwards, geologist at the University of Minnesota and a co-author of the paper.

For example, the study showed that the dry period at the end of the Tang Dynasty coincided with a previously identified drought halfway around the world, in Meso-America, which has been linked to the fall of the Mayan civilization.

The study also showed that the ample summer rains of the Northern Song Dynasty coincided with the beginning of the well-known Medieval Warm Period in Europe and Greenland.

During this time--the late 10th century--Vikings colonized southern Greenland. Centuries later, a series of weak monsoons prevailed as Europe and Greenland shivered through what geologists call the Little Ice Age.

In the 14th and early 15th centuries, as the cold of the Little Ice Age settled into Greenland, the Vikings disappeared from there. At the same time, on the other side of the world, the weak monsoons of the 14th century coincided with the end of the Yuan Dynasty.

A second major finding concerns the relationship between temperature and the strength of the monsoons. For most of the last 1,810 years, as average temperatures rose, so, too, did the strength of the summer monsoon.

That relationship flipped, however, around 1960, a sign that the late 20th century weakening of the monsoon and drying in northwestern China was caused by human activity.

If carbon dioxide is the culprit, as some have proposed, the drying trend may well continue in Inner Mongolia, northern China and neighboring areas on the fringes of the monsoon's reach.

If, however, the culprit is man-made soot, as others have proposed, the trend could be reversed, the researchers said, by reduction of soot emissions.

The research also was supported by the National Science Foundation of China and the Gary Comer Science and Education Foundation.

Adapted from materials provided by National Science Foundation.

Handicapping U.S. Women's Olympiad Team

From Chess Life Magazine, November 2008 - print edition. An article by FM Mike Klein takes a look at the U.S. Men's and Women's Olympiad Teams headed to Dresden later this month. Here is FM Klein's take on the Women's Team, with some of my thoughts interpersed. I couldn't help myself. We're going to get creamed, people. May as well face it.

The current installment of American women will be a blend of veteran talent and less familiar faces. Top player IM Irina Krush, 24, is the likely number-one board. Her tremendous history at four olympiads (including the last three) has yielded a 69.1 percentage over 47 games (the most by any American woman on this year's team). Although this would be the first year she has played top board since 2002, it was there in Bled, Slovenia that she went undefeated, remarkable since she played 13 out of 14 rounds. She will arrive in Dresden with her highest-ever olympiad rating - 2470.

Current U.S. Women's Champion WGM Anna Zatonskih, 30, played board one for the women's squad in 2006 but is once again outrated by Krush and may cede her the top board. The two women have a lot in common - both were born in the Ukraine and both have played in four past olympiads (Zatonskih's first two trips were under the Ukrainian flag). Additionally, the duo were part of the 2004 silver medal team, the only top-three finish in American history. Led by GM Susan Polgar, that team's average FIDE rating was 2490, the highest-ever for the Americans, whereas this year's team is 2375, it's lowest since 2000. [In other words, darlings, the American women don't stand a chance].

Occupying board three will be fellow WGM Rusudan Goletiani, 28, three-time World Yough chess champion and a native of the republic of Georgia. This will be her second olympiad. Goletiani is rated 2359. In 2006 she scored six wins, five draws and a single loss, for a 70.8 percent score, the best of any American competing in Dresden. [Goletiani has not played in many events since 2006].

Olympiad newcomers WGM Katerina Rohonyan, 24, and WFM Tatev Abrahamyan, 20, will round out the team. Rohonyan is the third Ukrainian-American on the women's team and Abrahamyan, like [GM Varuahan] Akobian, got the selection based partly on the age bonus. She gets 30 bonus ratin points for being 20 years old, which narrowly eded her past both WGM Camila Baginskaite [a seasoned veteran in prior years in U.S. Women's Championships and on prior olympiad teams] and WIM Batchimeg Tuvshintugs. [Rohonyan is a relatively new immigrant to the U.S., she was going to college here on a chess scholarship, but I believe she recently graduated and is now working on a master's degree; Abrahamyan won the 2008 Goddesschess "Fighting Chess" Award at the 2008 U.S. Women's Chess Championships for wining 6 games and losing none, chosen by GM Susan Polgar].

The women's team will be an underdog to medal [you don't say] but will be aided by the experienced support staff of Captain Michael Khodarkovsky [oh my goddess, NOT HIM! - he's the guy who thinks a woman can't play chess decently if she is menstruating] and Coach GM Gregory Kaidanov. Gregory will not play after a string of six consecutive olympiads he competed in from 1996-2006 [is this USCF's way of giving Kaidanov a "pay-off"? - GM Kaidanov would be better off staying state-side and giving lessons!] (over which time he chalked up one team silver, two team bronzes, and one individual silver for going +6=4-0 on board four in Calvia, Spain in 2004).