Ancient Tongan rock carvings may offer clues to voyagers
Sat, 31 Jan 2009 10:06a.m.
Discovery of over 50 ancient rock engravings in Tonga, may shed some light on the pre-Polynesian Lapita peoples who voyaged across the Pacific.
The petroglyphs, including stylised images of people and animals, were found emerging from beach sand at the northern end of Foa island, late last year, the Matangi Tonga newspaper reported.
Artist Shane Egan called in archaeologist Professor David Burley, from the Simon Fraser University in Canada, to investigate and document the site.
"The site on Foa Island is an amazing piece of artwork, with over 50 engraved images. Having an average height of 20 to 30cm (some much larger) there are very nicely stylised images of men and women, turtles, dogs, a bird, a lizard, as well as footprints and some weird exotic combinations," said Egan.
He thought the images were close in form to some found in ancient Hawaii and dated to between 1200 and 1500AD.
If similar dating was found for the latest carvings, it would raise a question about direct long distance voyages between Tonga and Hawaii in that era.
The Foa rock engravings are on two large slabs of fixed beach-rock that were apparently exposed by erosion.
The rock engravings were first sighted by visiting friends Richard Whelan and Janelle Johnston from Melbourne. Tonga's previously reported rock art has been limited to simple geometric engravings, though there is also a single engraved outline of a foot on a stone at a royal tomb.
Petroglyphs have been found throughout eastern Polynesia, especially in the Marquesas, Tahiti and Hawaii.
NZPA
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Decorating Redux...Etc.
Hola darlings!The guest room is almost complete! Changes since the last photos are:
(1) The Central Park poster above the bed
(2) The bedskirt (tailored stripe replaces embroidered white ruffled)
(3) Tables swapped out - the table that I formerly had by the chair is now in the opposite corner, and the larger round skirted table is next to the chair
(4) Lamps swapped out
(5) Photos on the wall between the window and the closet have been switched around
(6) A different curtain. I took down the black/white stripe and first put up my remaining toile panel that I didn't need for the second window in my bedroom. I loved how it looked, but decided I wanted something a bit "heavier" for this cold winter. (I don't get the same "light-weight" feeling with these curtains in my bedroom, because there are two panels on the larger window and the second window is so much narrower, one panel weights it down nicely). (I think the toile panel will look great for summer wear in the guest room with the black/white gingham sheet set.)
I was ready to put the black/white striped curtain back up when I remembered some VERY old sheets I purchased years ago to make curtains for the patio door that I never got around to doing. They are black/cream houndstooth checked with gold corded trim and a gold leaf decoration along a 4 inch top black border. I dug one sheet out of storage, ironed it, and tossed it over the curtain rod, roughly "hand-pleating" it across the rod, and used the same shoe-string tied in a bow to pull the curtain back. The gold leaf/black border forms the bottom of the curtain. A totally no-sew curtain, and I do mean no sew - not even a stick-pin holding anything in place! I think the gold leaf border design and corded trim add a nice touch. The copyright on this design, "English Manor," by Echo for Revman, is 1995! This sheet (and 3 other identical twin sheets) have been in storage here at the house more than 13 years!
I have a Times Square poster to put up - still pondering where I want to put that. At first I thought about putting it on the wall behind the door, where it would show to advantage when the room is actually being used (because the door would be closed and it would be seen from the chair and the bed). On the other hand, I'm not quite satisfied with the way the door wall looks (where the table, lamp and chair are). I do want the New York water color to be highlighted, and when sitting in the chair it's great having it at eye level in its present location. On the other hand, that wall looks somewhat plain in the photograph (although it doesn't "read" that way when actually in the room), or something isn't quite in balance. Not quite sure what, exactly, it off kilter. It will come to me eventually. I'm wondering what it would look like to hang the Times Square Poster on the door wall.I'm also wondering if I should hang a 5x7 New York photo on either side of the Central Park poster above the headboard. Or maybe some black finished metal candle sconces? Too frou frou? I want the guest room to be unisex comfortable, not too "girly" (my bedroom is girly enough for the house, even without a speck of pink in it).
Really Funny Chess Scene
I've never heard of the movie Embryo (starring Rock Hudson as a mad scientist?) - but this scene of the perfect woman (Barbara Carrera) created by Dr. Rock playing chess against super a-hole Roddy McDowell is a classic. Please check out the video!
All Babies Are Born Unique
Hear hear! Anyone who has had any exposure to an infant (a brother, a sister, a child of an older relative, or one's own baby) knows that this is absolutely true. A baby comes out of the mother's womb utterly and absolutely unique, and stays unique for the rest of her or his life.
Despite what 'experts' may say, all babies born unique
By James Dobson • January 31, 2009
Dear Dr. Dobson: I was taught in my psych class that babies come into the world devoid of personality, and the environment then stamps its image. Do you disagree?
Dr. Dobson: Philosophers Locke and Rousseau told us in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that babies came into the world as "tabula rasas," or "blank slates," upon which society and the environment wrote the fundamentals of personality. But they were wrong. We now know that every newborn is unique from every other baby, even from the first moments outside the womb. Except for identical twins, triplets, etc., no two are alike in biochemistry or genetics.
How foolish of philosophers and behavioral scientists to have thought otherwise. If God makes every grain of sand unique and every snowflake like no other, how simplistic to have believed that He mass-produces little human robots. That is nonsense. We are, after all, made in His image.
Just ask the real experts -- the mothers who understand their babies better than anyone. They'll tell you that each of their infants had a different "feel," -- a different personality -- from the first moment they were held. If these mothers are eventually blessed with six or eight or even twenty children, they will continue to say emphatically that every one of them was unique and distinct from the others when only one hour old. They are right -- and their perceptions are being confirmed by scientific inquiry.
Dear Dr. Dobson: What else does research tell us about the personalities of newborns?
Dr. Dobson: One of the most ambitious studies yet conducted took a period of three decades to complete. That investigation is known in professional literature as the New York Longitudinal Study. The findings from this investigation, led by psychiatrists Stella Chess and Alexander Thomas, were reported in their excellent book for parents entitled, "Know Your Child."
Chess and Thomas found that babies not only differ significantly from one another at the moment of birth, but those differences tend to be rather persistent throughout childhood. Even more interestingly, they observed three broad categories or patterns of temperaments into which the majority of children can be classified. First, they referred to "the difficult child," who is characterized by negative reactions to people, intense mood swings, irregular sleep patterns and feeding schedules, frequent periods of crying and violent tantrums when frustrated.
Does that sound familiar? I described those individuals many years ago as "strong-willed" children.
The second pattern is called "the easy child," who manifests a positive approach to people, quiet adaptability to new situations, regular sleep pattern and feeding schedules, and a willingness to accept the rules of the game. The authors concluded, "Such a youngster is usually a joy to his or her parents, pediatrician and teachers." Amen.
My term for the easy child is "compliant."
The third category was given the title "slow-to-warm-up" or "shy." These youngsters respond negatively to new situations and they adapt slowly. However, they are less intense than difficult children, and they tend to have regular sleeping and feeding schedules. When they are upset or frustrated, they typically withdraw from the situation and react mildly, rather than explode with anger and rebellion.
Not every child fits into one of these categories, of course, but approximately 65 percent do. Drs. Chess and Thomas also emphasized that babies are fully human at birth, being able immediately to relate to their parents and learn from their environments. I doubt if that news will come as a surprise to most mothers, who never believed in the "blank slate" theory, anyway.
It should not be difficult to understand why these findings from longitudinal research have been exciting to me. They confirm my own clinical observations, not only about the wonderful complexity of human beings, but also about the categories of temperament identified by Drs. Chess and Thomas.
Despite what 'experts' may say, all babies born unique
By James Dobson • January 31, 2009
Dear Dr. Dobson: I was taught in my psych class that babies come into the world devoid of personality, and the environment then stamps its image. Do you disagree?
Dr. Dobson: Philosophers Locke and Rousseau told us in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that babies came into the world as "tabula rasas," or "blank slates," upon which society and the environment wrote the fundamentals of personality. But they were wrong. We now know that every newborn is unique from every other baby, even from the first moments outside the womb. Except for identical twins, triplets, etc., no two are alike in biochemistry or genetics.
How foolish of philosophers and behavioral scientists to have thought otherwise. If God makes every grain of sand unique and every snowflake like no other, how simplistic to have believed that He mass-produces little human robots. That is nonsense. We are, after all, made in His image.
Just ask the real experts -- the mothers who understand their babies better than anyone. They'll tell you that each of their infants had a different "feel," -- a different personality -- from the first moment they were held. If these mothers are eventually blessed with six or eight or even twenty children, they will continue to say emphatically that every one of them was unique and distinct from the others when only one hour old. They are right -- and their perceptions are being confirmed by scientific inquiry.
Dear Dr. Dobson: What else does research tell us about the personalities of newborns?
Dr. Dobson: One of the most ambitious studies yet conducted took a period of three decades to complete. That investigation is known in professional literature as the New York Longitudinal Study. The findings from this investigation, led by psychiatrists Stella Chess and Alexander Thomas, were reported in their excellent book for parents entitled, "Know Your Child."
Chess and Thomas found that babies not only differ significantly from one another at the moment of birth, but those differences tend to be rather persistent throughout childhood. Even more interestingly, they observed three broad categories or patterns of temperaments into which the majority of children can be classified. First, they referred to "the difficult child," who is characterized by negative reactions to people, intense mood swings, irregular sleep patterns and feeding schedules, frequent periods of crying and violent tantrums when frustrated.
Does that sound familiar? I described those individuals many years ago as "strong-willed" children.
The second pattern is called "the easy child," who manifests a positive approach to people, quiet adaptability to new situations, regular sleep pattern and feeding schedules, and a willingness to accept the rules of the game. The authors concluded, "Such a youngster is usually a joy to his or her parents, pediatrician and teachers." Amen.
My term for the easy child is "compliant."
The third category was given the title "slow-to-warm-up" or "shy." These youngsters respond negatively to new situations and they adapt slowly. However, they are less intense than difficult children, and they tend to have regular sleeping and feeding schedules. When they are upset or frustrated, they typically withdraw from the situation and react mildly, rather than explode with anger and rebellion.
Not every child fits into one of these categories, of course, but approximately 65 percent do. Drs. Chess and Thomas also emphasized that babies are fully human at birth, being able immediately to relate to their parents and learn from their environments. I doubt if that news will come as a surprise to most mothers, who never believed in the "blank slate" theory, anyway.
It should not be difficult to understand why these findings from longitudinal research have been exciting to me. They confirm my own clinical observations, not only about the wonderful complexity of human beings, but also about the categories of temperament identified by Drs. Chess and Thomas.
Lots of Chess for Girls
Upcoming National Events for girls only or with girls-only events (in date order). Hooray! We need more and more and more events like this to keep girls excited about playing chess. For further information, please click on the links:
Fourth Annual Susan Polgar Open CHALLENGE for Girls
Part of the Susan Polgar National Open for Girls and Boys
February 13 - 16, 2009
Glendale, Arizona
The Sixth Annual All-Girls Open National Championships
by Kasparov Chess Foundation
April 24 - 26, 2009
Dallas Texas
Special appearance by 2008 U.S. Women's Chess Champion IM Anna Zatonskih (per ad in February, 2009 print edition of Chess Life Magazine)
Susan Polgar World Open Chess Championship for Girls
Part of the Las Vegas International Chess Festival
June 6 - 7, 2009
Las Vegas, Nevada
Fourth Annual Susan Polgar Open CHALLENGE for Girls
Part of the Susan Polgar National Open for Girls and Boys
February 13 - 16, 2009
Glendale, Arizona
The Sixth Annual All-Girls Open National Championships
by Kasparov Chess Foundation
April 24 - 26, 2009
Dallas Texas
Special appearance by 2008 U.S. Women's Chess Champion IM Anna Zatonskih (per ad in February, 2009 print edition of Chess Life Magazine)
Susan Polgar World Open Chess Championship for Girls
Part of the Las Vegas International Chess Festival
June 6 - 7, 2009
Las Vegas, Nevada
Friday, January 30, 2009
Honky Tonk Angels
Oy! Three Goddesses of Country Music. This song brings back memories - mostly of Kitty Wells and her great hit "Honky Tonk Angel," which my dad played over and over and over until the 45 rpm record wore out (mom was an Elvis fan and I learned how to bob to "Aint Nothin But a Hound Dog").
Lo and behold, while checking out youtube.com for Linda Ronstadt videos, I came across this gem, teaming up a young Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette singing "Silver Threads and Golden Needles," an enduring classic that has been fronted by I don't know how many stars and not-so-stars! Cuz the words of the song are true, darlin's, and that's all I'm gonna say...
Please check out the video - and watch for Gene Simmons in an hilarious cameo, along with many of the greats of rock and roll, rock-a-billy, and country-western.
Lo and behold, while checking out youtube.com for Linda Ronstadt videos, I came across this gem, teaming up a young Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette singing "Silver Threads and Golden Needles," an enduring classic that has been fronted by I don't know how many stars and not-so-stars! Cuz the words of the song are true, darlin's, and that's all I'm gonna say...
Please check out the video - and watch for Gene Simmons in an hilarious cameo, along with many of the greats of rock and roll, rock-a-billy, and country-western.
13th Century BCE Twenty Squares Game Board
We'll be too late in New York (not arriving until May 19) to see this exhibition at the Met. Damn! Image: Photo: Jürgen Liepe; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Aegyptisches Museum und. Game Box with Chariot HuntEnkomi, Tomb 58; Late Bronze Age, ca. late 13th-12th century B.C. (© The Trustees of the British Museum; The Trustees of the British Museum, London ) As far as I am aware, the oldest known twenty squares board was found at Ur and dates to about 2600 BCE; the "serpent" game board laid out in the same style at the Ur game board was uncovered at Shar-i Sokhtah (the "Burnt City"), located in the borders area in southeast Iran where Pakistan and Afghanistan all merge, and dates to about 2400 BCE. This board demonstrates the long "tail" of 8 squares that was long in use on Egyptian twenty squares game boards.
Goddesschess folks have always been big fans of cross-cultural contacts and interconnectedness as a basis for explaining the existence of a sort of "universal" iconography in board games in cultures across half the globe and separated by many centuries. This exhibit demonstrates the influence of far-reaching trade and cultural contacts most beautifully and concretely - in the artifacts left behind. Check out the online review of "the Art of Foreign Influence" at Archaeology Magazine.
Where Were You 40 Years Ago Today?
Ah, the memories...From Telegraph.co.uk
The Beatles rooftop concert: It was 40 years ago today
Posted By: Subhajit Banerjee at Jan 30, 2009 at 16:50:23
(Photo) Yes, it was 40 years ago today that Sgt Pepper and his band played live for one last time. Their music has hardly ever gone out of style in the four decades since and raised plenty of smiles from generations of new fans.
The afternoon of January 30, 1969 was when The Beatles surprised a central London office lunch crowd with an impromptu concert on the roof of their Savile Row Apple headquarters.
Before the outing was abruptly cut short by police who objected to the noise, the band (with a little help from young keyboardist Billy Preston) had managed to thrill Londoners on adjacent rooftops and the streets below with a run-through of songs they had been rehearsing with a vague album in mind. Their five-song set included Don't Let Me Down, I've Got a Feeling and Get Back - all considered classics in subsequent years.
The rooftop 'concert' was the first live gig since the band stopped touring in 1965 (tired of constantly screaming girls and frustrated by not being able to reproduce the more complex arrangements of their studio albums) and was to be their last.
Times were tough as relationships were fast deteriorating within the band. Efforts to bring the love back with ideas like filming them trying to record a new album made things even worse - the acrimony captured in the Let It be movie (the DVD of which by the way is still awaiting release). The end was clearly in sight.
All of which combines to make the final performance of the greatest group ever (waits for protests) so poignant and special for Beatles fans.
Forty years later and it's time to celebrate the great historic event (again, pause for hands to shoot up in protest). BBC Radio 2 is airing I Hope We Passed The Audition (after the quote with which John Lennon closed that afternoon's proceedings) where Texas frontwoman Sharleen Spiteri takes listeners through how the concert came about. Notable contributors include Yoko Ono, Michael Lindsay-Hogg (director of Let It Be), engineer Alan Parsons and Ken Wharfe, the policeman sent by his superiors to "turn that noise off".
American bands are leading the tribute concerts with the Beatles' US manager Ken Mansfield (who was present on the Apple rooftop) helping cover band Creme Tangerine pull off a similar stunt in Seattle, Cover Me Badd are planning theirs at a secret San Diego location while four impromptu musicians will use vintage equipment to recreate the Beatles' signature sound in Alabama.
But incredibly, although not surprisingly, bureaucracy has thwarted an attempt by the Bootleg Beatles to recreate the moment on the same London rooftop. According to the band, permission was received from the current landlord, arrangements made for an accompanying party and the Westminster council even gave its blessings to the event - only to change its mind later over licence issues. What spoilsports!
Canada's Stonehenge?
Story from the GlobeandMail.com
BOB WEBER
The Canadian Press
January 29, 2009 at 3:54 PM EST
EDMONTON — An academic maverick is challenging conventional wisdom on Canada's prehistory by claiming an archeological site in southern Alberta is really a vast, open-air sun temple with a precise 5,000-year-old calendar predating England's Stonehenge and Egypt's pyramids.
Mainstream archeologists consider the rock-encircled cairn to be just another medicine wheel left behind by early aboriginals. But a new book by retired University of Alberta professor Gordon Freeman says it is in fact the centre of a 26-square-kilometre stone “lacework” that marks the changing seasons and the phases of the moon with greater accuracy than our current calendar.
“Genius existed on the prairies 5,000 years ago,” says Mr. Freeman, the widely published former head of the university's physical and theoretical chemistry department.
Mr. Freeman's fascination with prairie prehistory dates back to his Saskatchewan boyhood. He and his father would comb the short grasses of the plains in search of artifacts exposed by the scouring wind. That curiosity never left him and he returned to it as he prepared to retire from active teaching.
Looking for a hobby, he asked a friend with an interest in history to suggest a few intriguing sites to visit. On a warm late-August day in 1980, that list drew him to what he has come to call Canada's Stonehenge, which is also the title of his book.
A central cairn atop one of a series of low hills overlooking the Bow River, about 70 kilometres east of Calgary, had been partially excavated in 1971 and dated at about 5,000 years old. But as he approached it, Freeman strongly felt there was much more there than previously thought.
“As we walked toward the hilltop, I saw all kinds of patterns in the rocks on the way up. As I walked around the hilltop, I could see patterns that I doubted very much were accidental.”
Mr. Freeman photographed what he saw and showed the images to archeologists. They told him the rocks, some of which weigh up to a tonne, had been randomly distributed by melting glaciers.
But those rocks and rock piles, Mr. Freeman said, had been “highly engineered,” shimmied and balanced and wedged in ways he couldn't believe were natural. And so began a magnificent obsession — 28 years of photographing the site in summer and winter, observing the alignment of rocks and how they coincided with the recurring patterns of sun, moon and stars.
Mr. Freeman estimates he and his wife Phyllis have spent a total of seven months living at the site. Twelve thousand photographs with precise times and dates are neatly catalogued in his files.
What he found:
The central cairn is surrounded by 28 radiating stone lines, four of which align with the cardinal points of the compass. Those lines are encircled by another ring of stones.
A few metres away lies a stone semicircle, with a large stone between it and the central cairn. The left edge of the semicircle lines up with both the central stone and the right edge of the cairn, and vice versa.
To Mr. Freeman, those features represent the sun, the crescent moon and the morning star.
As well, there are secondary cairns on nearby hills and rock assemblages that seem to correspond to constellations.
And after years of rising before dawn, in all seasons and weather, to carefully photograph the positions of the sun, Mr. Freeman found the rocks once thought to be simply strewn across the prairie instead mark the progression of the year with uncanny accuracy.
The rising and setting sun on both the longest and shortest days of the year lines up precisely with V-shaped sights in the temple's rocks. The spring and autumn equinoxes, when day and night are equal, are similarly marked. They are not the equinoxes of the Gregorian calendar currently used, however, but the true astronomical equinoxes.
Mr. Freeman is convinced the temple contains a lunar calendar as well, because the 28 rays radiating from the central cairn correspond to the length of the lunar cycle.
“I thought I would complete that study in a couple years,” says Mr. Freeman, a laughing, vigorous 78. “Twenty-eight years later we're still making discoveries.”
Mainstream archeology hasn't been exactly welcoming. Despite being highly regarded in his own field, Mr. Freeman says journals have rejected his papers and conferences have denied him a platform.
Professionals in any field resist interlopers from other disciplines and archeology is no exception, he says. But he suggests conventional wisdom can restrict insight.
“If you have preconceptions, you're never going to discover anything.”
Although he hasn't read Canada's Stonehenge, University of Alberta archeologist Jack Ives is familiar with Mr. Freeman's theories.
He says recent research suggests some astronomical knowledge developed in Central and South America flowed north to the plains, where it was adapted by people for their own purposes.
“There is some basis for thinking there was sophisticated astronomical knowledge,” says Mr. Ives.
But what exactly is manifested in the medicine wheels?
“They may certainly reflect solstices and equinoxes. How much more sophisticated beyond that has been a subject of debate.”
But Mr. Ives points out the terrain in question is an ancient glacial moraine, full of naturally occurring rocks.
“You have to be very careful about what you line up.”
Mr. Freeman, however, is convinced. He looks forward to the academic debate to come.
“I know my song well before I sing it,” he says, quoting Bob Dylan.
Meanwhile, Mr. Freeman hopes to use any publicity generated by his book to push for preservation of the site. Part of it is privately owned, but most is Crown land and open to both the energy industry and casual, possibly destructive, visitors.
“The place is so far away from anything that it's not adequately protected.”
Mr. Freeman is a man of science, trained to trust hard data and believe evidence over sensation. But after 28 years unravelling a message in mute stones, the wind in his hair and the sun on his face, absorbed in ancient mysteries, the site has come to evoke in him something akin to reverence.
“I can go down there with a headache and within a day everything is gone. It's just like a cure. There is something down there. I just don't know how to describe it.
“I just feel very comfortable there. I just feel comfortable.”
BOB WEBER
The Canadian Press
January 29, 2009 at 3:54 PM EST
EDMONTON — An academic maverick is challenging conventional wisdom on Canada's prehistory by claiming an archeological site in southern Alberta is really a vast, open-air sun temple with a precise 5,000-year-old calendar predating England's Stonehenge and Egypt's pyramids.
Mainstream archeologists consider the rock-encircled cairn to be just another medicine wheel left behind by early aboriginals. But a new book by retired University of Alberta professor Gordon Freeman says it is in fact the centre of a 26-square-kilometre stone “lacework” that marks the changing seasons and the phases of the moon with greater accuracy than our current calendar.
“Genius existed on the prairies 5,000 years ago,” says Mr. Freeman, the widely published former head of the university's physical and theoretical chemistry department.
Mr. Freeman's fascination with prairie prehistory dates back to his Saskatchewan boyhood. He and his father would comb the short grasses of the plains in search of artifacts exposed by the scouring wind. That curiosity never left him and he returned to it as he prepared to retire from active teaching.
Looking for a hobby, he asked a friend with an interest in history to suggest a few intriguing sites to visit. On a warm late-August day in 1980, that list drew him to what he has come to call Canada's Stonehenge, which is also the title of his book.
A central cairn atop one of a series of low hills overlooking the Bow River, about 70 kilometres east of Calgary, had been partially excavated in 1971 and dated at about 5,000 years old. But as he approached it, Freeman strongly felt there was much more there than previously thought.
“As we walked toward the hilltop, I saw all kinds of patterns in the rocks on the way up. As I walked around the hilltop, I could see patterns that I doubted very much were accidental.”
Mr. Freeman photographed what he saw and showed the images to archeologists. They told him the rocks, some of which weigh up to a tonne, had been randomly distributed by melting glaciers.
But those rocks and rock piles, Mr. Freeman said, had been “highly engineered,” shimmied and balanced and wedged in ways he couldn't believe were natural. And so began a magnificent obsession — 28 years of photographing the site in summer and winter, observing the alignment of rocks and how they coincided with the recurring patterns of sun, moon and stars.
Mr. Freeman estimates he and his wife Phyllis have spent a total of seven months living at the site. Twelve thousand photographs with precise times and dates are neatly catalogued in his files.
What he found:
The central cairn is surrounded by 28 radiating stone lines, four of which align with the cardinal points of the compass. Those lines are encircled by another ring of stones.
A few metres away lies a stone semicircle, with a large stone between it and the central cairn. The left edge of the semicircle lines up with both the central stone and the right edge of the cairn, and vice versa.
To Mr. Freeman, those features represent the sun, the crescent moon and the morning star.
As well, there are secondary cairns on nearby hills and rock assemblages that seem to correspond to constellations.
And after years of rising before dawn, in all seasons and weather, to carefully photograph the positions of the sun, Mr. Freeman found the rocks once thought to be simply strewn across the prairie instead mark the progression of the year with uncanny accuracy.
The rising and setting sun on both the longest and shortest days of the year lines up precisely with V-shaped sights in the temple's rocks. The spring and autumn equinoxes, when day and night are equal, are similarly marked. They are not the equinoxes of the Gregorian calendar currently used, however, but the true astronomical equinoxes.
Mr. Freeman is convinced the temple contains a lunar calendar as well, because the 28 rays radiating from the central cairn correspond to the length of the lunar cycle.
“I thought I would complete that study in a couple years,” says Mr. Freeman, a laughing, vigorous 78. “Twenty-eight years later we're still making discoveries.”
Mainstream archeology hasn't been exactly welcoming. Despite being highly regarded in his own field, Mr. Freeman says journals have rejected his papers and conferences have denied him a platform.
Professionals in any field resist interlopers from other disciplines and archeology is no exception, he says. But he suggests conventional wisdom can restrict insight.
“If you have preconceptions, you're never going to discover anything.”
Although he hasn't read Canada's Stonehenge, University of Alberta archeologist Jack Ives is familiar with Mr. Freeman's theories.
He says recent research suggests some astronomical knowledge developed in Central and South America flowed north to the plains, where it was adapted by people for their own purposes.
“There is some basis for thinking there was sophisticated astronomical knowledge,” says Mr. Ives.
But what exactly is manifested in the medicine wheels?
“They may certainly reflect solstices and equinoxes. How much more sophisticated beyond that has been a subject of debate.”
But Mr. Ives points out the terrain in question is an ancient glacial moraine, full of naturally occurring rocks.
“You have to be very careful about what you line up.”
Mr. Freeman, however, is convinced. He looks forward to the academic debate to come.
“I know my song well before I sing it,” he says, quoting Bob Dylan.
Meanwhile, Mr. Freeman hopes to use any publicity generated by his book to push for preservation of the site. Part of it is privately owned, but most is Crown land and open to both the energy industry and casual, possibly destructive, visitors.
“The place is so far away from anything that it's not adequately protected.”
Mr. Freeman is a man of science, trained to trust hard data and believe evidence over sensation. But after 28 years unravelling a message in mute stones, the wind in his hair and the sun on his face, absorbed in ancient mysteries, the site has come to evoke in him something akin to reverence.
“I can go down there with a headache and within a day everything is gone. It's just like a cure. There is something down there. I just don't know how to describe it.
“I just feel very comfortable there. I just feel comfortable.”
2009 Gibraltar
a/k/a 2009 Gibtelecom Chess Festival
Chess femme standings after Round 4:
Rank Name Flags Score Fed. Rating TPR W-We 1 2 3 4 5
9 GM Dzagnidze, Nana w 3.5 GEO 2518 2773 +1.17 1 1 1 ½
16 GM Stefanova, Antoaneta w 3.0 BUL 2557 2596 +0.23 1 1 0 1
17 GM Cramling, Pia w 3.0 SWE 2548 2449 -0.37 0 1 1 1
26 IM Zatonskih, Anna w 3.0 USA 2462 2498 +0.24 1 0 1 1
29 IM Houska, Jovanka w 3.0 ENG 2392 2577 +0.97 ½ 1 ½ 1
30 WGM Calzetta, Monica w 3.0 ESP 2371 2438 +0.41 0 1 1 1
46 IM Arakhamia-Grant, Ketevan w 2.5 SCO 2500 2422 -0.29 1 0 1 ½
47 IM Cmilyte, Viktorija w 2.5 LTU 2497 2413 -0.33 ½ 1 1 0
50 IM Krush, Irina w 2.5 USA 2457 2494 +0.27 1 ½ 0 1
51 GM Socko, Monika w 2.5 POL 2449 2382 -0.26 1 0 1 ½
53 IM Sachdev, Tania w 2.5 IND 2435 2372 -0.26 1 0 1 ½
80 IM Klinova, Masha w 2.0 ISR 2328 2188 -0.66 0 1 ½ ½
130 WIM Tsifanskaya, Ludmila A w 1.5 ISR 2149 2108 -0.31 ½ 0 1 0
149 Haug, Marianne Wold w 1.5 NOR 1935 2076 +0.64 ½ ½ 0 ½
151 Carlsen, Ellen Oen w 1.5 NOR 1888 2100 +0.88 1 0 ½ 0
152 Chidi, Lovinia Sylvia 1.5 GER 0 2013 2013 0 1 0 ½
Chess femme standings after Round 4:
Rank Name Flags Score Fed. Rating TPR W-We 1 2 3 4 5
9 GM Dzagnidze, Nana w 3.5 GEO 2518 2773 +1.17 1 1 1 ½
16 GM Stefanova, Antoaneta w 3.0 BUL 2557 2596 +0.23 1 1 0 1
17 GM Cramling, Pia w 3.0 SWE 2548 2449 -0.37 0 1 1 1
26 IM Zatonskih, Anna w 3.0 USA 2462 2498 +0.24 1 0 1 1
29 IM Houska, Jovanka w 3.0 ENG 2392 2577 +0.97 ½ 1 ½ 1
30 WGM Calzetta, Monica w 3.0 ESP 2371 2438 +0.41 0 1 1 1
46 IM Arakhamia-Grant, Ketevan w 2.5 SCO 2500 2422 -0.29 1 0 1 ½
47 IM Cmilyte, Viktorija w 2.5 LTU 2497 2413 -0.33 ½ 1 1 0
50 IM Krush, Irina w 2.5 USA 2457 2494 +0.27 1 ½ 0 1
51 GM Socko, Monika w 2.5 POL 2449 2382 -0.26 1 0 1 ½
53 IM Sachdev, Tania w 2.5 IND 2435 2372 -0.26 1 0 1 ½
80 IM Klinova, Masha w 2.0 ISR 2328 2188 -0.66 0 1 ½ ½
130 WIM Tsifanskaya, Ludmila A w 1.5 ISR 2149 2108 -0.31 ½ 0 1 0
149 Haug, Marianne Wold w 1.5 NOR 1935 2076 +0.64 ½ ½ 0 ½
151 Carlsen, Ellen Oen w 1.5 NOR 1888 2100 +0.88 1 0 ½ 0
152 Chidi, Lovinia Sylvia 1.5 GER 0 2013 2013 0 1 0 ½
2009 Corus Update
Standings after Round 11:
Group B:
1. N. Short 7½
2. F. Caruana, R. Kasimdzhanov 7
4. A. Volokitin, A. Motylev, F. Vallejo Pons 6½
7. D. Navara 6
8. Z. Efimenko 5½
9. D. Reinderman, E. l'Ami 5
11. Y. Hou 4½
12. H. Mecking, J. Werle 3½
14. K. Sasikiran 3
Group C:
1. W. So 8
2. T. Hillarp Persson 7½
3. A. Giri 7
4. D. Howell, F. Holzke 6
6. A. Gupta, D. Harika, M. Bosboom 5½
9. M. Leon Hoyos 5
10. F. Nijboer, E. Iturrizaga, A. Bitalzadeh, R. Pruijssers 4½
14. O. Romanishin 3
Wow - young chess dudes Caruana and So are showing people how it's done! I'm also - frankly - amazed and pleased with Nigel Short's resurgence over the past year or so - at one time I thought he was an also ran but Short's play (and results) have shown either a grim determination to make it back into the elite ranks, or a renewed love of and fire for playing chess, and maybe both.
Group B:
1. N. Short 7½
2. F. Caruana, R. Kasimdzhanov 7
4. A. Volokitin, A. Motylev, F. Vallejo Pons 6½
7. D. Navara 6
8. Z. Efimenko 5½
9. D. Reinderman, E. l'Ami 5
11. Y. Hou 4½
12. H. Mecking, J. Werle 3½
14. K. Sasikiran 3
Group C:
1. W. So 8
2. T. Hillarp Persson 7½
3. A. Giri 7
4. D. Howell, F. Holzke 6
6. A. Gupta, D. Harika, M. Bosboom 5½
9. M. Leon Hoyos 5
10. F. Nijboer, E. Iturrizaga, A. Bitalzadeh, R. Pruijssers 4½
14. O. Romanishin 3
Wow - young chess dudes Caruana and So are showing people how it's done! I'm also - frankly - amazed and pleased with Nigel Short's resurgence over the past year or so - at one time I thought he was an also ran but Short's play (and results) have shown either a grim determination to make it back into the elite ranks, or a renewed love of and fire for playing chess, and maybe both.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Leslie Ugghams to Play Lena Horne
Ohmygoddess! I grew up with Leslie Uggams - watching her on the Mitch Miller show every week singing (I remember her sitting in a swing a lot). I thought she had a wonderful voice and was beautiful. I didn't care what color she was, it never occurred to me that it mattered.
Now, here is Uggams, playing Lena Horne in a play. Not too long ago I found myself wondering whatever happened to Leslie Uggams - now I know.
Leslie Uggams captures essence of Lena Horne in California stage show
By GREG BRAXTON Los Angeles Times
Published: Thursday, January 29, 2009
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. - Leslie Uggams and Lena Horne have crossed paths only a few times. But Uggams feels that the force and power of the iconic singer have always been a part of her.
"Lena was a goddess in my house - my mother played her records all the time, and I was always moved by how beautiful and classy she was," Uggams says. "When I was doing my nightclub act at the Coconut Grove in 1965, she pinned me as a Delta - we both belong to Delta Sigma Theta. I've always felt like she's been so close to me."
The two are more than sorority sisters-in-arms. With successful careers spanning at least five decades, Horne and Uggams have been celebrated for their striking beauty and silky smooth voices. Their popularity grew as they broke through barriers for black performers. Horne was one of Hollywood's first black female beauty icons while Uggams became the first black woman to host a network musical-variety show (CBS' "The Leslie Uggams Show" in 1969).
Both also ran headlong into racist forces that threatened to derail their careers, and both sparked furors when they married white men.
In recent years, Horne, 91, has withdrawn from public view while Uggams, 65, has kept busy - she starred opposite James Earl Jones in 2005 on Broadway in "On Golden Pond" and just completed a revival of "The First Breeze of Summer" at New York's Signature Theatre Company. Now, more than four decades after she was pinned by Horne, Uggams is putting her own distinctive stamp on her idol.
Uggams portrays Horne in "Stormy Weather," a new musical biography at the Pasadena Playhouse that producers hope will find its way to Broadway. The play, which ends March 1, chronicles Horne commenting on her life while observing a younger version of herself, played by Nikki Crawford.
The show has the same title as the classic Harold Arlen torch song that became Horne's signature (she sang it in the 1943 film of the same name). Suggested by Leslie Palmer's biography "Lena Horne, Entertainer," the title also reflects Horne's celebrated-but-tumultuous life and career.
Although Horne appeared in '40s musicals such as "Ziegfeld Follies," "Till the Clouds Roll By" and "Thousands Cheer," she encountered race-related obstacles in Hollywood. Often, she had to film stand-alone scenes that could be deleted easily for screenings in the then-Jim Crow South. Her most prominent roles were in all-black musicals such as "Stormy Weather" and "Cabin in the Sky."
That darker side of history is the backdrop for musical numbers in the new "Stormy Weather," which includes songs by Arlen and Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, and Jerome Kern.
"We're dealing with a woman facing a crossroads when doing the one thing she lives for - to entertain - becomes too painful," said Michael Bush, the former director of artistic production for New York's Manhattan Theatre Club, who is directing "Stormy Weather." "She proceeds to shut down. How much can she sing if she shuts down?"
The forces behind the production feel that the inauguration of President Barack Obama offers a prime opportunity to present Horne's legacy to a younger, more politically aware generation.
"This is a true story for our times," producer Stewart Lane said. "We're honoring a light-skinned woman making it during the racially charged '40s, '50s and '60s. People like her laid the groundwork for Barack Obama."
Enhancing the relevance of the project, say producers, is the star power of Uggams, who won a Tony Award in 1968 for best actress in a musical for "Hallelujah, Baby!"
She started her career at 6 in the TV series "Beulah" and is perhaps best known for her searing portrayal of the slave Kizzy in the landmark 1977 miniseries "Roots," which earned her numerous accolades, including an Emmy Award nomination.
The Horne-Uggams connection makes for a more powerful theatrical experience, said Sheldon Epps, artistic director of the Pasadena Playhouse: "There is a deeper reward for the audience with the synchronicity between the actress and the character. The opening number is Lena in concert. There's this richness of being reminded of the magic of Lena, but there's also this incredible richness in seeing Leslie."
In the same way that Lena in her later years had a greater amount of star quality and experience, Leslie does the same thing."
Uggams' big break came as a teenager, when record producer Mitch Miller in 1961 cast her in "Sing Along With Mitch," a variety series dominated by peppy tunes, with a ball bouncing over on-screen lyrics.
Uggams said she didn't learn until many years later that Miller had been under pressure by stations in the South to get rid of her or have her sing separately from the rest of the cast so she could be cut out of episodes.
"Yes there are some parallels, but this is really all about Lena," says Uggams, adding, "I'm not doing a copy of Lena. There is only one Lena Horne. But I'm bringing the essence of Lena."
"Stormy Weather" is the second time in two years that the Pasadena Playhouse has featured a musical production built around a showbiz icon. "Ray Charles Live! A New Musical," which producers still hope will make it to Broadway, drew flak from several children of the late singer who objected that it highlighted Charles' infidelity and other negative aspects.
Controversy has no place in "Stormy Weather," said Uggams. "This is really a love letter to (Horne), a valentine. We are here to celebrate her. I wouldn't have done it if it were anything else. I'm very comfortable in the story we're telling."
But Horne is not taking an official position on the project. Although she is aware of "Stormy Weather" and has given it her blessing," the entertainer, who lives in New York, is keeping a respectful distance from the project, conceived and written by Sharleen Cooper Cohen ("Sheba" and the upcoming musical "Officer," based on the film "An Officer and a Gentleman").
Said Uggams, "Sharleen got in touch with Lena early on and asked if she wanted to be a part of this. Lena's response was, 'I lived it!' So that was the end of that."
During a recent rehearsal at a Burbank studio, Uggams, dressed in a pink, hooded sweatshirt, seemed focused as she went through her lines. She appeared to internalize some of the tenseness expressed by director Bush, as he wrestled with blocking some of the performers.
But Bush relaxed as he sat back to watch Uggams sing the opening number as Lena. "I absolutely adore Leslie," he said. "She's a fantastic actress. No one works harder in this room than she does."
Uggams, who has been married to Australian businessman Grahame Pratt since 1965, said taking on the role has consumed her.
"I have no life off the stage," she said with a loud laugh. "I have to save all my strength for the show. There's no hanging out. I have to eat at certain times so my voice will stay strong. But for Lena, it's worth it. I am so primed for this."
Now, here is Uggams, playing Lena Horne in a play. Not too long ago I found myself wondering whatever happened to Leslie Uggams - now I know.
Leslie Uggams captures essence of Lena Horne in California stage show
By GREG BRAXTON Los Angeles Times
Published: Thursday, January 29, 2009
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. - Leslie Uggams and Lena Horne have crossed paths only a few times. But Uggams feels that the force and power of the iconic singer have always been a part of her.
"Lena was a goddess in my house - my mother played her records all the time, and I was always moved by how beautiful and classy she was," Uggams says. "When I was doing my nightclub act at the Coconut Grove in 1965, she pinned me as a Delta - we both belong to Delta Sigma Theta. I've always felt like she's been so close to me."
The two are more than sorority sisters-in-arms. With successful careers spanning at least five decades, Horne and Uggams have been celebrated for their striking beauty and silky smooth voices. Their popularity grew as they broke through barriers for black performers. Horne was one of Hollywood's first black female beauty icons while Uggams became the first black woman to host a network musical-variety show (CBS' "The Leslie Uggams Show" in 1969).
Both also ran headlong into racist forces that threatened to derail their careers, and both sparked furors when they married white men.
In recent years, Horne, 91, has withdrawn from public view while Uggams, 65, has kept busy - she starred opposite James Earl Jones in 2005 on Broadway in "On Golden Pond" and just completed a revival of "The First Breeze of Summer" at New York's Signature Theatre Company. Now, more than four decades after she was pinned by Horne, Uggams is putting her own distinctive stamp on her idol.
Uggams portrays Horne in "Stormy Weather," a new musical biography at the Pasadena Playhouse that producers hope will find its way to Broadway. The play, which ends March 1, chronicles Horne commenting on her life while observing a younger version of herself, played by Nikki Crawford.
The show has the same title as the classic Harold Arlen torch song that became Horne's signature (she sang it in the 1943 film of the same name). Suggested by Leslie Palmer's biography "Lena Horne, Entertainer," the title also reflects Horne's celebrated-but-tumultuous life and career.
Although Horne appeared in '40s musicals such as "Ziegfeld Follies," "Till the Clouds Roll By" and "Thousands Cheer," she encountered race-related obstacles in Hollywood. Often, she had to film stand-alone scenes that could be deleted easily for screenings in the then-Jim Crow South. Her most prominent roles were in all-black musicals such as "Stormy Weather" and "Cabin in the Sky."
That darker side of history is the backdrop for musical numbers in the new "Stormy Weather," which includes songs by Arlen and Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, and Jerome Kern.
"We're dealing with a woman facing a crossroads when doing the one thing she lives for - to entertain - becomes too painful," said Michael Bush, the former director of artistic production for New York's Manhattan Theatre Club, who is directing "Stormy Weather." "She proceeds to shut down. How much can she sing if she shuts down?"
The forces behind the production feel that the inauguration of President Barack Obama offers a prime opportunity to present Horne's legacy to a younger, more politically aware generation.
"This is a true story for our times," producer Stewart Lane said. "We're honoring a light-skinned woman making it during the racially charged '40s, '50s and '60s. People like her laid the groundwork for Barack Obama."
Enhancing the relevance of the project, say producers, is the star power of Uggams, who won a Tony Award in 1968 for best actress in a musical for "Hallelujah, Baby!"
She started her career at 6 in the TV series "Beulah" and is perhaps best known for her searing portrayal of the slave Kizzy in the landmark 1977 miniseries "Roots," which earned her numerous accolades, including an Emmy Award nomination.
The Horne-Uggams connection makes for a more powerful theatrical experience, said Sheldon Epps, artistic director of the Pasadena Playhouse: "There is a deeper reward for the audience with the synchronicity between the actress and the character. The opening number is Lena in concert. There's this richness of being reminded of the magic of Lena, but there's also this incredible richness in seeing Leslie."
In the same way that Lena in her later years had a greater amount of star quality and experience, Leslie does the same thing."
Uggams' big break came as a teenager, when record producer Mitch Miller in 1961 cast her in "Sing Along With Mitch," a variety series dominated by peppy tunes, with a ball bouncing over on-screen lyrics.
Uggams said she didn't learn until many years later that Miller had been under pressure by stations in the South to get rid of her or have her sing separately from the rest of the cast so she could be cut out of episodes.
"Yes there are some parallels, but this is really all about Lena," says Uggams, adding, "I'm not doing a copy of Lena. There is only one Lena Horne. But I'm bringing the essence of Lena."
"Stormy Weather" is the second time in two years that the Pasadena Playhouse has featured a musical production built around a showbiz icon. "Ray Charles Live! A New Musical," which producers still hope will make it to Broadway, drew flak from several children of the late singer who objected that it highlighted Charles' infidelity and other negative aspects.
Controversy has no place in "Stormy Weather," said Uggams. "This is really a love letter to (Horne), a valentine. We are here to celebrate her. I wouldn't have done it if it were anything else. I'm very comfortable in the story we're telling."
But Horne is not taking an official position on the project. Although she is aware of "Stormy Weather" and has given it her blessing," the entertainer, who lives in New York, is keeping a respectful distance from the project, conceived and written by Sharleen Cooper Cohen ("Sheba" and the upcoming musical "Officer," based on the film "An Officer and a Gentleman").
Said Uggams, "Sharleen got in touch with Lena early on and asked if she wanted to be a part of this. Lena's response was, 'I lived it!' So that was the end of that."
During a recent rehearsal at a Burbank studio, Uggams, dressed in a pink, hooded sweatshirt, seemed focused as she went through her lines. She appeared to internalize some of the tenseness expressed by director Bush, as he wrestled with blocking some of the performers.
But Bush relaxed as he sat back to watch Uggams sing the opening number as Lena. "I absolutely adore Leslie," he said. "She's a fantastic actress. No one works harder in this room than she does."
Uggams, who has been married to Australian businessman Grahame Pratt since 1965, said taking on the role has consumed her.
"I have no life off the stage," she said with a loud laugh. "I have to save all my strength for the show. There's no hanging out. I have to eat at certain times so my voice will stay strong. But for Lena, it's worth it. I am so primed for this."
2009 U.S. Women's Chess Championship
The Main Event - the U.S. Chess Championship 2009:
Two dozen chess players will compete for more than $130,000 in prize money May 7-17 at the Central West End chess club. Competitors will include the top 12 American players, the top two American female players, the 2008 U.S. Junior Closed Champion, the 2008 U.S. Open Champion and the 2009 U.S. State Champion of Champions. There will also be seven wild card spots.(from St. Louis Today.com, story from St. Louis Post-Dispatch 1/28/09 by Greg Jonsson)
At the moment, the top two female players in the US are
1 Krush, Irina (12543137) NY USA 2474
2 Zatonskih, Anna (12873912) NY USA 2472
Does this mean that the ladies will get a second kick at the cat by being able to play in the U.S. Women's Championship that will be held "later" this year?
It seems so - this is from an announcement by the St. Louis Chess Club and Scholastic Center about being awarded the hosting for the 2009 USWCC:
Invitations will be sent to the top 10 U.S. women by their rating. The championship will have a purse of $64,000.
Should they accept their invitations to both events, Krush and Zatonskih have a chance of earning prize money in the USWCC in addition to winning prizes in the "other" U.S. Chess Championship. As Krush and Zatonskih finished 2nd and 1st in last year's USWCC, it's a pretty good bet they will be at or near the top positions in this year's USWCC and win some nice prizes out of that event's $64,000 purse.
Seems to me we went through this just a few years ago. I didn't think it was fair then that two female players received an opportunity to play in both tournaments, and I don't think it is fair now. In my opinion, the ladies should be required to pick one or the other event, but not be allowed to play in both.
By the way - any FIRM dates set yet?
Two dozen chess players will compete for more than $130,000 in prize money May 7-17 at the Central West End chess club. Competitors will include the top 12 American players, the top two American female players, the 2008 U.S. Junior Closed Champion, the 2008 U.S. Open Champion and the 2009 U.S. State Champion of Champions. There will also be seven wild card spots.(from St. Louis Today.com, story from St. Louis Post-Dispatch 1/28/09 by Greg Jonsson)
At the moment, the top two female players in the US are
1 Krush, Irina (12543137) NY USA 2474
2 Zatonskih, Anna (12873912) NY USA 2472
Does this mean that the ladies will get a second kick at the cat by being able to play in the U.S. Women's Championship that will be held "later" this year?
It seems so - this is from an announcement by the St. Louis Chess Club and Scholastic Center about being awarded the hosting for the 2009 USWCC:
Invitations will be sent to the top 10 U.S. women by their rating. The championship will have a purse of $64,000.
Should they accept their invitations to both events, Krush and Zatonskih have a chance of earning prize money in the USWCC in addition to winning prizes in the "other" U.S. Chess Championship. As Krush and Zatonskih finished 2nd and 1st in last year's USWCC, it's a pretty good bet they will be at or near the top positions in this year's USWCC and win some nice prizes out of that event's $64,000 purse.
Seems to me we went through this just a few years ago. I didn't think it was fair then that two female players received an opportunity to play in both tournaments, and I don't think it is fair now. In my opinion, the ladies should be required to pick one or the other event, but not be allowed to play in both.
By the way - any FIRM dates set yet?
Town of Twins?
All I can say is that this is a really bizarre story... From New Scientist.comNazi 'Angel of Death' not responsible for town of twins
15:40 27 January 2009 by Linda Geddes
Brazilian scientists have rejected claims that the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele – notorious for his experiments at Auschwitz – was responsible for creating a tribe of twins in a small town near the border with Argentina.
In his book, Mengele: The Angel Of Death In South America, Argentine historian Jorge Camarasa claims that Mengele made regular trips to Linha São Pedro, a small and predominantly German settlement near the city of Cândido Godói in Brazil, during the 1960s. Shortly afterwards, the birth rate of twins began to spiral, he says.
However, Ursula Matte of the medical genetics unit at Porto Alegre Hospital in Brazil and her colleagues reject any notion that Mengele was responsible for the phenomenon. Her team was invited to Linha São Pedro during 1994 to investigate reports of a higher than average number of twin births in the town.
Generation hop
From 1990 to 1994, the proportion of twin births in Linha São Pedro was 10%, compared to 1.8% for rest of the state of Rio Grande do Sul.
"Even though we could not find a definitive explanation for this higher incidence, the existence of other 'twin towns' around the world – most of them in remote isolated areas with high levels of inbreeding just as Linha São Pedro – shows that external influence is not needed for this to happen," Matte says.
Her team interviewed and conducted blood tests on 17 of the 22 pairs of twins living in Linha São Pedro, around half of which were identical twins.
Genealogical analysis showed a high recurrence of multiple births within families, as well as a high level of inbreeding within the community, suggesting the presence of genetic twinning factors.
The high level of inbreeding, combined with an absence of twins every other generation would suggest a recessive trait, Matte adds.
Teutonic traits
Although Camarasa argues that the high prevalence of blonde hair and blue eyes among the twins could be evidence of Mengele's "Aryanising" influence, Matte points out that the village was founded by German immigrants who often have such features.
"In addition, I don't think Mengele would have the knowledge, not to mention the means, to engender the rise in twin births in this community," she says. "It's noteworthy that twin births occurred there in almost every time period, even in the 1990s, so what kind of long-lasting manipulation could he have perpetrated?"
Twin births have been linked to exposure to toxic waste and increased use of IVF, but even now, says Matte, we don't fully understand the mechanisms involved, "and it is extremely hard for me to think that Mengele would have known it in the late 1960s," she says.
Journal reference: Acta geneticae medicae et gemellologiae (vol 45, p 431)
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Mummy's Face Reconstructed
Latest technology applied to a "virtual" facial reconstruction of a mummy. From 3news.co.nzWho's your mummy?
High-tech wizardry reveals face of ancient aristocrat
Wed, 28 Jan 2009 6:51p.m.
The face of an Egyptian mummy at Otago Museum has been revealed for the first time in over 2,000 years. The 35-year-old female aristocrat has been part of the museum's collection for more than a century.
The facial reconstruction of the mummy is the result of over a year's work by a team from Otago University and they are confident that their modern day model is extremely accurate.
"I would say if somebody from that era comes and sees this reconstruction, I would say they would recognise her," says Dr George Dias from Otago University's Adanatomy Department.
The team developed an advanced method of facial reconstruction, which more accurately recreates the soft tissues like nose and skin surrounding the skull.
Previous methods have more guesswork and left the process open to artistic interpretation.
"We know there's no such thing called an average face," says Dr Dias. "You take two people from the same racial background, same age, same sex, the faces are different."
Four years ago, scientists in Egypt put the mummy of Tutankhamen through a CAT scan. There, the fragile skeleton of the young Pharaoh was already unwrapped. But this new process is non-invasive, preserving the ancient artefact by editing the original CAT scan.
The mummy was then electronically unwrapped, stripping away her wooden sarcophagus, bandages, and remaining soft tissue - revealing an accurate 3D image of the skull inside.
The process also has genuine real world applications, in the area of Police forensics and cold cases.
The next step is using silicone skin, to create a more human face.
3 News
2009 Gibraltar
a/k/a 7th Gibtelecom Chess Festival
Results for all chess femmes playing in the Masters' Section after Round 2:
Rank Name Flags Score Fed. M/F Rating TPR W-We 1 2 3
12 GM Stefanova, Antoaneta w 2.0 BUL F 2557 3064 +0.42 1 1
14 GM Dzagnidze, Nana w 2.0 GEO F 2518 2946 +0.29 1 1
30 IM Cmilyte, Viktorija w 1.5 LTU F 2497 2372 -0.23 ½ 1
34 IM Krush, Irina w 1.5 USA F 2457 2591 +0.38 1 ½
37 IM Houska, Jovanka w 1.5 ENG F 2392 2562 +0.46 ½ 1
50 GM Cramling, Pia w 1.0 SWE F 2548 2253 -0.69 0 1
55 IM Arakhamia-Grant, Ketevan w 1.0 SCO F 2500 2448 -0.10 1 0
57 IM Zatonskih, Anna w 1.0 USA F 2462 2417 -0.10 1 0
59 GM Socko, Monika w 1.0 POL F 2449 2402 -0.10 1 0
62 IM Sachdev, Tania w 1.0 IND F 2435 2380 -0.12 1 0
67 WGM Calzetta, Monica w 1.0 ESP F 2371 2339 -0.04 0 1
74 IM Klinova, Masha w 1.0 ISR F 2328 2299 -0.04 0 1
140 Haug, Marianne Wold w 1.0 NOR F 1935 2160 +0.56 ½ ½
142 Carlsen, Ellen Oen w 1.0 NOR F 1888 2161 +0.64 1 0
146 Chidi, Lovinia Sylvia 1.0 GER F 0 2068 +0.50 0 1
157 WIM Tsifanskaya, Ludmila A w 0.5 ISR F 2149 1961 -0.49 ½ 0
Results for all chess femmes playing in the Masters' Section after Round 2:
Rank Name Flags Score Fed. M/F Rating TPR W-We 1 2 3
12 GM Stefanova, Antoaneta w 2.0 BUL F 2557 3064 +0.42 1 1
14 GM Dzagnidze, Nana w 2.0 GEO F 2518 2946 +0.29 1 1
30 IM Cmilyte, Viktorija w 1.5 LTU F 2497 2372 -0.23 ½ 1
34 IM Krush, Irina w 1.5 USA F 2457 2591 +0.38 1 ½
37 IM Houska, Jovanka w 1.5 ENG F 2392 2562 +0.46 ½ 1
50 GM Cramling, Pia w 1.0 SWE F 2548 2253 -0.69 0 1
55 IM Arakhamia-Grant, Ketevan w 1.0 SCO F 2500 2448 -0.10 1 0
57 IM Zatonskih, Anna w 1.0 USA F 2462 2417 -0.10 1 0
59 GM Socko, Monika w 1.0 POL F 2449 2402 -0.10 1 0
62 IM Sachdev, Tania w 1.0 IND F 2435 2380 -0.12 1 0
67 WGM Calzetta, Monica w 1.0 ESP F 2371 2339 -0.04 0 1
74 IM Klinova, Masha w 1.0 ISR F 2328 2299 -0.04 0 1
140 Haug, Marianne Wold w 1.0 NOR F 1935 2160 +0.56 ½ ½
142 Carlsen, Ellen Oen w 1.0 NOR F 1888 2161 +0.64 1 0
146 Chidi, Lovinia Sylvia 1.0 GER F 0 2068 +0.50 0 1
157 WIM Tsifanskaya, Ludmila A w 0.5 ISR F 2149 1961 -0.49 ½ 0
Corus 2009 Update
Group B standings after Round 10:
1. N. Short 6½
2. A. Volokitin, A. Motylev, D. Navara, F. Caruana, R. Kasimdzhanov 6
7. Z. Efimenko, F. Vallejo Pons 5½
9. E. l'Ami 5
10. Y. Hou, D. Reinderman 4
12. H. Mecking 3½
13. K. Sasikiran, J. Werle 3
Group C standings after Round 10:
1. T. Hillarp Persson 7½
2. W. So 7
3. A. Giri 6
4. D. Howell, A. Gupta, D. Harika, F. Holzke, M. Bosboom 5½
9. E. Iturrizaga 4½
10. M. Leon Hoyos 4
11. F. Nijboer, A. Bitalzadeh, R. Pruijssers 3½
14. O. Romanishin 3
According to this story (I read it at Susan Polgar's blog), Dronavalli could score a GM norm - that would be wonderful!
1. N. Short 6½
2. A. Volokitin, A. Motylev, D. Navara, F. Caruana, R. Kasimdzhanov 6
7. Z. Efimenko, F. Vallejo Pons 5½
9. E. l'Ami 5
10. Y. Hou, D. Reinderman 4
12. H. Mecking 3½
13. K. Sasikiran, J. Werle 3
Group C standings after Round 10:
1. T. Hillarp Persson 7½
2. W. So 7
3. A. Giri 6
4. D. Howell, A. Gupta, D. Harika, F. Holzke, M. Bosboom 5½
9. E. Iturrizaga 4½
10. M. Leon Hoyos 4
11. F. Nijboer, A. Bitalzadeh, R. Pruijssers 3½
14. O. Romanishin 3
According to this story (I read it at Susan Polgar's blog), Dronavalli could score a GM norm - that would be wonderful!
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
World Chess News
Macauley Peterson over at the ICC Chess FM blog has an audio interview with the female contingent of five Swedish siblings (three sisters and two brothers) who together produce World Chess News that has been on the air for three years!
Then things are turned around and MP is himself interviewed by one of the charming sisters. MP in a suit is a sight to behold. I had no idea he was such a cutie :)
Then things are turned around and MP is himself interviewed by one of the charming sisters. MP in a suit is a sight to behold. I had no idea he was such a cutie :)
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Treasure Trove!
Hmmmm, seems to be an increase in reports recently about the discovery of treasure trove. This latest batch of gold coins was found in Jerusalem.From Science Daily
Hoard Of Hundreds Of Antique Gold Coins Uncovered In Walls Around Jerusalem National Park
ScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2009) — One thousand three hundred year old Chanukah money in Jerusalem: a hoard of more than 250 gold coins was exposed December 11 in the excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority is conducting in the Giv ‘ati car park in the City of David, in the Walls Around Jerusalem National Park. The excavations at the site are being carried out on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, in cooperation with the Nature and Parks Authority and are underwritten by the ‘Ir David Foundation.
“This is one of the largest and most impressive coin hoards ever discovered in Jerusalem – certainly the largest and most important of its period,” archaeologists said.
Since the archaeological excavations began there about two years ago, they have not ceased in providing us with surprising discoveries that shed new light on different chapters of the city’s past. Currently a very large and impressive building is being uncovered that dates to about the seventh century CE (end of the Byzantine period-beginning of the Umayyad period). A large cache of 264 coins, all made of gold, was discovered among the ruins of the building.
According to Dr. Doron Ben-Ami and Yana Tchekhanovets, directors of the excavation at the site on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “Since no pottery vessel was discovered adjacent to the hoard, we can assume that it was concealed inside a hidden niche in one of the walls of the building. It seems that with its collapse, the coins piled up there among the building debris”. Ben-Ami and Tchekhanovets believe, “This is one of the largest and most impressive coin hoards ever discovered in Jerusalem – certainly the largest and most important of its period. For comparison’s sake, it should be noted that the only hoard of gold coins from the Byzantine period that has been discovered to date in Jerusalem consisted of only five gold coins. All of the coins bear the likeness of the emperor Heraclius (610-641 CE). Different coins were minted during this emperor’s reign; however, all of the coins that were discovered in the City of David in Jerusalem belong to one well-known type in which the likeness of the emperor wearing military garb and holding a cross in his right hand is depicted on the obverse, while the sign of the cross is on the reverse. These coins were minted at the beginning of Heraclius’ reign (between the years 610-613 CE), one year before the Persians conquered Byzantine Jerusalem (614 CE).
From the moment that the first coin was exposed, it stood out against the background of its surroundings. It is easy to imagine the excitement took hold of the excavators when they continued to discover many more dozens of gold coins alongside it. These were resting on the ground, in one place where they fell, and were buried there more than 1,300 years ago, until once again man laid eyes on them – this time the amazed eyes of the archaeologists.
Although gold is not among the ordinary discoveries in archeological excavations, not long ago a surprisingly well preserved gold earring, inlaid with pearls and precious stones, was discovered at this site.
What is the building where this very valuable cache was hidden and who was its owner? What were the circumstances of its destruction which did not permit the coins’ owner to collect them? Should the building’s destruction be dated to the time of the hoard?
The excavation of the large building in which the hoard was discovered is still in its early stages and the archaeologists hope that they will soon collect further data that will enable them to answer these questions.
Adapted from materials provided by Israel Antiquities Authority
Chess Femme News
Hola Darlings!
I've done updating at Chess Femme News (about time!) You can find it by visiting Goddesschess and clicking on the Chess Femme News link on the left-hand navigation bar :)
Now that the redecorating phase is winding down, I will try to be more regular in updating CFN and report updates here. But I discovered last night, much to my horror (it woke me up about 3:20 a.m.) that I have a creature or creatures living just on the other side of my drywall on my bedroom wall! Well, you know full well where there is one creature, there are more. Drat and bloody dammit all to hell and back!
The mysterious leak (I do not believe I have mentioned this before) has also decided to widen itself out in the past few days. Drat and bloody dammit all to hell and back!
So, it seems I will be seeking out some kind of exterminator (CHA-CHING!) and some kind of plumber (SUPER DUPER CHA-CHING!)
Arrrgggghhhhh! Let me tell you, I feel absolutely awful even contemplating evicting the wall creatures from my home during this horrid winter. But I cannot have them infest the house. What if one eats through the drywall one night and lands PLOP right on my face in the middle of a dream about the office? (I'm talking about me, not the critter)... EGODDESS!
I've done updating at Chess Femme News (about time!) You can find it by visiting Goddesschess and clicking on the Chess Femme News link on the left-hand navigation bar :)
Now that the redecorating phase is winding down, I will try to be more regular in updating CFN and report updates here. But I discovered last night, much to my horror (it woke me up about 3:20 a.m.) that I have a creature or creatures living just on the other side of my drywall on my bedroom wall! Well, you know full well where there is one creature, there are more. Drat and bloody dammit all to hell and back!
The mysterious leak (I do not believe I have mentioned this before) has also decided to widen itself out in the past few days. Drat and bloody dammit all to hell and back!
So, it seems I will be seeking out some kind of exterminator (CHA-CHING!) and some kind of plumber (SUPER DUPER CHA-CHING!)
Arrrgggghhhhh! Let me tell you, I feel absolutely awful even contemplating evicting the wall creatures from my home during this horrid winter. But I cannot have them infest the house. What if one eats through the drywall one night and lands PLOP right on my face in the middle of a dream about the office? (I'm talking about me, not the critter)... EGODDESS!
Monday, January 26, 2009
Chess Legends to Play at a Special Celebration
Chess legends to meet at Zurich stationJanuary 22, 2009
To celebrate its 200th anniversary, Zurich chess club has announced it will host a competition between 200 amateurs and eight greats of the game.
The event will be held in Zurich's main station on August 22. The following day the experts will face each other in a speed chess play-off.
Zurich chess club, reportedly the oldest in the world, will be the centre of world chess for two days when seven former world champions – and a Swiss runner-up – show off their skills.
The former world champions are Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik, Boris Spassky, Ruslan Ponomariov, Veselin Topalov and current world champion Viswanathan Anand.
Viktor Korchnoi, a Russian-born Swiss grandmaster who at 77 is the oldest player still on the circuit, will complete the eight.
As Kasparov and Spassky no longer play competitive chess, they will be replaced on August 23 by Judit Polgár, by far the strongest female chessplayer in history, and Werner Hug, former junior world champion and a member of Zurich chess club. [Photo: Judit Polgar, Round 2, 2008 Corus]
To launch the bicentenary, an open tournament will be held from August 9-15 in Zurich's Congress House with prize money of SFr100,000 ($86,000).
Troubles in Iran
Not that I regularly follow the news in the Tehran Times! But this story I came across today (quite by accident) was interesting. I wonder if these bandit-type dudes are Taliban. If they are, how absolutely, wonderfully ironic that Iran is having troubles with the Taliban! How absoutely horrid and awful for the families who lost those 10 policemen who were just doing their jobs.
Clashes kill 10 police in SE Iran
Date : Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Clashes between Iranian police and gunmen in the southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan Province have resulted in the deaths of ten officers.
Police officers engaged in clashes with gunmen near the city of Zahedan, the provincial capital, Sunday night.
Ten Iranian police officers were killed. There have been no reports yet on the number of casualties inflicted on the armed militants.
The armed confrontation resulted in injuries on both sides. The surviving gunmen escaped to Pakistan.
The southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan, which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan, has been the scene of battles between Iranian forces and drug and arms smugglers. Every year, Iran confiscates a large quantity of drugs and arms from smugglers and arrests or kills terrorists in the province.
(Source: Press TV)
Clashes kill 10 police in SE Iran
Date : Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Clashes between Iranian police and gunmen in the southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan Province have resulted in the deaths of ten officers.
Police officers engaged in clashes with gunmen near the city of Zahedan, the provincial capital, Sunday night.
Ten Iranian police officers were killed. There have been no reports yet on the number of casualties inflicted on the armed militants.
The armed confrontation resulted in injuries on both sides. The surviving gunmen escaped to Pakistan.
The southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan, which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan, has been the scene of battles between Iranian forces and drug and arms smugglers. Every year, Iran confiscates a large quantity of drugs and arms from smugglers and arrests or kills terrorists in the province.
(Source: Press TV)
Treasure Trove in The Netherlands!
Oh Goddess - I can't keep track. May have already reported on this (?) Love the coin - not the best rendition of a horse I've ever seen, I think it looks more like a giant dog or maybe even a hybrid griffin-type creature (think Harry Potter movie...) Is it a horse???Celtic Hoard Found in Netherlands
By Richard Giedroyc, World Coin News
January 26, 2009
Coins are often used as "index fossils" by archaeologists.
An index fossil is a fossil with which paleontologists are familiar that is also known to have lived during a specific time period and in a certain environment. For this reason an index fossil can help date an entire paleontological dig site. Coins found at archaeological dig sites can often help date the site, identify past trade routes, identify rulers, suggest political borders, and even suggest the level of technology available in the area. Due to inscriptions and iconography coins are often the only artifact found at an archaeological site that can "speak" to us.
On Nov. 13 an important find of 109 Celtic coins of the Eburones tribe found in the Netherlands was announced through the Associated Press. According to AP information, this is one of three important hoard finds of coins issued by this tribe. The other two finds, according to AP information, were discovered in Belgium and Germany in areas not too distant geographically from the Netherlands.
The most recent find was discovered by metal detector hobbyist Paul Curfs, who was sweeping a corn field in Maastricht, a city in the southern part of the Netherlands. Curfs is not a coin collector. He discovered the coins in the spring of 2008. The find is only now being announced publicly.
In the AP story Curfs described his find of the first coin, saying: "It was golden and had a little horse on it - I had no idea what I had found."
Curfs posted an image of the gold coin on the Internet on what is described as a web forum. Someone advised him the coin was rare. This prompted Curfs to return to the same field, where he next discovered a coin he described as, "It looked totally different - silver, and saucer-shaped."
By the time Curfs and several fellow hobbyists were done they had uncovered a total of 39 gold and 70 silver ancient Celtic coins. Curfs notified Maastricht city officials of the discovery, then worked with professional archaeologists to investigate the find site further.
Specific details important to coin collectors were not immediately available, however according to the AP story, "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 [Julius] 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 Euburones were a Germanic tribe living primarily in what in now Belgium. In 54 BC the Eburones revolted against local Roman occupation through Euburones tribal chieftains Ambiorix and Catuvoleus. Ambiorix initially offered safe passage to the Romans while other tribes elsewhere in Gaul were in revolt against the Romans. The Romans, commanded by Quintus Titurius Sabinus and Lucius Aurunculeius Cotta, agreed. The Eburones treacherously ambushed the Romans, most of whom were killed or committed suicide rather than allow themselves to be captured by the Euburones.
By 49 BC Roman general Julius Caesar had crushed the revolt, defeating both Celts and Germanic tribes living in Gaul (Gaul being comprised of primarily of what is now modern France). Caesar then defied the Roman Senate by crossing the Rubicon River and marching on the city of Rome, crossing the Rubicon being considered treason since that river marked the northernmost boundary of the Roman Republic proper. By this act Caesar initiated a Roman civil war that would end the Roman Republic and usher in the Roman Empire The Eburones had resisted Caesar's conquest of Gaul and were rewarded for their resistance with genocide at the hands of the Romans.
Roymans believes the gold and silver coin hoard recently found in the Netherlands were produced by Celtic tribes further north, suggesting in his opinion the coins may represent cooperation among the various Celtic tribes in the war against Caesar's Roman legions. Roymans disclosed that both the gold and silver coins depict triple spirals on the obverse, a common Celtic symbol.
At the time this article was being written no value had yet been placed on the hoard. The hoard discovered in Belgium was of similar size and has been estimated at about 175,000 euros (about $220,000 US) in value.
Curfs has retained 11 of the coins, lending them to the city of Maastricht on what has been described as a long-term basis. His coins have been on display at the Centre Ceramique Museum in Maastricht. The farmer on whose land the hoard was discovered sold his interest in the coins to Maastricht for an undisclosed sum.
Middle East Checkmate
From the MEMRI blog (MEMRI: Middle East Media Research InstituteCartoonist: Amjad Rasmi
Source: Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, London, January 25, 2009
Posted at: 2009-01-26
WSCF: All Girls Scholastic Chess Tournament
Darlings! Updated information about the Wisconsin Scholastic Chess Federation's All-Girls Scholastic Chess Tournament. I'm not sure if it is the THIRD or the FOURTH: The schedule at the WSCF website says it is the FOURTH; the PDF flyer says it is the THIRD. But it really doesn't any difference - it's girls and only girls playing chess, competing head to head and loving every minute of it. This is a good thing.
I donated $150.00 for whatever edition this is of the Tournament for All-Girls because it is a worthy cause and I want to do what I can to promote local chess for chess femmes. Wish I was a millionaire... Please consider making a donation to this worthy organization that promotes scholastic chess in Wisconsin! You can designate that the gift be used only for specific purposes, such as the All-Girls Scholastic - or whatever you'd like.
Here is the information for the 2009 All-Girls Scholastic Chess Tournament!!!
Wisconsin Scholastic Chess Federation’s Third Annual All-Girls
Scholastic Chess Tournament
Saturday February 28, 2009
Location: Divine Savior Holy Angels High School 4257 N 100th Street, Milwaukee, WI 53222
(414) 462-3742
Format: Three Sections
K – 3 5 Round Swiss G30
K – 6 5 Round Swiss G30
Open (k-12) 5 Round Swiss G30
WSCF K - 3 Three Team Trophies. Individual trophies to top 5 players.
WSCF K – 6 Three Team Trophies. Individual trophies to top 5 players.
WSCF K – 12 Open Three Team Trophies. Individual trophies to top 5 players.
Medals to all participants.
Scholarships: K – 3 $ 100 to Champion
K – 6 $ 200 to Champion
Open $ 400 to Champion, $200 to 2nd Place, $100 to 3rd Place
Entry: Register on line at www.wisconsinscholasticchess.org before Thursday Feb 26th at 11: 00 pm. Payment only on day of tournament.
$10 for advance registration on line. $15 on site
On Site Registration: Registration is from 8:00 am to 8:45.
Those arriving after 8:45 will be paired in round 2.
Lunch: Purchase on-site.
Supervision: At least one designated adult supervisor must be present at all times during the tournament to oversee your school’s team, or individual participants who are in K through 8th grade.
Note: WSCF reserves the rights to change the number of trophies, scholarship amounts and medals depending upon entries.
Divisions maybe combined if the number of participants warrant. Flier information may be changed with out notice up to three days
before tournament. Refunds will be honored in cases of decreased trophies awarded.
Inclement Weather: In case of inclement weather please go to the WSCF website before 7:30 am on February 28th to determine if the tournament is delayed, postponed or cancelled.
WISCONSIN CHESS FEMMES! YYYYYAAAAAAHHHHHH!
I donated $150.00 for whatever edition this is of the Tournament for All-Girls because it is a worthy cause and I want to do what I can to promote local chess for chess femmes. Wish I was a millionaire... Please consider making a donation to this worthy organization that promotes scholastic chess in Wisconsin! You can designate that the gift be used only for specific purposes, such as the All-Girls Scholastic - or whatever you'd like.
Here is the information for the 2009 All-Girls Scholastic Chess Tournament!!!
Wisconsin Scholastic Chess Federation’s Third Annual All-Girls
Scholastic Chess Tournament
Saturday February 28, 2009
Location: Divine Savior Holy Angels High School 4257 N 100th Street, Milwaukee, WI 53222
(414) 462-3742
Format: Three Sections
K – 3 5 Round Swiss G30
K – 6 5 Round Swiss G30
Open (k-12) 5 Round Swiss G30
WSCF K - 3 Three Team Trophies. Individual trophies to top 5 players.
WSCF K – 6 Three Team Trophies. Individual trophies to top 5 players.
WSCF K – 12 Open Three Team Trophies. Individual trophies to top 5 players.
Medals to all participants.
Scholarships: K – 3 $ 100 to Champion
K – 6 $ 200 to Champion
Open $ 400 to Champion, $200 to 2nd Place, $100 to 3rd Place
Entry: Register on line at www.wisconsinscholasticchess.org before Thursday Feb 26th at 11: 00 pm. Payment only on day of tournament.
$10 for advance registration on line. $15 on site
On Site Registration: Registration is from 8:00 am to 8:45.
Those arriving after 8:45 will be paired in round 2.
Lunch: Purchase on-site.
Supervision: At least one designated adult supervisor must be present at all times during the tournament to oversee your school’s team, or individual participants who are in K through 8th grade.
Note: WSCF reserves the rights to change the number of trophies, scholarship amounts and medals depending upon entries.
Divisions maybe combined if the number of participants warrant. Flier information may be changed with out notice up to three days
before tournament. Refunds will be honored in cases of decreased trophies awarded.
Inclement Weather: In case of inclement weather please go to the WSCF website before 7:30 am on February 28th to determine if the tournament is delayed, postponed or cancelled.
WISCONSIN CHESS FEMMES! YYYYYAAAAAAHHHHHH!
9 Queens
I found out about this fledgling organization just today at Elizabeth Vicary's blog. Any organization that supports getting more girls (particulary girls who would not otherwise be exposed to the game of chess in the normal course of their lives) is A-ONE with me. Jennifer Shahade is one of the principals of this organization. I hope 9 Queens is very successful and spreads into all 50 states!
9 Queens website.
Make a contribution to 9 Queens.
Lizzy Knows All blog - guys, she made it known that she recently broke up with her chess dude boyfriend...
9 Queens website.
Make a contribution to 9 Queens.
Lizzy Knows All blog - guys, she made it known that she recently broke up with her chess dude boyfriend...
Sunday, January 25, 2009
2009 Corus Update
Round 8 Results:
Group B: Y. Hou - D. Navara ½-½
Group C: M. Bosboom - D. Harika ½-½
Standings after Round 8:
Group B:
1. N. Short 5½
2. A. Volokitin, A. Motylev 5
4. D. Navara, F. Caruana, F. Vallejo Pons, R. Kasimdzhanov 4½
8. Z. Efimenko, E. l'Ami 4
10. Y. Hou, K. Sasikiran, D. Reinderman, J. Werle 3
14. H. Mecking 2½
Group C:
1. T. Hillarp Persson 6
2. W. So 5
3. D. Howell, A. Gupta, F. Holzke, M. Bosboom 4½
7. A. Giri, D. Harika 4
9. F. Nijboer, A. Bitalzadeh, R. Pruijssers 3½
12. O. Romanishin, M. Leon Hoyos 3
14. E. Iturrizaga 2½
Group B: Y. Hou - D. Navara ½-½
Group C: M. Bosboom - D. Harika ½-½
Standings after Round 8:
Group B:
1. N. Short 5½
2. A. Volokitin, A. Motylev 5
4. D. Navara, F. Caruana, F. Vallejo Pons, R. Kasimdzhanov 4½
8. Z. Efimenko, E. l'Ami 4
10. Y. Hou, K. Sasikiran, D. Reinderman, J. Werle 3
14. H. Mecking 2½
Group C:
1. T. Hillarp Persson 6
2. W. So 5
3. D. Howell, A. Gupta, F. Holzke, M. Bosboom 4½
7. A. Giri, D. Harika 4
9. F. Nijboer, A. Bitalzadeh, R. Pruijssers 3½
12. O. Romanishin, M. Leon Hoyos 3
14. E. Iturrizaga 2½
New Ruins Discovered in Pakistan
Not sure about this - it might just be politically motivated propaganda; you know, "we're better than you (India) because our ruins are older than your ruins, blah blah blah...
What we DO know is that a very ancient civilization flourished for about 1,000 years in Baluchistan along the courses of the Indus River and its tributaries, roughly concurrent with the rise of the civilizations in Egypt and Sumer/Mesopotamia. When the climate changed/the rivers shifted (why do rivers shift? how does this happen? Do they just suddenly decide one day, hey, I'm going 20 miles to the south? Seems a very strange business to me...), the original area of settlement was abandoned. It has been a matter of controversy ever since whether any elements of that civilization survived by moving further south. Are the people who live in southern India today the descendants of that ancient Baluchistan civilization???
Anyway, here is the article:
Site older than Moenjodaro found in Sukkur
By Waseem Shamsi
SUKKUR, Jan 22: An archaeological site, about 5,500 years old, has been found in Lakhian Jo Daro near Goth Nihal Khoso in the district of Sukkur.
The find is said to be of the era of Kot Diji.
A team of 22 archaeologists headed by the chairman of Shah Abdul Latif University’s archaeology department and Lakhian Jo Daro project director Ghulam Mustafa Shar found some semi-precious and precious stones and utensils made of clay, copper and other metals during excavation on Thursday. The remains are said to be older than those of Moenjodaro.
Mr Shar told Dawn that remains of a ‘faience’ mirror factory had been found at the project’s second block. It was believed to be of the era of mirror factories of Italy which dates back to some 9,000 years. [I've never heard of any faience factories in Italy dating back to 7,000 BCE - hell, not even in Egypt dating back that far, so I'll be interested to learn more about what he's talking about - if any further information is published.]
He said a painting had also been found and discovery of more such items could establish the site as 9,000 years old, like the remains found at Mehar Garh in Balochistan and Jericho in Palestine. [No photos - in this day and age, that always makes me suspicious].
“At present, we can say that it is older than Moenjodaro,” he said. Mr Shar said that archaeology professors and students from Punjab University, Peshawar University and Islamabad would join the team in a couple of days.
He said the work on the second block would continue for a month and more items could be found.
Sukkur District Nazim Syed Nasir Hussain visited the site on Thursday and asked the project director to prepare proposals for a museum.
What we DO know is that a very ancient civilization flourished for about 1,000 years in Baluchistan along the courses of the Indus River and its tributaries, roughly concurrent with the rise of the civilizations in Egypt and Sumer/Mesopotamia. When the climate changed/the rivers shifted (why do rivers shift? how does this happen? Do they just suddenly decide one day, hey, I'm going 20 miles to the south? Seems a very strange business to me...), the original area of settlement was abandoned. It has been a matter of controversy ever since whether any elements of that civilization survived by moving further south. Are the people who live in southern India today the descendants of that ancient Baluchistan civilization???
Anyway, here is the article:
Site older than Moenjodaro found in Sukkur
By Waseem Shamsi
SUKKUR, Jan 22: An archaeological site, about 5,500 years old, has been found in Lakhian Jo Daro near Goth Nihal Khoso in the district of Sukkur.
The find is said to be of the era of Kot Diji.
A team of 22 archaeologists headed by the chairman of Shah Abdul Latif University’s archaeology department and Lakhian Jo Daro project director Ghulam Mustafa Shar found some semi-precious and precious stones and utensils made of clay, copper and other metals during excavation on Thursday. The remains are said to be older than those of Moenjodaro.
Mr Shar told Dawn that remains of a ‘faience’ mirror factory had been found at the project’s second block. It was believed to be of the era of mirror factories of Italy which dates back to some 9,000 years. [I've never heard of any faience factories in Italy dating back to 7,000 BCE - hell, not even in Egypt dating back that far, so I'll be interested to learn more about what he's talking about - if any further information is published.]
He said a painting had also been found and discovery of more such items could establish the site as 9,000 years old, like the remains found at Mehar Garh in Balochistan and Jericho in Palestine. [No photos - in this day and age, that always makes me suspicious].
“At present, we can say that it is older than Moenjodaro,” he said. Mr Shar said that archaeology professors and students from Punjab University, Peshawar University and Islamabad would join the team in a couple of days.
He said the work on the second block would continue for a month and more items could be found.
Sukkur District Nazim Syed Nasir Hussain visited the site on Thursday and asked the project director to prepare proposals for a museum.
***************
Well, after thinking about it and in light of the recent news about what has been going on in Pakistan and the never civilized "tribal regions," I can't say I blame any of the archaeological experts for playing their cards close to their vests. With the Taliban running rampant throughout Baluchistan and the Pakistani government either not able or not willing to rein them in, it's possible that publishing photos of the area would tip off the Nazi Islamists to the site which they would then destroy as "against Allah."
This just pisses me off so much! How is it possible that the forces of darkness and evil are gaining more and more control over more and more of the world?
Treasure Trove!
From the Lancashire Telegraph:Haslingden man finds Roman treasure in Ribchester
11:30am Monday 19th January 2009
A HASLINGDEN man found a Roman brooch – in the form of a miniature shield – in a field in Ribchester.
Alan Pickering, antiquarian book dealer at Holden Wood Antiques, in Grane Road, Haslingden, found it using a metal detector beside the river in Ribchester.
The field had been ploughed for the first time in living memory.
A raised cobbled area was also discovered in the field, and a couple of other objects given to the Roman museum in Ribchester.
Decorating Redux...Redux...Redux
I got my work-out last night rearranging the New York (guest) room one more time. I don't think the photos quite do it justice.
I don't have the New York posters up - I'm thinking about the Central Park poster above the bed and the Times Square poster on the wall area that is mostly hidden by the door when open. I found those poster hangers for sale at the MoMA website, but they only come in silver tone and I don't like silver tone! So, I'm leaning toward a basic cheap plastic poster frame backed by cardboard.
The water color on the wall next to the chair was purchased on Fifth Avenue not too far from the scene it depicts (the fountain outside of Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue at one corner of Central Park) on the way home from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, when we visited New York in September, 2005. It hung in the former guest room, in a different frame.
I reluctantly decided that my much loved black still life will be better off in the downstairs hall off the staircase. Although it added dynamic color to the guest room, I decided it wasn't quite gender-neutral - but I may bring it back; it depends on whether the posters "work". The other photographs are from New York and Las Vegas - and one squirrel pic (the top one by the window), chosen for their graphical content. The pics by the window I printed in black and white; the pics by the door are printed in color.
Still to be done - the swap-out of the bed skirt for the tailored cream/black stripe. I'll do that later on (when I take a break from blogging). I think it will add a more dynamic touch than the current white piquet bed skirt, which tends toward the feminine.
I don't have the New York posters up - I'm thinking about the Central Park poster above the bed and the Times Square poster on the wall area that is mostly hidden by the door when open. I found those poster hangers for sale at the MoMA website, but they only come in silver tone and I don't like silver tone! So, I'm leaning toward a basic cheap plastic poster frame backed by cardboard.The water color on the wall next to the chair was purchased on Fifth Avenue not too far from the scene it depicts (the fountain outside of Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue at one corner of Central Park) on the way home from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, when we visited New York in September, 2005. It hung in the former guest room, in a different frame.
I reluctantly decided that my much loved black still life will be better off in the downstairs hall off the staircase. Although it added dynamic color to the guest room, I decided it wasn't quite gender-neutral - but I may bring it back; it depends on whether the posters "work". The other photographs are from New York and Las Vegas - and one squirrel pic (the top one by the window), chosen for their graphical content. The pics by the window I printed in black and white; the pics by the door are printed in color.Still to be done - the swap-out of the bed skirt for the tailored cream/black stripe. I'll do that later on (when I take a break from blogging). I think it will add a more dynamic touch than the current white piquet bed skirt, which tends toward the feminine.
Ancient Inscription Discovered in Yemen
I'm not sure what to make of this. Is it a hoax? is it for real and, if so, what does it mean? Who - and when - drew this "castle" over ancient rock inscriptions?Ancient inscription discovered in Raima Homed, Sana’a
Posted in: Local News Written By: Observer staffArticle Date: Jan 20, 2009 - 5:57:12 AM
A castle-shaped inscription was recently discovered in Raima Homed, Sana’a by a team from the General Organization for Antiquities and Museums (GOAM).
Minster of Culture Dr. Mohammed al-Maflehi told Saba news Agency that the antiquities team confirmed that this inscription is being regarded as the first of its kind to have been discovered. This statement is based on the clearness of the shape of the castle, the pre-Islamic handwriting ( Musnad), and the pictures of animals found behind it.
The inscription was carved into a large rock in a mountain in front of the area where a team from the Department of Antiquities found the ancient monument in Hesn Ja’ar in Raima, Sana’a last week. Dr. al-Maflehi said the team will cover the area soon to define its importance and historical value.
Recent Discoveries at Saqqara
A review/overview of a couple recent discoveries at Saqqara:
Newly-Discovered Pharaonic Tombs Near Cairo Are 4,300 Years Old
The Saqqara necropolis is larger than first thought
By Tudor Vieru, Science Editor
23rd of December 2008, 11:45 GMT
A new pair of Pharaonic tombs that were recently dug up at the Saqqara necropolis near Cairo prove that the ancient burial grounds are far more widespread than previously thought. The two new tombs actually belonged to high-ranking officials in the old Egyptian dynasties. The nation's top archaeologist says that one of them was built in the honor of the master of the stone quarries, where building materials for the neighboring, larger pyramids were harvested from, while the other belongs to a woman who was most likely in charge of procuring entertainers for the pharaohs.
"We announce today a major, important discovery at Saqqara, the discovery of two new tombs dating back to 4,300 years ago. The discovery of the two tombs are [sic] the beginning of a big, large cemetery," Zahi Hawass, the archaeologist in charge of the dig told reporters on Monday, during a media tour of the ancient ruins. He added that the portion of ground that was just excavated, near two large pyramids that were the focus of the dig, was largely left untouched up to this point.
The new discovery "shows that the blank areas of the maps of Saqqara aren't really empty at all. It's just that archaeologists haven't got round to digging them," added University of Bristol's Department of Archeology and Anthropology research fellow, Aidan Dodson, who is also part of the international team.
The necropolis at Saqqara has been constantly excavated for the last 150 years, and yet, there are numerous discoveries made each season. Recently, Egypt's 118th pyramid was discovered here, bringing the grand total of such constructions unearthed at the site alone to 12. Carbon dating showed that while some of the funerary monuments were built millennia ago, others are as recent as the time of the Roman Empire, which means that the site has a very long standing tradition of housing important Egyptian figures.
Official national estimates say that, thus far, only 30 percent of the monuments belonging to the history of Egypt have been uncovered, with the rest still under the hot sands. Archaeological work now focuses on several major sites, where the chances of finding structures are fairly large, as proven by the two new finds.
Newly-Discovered Pharaonic Tombs Near Cairo Are 4,300 Years Old
The Saqqara necropolis is larger than first thought
By Tudor Vieru, Science Editor
23rd of December 2008, 11:45 GMT
A new pair of Pharaonic tombs that were recently dug up at the Saqqara necropolis near Cairo prove that the ancient burial grounds are far more widespread than previously thought. The two new tombs actually belonged to high-ranking officials in the old Egyptian dynasties. The nation's top archaeologist says that one of them was built in the honor of the master of the stone quarries, where building materials for the neighboring, larger pyramids were harvested from, while the other belongs to a woman who was most likely in charge of procuring entertainers for the pharaohs.
"We announce today a major, important discovery at Saqqara, the discovery of two new tombs dating back to 4,300 years ago. The discovery of the two tombs are [sic] the beginning of a big, large cemetery," Zahi Hawass, the archaeologist in charge of the dig told reporters on Monday, during a media tour of the ancient ruins. He added that the portion of ground that was just excavated, near two large pyramids that were the focus of the dig, was largely left untouched up to this point.
The new discovery "shows that the blank areas of the maps of Saqqara aren't really empty at all. It's just that archaeologists haven't got round to digging them," added University of Bristol's Department of Archeology and Anthropology research fellow, Aidan Dodson, who is also part of the international team.
The necropolis at Saqqara has been constantly excavated for the last 150 years, and yet, there are numerous discoveries made each season. Recently, Egypt's 118th pyramid was discovered here, bringing the grand total of such constructions unearthed at the site alone to 12. Carbon dating showed that while some of the funerary monuments were built millennia ago, others are as recent as the time of the Roman Empire, which means that the site has a very long standing tradition of housing important Egyptian figures.
Official national estimates say that, thus far, only 30 percent of the monuments belonging to the history of Egypt have been uncovered, with the rest still under the hot sands. Archaeological work now focuses on several major sites, where the chances of finding structures are fairly large, as proven by the two new finds.
Gobekli Tepi
The Smithsonian has a feature on 11,000 year old Gobekli Tepi. Anatolia, darlings - that's where it all began - on the slopes of the mountains of the Ararat region, also around Lake Van, the border regions of ancient Armenia. Coincidentally (or is it?) the same place in which the first spoked wheels were invented in about 1850 BCE, a technology that spread like wildfire across the old world and revolutionized warfare.Gobekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple?
Predating Stonehenge by 6,000 years, Turkey's stunning Gobekli Tepe upends the conventional view of the rise of civilization
By Andrew Curry
Photographs by Berthold Steinhilber
Smithsonian magazine, November 2008
Six miles from Urfa, an ancient city in southeastern Turkey, Klaus Schmidt has made one of the most startling archaeological discoveries of our time: massive carved stones about 11,000 years old, crafted and arranged by prehistoric people who had not yet developed metal tools or even pottery. The megaliths predate Stonehenge by some 6,000 years. The place is called Gobekli Tepe, and Schmidt, a German archaeologist who has been working here more than a decade, is convinced it's the site of the world's oldest temple.
"Guten Morgen," he says at 5:20 a.m. when his van picks me up at my hotel in Urfa. Thirty minutes later, the van reaches the foot of a grassy hill and parks next to strands of barbed wire. We follow a knot of workmen up the hill to rectangular pits shaded by a corrugated steel roof—the main excavation site. In the pits, standing stones, or pillars, are arranged in circles. Beyond, on the hillside, are four other rings of partially excavated pillars. Each ring has a roughly similar layout: in the center are two large stone T-shaped pillars encircled by slightly smaller stones facing inward. The tallest pillars tower 16 feet and, Schmidt says, weigh between seven and ten tons. As we walk among them, I see that some are blank, while others are elaborately carved: foxes, lions, scorpions and vultures abound, twisting and crawling on the pillars' broad sides.
Schmidt points to the great stone rings, one of them 65 feet across. "This is the first human-built holy place," he says.
From this perch 1,000 feet above the valley, we can see to the horizon in nearly every direction. Schmidt, 53, asks me to imagine what the landscape would have looked like 11,000 years ago, before centuries of intensive farming and settlement turned it into the nearly featureless brown expanse it is today.
Prehistoric people would have gazed upon herds of gazelle and other wild animals; gently flowing rivers, which attracted migrating geese and ducks; fruit and nut trees; and rippling fields of wild barley and wild wheat varieties such as emmer and einkorn. "This area was like a paradise," says Schmidt, a member of the German Archaeological Institute. Indeed, Gobekli Tepe sits at the northern edge of the Fertile Crescent—an arc of mild climate and arable land from the Persian Gulf to present-day Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and Egypt—and would have attracted hunter-gatherers from Africa and the Levant. And partly because Schmidt has found no evidence that people permanently resided on the summit of Gobekli Tepe itself, he believes this was a place of worship on an unprecedented scale—humanity's first "cathedral on a hill."
With the sun higher in the sky, Schmidt ties a white scarf around his balding head, turban-style, and deftly picks his way down the hill among the relics. In rapid-fire German he explains that he has mapped the entire summit using ground-penetrating radar and geomagnetic surveys, charting where at least 16 other megalith rings remain buried across 22 acres. The one-acre excavation covers less than 5 percent of the site. He says archaeologists could dig here for another 50 years and barely scratch the surface.
Gobekli Tepe was first examined—and dismissed—by University of Chicago and Istanbul University anthropologists in the 1960s. As part of a sweeping survey of the region, they visited the hill, saw some broken slabs of limestone and assumed the mound was nothing more than an abandoned medieval cemetery. In 1994, Schmidt was working on his own survey of prehistoric sites in the region. After reading a brief mention of the stone-littered hilltop in the University of Chicago researchers' report, he decided to go there himself. From the moment he first saw it, he knew the place was extraordinary.
Unlike the stark plateaus nearby, Gobekli Tepe (the name means "belly hill" in Turkish) has a gently rounded top that rises 50 feet above the surrounding landscape. To Schmidt's eye, the shape stood out. "Only man could have created something like this," he says. "It was clear right away this was a gigantic Stone Age site." The broken pieces of limestone that earlier surveyors had mistaken for gravestones suddenly took on a different meaning.
Schmidt returned a year later with five colleagues and they uncovered the first megaliths, a few buried so close to the surface they were scarred by plows. As the archaeologists dug deeper, they unearthed pillars arranged in circles. Schmidt's team, however, found none of the telltale signs of a settlement: no cooking hearths, houses or trash pits, and none of the clay fertility figurines that litter nearby sites of about the same age. The archaeologists did find evidence of tool use, including stone hammers and blades. And because those artifacts closely resemble others from nearby sites previously carbon-dated to about 9000 B.C., Schmidt and co-workers estimate that Gobekli Tepe's stone structures are the same age. Limited carbon dating undertaken by Schmidt at the site confirms this assessment.
The way Schmidt sees it, Gobekli Tepe's sloping, rocky ground is a stonecutter's dream. Even without metal chisels or hammers, prehistoric masons wielding flint tools could have chipped away at softer limestone outcrops, shaping them into pillars on the spot before carrying them a few hundred yards to the summit and lifting them upright. Then, Schmidt says, once the stone rings were finished, the ancient builders covered them over with dirt. Eventually, they placed another ring nearby or on top of the old one. Over centuries, these layers created the hilltop.
Today, Schmidt oversees a team of more than a dozen German archaeologists, 50 local laborers and a steady stream of enthusiastic students. He typically excavates at the site for two months in the spring and two in the fall. (Summer temperatures reach 115 degrees, too hot to dig; in the winter the area is deluged by rain.) In 1995, he bought a traditional Ottoman house with a courtyard in Urfa, a city of nearly a half-million people, to use as a base of operations.
On the day I visit, a bespectacled Belgian man sits at one end of a long table in front of a pile of bones. Joris Peters, an archaeozoologist from the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, specializes in the analysis of animal remains. Since 1998, he has examined more than 100,000 bone fragments from Gobekli Tepe. Peters has often found cut marks and splintered edges on them—signs that the animals from which they came were butchered and cooked. The bones, stored in dozens of plastic crates stacked in a storeroom at the house, are the best clue to how people who created Gobekli Tepe lived. Peters has identified tens of thousands of gazelle bones, which make up more than 60 percent of the total, plus those of other wild game such as boar, sheep and red deer. He's also found bones of a dozen different bird species, including vultures, cranes, ducks and geese. "The first year, we went through 15,000 pieces of animal bone, all of them wild. It was pretty clear we were dealing with a hunter-gatherer site," Peters says. "It's been the same every year since." The abundant remnants of wild game indicate that the people who lived here had not yet domesticated animals or farmed.
But, Peters and Schmidt say, Gobekli Tepe's builders were on the verge of a major change in how they lived, thanks to an environment that held the raw materials for farming. "They had wild sheep, wild grains that could be domesticated—and the people with the potential to do it," Schmidt says. In fact, research at other sites in the region has shown that within 1,000 years of Gobekli Tepe's construction, settlers had corralled sheep, cattle and pigs. And, at a prehistoric village just 20 miles away, geneticists found evidence of the world's oldest domesticated strains of wheat; radiocarbon dating indicates agriculture developed there around 10,500 years ago, or just five centuries after Gobekli Tepe's construction.
To Schmidt and others, these new findings suggest a novel theory of civilization. Scholars have long believed that only after people learned to farm and live in settled communities did they have the time, organization and resources to construct temples and support complicated social structures. But Schmidt argues it was the other way around: the extensive, coordinated effort to build the monoliths literally laid the groundwork for the development of complex societies.
The immensity of the undertaking at Gobekli Tepe reinforces that view. Schmidt says the monuments could not have been built by ragged bands of hunter-gatherers. To carve, erect and bury rings of seven-ton stone pillars would have required hundreds of workers, all needing to be fed and housed. Hence the eventual emergence of settled communities in the area around 10,000 years ago. "This shows sociocultural changes come first, agriculture comes later," says Stanford University archaeologist Ian Hodder, who excavated Catalhoyuk, a prehistoric settlement 300 miles from Gobekli Tepe. "You can make a good case this area is the real origin of complex Neolithic societies."
What was so important to these early people that they gathered to build (and bury) the stone rings? The gulf that separates us from Gobekli Tepe's builders is almost unimaginable. Indeed, though I stood among the looming megaliths eager to take in their meaning, they didn't speak to me. They were utterly foreign, placed there by people who saw the world in a way I will never comprehend. There are no sources to explain what the symbols might mean. Schmidt agrees. "We're 6,000 years before the invention of writing here," he says.
"There's more time between Gobekli Tepe and the Sumerian clay tablets [etched in 3300 B.C.] than from Sumer to today," says Gary Rollefson, an archaeologist at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, who is familiar with Schmidt's work. "Trying to pick out symbolism from prehistoric context is an exercise in futility."
Still, archaeologists have their theories—evidence, perhaps, of the irresistible human urge to explain the unexplainable. The surprising lack of evidence that people lived right there, researchers say, argues against its use as a settlement or even a place where, for instance, clan leaders gathered. Hodder is fascinated that Gobekli Tepe's pillar carvings are dominated not by edible prey like deer and cattle but by menacing creatures such as lions, spiders, snakes and scorpions. "It's a scary, fantastic world of nasty-looking beasts," he muses. While later cultures were more concerned with farming and fertility, he suggests, perhaps these hunters were trying to master their fears by building this complex, which is a good distance from where they lived.
Danielle Stordeur, an archaeologist at the National Center for Scientific Research in France, emphasizes the significance of the vulture carvings. Some cultures have long believed the high-flying carrion birds transported the flesh of the dead up to the heavens. Stordeur has found similar symbols at sites from the same era as Gobekli Tepe just 50 miles away in Syria. "You can really see it's the same culture," she says. "All the most important symbols are the same."
For his part, Schmidt is certain the secret is right beneath his feet. Over the years, his team has found fragments of human bone in the layers of dirt that filled the complex. Deep test pits have shown that the floors of the rings are made of hardened limestone. Schmidt is betting that beneath the floors he'll find the structures' true purpose: a final resting place for a society of hunters.
Perhaps, Schmidt says, the site was a burial ground or the center of a death cult, the dead laid out on the hillside among the stylized gods and spirits of the afterlife. If so, Gobekli Tepe's location was no accident. "From here the dead are looking out at the ideal view," Schmidt says as the sun casts long shadows over the half-buried pillars. "They're looking out over a hunter's dream."
Andrew Curry, who is based in Berlin, wrote the July cover story about Vikings.
Berthold Steinhilber's hauntingly lighted award-winning photograhs of American ghost towns appeared in Smithsonian in May 2001.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Decorating Redux...Redux
Oy! I worked half a day at the office, got home at 2:30 and fed the squirrels. The U.S. Figure Skating Championships are on commercial t.v. at the moment. I saw parts of the Ladies' Short Program, the Pairs Free Skate and right now the Ice Dance Free Program is on.
Let me put it this way - I have been less than impressed! There is no Michelle Kwan or Brian Boitano waiting in the wings, unfortunately. Our Olympic silver medal winners in Ice Dancing (Belbin and Agusto) had to withdraw from this year's nationals due to injury, and the couples trying to move up in the ranks were - well, boring. Tonight is the Ladies' Free Skate (Long Program) - the competition that used to engender so much excitement. Remember Tanya and Nancy? Remember the first time Michelle competed at the senior level, when she was a 13-year old jumping bean who looked about 4 feet tall? Remember Tara Lapinski (well, I don't either)...
Of course, one never knows what may happen tonight at the free skate, so I will watch. I have to say, even if the ladies aren't the same calibre skaters as Michelle, Tara, et al., they are a very attractive group and for the short program were exquisitely costumed.
Now - to the decorating, or I should say, back to the decorating. Arggghhh! I am glad to report that the second buffet lamp went together in a snap, unlike my experience with the Defective buffet lamp! The second lamp now rests on the dresser in the New York (guest) room, after I wrestled the triple dresser away from the wall, tightened the bolts on the mirror, and plugged the lamp in. It works! Oh, and I wrestled the triple dresser back into place, too. What a work-out!
But - darlings, I know you won't believe that I could be this dense, but I was, so what can I say - it occurred to me a day or two ago that, since my new room (the former guest room) and the new guest room (the former den/library/computer room), are exactly the same depth, although not the same width (the new guest room has about 6 inches less width), I could quite possibly create a mirror image in the guest room of the set up in my room which works so well: triple dresser opposite the foot of the bed (and the print above the headboard reflected in the mirror of the triple dresser on the opposite wall, doubling its impact), the bed scooted over enough on the wall to leave room to position a wing chair and bookcase or table next to it, and still plenty of room on the closet side of the dresser to set a luggage rack and for a second person to utilize the opposite of the bed, if sharing, also freely accessing the closet (slider doors) and window.
The question is: Do I really want to do that? There would be less space between the end of the bed and the start of the dresser in the guest room if I move the dresser to the wall opposite the headboard, although it would still be passable. But would it look squished?
Right now, there is more than adequate space on either side of the bed and plenty of room to pass at the foot of the bed directly to the closet and to the other side of the bed and window, because the dresser in on the hallway wall parallel to the bed (this wall has the entry door and is opposite the window and closet wall). The wall that is currently opposite the headboard, most importantly, is totally bare and that is where I had planned on putting my beautiful (and large) New York posters. (Photo: inside wall, New York - guest - room. That lamp on the dresser is the second buffet lamp, I put it together earlier today. You see my favorite still life print now above this headboard, and on the wall next to the mirror is one of dondelion's photographs of the "optical illusion" floor at the Venetian in Las Vegas).
However, by rearranging the guest room to mirror my room arrangement would free up space for a comfy wing chair in the corner - I love having a chair in my bedroom and I know that wing chair was used for reading and watching t.v. when it was the guest room! On the other hand, the nice bare wall perfect for hanging the posters would disappear, consumed by the triple dresser and tall mirror. I suppose I could put one poster on the closet side of the dresser, andput the other poster on the wall above the table next to the wing chair...
Guess I'll just have to try it and see if it works. So, it seems more shoving, pushing and heaving of furniture is on the agenda for tonight. Ay yi yi. (Photo: outside wall, New York - guest room. The framed photographs in the space between the window and the closet will have a companion joining them and will be repositioned as needed to evenly fill out the space. One of the black and white striped curtains I had tried out in my room looks much better here. One of my water colors anchors the space next to the headboard; its frame matches the frame on the clock/photo on the table behind the lamp. It holds a picture of Michelle taken in Las Vegas during dondelion's and my November, 2003 visit. In front of the lamp, not really visible, are two couple of inch tall silver-tone plastic models of New York skyscrapers that dondelion found in a dollar store in Montreal.
On the plus side, my room is approaching the perfect degree of doneness. Today I put up the new print I ordered (turns out I only ordered one, not a pair as I thought I had, but that worked out just fine because the one new print is LARGE and fills the space above the headboard quite nicely - two would have been too big for the space); the frame is lovely and the bird motif ties in quite nicely with two framed Christmas cards from years ago - bird motifs in matching cheapo plastic frames! They hold down the narrow area of wall between the closet door and the window on the wall opposite the entry. Hey - those for free bird prints work for me, I don't care if they're Christmas cards. They're pretty! One of the birds is a blue bird and is, therefore, that unexpected dash of oddness and/or color that turns the room human - it's my room, not a layout in a decorating magazine. Also, I think the freshly hung print above the headboard is just a wee bit off of center. Oh well. I'll be damned if I'm going to get back up on the mattress and bounce around trying to find perfect center, drive a new picture hanger and plug up the old nail hole with spackle! It can be an inch off center.
Still lots to do: I want area rugs on the floors of both rooms, that will entail much shopping online to find the best price for the best rug. I want to switch-out the single rod curtain rods in my room for double rods and try out the red/black/white floral print valances over the toile curtains (entails yet more ironing) to see if they "work" in the room or are just too overwhelming for the small space, and move the white bedskirt from the New York (guest) room to my room, layered over my new 18 inch drop black bedskirt. I'll replace the guest room bedskirt with the cream and black stripe tailored bedskirt that came in the "bed in a bag" set with the paisley comforter and pillow shams, but I have to iron it first.
It's going to be a busy weekend. On the plus side, when I'm finally finished I'll have two bedrooms that I absolutely love (about time, I've been in this house nearly 20 years) and I'll have had a great work-out! I am just a couple of pounds off my 2003 Las Vegas weight. I want to be down to my 2002 Madrid weight when we go to New York in May and I'm actually aiming for an even higher weight loss. I've resumed my nightly "dances" around the larger space in my former bedroom to my favorite Youtube videos (Sway; Smooth; old and new versions of Lady Marmalade, including the Mad T.V. take-off of same; the We Will Rock You Pepsi commercial featuring Pink who absolutely, totally ROCKS, Beyonce who sure can shake her booty, and a pre-Las Vegas marriage Britney Spears who almost actually sang; Keep Your Hands to Yourself; Wild Wild West, etc. Better than running three miles in below-zero temperatures...
Let me put it this way - I have been less than impressed! There is no Michelle Kwan or Brian Boitano waiting in the wings, unfortunately. Our Olympic silver medal winners in Ice Dancing (Belbin and Agusto) had to withdraw from this year's nationals due to injury, and the couples trying to move up in the ranks were - well, boring. Tonight is the Ladies' Free Skate (Long Program) - the competition that used to engender so much excitement. Remember Tanya and Nancy? Remember the first time Michelle competed at the senior level, when she was a 13-year old jumping bean who looked about 4 feet tall? Remember Tara Lapinski (well, I don't either)...
Of course, one never knows what may happen tonight at the free skate, so I will watch. I have to say, even if the ladies aren't the same calibre skaters as Michelle, Tara, et al., they are a very attractive group and for the short program were exquisitely costumed.
Now - to the decorating, or I should say, back to the decorating. Arggghhh! I am glad to report that the second buffet lamp went together in a snap, unlike my experience with the Defective buffet lamp! The second lamp now rests on the dresser in the New York (guest) room, after I wrestled the triple dresser away from the wall, tightened the bolts on the mirror, and plugged the lamp in. It works! Oh, and I wrestled the triple dresser back into place, too. What a work-out!
But - darlings, I know you won't believe that I could be this dense, but I was, so what can I say - it occurred to me a day or two ago that, since my new room (the former guest room) and the new guest room (the former den/library/computer room), are exactly the same depth, although not the same width (the new guest room has about 6 inches less width), I could quite possibly create a mirror image in the guest room of the set up in my room which works so well: triple dresser opposite the foot of the bed (and the print above the headboard reflected in the mirror of the triple dresser on the opposite wall, doubling its impact), the bed scooted over enough on the wall to leave room to position a wing chair and bookcase or table next to it, and still plenty of room on the closet side of the dresser to set a luggage rack and for a second person to utilize the opposite of the bed, if sharing, also freely accessing the closet (slider doors) and window.
The question is: Do I really want to do that? There would be less space between the end of the bed and the start of the dresser in the guest room if I move the dresser to the wall opposite the headboard, although it would still be passable. But would it look squished?
Right now, there is more than adequate space on either side of the bed and plenty of room to pass at the foot of the bed directly to the closet and to the other side of the bed and window, because the dresser in on the hallway wall parallel to the bed (this wall has the entry door and is opposite the window and closet wall). The wall that is currently opposite the headboard, most importantly, is totally bare and that is where I had planned on putting my beautiful (and large) New York posters. (Photo: inside wall, New York - guest - room. That lamp on the dresser is the second buffet lamp, I put it together earlier today. You see my favorite still life print now above this headboard, and on the wall next to the mirror is one of dondelion's photographs of the "optical illusion" floor at the Venetian in Las Vegas). However, by rearranging the guest room to mirror my room arrangement would free up space for a comfy wing chair in the corner - I love having a chair in my bedroom and I know that wing chair was used for reading and watching t.v. when it was the guest room! On the other hand, the nice bare wall perfect for hanging the posters would disappear, consumed by the triple dresser and tall mirror. I suppose I could put one poster on the closet side of the dresser, andput the other poster on the wall above the table next to the wing chair...
Guess I'll just have to try it and see if it works. So, it seems more shoving, pushing and heaving of furniture is on the agenda for tonight. Ay yi yi. (Photo: outside wall, New York - guest room. The framed photographs in the space between the window and the closet will have a companion joining them and will be repositioned as needed to evenly fill out the space. One of the black and white striped curtains I had tried out in my room looks much better here. One of my water colors anchors the space next to the headboard; its frame matches the frame on the clock/photo on the table behind the lamp. It holds a picture of Michelle taken in Las Vegas during dondelion's and my November, 2003 visit. In front of the lamp, not really visible, are two couple of inch tall silver-tone plastic models of New York skyscrapers that dondelion found in a dollar store in Montreal. On the plus side, my room is approaching the perfect degree of doneness. Today I put up the new print I ordered (turns out I only ordered one, not a pair as I thought I had, but that worked out just fine because the one new print is LARGE and fills the space above the headboard quite nicely - two would have been too big for the space); the frame is lovely and the bird motif ties in quite nicely with two framed Christmas cards from years ago - bird motifs in matching cheapo plastic frames! They hold down the narrow area of wall between the closet door and the window on the wall opposite the entry. Hey - those for free bird prints work for me, I don't care if they're Christmas cards. They're pretty! One of the birds is a blue bird and is, therefore, that unexpected dash of oddness and/or color that turns the room human - it's my room, not a layout in a decorating magazine. Also, I think the freshly hung print above the headboard is just a wee bit off of center. Oh well. I'll be damned if I'm going to get back up on the mattress and bounce around trying to find perfect center, drive a new picture hanger and plug up the old nail hole with spackle! It can be an inch off center.
Still lots to do: I want area rugs on the floors of both rooms, that will entail much shopping online to find the best price for the best rug. I want to switch-out the single rod curtain rods in my room for double rods and try out the red/black/white floral print valances over the toile curtains (entails yet more ironing) to see if they "work" in the room or are just too overwhelming for the small space, and move the white bedskirt from the New York (guest) room to my room, layered over my new 18 inch drop black bedskirt. I'll replace the guest room bedskirt with the cream and black stripe tailored bedskirt that came in the "bed in a bag" set with the paisley comforter and pillow shams, but I have to iron it first.
It's going to be a busy weekend. On the plus side, when I'm finally finished I'll have two bedrooms that I absolutely love (about time, I've been in this house nearly 20 years) and I'll have had a great work-out! I am just a couple of pounds off my 2003 Las Vegas weight. I want to be down to my 2002 Madrid weight when we go to New York in May and I'm actually aiming for an even higher weight loss. I've resumed my nightly "dances" around the larger space in my former bedroom to my favorite Youtube videos (Sway; Smooth; old and new versions of Lady Marmalade, including the Mad T.V. take-off of same; the We Will Rock You Pepsi commercial featuring Pink who absolutely, totally ROCKS, Beyonce who sure can shake her booty, and a pre-Las Vegas marriage Britney Spears who almost actually sang; Keep Your Hands to Yourself; Wild Wild West, etc. Better than running three miles in below-zero temperatures...
Carmen Report: Photos from Egypt
The CD with Carmen's photos arrived in the mail today from Madrid! I downloaded all - 75 of them! I won't publish all of them here, but some of them are so lovely - and I'm so jealous that Carmen went to Egypt on tour over Christmas. Well, we'll get there - someday... Photo: Carmen admiring the decorations (Cairo). Her caption in Spanish: Adornos de la escalara al pupito en la Mezquita de Alabastro.
This is an exterior shot of the Mezquita de Alabastro (Cairo). Her caption in Spanish: Fachada de la Mezquita de Alabastro
2009 Corus Update
Results Round 7:
Group B: A. Motylev - Y. Hou 1-0
Group C: D. Harika - E. Iturrizaga ½-½
Standings After Round 7:
Group B:
1. N. Short 5
2. A. Volokitin, A. Motylev, F. Caruana 4½
5. D. Navara, Z. Efimenko, R. Kasimdzhanov 4
8. F. Vallejo Pons 3½
9. E. l'Ami 3
10. Y. Hou, K. Sasikiran, D. Reinderman, J. Werle 2½
14. H. Mecking 2
Group C:
1. T. Hillarp Persson, W. So 5
3. A. Gupta 4½
4. M. Bosboom 4
5. D. Howell, D. Harika, F. Holzke, A. Bitalzadeh 3½
9. O. Romanishin, A. Giri, M. Leon Hoyo 3
12. F. Nijboer, E. Iturrizaga, R. Pruijssers 2½
Group B: A. Motylev - Y. Hou 1-0
Group C: D. Harika - E. Iturrizaga ½-½
Standings After Round 7:
Group B:
1. N. Short 5
2. A. Volokitin, A. Motylev, F. Caruana 4½
5. D. Navara, Z. Efimenko, R. Kasimdzhanov 4
8. F. Vallejo Pons 3½
9. E. l'Ami 3
10. Y. Hou, K. Sasikiran, D. Reinderman, J. Werle 2½
14. H. Mecking 2
Group C:
1. T. Hillarp Persson, W. So 5
3. A. Gupta 4½
4. M. Bosboom 4
5. D. Howell, D. Harika, F. Holzke, A. Bitalzadeh 3½
9. O. Romanishin, A. Giri, M. Leon Hoyo 3
12. F. Nijboer, E. Iturrizaga, R. Pruijssers 2½
Friday, January 23, 2009
Friday Night Miscellany
Hola!
I'm to the point in this redecorating process where I now have a punchlist - only 9 items long but it will probably take weeks to accomplish! One of the items on the punchlist is - clean-up and reorganize all piles of books, research and documents scattered about the entire house...
Darlings, I'm far too tired tonight to attempt to assemble the second buffet lamp (reported on in last night's sole post), that will have to wait until after work tomorrow. Yes, that's right, work tomorrow. I hooked up with a ride and so will be in the office at my regular start time of 8:30 a.m. I plan to leave at 1:30 p.m. and head for home well before sun down. The temperature is dropping off a cliff even as I type this, and the winds will be sustained tomorrow causing windchills of down to 25 below zero F. Not exactly good weather to hike 3/4 of a mile from the bus stop home, but a hell of a lot better than doing it twice in the same day!
I DID do a little bit of decorating tonight and I may do a bit more (framing up some more of those wonderful New York pics dondelion took during our first visit in 2005). My posters arrived in the mail today and I could not resist - this evening I put up Vitruvian Man in the hallway on a wall that is sort of kitty-corner from the bathroom, and I can see him peeking at me in the bathroom mirror above the sink: he's gorgeous - and naked :) The very large New York black and whites (one a Central Park shot and one of Times Square) are laid out on the family room carpet, slowly relaxing from a wicked curl. The curl wasn't an issue with Vitruvian Man since he was ensconsed inside a 1/4 inch thick plastic poster frame I've had for at least 20 years sitting in a closet - and just exactly the right size (24 x 36) - and I was not going to be defeated in my goal by some stubbornly curling corners. For the large posters, I need to shop for some of those cool poster holder thingys that my wonderful former boss, Don Schoenfeld, used in his office years ago - I believe he purchased them at the Met Gift Shop. Hmmm, I'm a Met member, I'll go shopping at their website and use my discount :)
I also installed the Defective Lamp on my dresser. It does look very nice there, all the more outrageous because I paid so little for it - but Goddess, it sure was a pain in the butt putting the thing together. I put in a low wattage bulb and made sure it's plugged into the socket that has the power turned off unless I hit the switch at the doorway, and then I must actually turn the lamp switch on manually. I'm hoping to prevent a fire hazard that way (see prior post about putting the lamp together ). It's twin brother (which as far as I can tell is not defective) will reside in the New York (guest) room.
Horrid, absolutely horrible news tonight - the firm I used to work at has let go 12 people today (no attorneys - but then, they don't "do" attorneys the same way they do the peons known as "staff"). Some of these people I worked with during my nearly 13 years there. One of these people worked there for 45 years (started right out of high school) and is 63 years old. What are the odds that she'll get a job that will provide her with health insurance until she can qualify for Medicare? Anyone want to name those odds and place a bet? Did the powers that be think about THAT when they were sitting at the conference room table with their red pencils - curse their monstrous cold-hearted hides. Another person on the hit list worked there for over 30 years, has a severely disabled husband who is not able to work and she is the sole support of their family. She recently suffered through her own severe illness and was working part-time. She's been "let go" at age 50. See what the fricking suits call it - "let go" - as if she and her family will simply float away without a sound into poverty and destitution, and not a hair stirs on the carefully coiffed heads of the suits as this faithful employee and those dependent upon her are left with no means of support. What is the matter with these people? A pox on those who made such cold-hearted decisions without weighing the consequences (or, even worse, if they did know the consequences and said "screw you" anyway). A pox on their families too. Let the sins of the fathers be visited upon the sons and daughters of those suits, let them experience the fine twists of Fate.
Sometimes this world really really sucks.
I'm to the point in this redecorating process where I now have a punchlist - only 9 items long but it will probably take weeks to accomplish! One of the items on the punchlist is - clean-up and reorganize all piles of books, research and documents scattered about the entire house...
Darlings, I'm far too tired tonight to attempt to assemble the second buffet lamp (reported on in last night's sole post), that will have to wait until after work tomorrow. Yes, that's right, work tomorrow. I hooked up with a ride and so will be in the office at my regular start time of 8:30 a.m. I plan to leave at 1:30 p.m. and head for home well before sun down. The temperature is dropping off a cliff even as I type this, and the winds will be sustained tomorrow causing windchills of down to 25 below zero F. Not exactly good weather to hike 3/4 of a mile from the bus stop home, but a hell of a lot better than doing it twice in the same day!
I DID do a little bit of decorating tonight and I may do a bit more (framing up some more of those wonderful New York pics dondelion took during our first visit in 2005). My posters arrived in the mail today and I could not resist - this evening I put up Vitruvian Man in the hallway on a wall that is sort of kitty-corner from the bathroom, and I can see him peeking at me in the bathroom mirror above the sink: he's gorgeous - and naked :) The very large New York black and whites (one a Central Park shot and one of Times Square) are laid out on the family room carpet, slowly relaxing from a wicked curl. The curl wasn't an issue with Vitruvian Man since he was ensconsed inside a 1/4 inch thick plastic poster frame I've had for at least 20 years sitting in a closet - and just exactly the right size (24 x 36) - and I was not going to be defeated in my goal by some stubbornly curling corners. For the large posters, I need to shop for some of those cool poster holder thingys that my wonderful former boss, Don Schoenfeld, used in his office years ago - I believe he purchased them at the Met Gift Shop. Hmmm, I'm a Met member, I'll go shopping at their website and use my discount :)
I also installed the Defective Lamp on my dresser. It does look very nice there, all the more outrageous because I paid so little for it - but Goddess, it sure was a pain in the butt putting the thing together. I put in a low wattage bulb and made sure it's plugged into the socket that has the power turned off unless I hit the switch at the doorway, and then I must actually turn the lamp switch on manually. I'm hoping to prevent a fire hazard that way (see prior post about putting the lamp together ). It's twin brother (which as far as I can tell is not defective) will reside in the New York (guest) room.
Horrid, absolutely horrible news tonight - the firm I used to work at has let go 12 people today (no attorneys - but then, they don't "do" attorneys the same way they do the peons known as "staff"). Some of these people I worked with during my nearly 13 years there. One of these people worked there for 45 years (started right out of high school) and is 63 years old. What are the odds that she'll get a job that will provide her with health insurance until she can qualify for Medicare? Anyone want to name those odds and place a bet? Did the powers that be think about THAT when they were sitting at the conference room table with their red pencils - curse their monstrous cold-hearted hides. Another person on the hit list worked there for over 30 years, has a severely disabled husband who is not able to work and she is the sole support of their family. She recently suffered through her own severe illness and was working part-time. She's been "let go" at age 50. See what the fricking suits call it - "let go" - as if she and her family will simply float away without a sound into poverty and destitution, and not a hair stirs on the carefully coiffed heads of the suits as this faithful employee and those dependent upon her are left with no means of support. What is the matter with these people? A pox on those who made such cold-hearted decisions without weighing the consequences (or, even worse, if they did know the consequences and said "screw you" anyway). A pox on their families too. Let the sins of the fathers be visited upon the sons and daughters of those suits, let them experience the fine twists of Fate.
Sometimes this world really really sucks.
Darwin Was Wrong...
It's only a matter of time until his cockamamie hypotheses are tossed out once and for all, particularly as technology to analyze and decode DNA continues to improve.
Story from the Guardian.co.uk
Evolution: Charles Darwin was wrong about the tree of life
Evolutionary biologists say crossbreeding between species is far more common than previously thought, making a nonsense of the idea of discrete evolutionary branches
Ian Sample, science correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 January 2009 18.32 GMT
Charles Darwin's "tree of life", which shows how species are related through evolutionary history, is wrong and needs to be replaced, according to leading scientists.
The great naturalist first sketched how species might evolve along branches of an imaginary tree in 1837, an idea that quickly came to symbolise the theory of evolution by natural selection.
But modern genetics has revealed that representing evolutionary history as a tree is misleading, with scientists saying a more realistic way to represent the origins and inter-relatedness of species would be an impenetrable thicket. Darwin himself also wrote about evolution and ecosystems as a "tangled bank".
"We have no evidence at all that the tree of life is a reality," Eric Bapteste, an evolutionary biologist at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, told New Scientist magazine.
Genetic tests on bacteria, plants and animals increasingly reveal that different species crossbreed more than originally thought, meaning that instead of genes simply being passed down individual branches of the tree of life, they are also transferred between species on different evolutionary paths. The result is a messier and more tangled "web of life".
Microbes swap genetic material so promiscuously it can be hard to tell one type from another, but animals regularly crossbreed too - as do plants - and the offspring can be fertile. According to some estimates, 10 per cent of animals regularly form hybrids by breeding with other species.
Last year, scientists at the University of Texas at Arlington found a strange chunk of DNA in the genetic make-up of eight animals, including the mouse, rat and the African clawed frog. The same chunk is missing from chickens, elephants and humans, suggesting it must have become wedged into the genomes of some animals by crossbreeding.
The findings mean that to link species by Darwin's evolutionary branches is an oversimplification. "The tree of life is being politely buried," said Michael Rose, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Irvine. "What's less accepted is that our whole fundamental view of biology needs to change."
Story from the Guardian.co.uk
Evolution: Charles Darwin was wrong about the tree of life
Evolutionary biologists say crossbreeding between species is far more common than previously thought, making a nonsense of the idea of discrete evolutionary branches
Ian Sample, science correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 January 2009 18.32 GMT
Charles Darwin's "tree of life", which shows how species are related through evolutionary history, is wrong and needs to be replaced, according to leading scientists.
The great naturalist first sketched how species might evolve along branches of an imaginary tree in 1837, an idea that quickly came to symbolise the theory of evolution by natural selection.
But modern genetics has revealed that representing evolutionary history as a tree is misleading, with scientists saying a more realistic way to represent the origins and inter-relatedness of species would be an impenetrable thicket. Darwin himself also wrote about evolution and ecosystems as a "tangled bank".
"We have no evidence at all that the tree of life is a reality," Eric Bapteste, an evolutionary biologist at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, told New Scientist magazine.
Genetic tests on bacteria, plants and animals increasingly reveal that different species crossbreed more than originally thought, meaning that instead of genes simply being passed down individual branches of the tree of life, they are also transferred between species on different evolutionary paths. The result is a messier and more tangled "web of life".
Microbes swap genetic material so promiscuously it can be hard to tell one type from another, but animals regularly crossbreed too - as do plants - and the offspring can be fertile. According to some estimates, 10 per cent of animals regularly form hybrids by breeding with other species.
Last year, scientists at the University of Texas at Arlington found a strange chunk of DNA in the genetic make-up of eight animals, including the mouse, rat and the African clawed frog. The same chunk is missing from chickens, elephants and humans, suggesting it must have become wedged into the genomes of some animals by crossbreeding.
The findings mean that to link species by Darwin's evolutionary branches is an oversimplification. "The tree of life is being politely buried," said Michael Rose, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Irvine. "What's less accepted is that our whole fundamental view of biology needs to change."
Brazen Dog Shoplifts!
Hola darlings! I found this article from the December 26, 2008 Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel sitting on my footstool in the family room - buried under tons of investment club stuff! I think I must not have published it, but it's so cute, I just have to pass it along. When I did a search I found it reported at dozens of websites/blogs. The original information as reported in my local newspaper was from KSL-TV: www.ksl.com (There's a link to the surveillance video at the end of this piece - just too funny!)
Here's the story:
Pooch grabs bone, makes getaway
Associated Press (December 26, 2008)
Murray, Utah - A thief remains at large after pulling off a daring heist - in the pet food aisle.
Surveillance video at a supermarket in this Salt Lake City suburb caught a dog shoplifting, KSL-TV reported Wednesday.
The video showed the dog walking in the front door of Smith's Food & Drug in Murray and heading straight to Aisle 16, the pet food aisle, where it grabbed a bone worth $2.79.
The thief wasn't even perturbed by a face-to-face confrontation with store manager Roger Adamson.
"I looked at him. I said "Drop it!" Adamson said. "He looked at me, and I looked at him, and he ran for the door and away he went, right out the front door."
Shoplifting dog caught on surveillance camera-video
December 26, 2:37 AM
by Helena Sung, Pet News Examiner
Tongues and tails are wagging about a shoplifting dog in Murray, Utah. The canine--who appears on surveillance video to be a gray Siberian Husky--coolly ambled into a supermarket on Christmas Day.
After sniffing a young girl near the cash registers, the dog wandered further into the store where his super sense of smell led him directly to Aisle 16--the pet food aisle.
The dog picked out a rawhide bone worth $2.79 and headed for the exit when he was confronted by the store's manager, Roger Adamson.
"I said, 'drop it!'" Adamson recalled, but the dog chose to ignore the unreasonable request. "I decided I wanted to keep all my fingers, so I didn't try to take it from him."
The dog turned away and sauntered out the front door, daring anyone to follow him.
Humans, delighted at the tale, can watch the video here...
Here's the story:
Pooch grabs bone, makes getaway
Associated Press (December 26, 2008)
Murray, Utah - A thief remains at large after pulling off a daring heist - in the pet food aisle.
Surveillance video at a supermarket in this Salt Lake City suburb caught a dog shoplifting, KSL-TV reported Wednesday.
The video showed the dog walking in the front door of Smith's Food & Drug in Murray and heading straight to Aisle 16, the pet food aisle, where it grabbed a bone worth $2.79.
The thief wasn't even perturbed by a face-to-face confrontation with store manager Roger Adamson.
"I looked at him. I said "Drop it!" Adamson said. "He looked at me, and I looked at him, and he ran for the door and away he went, right out the front door."
*****************************
LOL! Here's another take on the story from the Examiner.com:Shoplifting dog caught on surveillance camera-video
December 26, 2:37 AM
by Helena Sung, Pet News Examiner
Tongues and tails are wagging about a shoplifting dog in Murray, Utah. The canine--who appears on surveillance video to be a gray Siberian Husky--coolly ambled into a supermarket on Christmas Day.
After sniffing a young girl near the cash registers, the dog wandered further into the store where his super sense of smell led him directly to Aisle 16--the pet food aisle.
The dog picked out a rawhide bone worth $2.79 and headed for the exit when he was confronted by the store's manager, Roger Adamson.
"I said, 'drop it!'" Adamson recalled, but the dog chose to ignore the unreasonable request. "I decided I wanted to keep all my fingers, so I didn't try to take it from him."
The dog turned away and sauntered out the front door, daring anyone to follow him.
Humans, delighted at the tale, can watch the video here...
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Pssst... I'll Pay You For Putting This Lamp Together
Ohmygoddess!Talk about pushing JanXena to the limits of her short fuse! Happy was I when I arrived home after a long, difficult day at the office to see that my lamps, wing chair slip cover and new prints for above my headboard had arrived from their various retailers. MAD was I an hour later when, profusely sweating and even more profusely swearing, I ripped the assembly instructions (translated from Chinese to "English") into a million tiny shreads and flushed them down the garbage disposal. I was about to hurl the uncooperative lamp across the room when my better angel said "no, JX, better not do that - you should return the offending @^$#*(% and get your money back...
So, I just shook it for about 35 seconds - real hard.
I had purchased a pair - so I unpacked the second lamp and examined it - but, lo and behold, the lamp "saddle" rested snugly where it was supposed to, not rattling around like a nail inside a jar. Thus, I concluded, the first lamp was DEFECTIVE. The second lamp - which I have not yet attempted to put together (I figured I'd better cool down over the next 24 hours before attempting a second assembly job) appears to be correctly assembled in its parts, which I am somehow supposed to assemble with a 200 foot long cord attaching all the sundry parts together, without "twisting" the cord. It took me 45 minutes just to pull and shove and tug the cord down through teeny tiny holes through the base of the lamp to pull all the assorted pieces close enough together to even begin to "firmly put into place" according to the pidgeon English instructions. Ha! Evidently the Chinese censors would not allow the translator at the factory to use the words "screw" or "screw together."
So, tomorrow night I will attempt to assemble the second lamp with the correctly anchored saddle. I expect it will go together much easier than the first lamp, despite not being able to "twist the cord." As for the defective lamp, rather than packing it back up and shipping it back, or hauling it to the nearest retailer (who shall remain nameless) to demand a refund (which may have led to my arrest for assault and battery), I put my 129 IQ to good purpose and jerry-rigged the loose saddle into firmness with tiny bits of cardboard stuffed in strategic places and some Super Glue... And if my house should burn down because I used the lamp after I twisted the cord, this blog entry is my evidence (for I shall be dead, burnt to a crisp no doubt) upon which no jury would find me 50% negligent or more. Therefore my Estate would recover from the manufacturer of the defective lamp that would have caught fire anyway (despite my bits of cardboard and Super Glue) and my ghost shall be rich beyond all imagining. Sigh.
By the way, that's not my screwed up lamp, but the way the shade tilts, that is what my new lamp looked like when I first put it together - before severe shaking and treatment with cardboard bits and Super Glue...
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Southwest Chess Club of Hales Corners
Hola darlings!
I am deep into shopping for new bookcases. I am torn between uber-cheap and uber-expensive. It seems the ones I like BEST are, of course, the most expensive, and the ones that will SERVE best are, at least at Office Depot, the least expensive! The uber-cheap models all come in pieces that have to be assembled, a task I truly dread!
I am awaiting delivery of (1) a slipcover for the wingchair in my adopted bedroom (2) two buffet lamps (3) two Chinese-styled bird prints for above my bed and (4) assorted posters, two of which will go into the New York room (the new guest room) and some of which will go into the upstairs hallway to update its rather tattered and dreary look. I still need to order throw rugs - the nice ones are outrageously expensive!
I have news, darlings! I should have published this much sooner - but I've been in a redecorating frenzy, as my recent posts will attest :) Anyway, my adopted chess club, Southwest Chess Club of Hales Corners, has a NEW home! Hurrah!
Club Location: St. James Catholic Church, 7219 South 27th Street, Franklin, Wisconsin (lower level, Parish Center Building)
Not exactly near Hales Corners, but still alive and kicking. I'm glad the club was able to find suitable new digs in which to hold their weekly lectures, get-togethers and tournaments!
I do not remember if I published this previously - there is also a new website url.
Here are some of the upcoming events scheduled at the SWCC:
January 22 Freeze Bowl Swiss Rd 3 2 Secs, G/100
January 29 Winter Blitzzard IV 3 Rds – G/29, G/30
February 5 Chess Valentine Lovers Kiss Rd 1 Quads G/90
February 12 Chess Valentine Lovers Kiss Rd 2 Quads G/90
February 19 Chess Valentine Lovers Kiss Rd 3 Quads G/90
February 26 Snowstorm Blitz-A-Matic 10 Rds Speed Chess
March 5 Lion-In Lamb-Out Swiss Rd 1 2 Secs, G/100
March 12 Lion-In Lamb-Out Swiss Rd 2 2 Secs, G/100
March 19 Annual SWCC Meeting
March 26 Lion-In Lamb-Out Swiss Rd 3 2 Secs, G/100
April 2 Lion-In Lamb-Out Swiss Rd 4 2 Secs, G/100
April 9 Melting Ice Action III 3 Rds – G/29, G/30
April 16 Tulips on the Chessboard Swiss Rd 1 2 Secs, G/100
April 23 Tulips on the Chessboard Swiss Rd 2 2 Secs, G/100
April 25 HALES CORNERS CHALLENGE IX (Saturday)
April 30 Tulips on the Chessboard Swiss Rd 3 2 Secs, G/100
May 7 Warm-Up Blend-O-Matic 10 Rds Speed Chess
Using my astounding intellect and powers of deductive reasoning, I have concluded that the HALES CORNERS CHALLENGE IX is the next Grand Prix points event sponsored by the SWCC following the HALES CORNERS CHALLENGE VIII which was held in October, 2008. Goddesschess funded some special prizes for the CHALLENGE VIII - if we fund more special prizes for CHALENGE IX do you think we can encourage a few more local chess femmes to play in that event???
I am deep into shopping for new bookcases. I am torn between uber-cheap and uber-expensive. It seems the ones I like BEST are, of course, the most expensive, and the ones that will SERVE best are, at least at Office Depot, the least expensive! The uber-cheap models all come in pieces that have to be assembled, a task I truly dread!
I am awaiting delivery of (1) a slipcover for the wingchair in my adopted bedroom (2) two buffet lamps (3) two Chinese-styled bird prints for above my bed and (4) assorted posters, two of which will go into the New York room (the new guest room) and some of which will go into the upstairs hallway to update its rather tattered and dreary look. I still need to order throw rugs - the nice ones are outrageously expensive!
I have news, darlings! I should have published this much sooner - but I've been in a redecorating frenzy, as my recent posts will attest :) Anyway, my adopted chess club, Southwest Chess Club of Hales Corners, has a NEW home! Hurrah!
Club Location: St. James Catholic Church, 7219 South 27th Street, Franklin, Wisconsin (lower level, Parish Center Building)
Not exactly near Hales Corners, but still alive and kicking. I'm glad the club was able to find suitable new digs in which to hold their weekly lectures, get-togethers and tournaments!
I do not remember if I published this previously - there is also a new website url.
Here are some of the upcoming events scheduled at the SWCC:
January 22 Freeze Bowl Swiss Rd 3 2 Secs, G/100
January 29 Winter Blitzzard IV 3 Rds – G/29, G/30
February 5 Chess Valentine Lovers Kiss Rd 1 Quads G/90
February 12 Chess Valentine Lovers Kiss Rd 2 Quads G/90
February 19 Chess Valentine Lovers Kiss Rd 3 Quads G/90
February 26 Snowstorm Blitz-A-Matic 10 Rds Speed Chess
March 5 Lion-In Lamb-Out Swiss Rd 1 2 Secs, G/100
March 12 Lion-In Lamb-Out Swiss Rd 2 2 Secs, G/100
March 19 Annual SWCC Meeting
March 26 Lion-In Lamb-Out Swiss Rd 3 2 Secs, G/100
April 2 Lion-In Lamb-Out Swiss Rd 4 2 Secs, G/100
April 9 Melting Ice Action III 3 Rds – G/29, G/30
April 16 Tulips on the Chessboard Swiss Rd 1 2 Secs, G/100
April 23 Tulips on the Chessboard Swiss Rd 2 2 Secs, G/100
April 25 HALES CORNERS CHALLENGE IX (Saturday)
April 30 Tulips on the Chessboard Swiss Rd 3 2 Secs, G/100
May 7 Warm-Up Blend-O-Matic 10 Rds Speed Chess
Using my astounding intellect and powers of deductive reasoning, I have concluded that the HALES CORNERS CHALLENGE IX is the next Grand Prix points event sponsored by the SWCC following the HALES CORNERS CHALLENGE VIII which was held in October, 2008. Goddesschess funded some special prizes for the CHALLENGE VIII - if we fund more special prizes for CHALENGE IX do you think we can encourage a few more local chess femmes to play in that event???
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Another "Goddess" Born with Four Arms and Four Legs
Oh no, not again. Story reported at Russian News and Information Agency.
Girl with eight limbs born in Nepal
18:37
20/ 01/ 2009
NEW DELHI, January 20 (RIA Novosti) - A baby with four arms and four legs has been born in southeastern Nepal's Ramechhap district, local media reported on Tuesday.
Januka Ghimire, 30, gave birth late on Monday to the as-yet-unnamed infant, whose gender has not been disclosed [but the title of the article indicates a girl - and if it was a boy child, he would not be compared to the Goddess Lakshmi!]. Both the mother and the child are reported to be in good health.
Many locals believe the baby is a reincarnation of Lakshmi, the eight-limbed Hindu goddess of prosperity and wealth.
"Januka's house is thronged by people from far-flung villages to have the glimpse of the strange baby," the kantipuronline.com news portal said.
How can this happen again? I thought the odds were astronomical against this kind of conjoined twin birth happening again.
Girl with eight limbs born in Nepal
18:37
20/ 01/ 2009
NEW DELHI, January 20 (RIA Novosti) - A baby with four arms and four legs has been born in southeastern Nepal's Ramechhap district, local media reported on Tuesday.
Januka Ghimire, 30, gave birth late on Monday to the as-yet-unnamed infant, whose gender has not been disclosed [but the title of the article indicates a girl - and if it was a boy child, he would not be compared to the Goddess Lakshmi!]. Both the mother and the child are reported to be in good health.
Many locals believe the baby is a reincarnation of Lakshmi, the eight-limbed Hindu goddess of prosperity and wealth.
"Januka's house is thronged by people from far-flung villages to have the glimpse of the strange baby," the kantipuronline.com news portal said.
Last November, an eight-limbed girl was born in a remote village in the northern Indian state of Bihar and named Lakshmi after the goddess. The girl underwent surgery to remove the extra limbs and in now undergoing a rehabilitation program.
*************************
Actually, little Lakshmi Tatma's surgery was more than a year ago, in November, 2007. I have reported on her here from time to time. I haven't seen any stories recently, so I assume she is doing very well with her rehabilitation. She will need to undergo additional surgeries as she gets older.
How can this happen again? I thought the odds were astronomical against this kind of conjoined twin birth happening again.
Are We Losing Our Faith in Tough Times?
This story is from the Times of India, but it could just as well have been St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, although I do not believe the Virgin Mary statutes there wear valuable jewels. But valuable statues have been stolen out of churches - right here in Milwaukee - not this year (thank Goddess) but in the last bad economic downturn several statues were stolen, and several poor boxes broken into and their small contents stolen. How pathetic to steal money from a church poor box! Ask the person(s) who stole from the poor box in this temple in India!
Antique jewellery stolen from Shivneri fort temple
21 Jan 2009, 0236 hrs IST, Asseem Shaikh, TNN
PUNE: Antique jewellery that adorned the idol of goddess Shivai at the Shivneri fort in Junnar taluka were found stolen on early Tuesday morning.
Chhatrapati Shivaji, who derived his name from goddess Shivai, was born here and learned warfare techniques.
This is the second such incident in Pune rural in past four days. On January 17, some miscreants dug up the mausoleum of Mastani at Pabal near Shikrapur. They had apparently dug up the mausoleum in search of some hidden wealth, which they did not find.
Inspector Rajaram Pardeshi, in-charge of the Junnar police station said the suspects in Shivneri cut three iron grills of the temple window with a sharp object and decamped with a mangalsutra and a nath (nose ring) and some money (totalling Rs 10,725) by breaking open the donation box sometime between Monday night and early Tuesday morning.
Pardeshi said the incident came to light after the temple priest Sopan Durate opened the temple on Tuesday morning. There is no security guard posted at the temple during night because it is located in an isolated place at the foot hills of Shivneri fort. Pardeshi suspects involvement of local criminals behind the theft, but Additional superintendent of police (Pune rural) Ashok Morale said it looks to be the handy work of professionals since the grills were cut with sophistication. Morale also suspects role of some mischief mongers since other costly items like the television set and the compact disc player were not touched.
The police have intensified patrolling and beefed up security at historically important temples to avert similar incidents.
Meanwhile, the Sahaydri mountaineering group has appealed to the Pune rural police to set up a police chowkie at Shivneri for maintaining vigilance at Shivai and other temples in Junnar.
Second theft in three years
The theft at Shivai temple is the second incident of its kind reported in the last three years, according to inspector Rajaram Pardeshi, incharge of the Junnar police station on Tuesday.
Pardeshi said that in 2006 the paduka' of goddess Shivai were stolen. However, the suspects had later quietly kept it back in the temple and hence the Kusgaon villagers did not pursue the matter further.
Pardeshi said that there are several temples built during the Peshwa's regime like Shivai, Panchaling, Kukdeshwar, Bramhanath and Khanoba, but thefts happen only in goddess Shivai's temple.
Antique jewellery stolen from Shivneri fort temple
21 Jan 2009, 0236 hrs IST, Asseem Shaikh, TNN
PUNE: Antique jewellery that adorned the idol of goddess Shivai at the Shivneri fort in Junnar taluka were found stolen on early Tuesday morning.
Chhatrapati Shivaji, who derived his name from goddess Shivai, was born here and learned warfare techniques.
This is the second such incident in Pune rural in past four days. On January 17, some miscreants dug up the mausoleum of Mastani at Pabal near Shikrapur. They had apparently dug up the mausoleum in search of some hidden wealth, which they did not find.
Inspector Rajaram Pardeshi, in-charge of the Junnar police station said the suspects in Shivneri cut three iron grills of the temple window with a sharp object and decamped with a mangalsutra and a nath (nose ring) and some money (totalling Rs 10,725) by breaking open the donation box sometime between Monday night and early Tuesday morning.
Pardeshi said the incident came to light after the temple priest Sopan Durate opened the temple on Tuesday morning. There is no security guard posted at the temple during night because it is located in an isolated place at the foot hills of Shivneri fort. Pardeshi suspects involvement of local criminals behind the theft, but Additional superintendent of police (Pune rural) Ashok Morale said it looks to be the handy work of professionals since the grills were cut with sophistication. Morale also suspects role of some mischief mongers since other costly items like the television set and the compact disc player were not touched.
The police have intensified patrolling and beefed up security at historically important temples to avert similar incidents.
Meanwhile, the Sahaydri mountaineering group has appealed to the Pune rural police to set up a police chowkie at Shivneri for maintaining vigilance at Shivai and other temples in Junnar.
Second theft in three years
The theft at Shivai temple is the second incident of its kind reported in the last three years, according to inspector Rajaram Pardeshi, incharge of the Junnar police station on Tuesday.
Pardeshi said that in 2006 the paduka' of goddess Shivai were stolen. However, the suspects had later quietly kept it back in the temple and hence the Kusgaon villagers did not pursue the matter further.
Pardeshi said that there are several temples built during the Peshwa's regime like Shivai, Panchaling, Kukdeshwar, Bramhanath and Khanoba, but thefts happen only in goddess Shivai's temple.
2009 Corus
Round 4 Results:
Group B: Y. Hou - N. Short ½-½
Group C: R. Pruijssers - D. Harika ½-½
Standings after Round 4:
Group B:
1. N. Short, F. Caruana,R. Kasimdzhanov 3
4. D. Navara, F. Vallejo Pons 2½
6. D. Reinderman, A. Volokitin, A. Motylev, Z. Efimenko 2
10. Y. Hou, J. Werle, E. l'Ami 1½
13. K. Sasikiran 1
14. H. Mecking ½
Group C:
1. T. Hillarp Persson, M. Bosboom 3
3. E. Iturrizaga, A. Bitalzadeh, W. So 2½
6. D. Howell, O. Romanishin, A. Giri, D. Harika, R. Pruijssers 2
11. A. GuptaF. Holzke 1½
13. M. Leon Hoyos 1
14. F. Nijboer ½
Group B: Y. Hou - N. Short ½-½
Group C: R. Pruijssers - D. Harika ½-½
Standings after Round 4:
Group B:
1. N. Short, F. Caruana,R. Kasimdzhanov 3
4. D. Navara, F. Vallejo Pons 2½
6. D. Reinderman, A. Volokitin, A. Motylev, Z. Efimenko 2
10. Y. Hou, J. Werle, E. l'Ami 1½
13. K. Sasikiran 1
14. H. Mecking ½
Group C:
1. T. Hillarp Persson, M. Bosboom 3
3. E. Iturrizaga, A. Bitalzadeh, W. So 2½
6. D. Howell, O. Romanishin, A. Giri, D. Harika, R. Pruijssers 2
11. A. GuptaF. Holzke 1½
13. M. Leon Hoyos 1
14. F. Nijboer ½
Saving the Indus Valley
The Archaeology Channel has a new video presentation. I've no idea of the links embedded below will work. If not, please visit for the next few days until the next video presentation is posted. Link to an index of all Archaeology Channel videos.
SAVING THE INDUS VALLEY: GUJARAT, INDIA
Location: India
Length: 5 min. 56k 300k 700k 56k 300k 700k
The remarkable Indus Civilization of India and Pakistan was contemporaneous with other early civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt and Iran and influenced later cultures, including modern India. Meeting a longstanding need, the Indus Heritage Centre is being established in partnership among Global Heritage Fund (USA), Maharaja Sayajirao University and the Indus Heritage Centre Board of Directors. Promoting education and tourism, the Centre will introduce to the people of India and the world the unique significance and value of India’s ancient heritage.
SAVING THE INDUS VALLEY: GUJARAT, INDIA
Location: India
Length: 5 min. 56k 300k 700k 56k 300k 700k
The remarkable Indus Civilization of India and Pakistan was contemporaneous with other early civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt and Iran and influenced later cultures, including modern India. Meeting a longstanding need, the Indus Heritage Centre is being established in partnership among Global Heritage Fund (USA), Maharaja Sayajirao University and the Indus Heritage Centre Board of Directors. Promoting education and tourism, the Centre will introduce to the people of India and the world the unique significance and value of India’s ancient heritage.
Wiped Out by Climate Change and Earthquake
Public release date: 19-Jan-2009
Contact: Michael Moseley
michaele.moseley@gmail.com
352-378-8139
University of Florida
Scientists: Earthquakes, El Ninos fatal to earliest civilization in Americas
GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- First came the earthquakes, then the torrential rains. But the relentless march of sand across once fertile fields and bays, a process set in motion by the quakes and flooding, is probably what did in America's earliest civilization.
So concludes a group of anthropologists in a new assessment of the demise of the coastal Peruvian people who built the earliest, largest structures in North or South America before disappearing in the space of a few generations more than 3,600 years ago.
"This maritime farming community had been successful for over 2,000 years, they had no incentive to change, and then all of a sudden, 'boom,'" said Mike Moseley, a distinguished professor of anthropology at the University of Florida. "They just got the props knocked out from under them."
Moseley is one of five authors of a paper set to appear next week in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The people of the Supe Valley along the central Peruvian coast did not use pottery or weave cloth in the settlements they founded as far back as 5,800 years ago. But they flourished in the arid desert plain adjacent to productive bays and estuaries. They fished with nets, irrigated fruit orchards, and grew cotton and a variety of vegetables, according to evidence in the region unearthed by Ruth Shady, a Peruvian archaeologist and co-author of the paper. As director of the Caral-Supe Special Archaeological Project, Shady currently has seven sites in the region under excavation.
Most impressively, the Supe built extremely large, elaborate, stone pyramid temples -- thousands of years before the better-known pyramids crafted by the Maya.
"They're impressive, enormous monuments," Moseley said.
The largest so far excavated, the Pirámide Mayor at inland settlement Caral, measured more than 550 feet long, nearly 500 feet wide and rose in a series of steps nearly 100 feet high. Walled courts, rooms and corridors covered the flat summit.
The Supe seemed to thrive in the valley for about 2,000 years. But around 3,600 years ago, an enormous earthquake -- Moseley estimates its magnitude at 8 or higher -- or series of earthquakes struck Caral and a nearby coastal settlement, Aspero, the archaeologist found. With two major plates scraping together not far offshore, the region remains one of the most seismically active in the world.
The earthquake collapsed walls and floors atop the Pirámide Mayor and caused part of it to crumble into a landslide of rocks, mud and construction materials. Smaller temples at Aspero were also heavily damaged, and there was also significant flooding there, an event recorded in thin layers of silt unearthed by the archaeologists.
But the flooding and temples' physical destruction was just the dramatic opening scene in what proved to be a much more devastating series of events, Moseley said.
The earthquake destabilized the barren mountain ranges surrounding the valley, sending massive amounts of debris crashing into the foothills. Subsequent El Niños brought huge rains, washing the debris into the ocean. There, a strong current flowing parallel to the shore re-deposited the sand and silt in the form of a large ridge known today as the Medio Mundo. The ridge sealed off the formerly rich coastal bays, which rapidly filled with sand.
Strong ever-present onshore winds resulted in "massive sand sheets that blew inland on the constant, strong, onshore breeze and swamped the irrigation systems and agricultural fields," the paper says. Not only that, but the windblown sand had a blasting effect that would have made daily life all but impossible, Moseley said.
The bottom line: What had for centuries been a productive, if arid, region became all but uninhabitable in the span of just a handful of generations. The Supe society withered and eventually collapsed, replaced only gradually later on -- by societies that relied on the much more modern arts of pottery and weaving, Moseley said.
With much of the world's population centers built in environmentally vulnerable areas, the Supe's demise may hold a cautionary tale for modern times, the researchers said. El Niño events, in particular, may become more common as global climate change continues.
"These are processes that continue into the present," said Dan Sandweiss, the paper's lead author and an anthropology professor and graduate dean at the University of Maine.
Affirmed Moseley, "You would like to say that people learn from their mistakes, but that's not the case."
The other authors of the paper are David Keefer, a geologist and geoarchaeologist with the University of Maine's Climate Change Institute, and Charles Ortloff, a consulting engineer who has spent the past three decades working in the Andes.
Contact: Michael Moseley
michaele.moseley@gmail.com
352-378-8139
University of Florida
Scientists: Earthquakes, El Ninos fatal to earliest civilization in Americas
GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- First came the earthquakes, then the torrential rains. But the relentless march of sand across once fertile fields and bays, a process set in motion by the quakes and flooding, is probably what did in America's earliest civilization.
So concludes a group of anthropologists in a new assessment of the demise of the coastal Peruvian people who built the earliest, largest structures in North or South America before disappearing in the space of a few generations more than 3,600 years ago.
"This maritime farming community had been successful for over 2,000 years, they had no incentive to change, and then all of a sudden, 'boom,'" said Mike Moseley, a distinguished professor of anthropology at the University of Florida. "They just got the props knocked out from under them."
Moseley is one of five authors of a paper set to appear next week in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The people of the Supe Valley along the central Peruvian coast did not use pottery or weave cloth in the settlements they founded as far back as 5,800 years ago. But they flourished in the arid desert plain adjacent to productive bays and estuaries. They fished with nets, irrigated fruit orchards, and grew cotton and a variety of vegetables, according to evidence in the region unearthed by Ruth Shady, a Peruvian archaeologist and co-author of the paper. As director of the Caral-Supe Special Archaeological Project, Shady currently has seven sites in the region under excavation.
Most impressively, the Supe built extremely large, elaborate, stone pyramid temples -- thousands of years before the better-known pyramids crafted by the Maya.
"They're impressive, enormous monuments," Moseley said.
The largest so far excavated, the Pirámide Mayor at inland settlement Caral, measured more than 550 feet long, nearly 500 feet wide and rose in a series of steps nearly 100 feet high. Walled courts, rooms and corridors covered the flat summit.
The Supe seemed to thrive in the valley for about 2,000 years. But around 3,600 years ago, an enormous earthquake -- Moseley estimates its magnitude at 8 or higher -- or series of earthquakes struck Caral and a nearby coastal settlement, Aspero, the archaeologist found. With two major plates scraping together not far offshore, the region remains one of the most seismically active in the world.
The earthquake collapsed walls and floors atop the Pirámide Mayor and caused part of it to crumble into a landslide of rocks, mud and construction materials. Smaller temples at Aspero were also heavily damaged, and there was also significant flooding there, an event recorded in thin layers of silt unearthed by the archaeologists.
But the flooding and temples' physical destruction was just the dramatic opening scene in what proved to be a much more devastating series of events, Moseley said.
The earthquake destabilized the barren mountain ranges surrounding the valley, sending massive amounts of debris crashing into the foothills. Subsequent El Niños brought huge rains, washing the debris into the ocean. There, a strong current flowing parallel to the shore re-deposited the sand and silt in the form of a large ridge known today as the Medio Mundo. The ridge sealed off the formerly rich coastal bays, which rapidly filled with sand.
Strong ever-present onshore winds resulted in "massive sand sheets that blew inland on the constant, strong, onshore breeze and swamped the irrigation systems and agricultural fields," the paper says. Not only that, but the windblown sand had a blasting effect that would have made daily life all but impossible, Moseley said.
The bottom line: What had for centuries been a productive, if arid, region became all but uninhabitable in the span of just a handful of generations. The Supe society withered and eventually collapsed, replaced only gradually later on -- by societies that relied on the much more modern arts of pottery and weaving, Moseley said.
With much of the world's population centers built in environmentally vulnerable areas, the Supe's demise may hold a cautionary tale for modern times, the researchers said. El Niño events, in particular, may become more common as global climate change continues.
"These are processes that continue into the present," said Dan Sandweiss, the paper's lead author and an anthropology professor and graduate dean at the University of Maine.
Affirmed Moseley, "You would like to say that people learn from their mistakes, but that's not the case."
The other authors of the paper are David Keefer, a geologist and geoarchaeologist with the University of Maine's Climate Change Institute, and Charles Ortloff, a consulting engineer who has spent the past three decades working in the Andes.
###
************************************
Could present-day climate change be threatening one of Peru's most recognizable relics from an ancient age? The "drawings" scratched into the arid Plain of Nazca was damaged recently by FLOODING caused by torential rains. The National Culture Institute says this is the first time and the damage was minor, easily repaired (i.e., won't impinge on tourist earnings). But what if it happens again, and again...
Monday, January 19, 2009
Earliest Cave Dwelling Complex Discovered?
In China? Oh really - sort of reminds me of Ensign Chekov bragging on the original Star Trek t.v. series about Mother Russia... My guess is that the local archaeologists are talking about only China and not the entire world. Still - a cave complex dating back a mere 5,000 years is NOT old! I'm sure I've read of evidence of habitation in caves far older in China. And of course there are Alta Mira in Spain and Lascaux in France.
From The Peoples Daily
China discovers earliest cave dwelling complex
14:30, January 19, 2009
Chinese archeologists discovered in Shaanxi Province the earliest known cave dwelling residence complex to date. This large scale ancient complex shows that the history of ancient people living in cave dwellings can be traced as far as 5,500 years ago. The private pottery kilns found at the complex indicate that the concept of private property had already developed by that time.
The Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology recently organized a large scale excavation. During excavation, archeologists discovered that there are 17 relic cave dwellings in total, spread out in rows out to the edge of a cliff near the bank of the Jing River, close to Yangguanzhai Village in Gaoling County of Shaanxi Province in northwestern China. The cave dwellings are part of the cultural heritage from the Banpo phase IV of the Neolithic Age, roughly 5,500 years ago.
A single dwelling covered an area of over 10 square meters, with a simple layout similar to the shape of the Chinese character "吕" (lu). It consisted of a front room and a backroom connected to one another. The front room was an ordinary room, while the backroom was a cave dwelling. Beside the dwellings, archeologists also found pottery kilns and caves used to store potteries where a great number of potteries, greenware sherds and some pottery-making tools were also unearthed.
By People's Daily Online
From The Peoples Daily
China discovers earliest cave dwelling complex
14:30, January 19, 2009
Chinese archeologists discovered in Shaanxi Province the earliest known cave dwelling residence complex to date. This large scale ancient complex shows that the history of ancient people living in cave dwellings can be traced as far as 5,500 years ago. The private pottery kilns found at the complex indicate that the concept of private property had already developed by that time.
The Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology recently organized a large scale excavation. During excavation, archeologists discovered that there are 17 relic cave dwellings in total, spread out in rows out to the edge of a cliff near the bank of the Jing River, close to Yangguanzhai Village in Gaoling County of Shaanxi Province in northwestern China. The cave dwellings are part of the cultural heritage from the Banpo phase IV of the Neolithic Age, roughly 5,500 years ago.
A single dwelling covered an area of over 10 square meters, with a simple layout similar to the shape of the Chinese character "吕" (lu). It consisted of a front room and a backroom connected to one another. The front room was an ordinary room, while the backroom was a cave dwelling. Beside the dwellings, archeologists also found pottery kilns and caves used to store potteries where a great number of potteries, greenware sherds and some pottery-making tools were also unearthed.
By People's Daily Online
2009 Corus Update
Round 3 results, not a good day for the chess femmes:
Group B: D. Reinderman - Y. Hou 1-0
Group C: M. Leon Hoyos - D. Harika 1-0
Standings after Round 3:
Group B:
1. N. Short, D. Navara, R. Kasimdzhanov 2½
4. F. Caruana 2
5. D. Reinderman, A. Volokitin, Z. Efimenko, J. Werle, F. Vallejo Pons 1½
10. Y. Hou, A. Motylev, E. l'Ami 1
13. K. Sasikiran, H. Mecking 1/2
Group C:
1. E. Iturrizaga, M. Bosboom 2½
3. T. Hillarp Persson, O. Romanishin, W. So 2
6. A. Giri, D. Harika, A. Bitalzadeh, R. Pruijssers 1½
10. D. Howell, A. Gupta, M. Leon Hoyos 1
13. F. Nijboer, F. Holzke ½
Group B: D. Reinderman - Y. Hou 1-0
Group C: M. Leon Hoyos - D. Harika 1-0
Standings after Round 3:
Group B:
1. N. Short, D. Navara, R. Kasimdzhanov 2½
4. F. Caruana 2
5. D. Reinderman, A. Volokitin, Z. Efimenko, J. Werle, F. Vallejo Pons 1½
10. Y. Hou, A. Motylev, E. l'Ami 1
13. K. Sasikiran, H. Mecking 1/2
Group C:
1. E. Iturrizaga, M. Bosboom 2½
3. T. Hillarp Persson, O. Romanishin, W. So 2
6. A. Giri, D. Harika, A. Bitalzadeh, R. Pruijssers 1½
10. D. Howell, A. Gupta, M. Leon Hoyos 1
13. F. Nijboer, F. Holzke ½
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Random Round-Up
dondelion has outdone himself this week with an All Chess, All The Time theme for this week's Random Round-Up at Goddesschess, cued on an article provided to Goddesschess for publication by Lawrence Totaro on Dali and chess. Mr. Totaro is a chessplayer, collector of chess memorabilia and author. In keeping with the Dali theme, Mr. Don sent the following photo of himself imitating art imitating artist...
Pssst - the guy holding the queen is the real dondelion... I could never love a guy who gave me the finger :)
Unique Chess Gifts
Check out Isis' hand-crafted and luxurious chess boards.This board features midnight blue and gold satin ribbon with faux-pearl trim from Isis' "Silk Road" series of boards. The reverse side features a color-coordinated oriental-inspired print. $34.99 retail (but Isis is open to negotiation). Use your own weighted pieces or purchase a set of glass chess pieces crafted by Isis at Chesstique.
Tee shirts! I'm sure you've seen hundreds of run-of-the mill "chess" motif tees. Check out Chesstique at Goddesschess for unique tee designs. Here is a shirt with Goddesschess' very own logo (TM) designed by dondelion.
WGM Kruttika Nadig
Story from ExpressIndia.comQueen on board
Pranav KulkarniPosted: Jan 19, 2009 at 0055 hrs IST
Inspired by Garry Kasparov’s never-say-die attitude, national chess champion, WGM Kruttika Nadig has all it takes to be a grandmaster
She is undoubtedly the queen of the 64 houses. The fact was underlined again when she recently bagged the Women's National title in Delhi. While many believe that black is unlucky, she's won most of her matches playing with black pieces proving that in the brain game, there is no place for superstitions. Woman Grand Master (WGM) Kruttika Nadig's life is all about strategy- half on-board, half about the board.
"It is important to practice chess every day. I personally study my game for six-seven hours a day. While internet and computer software are the routine means, there are other sources such as books, practice games with friends in which we discuss the recent trends in chess and so on that keep me updated with the game," says Nadig whose decision to take up chess as the profession, despite the mastered on-board moves, wasn't a planned one. "I started playing chess in the summer vacations when I was seven. What began as a hobby became a serious obsession when I won the Bronze medal in Asian under 12 Championship in the year 2002. In 2003, I grabbed the first national title. It was however the title in 2004 that gave me the confidence that I can be the best in the country and defeat any of the opponents," says Nadig, 20-year-old Arts student.
With Vishwanathan Anand's strategies and Garry Kasparov's uncompromising attitude as her sources of inspiration, Nadig recalls meeting Vishwanathan Anand as one of the most memorable moments of her life till date. "I got the opportunity to meet Anand in Chennai on his birthday. Interacting with him after the party was an otherworldly experience. No player normally reveals the secrets of his game, but Anand shared with us the tactics that can be useful," smiles she.
Mastering the game of concentration, logic and strategy requires one to isolate from the routine botherations around, and Nadig says, "Like all other games, chess also involves sportsman spirit and killer instinct. In physical games one can push the routine botherations at the back of one's mind by diverting the attention, but in case of chess, since the brain is continuously being stormed, it is difficult to do so. So most of my practice sessions, other than learning the techniques also involve the practice of detaching myself from the world, emotions and stress."
Though related to mind and brain, chess as a game still finds a classification as Women's chess and open category. Nadig Comments, "Chess is a mind game - no doubt about it. But nearly ten years ago, there were no women grandmasters in the world where today we have as many as 10 of them. The categories have been made, not to discriminate but to encourage chess amongst women. I am satisfied with the fact that women's chess is gaining momentum in India. And I am happy to be a witness to the change."
*********************
There are actually 15 female chessplayers who have earned the GM title.
Prado and Google in Experimental Partnership
Wow - this is fascinating, and exciting news for art fans the world over.
From The Independent.co.uk
Jewels of the Prado go under Google Earth's microscope
Masterpieces photographed in minute detail available online
By Elizabeth Nash in Madrid
Wednesday, 14 January 2009
No image can match the real thing, but Madrid's Prado museum has edged closer to that ideal by teaming up with Google Earth in a pioneering project that allows art lovers to zoom in on some of the gallery's best loved masterpieces.
Fourteen of the museum's finest works, including Velazquez's Las Meninas, Goya's Third of May and Rubens' The Three Graces have been photographed to such a high resolution that details barely discernible to the naked eye become visible online.
Google's first collaboration of its kind with an art museum, presented yesterday in Madrid, allows viewers anywhere in the world to home in on tiny sections of the chosen works, and skim the canvas in a way that is unimaginable in real life. The images are 1,400 times clearer than anything the average tourist's 10-megapixel camera could render, said Javier Rodriguez Zapatero, Google Spain's director.
"It's a unique vision. In the museum we cannot get this close to a painting; if we did we'd need a three-metre-high ladder to get these views," said Clara Ribera, of Google Spain.
The 14 paintings were photographed section by section in "mega high resolution", then 8,200 photographs were stitched together digitally. For just one of the museum's most popular paintings, Hieronymous Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights, which celebrates every aspect of human ecstasy and depravity, 1,600 photographs were taken.
"There is no better way of paying tribute to the great masters than to universalise their art, and make it accessible to the greatest number of people," the Prado's director, Miguel Zugaza, said. "An image is no substitute for the direct experience of the work, but these actual-sized reproductions offer prodigious realism."
The Prado chose works it considered indispensable for any visitor. They include works by El Greco, Rembrandt, Durer, Raphael, Van de Weyden, Tiepolo, Ribera, Fra Angelico and Titian. "Although in my opinion we could include 1,000 more," Mr Zugaza said.
The spectacular images will allow scholars and art lovers to study up close the lines and brushstrokes of each artist, examine the under-drawing, the cracks and imperfections of the varnish, and check the quality of restoration work.
* To see the digital reproductions, download the Google Earth program, activate three-dimensional view and click on Prado Museum. Depending on how the pilot is received, Google may extend the initiative to other paintings and other galleries.
From The Independent.co.uk
Jewels of the Prado go under Google Earth's microscope
Masterpieces photographed in minute detail available online
By Elizabeth Nash in Madrid
Wednesday, 14 January 2009
No image can match the real thing, but Madrid's Prado museum has edged closer to that ideal by teaming up with Google Earth in a pioneering project that allows art lovers to zoom in on some of the gallery's best loved masterpieces.
Fourteen of the museum's finest works, including Velazquez's Las Meninas, Goya's Third of May and Rubens' The Three Graces have been photographed to such a high resolution that details barely discernible to the naked eye become visible online.
Google's first collaboration of its kind with an art museum, presented yesterday in Madrid, allows viewers anywhere in the world to home in on tiny sections of the chosen works, and skim the canvas in a way that is unimaginable in real life. The images are 1,400 times clearer than anything the average tourist's 10-megapixel camera could render, said Javier Rodriguez Zapatero, Google Spain's director.
"It's a unique vision. In the museum we cannot get this close to a painting; if we did we'd need a three-metre-high ladder to get these views," said Clara Ribera, of Google Spain.
The 14 paintings were photographed section by section in "mega high resolution", then 8,200 photographs were stitched together digitally. For just one of the museum's most popular paintings, Hieronymous Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights, which celebrates every aspect of human ecstasy and depravity, 1,600 photographs were taken.
"There is no better way of paying tribute to the great masters than to universalise their art, and make it accessible to the greatest number of people," the Prado's director, Miguel Zugaza, said. "An image is no substitute for the direct experience of the work, but these actual-sized reproductions offer prodigious realism."
The Prado chose works it considered indispensable for any visitor. They include works by El Greco, Rembrandt, Durer, Raphael, Van de Weyden, Tiepolo, Ribera, Fra Angelico and Titian. "Although in my opinion we could include 1,000 more," Mr Zugaza said.
The spectacular images will allow scholars and art lovers to study up close the lines and brushstrokes of each artist, examine the under-drawing, the cracks and imperfections of the varnish, and check the quality of restoration work.
* To see the digital reproductions, download the Google Earth program, activate three-dimensional view and click on Prado Museum. Depending on how the pilot is received, Google may extend the initiative to other paintings and other galleries.
Budget Crunch Hits Revered Penn Museum
From The Daily Pennsylvanian
Issue date: 1/16/09 Section: News
Petition opposes museum layoffs
Kathy Wang
These days, finding a balance between academics and economics is crucial.
That balance motivated the museum's administrators to discontinue 18 research specialist positions at the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology last November, effective May 31.
But more than 2,000 people in a variety of fields around the world signed an online petition, posted Jan. 7, claiming the museum went too far.
The museum defends its restructuring as necessary to maintain fiscal stability and its missions.
Gunder Varinlioglu, who received her Ph.D. in Art and Archaeology in the Mediterranean World from Penn, created the petition with Omur Harmansah, professor of Archaeology and Egyptology and Ancient Western Asian Studies at Brown University.
"There was such a public outcry over the issue that it had to be brought together," said Varinlioglu.
Several archaeology blogs and letters circulating in academic listservs have also questioned the museum's actions.
The museum "has always been about research and not really exhibits, and that's what differentiates it from others," said Varinlioglu, who said the move made the museum seem "like a business rather than the non-profit it is supposed to be."
Varinlioglu also criticized the lack of transparency behind the museum's actions, since its finances are not public.
"We don't know if they tried to do any fundraising or approached any alumni or exhausted all their resources," she said.
"The broader underlying concerns are how you treat your own employees," said Paul Zimmerman, a research associate whose position has not been affected and who wrote a personal letter to museum director Richard Hodges and Penn President Amy Gutmann protesting the decision.
Zimmerman and Varinlioglu also raised concerns that those laid off may not be able to find new employment. [Well - duh! Welcome to the real world, where last month 500,000 jobs were shed in the USA. I feel a strong empathy for each and every person who has lost a job because of the economic castrophe taking place in this country, and fear for myself, too. Why should academia be sheltered from the whirlwinds of this economic storm?]
But Hodges stressed that the museum has worked personally with each of the 18 researchers to try to help them secure other sources of funding. He added that the Museum announced the restructuring in November to give researchers enough time to explore new positions - even though the timing exposed the museum to criticism.
"If you don't work in a museum, you have to put a lot of effort into understanding what's necessary to maintain these high standards," said Hodges. "But the more time I spend with [petitioners and journalists], the less time I've had to support these researchers."
In a letter sent to researchers, he emphasized that research remains "central to the mission of the Penn Museum," and that five of the 18 researchers laid off will continue to work with the museum in some capacity. The letter goes on to explain that one of the original goals of the soon-to-be disbanded Museum Applied Science Center for Archaeology unit - to raise income - has not been met. As a result, the museum is pursuing a new five-year strategy to better adhere to its original missions of being a research center and a museum while still generating sufficient revenues.
"We are the largest research entity in the U.S. and have more expeditions than any other universities," said Hodges. "We're trying to sustain in difficult times, and it isn't always easy."
Issue date: 1/16/09 Section: News
Petition opposes museum layoffs
Kathy Wang
These days, finding a balance between academics and economics is crucial.
That balance motivated the museum's administrators to discontinue 18 research specialist positions at the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology last November, effective May 31.
But more than 2,000 people in a variety of fields around the world signed an online petition, posted Jan. 7, claiming the museum went too far.
The museum defends its restructuring as necessary to maintain fiscal stability and its missions.
Gunder Varinlioglu, who received her Ph.D. in Art and Archaeology in the Mediterranean World from Penn, created the petition with Omur Harmansah, professor of Archaeology and Egyptology and Ancient Western Asian Studies at Brown University.
"There was such a public outcry over the issue that it had to be brought together," said Varinlioglu.
Several archaeology blogs and letters circulating in academic listservs have also questioned the museum's actions.
The museum "has always been about research and not really exhibits, and that's what differentiates it from others," said Varinlioglu, who said the move made the museum seem "like a business rather than the non-profit it is supposed to be."
Varinlioglu also criticized the lack of transparency behind the museum's actions, since its finances are not public.
"We don't know if they tried to do any fundraising or approached any alumni or exhausted all their resources," she said.
"The broader underlying concerns are how you treat your own employees," said Paul Zimmerman, a research associate whose position has not been affected and who wrote a personal letter to museum director Richard Hodges and Penn President Amy Gutmann protesting the decision.
Zimmerman and Varinlioglu also raised concerns that those laid off may not be able to find new employment. [Well - duh! Welcome to the real world, where last month 500,000 jobs were shed in the USA. I feel a strong empathy for each and every person who has lost a job because of the economic castrophe taking place in this country, and fear for myself, too. Why should academia be sheltered from the whirlwinds of this economic storm?]
But Hodges stressed that the museum has worked personally with each of the 18 researchers to try to help them secure other sources of funding. He added that the Museum announced the restructuring in November to give researchers enough time to explore new positions - even though the timing exposed the museum to criticism.
"If you don't work in a museum, you have to put a lot of effort into understanding what's necessary to maintain these high standards," said Hodges. "But the more time I spend with [petitioners and journalists], the less time I've had to support these researchers."
In a letter sent to researchers, he emphasized that research remains "central to the mission of the Penn Museum," and that five of the 18 researchers laid off will continue to work with the museum in some capacity. The letter goes on to explain that one of the original goals of the soon-to-be disbanded Museum Applied Science Center for Archaeology unit - to raise income - has not been met. As a result, the museum is pursuing a new five-year strategy to better adhere to its original missions of being a research center and a museum while still generating sufficient revenues.
"We are the largest research entity in the U.S. and have more expeditions than any other universities," said Hodges. "We're trying to sustain in difficult times, and it isn't always easy."
********************
Cf. this blog entry.
New Egyptian Gallery at British Museum
This settles it - dondelion and I are going to London in 2010 and I'll spend the entire time inside the British Museum. (One of the scenes from Nebamun's tomb - with the tabby cat mentioned in the article "floating" in mid-air above the boat!)From The Times Online
January 13, 2009
New Egyptian gallery at the British Museum
The new Egyptian gallery at the British Museum offers a fascinating display of scenes from everyday life under the Pharaohs
January 13, 2009
New Egyptian gallery at the British Museum
The new Egyptian gallery at the British Museum offers a fascinating display of scenes from everyday life under the Pharaohs
Rachel Campbell-Johnston
Who says accountants are boring? Some of the ancient world's most entrancing paintings celebrate the life of a man who kept tallies for a living. And this month, freshly restored, they at last go on show again for the first time in almost ten years, when the British Museum opens a new gallery.
Who says accountants are boring? Some of the ancient world's most entrancing paintings celebrate the life of a man who kept tallies for a living. And this month, freshly restored, they at last go on show again for the first time in almost ten years, when the British Museum opens a new gallery.
This will be dedicated to the display of 11 large wall fragments from the tomb chapel of a relatively low-ranking Egyptian official named Nebamun, a grain accountant who, almost three and a half millennia ago, served the great deity Amun, then the official god of the state. A golden age of Egyptian painting unfurls. These preserved images are among the most famous, most fascinating and most artistically fresh of their day.
When we think of the Ancient Egyptians, we tend to think of the rituals of death. Certainly, the hordes of schoolchildren who daily head for the British Museum's Egyptian galleries come to gaze at the eerie solemnity of the elaborate mummy cases; to thrill at the corpses in their horror-movie bandages; to squirm at the stories of brain-extracting hooks. The mummies are to this great historical collection what the dinosaurs are to the Natural History Museum. They are a guaranteed crowd puller - and all the more popular for their gruesome whiff of the grave.
But if you imagine that the visitors who can now wander on from the mummies into the museum's newest gallery will find only more of the same, think again. The paintings might have come from a tomb; but they have far more to do with life than death.
Here, in what surely counts among the British Museum's most celebrated treasures, is a virile young Nebamun hunting in the Nile marshes, navigating his slender barque among feathery reeds that teem with birds of all species and fluttering butterflies. His fat tabby cat clearly can't believe its luck: as it seizes one flapping waterfowl in its whiskery jaws, it pins down the two songbirds that have already fallen prey to it with greedy claws. Or here, in three wonderfully preserved fragments, is Nebuman in his role as master of great estates, counting the flocks and the herds that slaves bring for his inspection, the ranks of driven cattle and the thick flocks of jostling geese. And here too, in one of the most seductive images the era, is a luxurious banqueting scene, its richly attired guests entertained by a group of female musicians while sinuous dancing girls, naked but for their jewellery and a girdle so slender that it cannot even cover their pubic growth, entwine with the serpentine grace of a pair of cobras.
These still richly coloured pictures, now displayed all together for the first time, are reunited also with a lively quail-hunting scene on long-term loan from Berlin (there are other fragments in France that for the sake of scholarship should also be lent). And what will strike the first-time viewer most about them is how wonderfully vivid, how exuberantly lifelike they are.
You don't need to have the hieroglyphs translated or to be familiar with the complex mythologies or iconographical conventions of the era to relate to these images on a sensual and emotional level. Look at the charioteer who sits on the back of his vehicle while his horses, still in harness, drop their heads to feed. You can almost imagine his legs swinging idly as he waits. Or notice the way that one of the driven cattle panics and tries to barge its way backwards against the flow, or how delicately a worker folds a fragile gazelle in his encircling arms. You can almost hear the kerfuffle and squabble of the chivvied geese, feel the cold pimpled skin of a freshly plucked fowl, run your fingers through the fur of the cat or smell the pungent ointments of the wealthy banqueters.
Very little is known about these works. No one knows precisely where they came from. The Greek grave robber who sawed them from the walls of a tomb chapel sold them to a British collector, who in turn passed them for what he considered “a miserable sum” to the British Museum in 1821, and fell out with curators to whom his erstwhile treasures were valuable prizes. He died penniless a few minutes' walk from the British Museum, taking the secret of where the paintings had come from to his pauper's grave. No one knows exactly when Nebamun lived or much about his personal life beyond the fact that he was married and had two children, who appear in the paintings, and that he worked as a scribe and accountant for the god from whom his name - meaning “my lord is Amun” - comes. Nor does anyone know who the creator of these magnificent works was, nor why someone so talented should have ended up working for some middle manager. It has been suggested that he may have been moonlighting from a job on a far grander burial site near by.
But what is unquestioned is the calibre of this artist. Curators have nicknamed him the Egyptian Michelangelo. And it is worth investing in a copy of the clearly written and fully illustrated book that accompanies this new gallery to find out why.
Though the delightful narratives and ebullient realism are what will first catch the eye of the spectator, there is much that will not be immediately obvious, from the rigorous conventions that dictate the overall design (compositions are divided into four bands or registers) through the meanings conveyed by even the simplest gestures (a hand held up in front of a mouth means that the character is speaking) to the translations of the hieroglyphs - “shut up and get on with it” seems a more or less colloquial translation of one caption. These scenes would once have been read by Egyptians like cartoon strips.
What becomes increasingly apparent is how skilfully the artist reconciled traditional iconography with his own artistic freedom. Here is someone capable of presenting the most complex narratives. We see him mapping out his designs with underdrawings on plaster and then painting them swiftly - occasionally making changes - with mineral pigments. In a world in which anything from your tummy fat to your toenails has its own precise meaning, he attends to every detail. He renders every living organism from the pied wagtail to the pond weed so that it can be precisely identified. It was important, for instance, that his ancient viewers could tell that that fish was a tilapia, because these creatures were commonly associated with rebirth (because they supposedly harbour their young in their mouth). He carefully renders the patterns and textures that make all these things feel real: the mottled hides of the cattle, the pricked crusts of bread, the fluff of bird's feathers, the plaiting of baskets. The eye of the cat, it has been newly discovered, was overlaid with gilt.
And yet even as he attends to such scrupulous detail he improvises, trying out a radical and very rare full-frontal pose complete with foreshortening, tangling the dancers' fingers with expressive sweeps of the brush, sending the musicians' tumbling plaits shaking to their lively rhythms. Improvisations such as this bring the Ancient Egyptians back to life.
In the Natural History Museum they have spent thousands of pounds on an animatronic T Rex that tries to do the same thing for their dinosaurs. It amounts to little more than a fairground entertainment. The British Museum, instead, has invested in a highly sophisticated restoration that, lasting almost a decade, is probably the biggest project of its type yet undertaken. It must be commended for this decision. These wall paintings, spaciously displayed among cabinets of artefacts from the same period, bring Ancient Egypt to life far more fascinatingly than any animatronic mummy ever could.
Even poor Nebamun should be pleased about the project. The reason he would have wanted his tomb painted so vividly would have been to attract visitors who, hearing of the marvels on display, would have been tempted to pop in after visiting their own ancestral burial sites. By remembering his name they would ensure his safe afterlife. But when the god Amun was deposed in ancient Egypt, his name was erased from wherever it was written. Nebamun was nearly forgotten.
Now he has a new chapel - far more visited than he could ever have hoped. Remember to say his name aloud. It was the actual pronunciation that mattered. And besides, Nebamun was an accountant: he will certainly be adding up all those mentions.
The new Egyptian gallery opens at the British Museum, WC1 ( 020-7323 8299), on Jan 21
Treasure Trove!
From BBC NewsJanuary 17, 2009
Huge Iron Age haul of coins found
One of the UK's largest hauls of Iron Age gold coins has been found in Suffolk.
The 824 so-called staters were found in a broken pottery jar buried in a field near Wickham Market using a metal detector.
Jude Plouviez, of the Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service, said the coins dated from 40BC to AD15. They are thought to have been minted by predecessors of the Iceni Queen Boudicca.
Ms Plouviez said their value when in circulation had been estimated at a modern equivalent of between £500,000 and £1m, but they were likely to be worth less than that now. [Really? On what does she base this? The current value of gold? The intrinsic value of the coins themselves to collectors and/or museums?]
Wealthy tribes
"It's a good, exciting find. It gives us a lot of new information about the late Iron Age, and particularly East Anglia in the late Iron Age.
"The discovery is important because it highlights the probable political, economic and religious importance of an area.
"It certainly suggests there was a significant settlement nearby. As far as we understand, it was occupied by wealthy tribes or subtribes," she said.
Ms Plouviez said the find was the largest collection of Iron Age gold coins found in Britain since 1849, when a farm worker unearthed between 800 and 2,000 gold staters in a field near Milton Keynes.
Secret excavations
She said secret excavations had been carried out on the latest find in Suffolk after a man reported it to the council's archaeological service in October.
The staters, which each weigh about 5g, will now be valued ahead of a treasure trove inquest.
"We don't know how much they will be worth but it will be less than they were at the time," said Ms Plouviez.
"After the treasure trove inquest, they will be offered to museums at their current value."
She said the exact location of the find would not be made public but added "thorough" searches of the area had not uncovered any further artefacts.
(Photo from different article).
Ainu (Japan) in Peru 1,000 Years Ago
Interesting - from New Kerala.com
DNA links found between ancient Peruvians and Japanese
Lima (Peru), Jan 11 : A new study has revealed genetic links between people who inhabited northern Peru more than 1,000 years ago and the Japanese.
Japanese physical anthropologist Ken-ichi Shinoda performed DNA tests on the remains of human bodies found in the East Tomb and West Tomb in the Bosque de Pomas Historical Sanctuary in Peru, which are part of the Sican Culture Archaeological Project, funded by Japan's government.
The director of the Sican National Museum, Carlos Elera, told the El Comercio newspaper that Shinoda found that people who lived more than 1,000 years ago in what today is the Lambayeque region, about 800 kilometers north of Lima, had genetic links to the contemporaneous populations of Ecuador, Colombia, Siberia, Taiwan and to the Ainu people of northern Japan.
The studies will be continued on descendents of the Mochica culture, from the same region, who are currently working on the Sican Project and with people who live in the vicinity of the Bosque de Pomac Historical Sanctuary.
According to Peruvian archaeologist Luis Chero, "Currently, the DNA results have great value because they can be understood to show that there were people who arrived in these zones from Asia and who then converted these zones into the great culture of the New World."
The results of the studies will be presented at an exhibit on the Sican culture that will be set up for a year at the Tokyo Museum of Science and Nature.
Also to be displayed at that exhibit will be gold, silver and copper jewelry found in the tombs of the ancient Sican rulers and priests.
--- ANI
DNA links found between ancient Peruvians and Japanese
Lima (Peru), Jan 11 : A new study has revealed genetic links between people who inhabited northern Peru more than 1,000 years ago and the Japanese.
Japanese physical anthropologist Ken-ichi Shinoda performed DNA tests on the remains of human bodies found in the East Tomb and West Tomb in the Bosque de Pomas Historical Sanctuary in Peru, which are part of the Sican Culture Archaeological Project, funded by Japan's government.
The director of the Sican National Museum, Carlos Elera, told the El Comercio newspaper that Shinoda found that people who lived more than 1,000 years ago in what today is the Lambayeque region, about 800 kilometers north of Lima, had genetic links to the contemporaneous populations of Ecuador, Colombia, Siberia, Taiwan and to the Ainu people of northern Japan.
The studies will be continued on descendents of the Mochica culture, from the same region, who are currently working on the Sican Project and with people who live in the vicinity of the Bosque de Pomac Historical Sanctuary.
According to Peruvian archaeologist Luis Chero, "Currently, the DNA results have great value because they can be understood to show that there were people who arrived in these zones from Asia and who then converted these zones into the great culture of the New World."
The results of the studies will be presented at an exhibit on the Sican culture that will be set up for a year at the Tokyo Museum of Science and Nature.
Also to be displayed at that exhibit will be gold, silver and copper jewelry found in the tombs of the ancient Sican rulers and priests.
--- ANI
Ancient Chemical Warfare
From Scientific American
January 16, 2008
Did the Persians use chemical warfare against the Romans?
These days, chemical warfare is commonly associated with the modern world, such as the gassing of enemy troops in World War I and the Kurds in 1987-88 by Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. But archaeological evidence suggests that it was used in antiquity by Persian warriors when the soldiers suffocated their Roman enemies using bitumen, or pitch (a tarry, sour oil), and sulfur crystals.
Archeologist Simon James of the University of Leicester in England says he discovered a "crime scene" indicating that Persian warriors suffocated 20 Roman soldiers in a Syrian mine. The attack occurred around A.D. 256, when soldiers from the Persian Sassanid Empire invaded Dura-Europos, a highly coveted city on the Euphrates River that had previously been conquered by the Romans.
Although the bodies, stacked atop one another, were discovered in an underground tunnel in the 1930s, James went back to investigate the cause of their deaths. He didn't buy earlier theories that the Romans had died when the tunnel collapsed. After reviewing archival records showing sulfur crystals and a jar of pitch in the mine, he came up with another theory: The Persians gassed the group to death using highly flammable pitch and sulfur crystals that created sulfur dioxide when the chemicals were burned in a controlled fire. The Persians then piled the corpses on top of one another, using them as a kind of fortress to keep out approaching Romans, and set a large fire to collapse the tunnel.
"We know from the finds that the Persians had bitumen, or pitch, and sulfur crystals—highly inflammable, smoke-generating chemicals," James tells ScientificAmerican.com. "If you'll excuse the pun, it's a smoking gun. Deliberately chucking sulfur crystals onto a fire; in modern terms we call this chemical warfare."
Written texts suggest that the ancient Greeks had engaged in chemical warfare several hundred years earlier, using braziers (pans for holding hot coals), bellows and burning feathers against the Romans in 189 B.C. at the siege of Ambracia. But James says that although this is the earliest archaeological evidence of chemical warfare, no accounts of the battle recorded by participants or witnesses have been unearthed.
His interpretation shows that "you can create a real story out of battlefield patterns that archaeologists find," Melissa Connor, director of forensic science at Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln, told Science News.
James presented his findings last weekend at the Archaeological Institute of America meeting in Philadelphia.
January 16, 2008
Did the Persians use chemical warfare against the Romans?
These days, chemical warfare is commonly associated with the modern world, such as the gassing of enemy troops in World War I and the Kurds in 1987-88 by Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. But archaeological evidence suggests that it was used in antiquity by Persian warriors when the soldiers suffocated their Roman enemies using bitumen, or pitch (a tarry, sour oil), and sulfur crystals.
Archeologist Simon James of the University of Leicester in England says he discovered a "crime scene" indicating that Persian warriors suffocated 20 Roman soldiers in a Syrian mine. The attack occurred around A.D. 256, when soldiers from the Persian Sassanid Empire invaded Dura-Europos, a highly coveted city on the Euphrates River that had previously been conquered by the Romans.
Although the bodies, stacked atop one another, were discovered in an underground tunnel in the 1930s, James went back to investigate the cause of their deaths. He didn't buy earlier theories that the Romans had died when the tunnel collapsed. After reviewing archival records showing sulfur crystals and a jar of pitch in the mine, he came up with another theory: The Persians gassed the group to death using highly flammable pitch and sulfur crystals that created sulfur dioxide when the chemicals were burned in a controlled fire. The Persians then piled the corpses on top of one another, using them as a kind of fortress to keep out approaching Romans, and set a large fire to collapse the tunnel.
"We know from the finds that the Persians had bitumen, or pitch, and sulfur crystals—highly inflammable, smoke-generating chemicals," James tells ScientificAmerican.com. "If you'll excuse the pun, it's a smoking gun. Deliberately chucking sulfur crystals onto a fire; in modern terms we call this chemical warfare."
Written texts suggest that the ancient Greeks had engaged in chemical warfare several hundred years earlier, using braziers (pans for holding hot coals), bellows and burning feathers against the Romans in 189 B.C. at the siege of Ambracia. But James says that although this is the earliest archaeological evidence of chemical warfare, no accounts of the battle recorded by participants or witnesses have been unearthed.
His interpretation shows that "you can create a real story out of battlefield patterns that archaeologists find," Melissa Connor, director of forensic science at Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln, told Science News.
James presented his findings last weekend at the Archaeological Institute of America meeting in Philadelphia.
2009 Corus Update
Updating Round 1 results for Hou Yifan yesterday:
GM Yifan Hou (2571) - GM Kasimdzhanov (2687) [C92]Corus, 17.01.20091.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0–0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 0–0 9.h3 Re8 10.d4 Bb7 11.Ng5 Rf8 12.Nf3 Re8 13.Ng5 Rf8 14.Nf3 Re8 15.a4 h6 16.Nbd2 Bf8 17.Bc2 exd4 18.cxd4 Nb4 19.Bb1 c5 20.d5 Nd7 21.Ra3 c4 22.Nd4 Qf6 23.N2f3 Nc5 24.axb5 axb5 25.Nxb5 Rxa3 26.Nxa3 Ba6 27.Re3 Rb8 28.Rc3 Nbd3 29.Bxd3 cxd3 30.Be3 Nxe4 31.Rc6 Ra8 32.Qa4 d2 33.Nxd2 Nxd2 34.Rxa6 Qxb2 35.Bxd2 Rxa6 36.Qxa6 Qxd2 37.Qc4 Qd1+ 38.Kh2 Qe1 39.Qd4 g6 40.Nc4 Qe2 41.Nd2 Bg7 42.Qe3 Qd1 43.g3 Kh7 44.Qf4 Kg8 45.Qe3 h5 46.h4 Be5 47.Qg5 Kg7 48.Qe3 Bf6 49.Qf4 Be5 50.Qe3 Kf8 51.Qg5 Kg8 52.Ne4 Qd4 53.Qe3 Qxd5 54.Ng5 Kg7 55.Nf3 Bf6 56.Kg2 Qc6 57.Qd3 d5 58.Kf1 Kf8 59.Qa3+ Kg7 60.Qd3 Qc5 61.Ne1 Qc4 62.Ke2 Bd4 63.Qxc4 dxc4 64.Nf3 Ba7 65.Nd2 c3 66.Ne4 c2 67.Kd2 f5 68.Nc3 Bxf2 69.Ne2 f4 70.gxf4 Kf6 71.Kxc2 Kf5 72.Kd3 Kg4 73.Ke4 Bxh4 74.Nd4 Bf2 75.Nf3 h4 76.Ne5+ Kg3 77.f5 h3 Black wins 0–1
Round 2 results:
Group B: Y. Hou - K. Sasikiran 1-0
Group C: D. Harika - E. Iturrizaga ½-½
Susan Polgar is featuring live commentary/analysis on some of the Corus games at her blog.
Standings after Round 2 (Groups B and C only):
Group B:
1. N. Short, D. Navara, Z. Efimenko, F. Caruana, R. Kasimdzhanov 1½
6. Y. Hou, A. Volokitin, J. Werle, F. Vallejo Pons, E. l'Ami 1
11.K. Sasikiran, D. Reinderman, A. Motylev ½
14.H. Mecking 0
Group C:
1. M. Bosboom 2
2. T. Hillarp Persson, O. Romanishin, E. Iturrizaga, D. Harika,
W. So, R. Pruijssers 1½
8. A. Giri, A. Gupta 1
10.F. Holzke, A. Bitalzadeh ½
12.D. Howell, F. Nijboer, M. Leon Hoyos 0
GM Yifan Hou (2571) - GM Kasimdzhanov (2687) [C92]Corus, 17.01.20091.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0–0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 0–0 9.h3 Re8 10.d4 Bb7 11.Ng5 Rf8 12.Nf3 Re8 13.Ng5 Rf8 14.Nf3 Re8 15.a4 h6 16.Nbd2 Bf8 17.Bc2 exd4 18.cxd4 Nb4 19.Bb1 c5 20.d5 Nd7 21.Ra3 c4 22.Nd4 Qf6 23.N2f3 Nc5 24.axb5 axb5 25.Nxb5 Rxa3 26.Nxa3 Ba6 27.Re3 Rb8 28.Rc3 Nbd3 29.Bxd3 cxd3 30.Be3 Nxe4 31.Rc6 Ra8 32.Qa4 d2 33.Nxd2 Nxd2 34.Rxa6 Qxb2 35.Bxd2 Rxa6 36.Qxa6 Qxd2 37.Qc4 Qd1+ 38.Kh2 Qe1 39.Qd4 g6 40.Nc4 Qe2 41.Nd2 Bg7 42.Qe3 Qd1 43.g3 Kh7 44.Qf4 Kg8 45.Qe3 h5 46.h4 Be5 47.Qg5 Kg7 48.Qe3 Bf6 49.Qf4 Be5 50.Qe3 Kf8 51.Qg5 Kg8 52.Ne4 Qd4 53.Qe3 Qxd5 54.Ng5 Kg7 55.Nf3 Bf6 56.Kg2 Qc6 57.Qd3 d5 58.Kf1 Kf8 59.Qa3+ Kg7 60.Qd3 Qc5 61.Ne1 Qc4 62.Ke2 Bd4 63.Qxc4 dxc4 64.Nf3 Ba7 65.Nd2 c3 66.Ne4 c2 67.Kd2 f5 68.Nc3 Bxf2 69.Ne2 f4 70.gxf4 Kf6 71.Kxc2 Kf5 72.Kd3 Kg4 73.Ke4 Bxh4 74.Nd4 Bf2 75.Nf3 h4 76.Ne5+ Kg3 77.f5 h3 Black wins 0–1
Round 2 results:
Group B: Y. Hou - K. Sasikiran 1-0
Group C: D. Harika - E. Iturrizaga ½-½
Susan Polgar is featuring live commentary/analysis on some of the Corus games at her blog.
Standings after Round 2 (Groups B and C only):
Group B:
1. N. Short, D. Navara, Z. Efimenko, F. Caruana, R. Kasimdzhanov 1½
6. Y. Hou, A. Volokitin, J. Werle, F. Vallejo Pons, E. l'Ami 1
11.K. Sasikiran, D. Reinderman, A. Motylev ½
14.H. Mecking 0
Group C:
1. M. Bosboom 2
2. T. Hillarp Persson, O. Romanishin, E. Iturrizaga, D. Harika,
W. So, R. Pruijssers 1½
8. A. Giri, A. Gupta 1
10.F. Holzke, A. Bitalzadeh ½
12.D. Howell, F. Nijboer, M. Leon Hoyos 0
Saturday, January 17, 2009
The Gault Site
Until I read this article, I had no idea that the Gault site had been a "pay to dig" site or that it had been subject wholesale to looting. 1929 - this dude Pearce is considered a revered figure in archaeology? More like a looter himself - just like Woolley (Ur) and Carter (King "Tut's" tomb, Egypt) and the other so-called "archaeologists" of that era. They were all out to find gold treasure trove, like Schliemann had a few generations before at Troy. I'm more of an archaeologist than they ever were - and I have no formal training whatsoever! (Image: Clovis point, Gault site)The second interesting point of this article is that it points to pre-Clovis peoples here in North and South America and, specifically, at the Gault site. Well - duh! Archaeological evidence of this has been uncovered at other sites scattered across North American for at least the past 20 years (maybe even longer than that). However, vested interests and reputations are at stake - it would NOT do to admit one was a bit hasty in interpreting existing evidence at the time, oh no! Can't do that - what would happen to the textbook contract and all the papers written IGNORING all available evidence at the time? In this day and age of the internet and instant communications, can that kind of academic arrogance continue to stand?
The Gault site
Written by Chris Dyer Friday, 16 January 2009
The Gault Site, located northeast of Florence off FM 2843, is considered one of the premier archeological discoveries in North America. James E. Pearce, known as the Father of Texas archeology, excavated the site in 1929. Texas’ first professional archaeologist, Pearce also served as the chairman of the University of Texas’ anthropology department in the 1920s and was instrumental in founding the Texas Memorial Museum in Austin.
Pearce-led excavations, spanning eight weeks at the Gault Site — named because of its original location on the farm of Henry and Jodie Gault — revealed a wealth of information. For the next 60 years, collectors and looters gained access to the site and focused their search for valuable artifacts on the upper deposits. For a while, archaeologists believed that all of the levels of human occupation at Gault had been destroyed.
Up until 1998 the location had been operated, on and off, as a commercial pay-to-dig site where anyone could dig, sometimes for as little as $10 a day. Property ownership changed hands and the pay-to-dig days were over. In 1990, a collector discovered two incised stones sandwiching a Clovis point. Luckily, the looters and collectors had left the site’s deeper layers containing Clovis deposits relatively undisturbed.
Clovis culture defines a period of thousands of years (from 9,000 to 13,500 years ago), and does not just define the people at Gault. The term encompasses all people using Clovis technology, first discovered in Clovis, N.M. The archaeologists at Gault are studying all the different patterns of human activity, which span many thousands of years, and comparing the data to other sites all over the continent to better understand the Clovis culture as a whole.
“The Gault School is interested in the larger question of the peopling of the Americas — who were the first peoples, what were they like and where did they come from?” Clark Wernecke, director of the Gault School of Archaeological Research in Austin, said. “Discoveries at Gault, right here in Central Texas, include 65 percent of all known excavated Clovis materials and play an important part in this discussion. If we were to discover artifacts below the Clovis strata, that part becomes even more important.”
Wernecke said an estimated 1.7 million artifacts, 600,000 of which are Clovis age, have been recovered from Gault.
Archeological evidence reveals that the most common food source at Gault was small amphibians and turtles, and people lived at the site for extended periods of time. This contradicts the idea that all people of the Clovis culture were nomadic and survived solely by following herds of mammoth and other large game across the continent. Remains of mammoth turn up at Gault, but not as frequently as evidence of a host of other food sources.
Archaeologists are focusing their efforts on excavating areas below the Clovis layer and are attempting to determine if Gault will yield evidence of people who lived in Central Texas prior to 13,500 years ago. Deep tests conducted at the site have repeatedly turned up evidence of pre-Clovis occupation.
The Gault Project team wants to construct an interpretive center at the site, complete with walking trails where people can learn about Central Texas’ history and environment.
The site is open by appointment, and Gault staff and volunteers give guided tours. To volunteer or schedule a tour or field trip, visit http://www.gaultschool.org/.
Chris Dyer is the director of The Williamson Museum, 716 S. Austin Ave., Georgetown.
*************************
Some information on the Gault Site - and photographs.
Zip Your Lip If You've Seen The Virgin Mary
From The Independent.
Catholics ordered to keep quiet over Virgin visions
By Jerome Taylor and Simon Caldwell
Tuesday, 13 January 2009
Catholics who claim they have seen the Virgin Mary will be forced to remain silent about the apparitions until a team of psychologists, theologians, priests and exorcists have fully investigated their claims under new Vatican guidelines aimed at stamping out false claims of miracles.
The Pope has instructed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly the Holy Office of the Inquisition, to draw up a new handbook to help bishops snuff out an explosion of bogus heavenly apparitions.
Benedict XVI plans to update the Vatican's current rules on investigating apparitions to help distinguish between true and false claims of visions of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, messages, stigmata (the appearances of the five wounds of Christ), weeping and bleeding statues and Eucharistic miracles.
Monsignor Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, a respected Spanish Jesuit archbishop, has been placed in charge of drawing up the handbook, known as a "vademecum", which will update the current rules set in 1978.
According to Petrus, an Italian online magazine which leans towards conservative elements in the Vatican, anyone who claims to have seen an apparition will only be believed as long as they remain silent and do not court publicity over their claims. If they refuse to obey, this will be taken as a sign that their claims are false.
The visionaries will then be visited by a team of psychiatrists, either atheists or Catholics, to certify their mental health while theologians will assess the content of any heavenly messages to see if they contravene Church teachings.
If the visionary is considered credible they will ultimately be questioned by one or more demonologists and exorcists to exclude the possibility that Satan is hiding behind the apparitions in order to deceive the faithful.
Guidelines for the approval of apparitions and revelations were last issued in 1978. They lay down that a diocesan bishop can "either on his own initiative or at the request of the faithful" choose to investigate an alleged apparition. He then submits a report to the Vatican for approval.
And is it just my imagination, or is something really strange going on here - Taylor Caldwell??? That is the combined name of the last names of the two authors of this article. Taylor Caldwell is one of my favorite authors - her actual name was Janet Miriam Holland Taylor Caldwell. I didn't agree with her politics (I'm an unabashed LIBERAL) but the woman sure could write about the workings of families and the inner dialogs that constantly take place within a human being. Given what she wrote about, I'm sure Taylor Caldwell would be smiling and nodding and going "yep," about this article...
Catholics ordered to keep quiet over Virgin visions
By Jerome Taylor and Simon Caldwell
Tuesday, 13 January 2009
Catholics who claim they have seen the Virgin Mary will be forced to remain silent about the apparitions until a team of psychologists, theologians, priests and exorcists have fully investigated their claims under new Vatican guidelines aimed at stamping out false claims of miracles.
The Pope has instructed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly the Holy Office of the Inquisition, to draw up a new handbook to help bishops snuff out an explosion of bogus heavenly apparitions.
Benedict XVI plans to update the Vatican's current rules on investigating apparitions to help distinguish between true and false claims of visions of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, messages, stigmata (the appearances of the five wounds of Christ), weeping and bleeding statues and Eucharistic miracles.
Monsignor Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, a respected Spanish Jesuit archbishop, has been placed in charge of drawing up the handbook, known as a "vademecum", which will update the current rules set in 1978.
According to Petrus, an Italian online magazine which leans towards conservative elements in the Vatican, anyone who claims to have seen an apparition will only be believed as long as they remain silent and do not court publicity over their claims. If they refuse to obey, this will be taken as a sign that their claims are false.
The visionaries will then be visited by a team of psychiatrists, either atheists or Catholics, to certify their mental health while theologians will assess the content of any heavenly messages to see if they contravene Church teachings.
If the visionary is considered credible they will ultimately be questioned by one or more demonologists and exorcists to exclude the possibility that Satan is hiding behind the apparitions in order to deceive the faithful.
Guidelines for the approval of apparitions and revelations were last issued in 1978. They lay down that a diocesan bishop can "either on his own initiative or at the request of the faithful" choose to investigate an alleged apparition. He then submits a report to the Vatican for approval.
******************************
I'm no religious historian or a follower of the Roman Catholic Church (I ran from that church as soon as I was old enough to defy my parents and say no, I'm NOT going), but seems to me that Benedict is so paranoid about the admittedly Marian legacy of his predecessor, Jean Paul II, that he is bending over backwards to remove ALL mystery from the Roman Catholic religious experience (not that great to begin with, believe me). Hmmm....And is it just my imagination, or is something really strange going on here - Taylor Caldwell??? That is the combined name of the last names of the two authors of this article. Taylor Caldwell is one of my favorite authors - her actual name was Janet Miriam Holland Taylor Caldwell. I didn't agree with her politics (I'm an unabashed LIBERAL) but the woman sure could write about the workings of families and the inner dialogs that constantly take place within a human being. Given what she wrote about, I'm sure Taylor Caldwell would be smiling and nodding and going "yep," about this article...
Corus 2009
This excellent chess event has expanded and increased its lustre over the 11 years I've been following chess events online. This year there is no female player in Group A (the elite group), but in Group B WGM Hou Yifan of China (2571) and in Group C IM Harika Dronavalli (IND 2473) are playing against the chess dudes.
Round 1 is played today:
H. Yifan - R. Kasimdzhanov (no results as of the time of this post)
A. Gupta - D. Harika 0-1 Yeaaaaahhhhh! Dronavalli has won her game, but at the expense of her fellow countryman!
Round 1 is played today:
H. Yifan - R. Kasimdzhanov (no results as of the time of this post)
A. Gupta - D. Harika 0-1 Yeaaaaahhhhh! Dronavalli has won her game, but at the expense of her fellow countryman!
Chess: Top-Rated Women in the World
The No. 1 female chessplayer in the world is still GM Judit Polgar. Actions speak louder than words - and Polgar has amply demonstrated how difficult it is to maintain an elite chess rating while also trying to be a full-time mom. For the first time in a long time, Polgar has dropped below 2700 ELO on the combined ratings list (that is, men and women). In the January, 2009 FIDE reporting period, she dropped from 27th on the list (I remember as if it was yesterday when she was one of the top 10 players in the world) to 36th, and her ELO is currently 2693. Say what!?! Unbelievable. I never thought I'd see JP below 2700 or out of the top 20 players in the world.
Don't get me wrong, darlings! Her rating is not mince-meat! But given her recent performances and the continued decline in her overall standing on the FIDE list relative to other players, can she still be considered an "elite" player - one of the so-called "super" GMs?
Here are the other women who, in the world of female chessplayers, are the elite. To make the top 100 in the world, one needs an ELO of 2634. Of the elite female players other than Judith Polgar, only Koneru Humpy is close:
1 Polgar, Judit g HUN 2693 8 1976
2 Koneru, Humpy g IND 2621 6 1987
3 Hou, Yifan wg CHN 2571 15 1994
4 Stefanova, Antoaneta g BUL 2557 25 1979
5 Cramling, Pia g SWE 2548 15 1963
6 Muzychuk, Anna m SLO 2540 36 1990
7 Sebag, Marie g FRA 2529 15 1986
8 Dzagnidze, Nana g GEO 2518 26 1987
9 Chiburdanidze, Maia g GEO 2516 14 1961
10 Kosteniuk, Alexandra g RUS 2516 8 1984
11 Zhao, Xue g CHN 2508 16 1985
12 Arakhamia-Grant, Ketevan m SCO 2500 32 1968
13 Ushenina, Anna m UKR 2499 32 1985
14 Kosintseva, Tatiana m RUS 2497 25 1986
15 Cmilyte, Viktorija m LTU 2497 24 1983
16 Danielian, Elina m ARM 2496 18 1978
17 Ruan, Lufei wg CHN 2496 0 1987
18 Zhu, Chen g QAT 2496 0 1976
19 Zhukova, Natalia wg UKR 2490 16 1979
20 Lahno, Kateryna g UKR 2488 15 1989
Don't get me wrong, darlings! Her rating is not mince-meat! But given her recent performances and the continued decline in her overall standing on the FIDE list relative to other players, can she still be considered an "elite" player - one of the so-called "super" GMs?
Here are the other women who, in the world of female chessplayers, are the elite. To make the top 100 in the world, one needs an ELO of 2634. Of the elite female players other than Judith Polgar, only Koneru Humpy is close:
1 Polgar, Judit g HUN 2693 8 1976
2 Koneru, Humpy g IND 2621 6 1987
3 Hou, Yifan wg CHN 2571 15 1994
4 Stefanova, Antoaneta g BUL 2557 25 1979
5 Cramling, Pia g SWE 2548 15 1963
6 Muzychuk, Anna m SLO 2540 36 1990
7 Sebag, Marie g FRA 2529 15 1986
8 Dzagnidze, Nana g GEO 2518 26 1987
9 Chiburdanidze, Maia g GEO 2516 14 1961
10 Kosteniuk, Alexandra g RUS 2516 8 1984
11 Zhao, Xue g CHN 2508 16 1985
12 Arakhamia-Grant, Ketevan m SCO 2500 32 1968
13 Ushenina, Anna m UKR 2499 32 1985
14 Kosintseva, Tatiana m RUS 2497 25 1986
15 Cmilyte, Viktorija m LTU 2497 24 1983
16 Danielian, Elina m ARM 2496 18 1978
17 Ruan, Lufei wg CHN 2496 0 1987
18 Zhu, Chen g QAT 2496 0 1976
19 Zhukova, Natalia wg UKR 2490 16 1979
20 Lahno, Kateryna g UKR 2488 15 1989
India Loses Chess Pioneer
From the Hindu.com
January 17, 2009
Subbarayan passes away
BANGALORE: India’s first international chess arbiter and veteran chess administrator L.S. Subbarayan died here on Friday following a cardiac arrest. He was 79 and is survived by wife, son and a daughter.
Mr. Lalgudi Saptharishi Subbarayan, who was born in Mysore was the son of illustrious mathematician Saptharishi Iyer of Mysore University.
‘LSS’, as he was affectionately called, worked in the Postal Department in Chennai till 1964 and also served as secretary of the Madras Chess Association.
After his transfer to Mysore, he became the secretary of the Mysore State Chess Association and later became the treasurer of the All India Chess Federation.
Subbarayan qualified as an International Arbiter in the Asian women’s championship held at Hyderabad in 1978 and was also the arbiter for the Grandmasters event held in Bangalore in 1981. — Special Correspondent
January 17, 2009
Subbarayan passes away
BANGALORE: India’s first international chess arbiter and veteran chess administrator L.S. Subbarayan died here on Friday following a cardiac arrest. He was 79 and is survived by wife, son and a daughter.
Mr. Lalgudi Saptharishi Subbarayan, who was born in Mysore was the son of illustrious mathematician Saptharishi Iyer of Mysore University.
‘LSS’, as he was affectionately called, worked in the Postal Department in Chennai till 1964 and also served as secretary of the Madras Chess Association.
After his transfer to Mysore, he became the secretary of the Mysore State Chess Association and later became the treasurer of the All India Chess Federation.
Subbarayan qualified as an International Arbiter in the Asian women’s championship held at Hyderabad in 1978 and was also the arbiter for the Grandmasters event held in Bangalore in 1981. — Special Correspondent
Friday, January 16, 2009
Do Not Attempt To Do This Alone...
Hola! I'm still home from work - going stir crazy! Milwaukee is in the deep, deep freeze for the second day in a row and Milwaukee Public Schools were once again shut down because of dangerous windchills. The forecast promises the beginning of moderating temperatures later this evening, and I understand that the windchills outside right now are in the low teens below zero instead of 35 below zero as they were this morning.
It is so deceptive looking outside. The sun is shining brightly (it was yesterday, too) and the winds are not as strong today as yesterday, but the air temperature is colder today than yesterday so the net result is the same.
My house has been snapping, crackling, popping and groaning all week as the temperatures plunged - I'm amazed it's still standing! During the day the sun is strong enough to evaporate away all the frost built up inside the windows (it comes back, as if by magic, overnight).
So, enough about the weather. I'll be going into the office tomorrow to start to make up for lost time and so I've been working like a maniac yesterday and today trying to get my new room and the guest room in order. The Christmas tree and all Christmas decorations are still standing...
Changes since my last redecorating recap:
At present, the three bookcases and filing cabinet from the former den have been emptied and dragged/pushed/carried into my former room, which is a gigantic mess, albeit a roomy mess without the bed, and soon it will seem even bigger when the triple dresser is moved into my new room. (Photo: Some contents of the bookcases temporarily stashed on the floor in my new room).
While cleaning out the bookcases, I discovered old bank statements some dating all the way back to 1984 - six years before I moved into this house! (Photo: Rearranging one's house means drinking lots of cheap boxed wine and keeping a constantly replenished glass of same close to hand - here are some of the ancient bank statements stashed in shoe boxes and laying lose on the counter in the kitchen). I suspect, although I can't prove - that they illicitly bred and multiplied like rabbits some time during 1996...
There are bags of my old Regency romances, adventure and mystery paperbacks stashed all over, including the upstairs bathroom. I will sort through them, keeping only my absolute favorites, freeing up valuable shelf space for my ever-growing collection of chess books and tomes on ancient civilizations and history. (Photo: In my former bedroom with its pink walls, where the desktop computer and digital t.v. now sit, some of the paper bags filled with paperbacks, historical and topical research in manila folders, a collection of archaeology magazines, and various tomes and papers on ancient history and chess).
Feeling frisky today (as I said, stir crazy), I decided I would attempt to move the triple dresser from my new room into the guest room all by myself, despite its size, and also move the triple dresser from my former room into my new room. I figured, how heavy can a dresser be with all the drawers removed? Well, the dresser in the guest room wasn't too heavy once I got my hips into it, except I ran into a slight problem. As I was shoving it along toward the door suddenly it stopped - the top of the mirror hit the top of the door frame! The mirror is taller than the door frame! Eek!
After fortifying myself with a big glass of wine and a couple of microwaved White Castle cheeseburgers, I tackled the impediment. I was able to easily enough loosen the bolts holding the mirror on to the dresser, but I was not prepared for how HEAVY the mirror was! I mean, darlings, I knew it would be heavy but I swear this thing weighs 100 pounds, maybe 200 pounds (well, all right, 100 pounds). Thankfully, my back was hard up against a wall when I pulled out the last bolt and gingerly worked the mirror off the top of the dresser toward me. I expected weight, but not a TON! Amazingly, I did not drop the mirror and therefore all my toes are still on my feet. There is not even a dent in the wall where I rammed back with the weight of the mirror. I don't know exactly how, but I did manage to get the mirror safely to the floor. Whew! No longer a joke, I guess I must have arms like Popeye, or am strong like bull.
Not to worry - before I attempt to move the dresser from this room (the new den/computer room/library), I will measure how tall the combined dresser with mirror is against the height of the doors - just eyeballing it I think I will make it with half a foot to spare - piece of cake! More heaving, shoving, tugging and pulling is on the agenda - but I'm nearly finished with the hard stuff in the bedrooms, yippee! I've been doing fun stuff in-between times while resting (lots of heavy breathing and aerobic workout of the heart muscle is involved when moving furniture by one's self, and that entails lots of rest breaks) -- shopping on the internet for new accessories and art work! It seems not a single thing I have had hanging in this house for nearly 20 years will go with the new color schemes in the bedrooms (other than the lovely old still life - see above). What I am going to do with all the old, accumulated stuff? I dread the thought of a rummage sale. Maybe I'll just hang it all on the walls in the den/library/computer room wherever I can fit it in (I have lots of maps I constantly consult that will go up on the walls first) and be damned with color and style coordination -- after dondelion finishes repainting the room when he visits in May.
It is so deceptive looking outside. The sun is shining brightly (it was yesterday, too) and the winds are not as strong today as yesterday, but the air temperature is colder today than yesterday so the net result is the same.
My house has been snapping, crackling, popping and groaning all week as the temperatures plunged - I'm amazed it's still standing! During the day the sun is strong enough to evaporate away all the frost built up inside the windows (it comes back, as if by magic, overnight).
So, enough about the weather. I'll be going into the office tomorrow to start to make up for lost time and so I've been working like a maniac yesterday and today trying to get my new room and the guest room in order. The Christmas tree and all Christmas decorations are still standing...
Changes since my last redecorating recap:
- My favorite old still life print came down from my room - I just could not reconcile the reddish orange and orange flowers in the bouquet with the red in my new comforter. But I am not banishing the print back to the closet - I think it will look great in the guest room.
- Following P's advise about using the back-up new stuff in the guest room, the black and cream paisley print comforter and pillow shams that have been piled in one of the closets for over two years now reside in the guest bedroom, along with one set of the striped curtains that formerly graced my new bedroom. I made up the bed last night; hung the new curtains this morning.
- I also moved the black/white gingham check sheet set to the guest room, minus the pillow cases, which remain in my room for needed geometric contrast with the red/black/white plaid comforter and the traditional black/cream toile curtains. I substituted plain white pillow cases on the guest room pillows. I also removed the white piquet bed skirt from my bed to the guest room where the 14" drop fits just right on that bed, the bottom hovering just above the carpet.
- My room is temporarily without a bedskirt, but not for long! I just checked the mail and a new black 18" drop bedskirt arrived via priority mail, over which I will install the 14" drop black and cream striped bedskirt pilfered from the paisley print "bed-in-a-bag" set. Once ironed and wrestled into place (anyone who has ever put a bedskirt on a bed with mattress already on it will know what I mean), they will complete the look of my bed emsemble to perfection!
At present, the three bookcases and filing cabinet from the former den have been emptied and dragged/pushed/carried into my former room, which is a gigantic mess, albeit a roomy mess without the bed, and soon it will seem even bigger when the triple dresser is moved into my new room. (Photo: Some contents of the bookcases temporarily stashed on the floor in my new room).
While cleaning out the bookcases, I discovered old bank statements some dating all the way back to 1984 - six years before I moved into this house! (Photo: Rearranging one's house means drinking lots of cheap boxed wine and keeping a constantly replenished glass of same close to hand - here are some of the ancient bank statements stashed in shoe boxes and laying lose on the counter in the kitchen). I suspect, although I can't prove - that they illicitly bred and multiplied like rabbits some time during 1996...
There are bags of my old Regency romances, adventure and mystery paperbacks stashed all over, including the upstairs bathroom. I will sort through them, keeping only my absolute favorites, freeing up valuable shelf space for my ever-growing collection of chess books and tomes on ancient civilizations and history. (Photo: In my former bedroom with its pink walls, where the desktop computer and digital t.v. now sit, some of the paper bags filled with paperbacks, historical and topical research in manila folders, a collection of archaeology magazines, and various tomes and papers on ancient history and chess). Feeling frisky today (as I said, stir crazy), I decided I would attempt to move the triple dresser from my new room into the guest room all by myself, despite its size, and also move the triple dresser from my former room into my new room. I figured, how heavy can a dresser be with all the drawers removed? Well, the dresser in the guest room wasn't too heavy once I got my hips into it, except I ran into a slight problem. As I was shoving it along toward the door suddenly it stopped - the top of the mirror hit the top of the door frame! The mirror is taller than the door frame! Eek!
After fortifying myself with a big glass of wine and a couple of microwaved White Castle cheeseburgers, I tackled the impediment. I was able to easily enough loosen the bolts holding the mirror on to the dresser, but I was not prepared for how HEAVY the mirror was! I mean, darlings, I knew it would be heavy but I swear this thing weighs 100 pounds, maybe 200 pounds (well, all right, 100 pounds). Thankfully, my back was hard up against a wall when I pulled out the last bolt and gingerly worked the mirror off the top of the dresser toward me. I expected weight, but not a TON! Amazingly, I did not drop the mirror and therefore all my toes are still on my feet. There is not even a dent in the wall where I rammed back with the weight of the mirror. I don't know exactly how, but I did manage to get the mirror safely to the floor. Whew! No longer a joke, I guess I must have arms like Popeye, or am strong like bull.
Not to worry - before I attempt to move the dresser from this room (the new den/computer room/library), I will measure how tall the combined dresser with mirror is against the height of the doors - just eyeballing it I think I will make it with half a foot to spare - piece of cake! More heaving, shoving, tugging and pulling is on the agenda - but I'm nearly finished with the hard stuff in the bedrooms, yippee! I've been doing fun stuff in-between times while resting (lots of heavy breathing and aerobic workout of the heart muscle is involved when moving furniture by one's self, and that entails lots of rest breaks) -- shopping on the internet for new accessories and art work! It seems not a single thing I have had hanging in this house for nearly 20 years will go with the new color schemes in the bedrooms (other than the lovely old still life - see above). What I am going to do with all the old, accumulated stuff? I dread the thought of a rummage sale. Maybe I'll just hang it all on the walls in the den/library/computer room wherever I can fit it in (I have lots of maps I constantly consult that will go up on the walls first) and be damned with color and style coordination -- after dondelion finishes repainting the room when he visits in May.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
"Stonehenge" in Lake Michigan?
This may be one of those "don't eat that, Elmer" stories. From NBCChicago.com:
Stonehenge in Lake Michigan? Potentially pre-historic stone formation discovered deep underwater
By MATT BARTOSIK
Updated 8:36 AM CST, Thu, Jan 8, 2009
The iconic Stonehenge in the UK is one of the most famous prehistoric monuments in the world, but it is not the only stone formation of its kind. Similar stone alignments have been found throughout England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales… and now, it seems, in Lake Michigan.
According to BLDGBLOG, in 2007, Mark Holley, professor of underwater archeology at Northwestern Michigan College, discovered a series of stones arranged in a circle 40 feet below the surface of Lake Michigan. One stone outside the circle seems to have carvings that resemble a mastodon—an elephant-like animal that went extinct about 10,000 years ago.
Archaeologists had been hired to survey the Lake's floor near Traverse City, Michigan, and examine old boat wrecks with a sonar device. They discovered sunken boats and cars and even a Civil War-era pier. But among these expected finds was a potentially-prehistoric surprise.
"When you see it in the water, you're tempted to say this is absolutely real," Holley told reporters at the time. "But that's what we need the experts to come in and verify."
Specialists involved in the case are skeptical and want to gather more info before making a judgment. The problem?
"They want to actually see it," said Holley. "Experts in petroglyphs generally don't dive, so we're running into a bit of a stumbling block there."
The formation, if authenticated, wouldn't be completely out of place. Stone circles and other petroglyph sites are located in the area.
While Chicago has an interesting and colorful history of its own, it's exciting to think that a North American version of Stonehenge could be sitting just over 200 miles away.
Copyright NBC Local Media / NBC Chicago
First Published: Jan 8, 2009 7:50 AM CST
I'll say this for Dr. Holley - he's a cutie in the publicity photo (but he probably doesn't look like that anymore, he looks about 12 in that photo). If this is the same Dr. Mark Holley as referenced in the article, he's got credentials so he's not necessarily blowing smoke when it comes to his reported discovery of a stone circle 40 feet below the surface of Lake Michigan.
Okay - did a little digging, found a photo. Hmmm, doesn't look like a stone circle at all, just a bunch of rocks and stones in no particular order.
And here's a photo of the "mastadon" carved rock. Come to think of it, I do recall something about this mastadon carving story, I don't remember if I blogged about it or not - or if we posted the story at Random Round-up at Goddesschess. I guess one has to be a trained archaeologist to see the mastodon in that rock, even with the helpful red outline drawn on the image!
Stonehenge in Lake Michigan? Potentially pre-historic stone formation discovered deep underwater
By MATT BARTOSIK
Updated 8:36 AM CST, Thu, Jan 8, 2009
The iconic Stonehenge in the UK is one of the most famous prehistoric monuments in the world, but it is not the only stone formation of its kind. Similar stone alignments have been found throughout England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales… and now, it seems, in Lake Michigan.
According to BLDGBLOG, in 2007, Mark Holley, professor of underwater archeology at Northwestern Michigan College, discovered a series of stones arranged in a circle 40 feet below the surface of Lake Michigan. One stone outside the circle seems to have carvings that resemble a mastodon—an elephant-like animal that went extinct about 10,000 years ago.
Archaeologists had been hired to survey the Lake's floor near Traverse City, Michigan, and examine old boat wrecks with a sonar device. They discovered sunken boats and cars and even a Civil War-era pier. But among these expected finds was a potentially-prehistoric surprise.
"When you see it in the water, you're tempted to say this is absolutely real," Holley told reporters at the time. "But that's what we need the experts to come in and verify."
Specialists involved in the case are skeptical and want to gather more info before making a judgment. The problem?
"They want to actually see it," said Holley. "Experts in petroglyphs generally don't dive, so we're running into a bit of a stumbling block there."
The formation, if authenticated, wouldn't be completely out of place. Stone circles and other petroglyph sites are located in the area.
While Chicago has an interesting and colorful history of its own, it's exciting to think that a North American version of Stonehenge could be sitting just over 200 miles away.
Copyright NBC Local Media / NBC Chicago
First Published: Jan 8, 2009 7:50 AM CST
*****************
I'll say this for Dr. Holley - he's a cutie in the publicity photo (but he probably doesn't look like that anymore, he looks about 12 in that photo). If this is the same Dr. Mark Holley as referenced in the article, he's got credentials so he's not necessarily blowing smoke when it comes to his reported discovery of a stone circle 40 feet below the surface of Lake Michigan.
Okay - did a little digging, found a photo. Hmmm, doesn't look like a stone circle at all, just a bunch of rocks and stones in no particular order.
And here's a photo of the "mastadon" carved rock. Come to think of it, I do recall something about this mastadon carving story, I don't remember if I blogged about it or not - or if we posted the story at Random Round-up at Goddesschess. I guess one has to be a trained archaeologist to see the mastodon in that rock, even with the helpful red outline drawn on the image!
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Mummy Dearest
Poor Mummy! Story from the Otago Daily Times (Dunedin, New Zealand)
Mummy facing up to more scrutiny
By John Gibb on Wed, 14 Jan 2009
However the Otago Museum's bandage-swathed mummy may have looked 2300 years ago, it certainly wasn't like film star Elizabeth Taylor.
But Taylor's memorable portrayal of Cleopatra in the movie of the same name has left its mark, Dave Wright, the museum's collections, assets and research director, said yesterday - so much so that many people think any female Egyptian mummy would look like her.
The museum will reveal more of its mummy's secrets at its "Egypt Unwrapped" day on January 28.
A non-intrusive CT scan of the mummy at Dunedin Hospital in 2000, which was used to create a three- dimensional computer model, showed the mummified woman was not exactly a raven-haired beauty when she died.
She had only six teeth and was likely to have been racked with pain from severe gum disease, including abscesses.
She was aged about 35 - at a time when many people did not live much beyond 40 - and is believed to have been middle-class.
Carbon-dating of linen from the mummy's wrappings and other analysis shows she lived during the Ptolemaic period (323BC to 30BC).
The mummy was bought in Egypt by Dunedin businessman and philanthropist Bendix Hallenstein and given to the museum in 1893.
On the Egypt theme day, museum visitors will see what University of Otago forensic specialists and others have done to reconstruct a facial likeness using only the skull of an unidentified person.
Late last year, they used the 3D computer model of the mummy's skull to cast an exact copy in resin. This will be displayed, along with two plaster heads cast from it. They will be covered in clay, with a computer program used to calculate facial soft-tissue depths on the face and head. One head will be painted with skin-like tones to give an impression - believed to be about 95% accurate - of the Egyptian woman's appearance.
This Saturday, the museum will also launch a contest encouraging the public to draw their predicted likeness of her.
Mr Wright said the project was applying science to the mysteries of the past.
"There's a hint of seeking the unknown."
Mummy facing up to more scrutiny
By John Gibb on Wed, 14 Jan 2009
However the Otago Museum's bandage-swathed mummy may have looked 2300 years ago, it certainly wasn't like film star Elizabeth Taylor.
But Taylor's memorable portrayal of Cleopatra in the movie of the same name has left its mark, Dave Wright, the museum's collections, assets and research director, said yesterday - so much so that many people think any female Egyptian mummy would look like her.
The museum will reveal more of its mummy's secrets at its "Egypt Unwrapped" day on January 28.
A non-intrusive CT scan of the mummy at Dunedin Hospital in 2000, which was used to create a three- dimensional computer model, showed the mummified woman was not exactly a raven-haired beauty when she died.
She had only six teeth and was likely to have been racked with pain from severe gum disease, including abscesses.
She was aged about 35 - at a time when many people did not live much beyond 40 - and is believed to have been middle-class.
Carbon-dating of linen from the mummy's wrappings and other analysis shows she lived during the Ptolemaic period (323BC to 30BC).
The mummy was bought in Egypt by Dunedin businessman and philanthropist Bendix Hallenstein and given to the museum in 1893.
On the Egypt theme day, museum visitors will see what University of Otago forensic specialists and others have done to reconstruct a facial likeness using only the skull of an unidentified person.
Late last year, they used the 3D computer model of the mummy's skull to cast an exact copy in resin. This will be displayed, along with two plaster heads cast from it. They will be covered in clay, with a computer program used to calculate facial soft-tissue depths on the face and head. One head will be painted with skin-like tones to give an impression - believed to be about 95% accurate - of the Egyptian woman's appearance.
This Saturday, the museum will also launch a contest encouraging the public to draw their predicted likeness of her.
Mr Wright said the project was applying science to the mysteries of the past.
"There's a hint of seeking the unknown."
Redecorating Bedroom Update
My "new" bedroom (the former guest room) did not stay static for long. I first added a second set of pillows to the bed, dressed in a cream and black diamond-vine print. Then I added the posts to the bed (they had been stashed in a closet). I liked how that turned out.
I next added two of my experimental photograph prints done in grey-scale and framed them in a couple of frames and mats I had stashed in a closet. I love how they look, but they don't show up very well in photos and, indeed, look rather lost above the bookcase. They seem to anchor that space in person much better than in the photographs I took, hmmm...
Then I decided that the white and black striped curtains were too summery for this weather, and replaced them with a pair and a half of Waverly toile curtains I purchased a couple of years ago - and never got around to putting up in my former bedroom because I never got around to repainting it, etc. etc.
Then I switched out the black/white checked top sheet with a top sheet that matches the print on the pillows against the headboard, keeping the black and white check on the fitted sheet and second set of pillow cases.
It was bothering me that the space above the headboard was BARE. When this room was the guest room, I had a very nice framed print of magnolias in primarily jewel-toned colors above the head board, and it suited the colors in the "bed in a bag" I used in that room perfectly.
I am still trying to decide what to do with that space (plates? a new print or prints? some other decoration flanked by sconces?), but in the meantime, I dug out a VERY old print I originally purchased back in 1978. It still has its original mat that has been repainted several times over the years - I used the most recent incarnation (done in bronze and gold paint sponged over the prior wine-red color, which had been painted over a prior mix of green and blue, which had been painted over the original mat of reddish-orange). I like how it looks in the room, but in the photo, it seems to lose something in translation.
Because the window on the right is much narrower than the window on the left, only one panel of the toile curtains covers it adequately, so I temporarily threw the second curtain panel over the wing chair in the corner. Not sure that chair will stay. At present, I think I will move it into the new guest room; it coordinates with that color scheme. I am thinking about moving a very old wing chair from my former bedroom into my new bedroom and buy a slipcover for it, since it's color does NOT remotely match anything in the new room! Or perhaps get a new chair and leave the old wing chair in what will become the den/library. I love that old chair, it's very comfortable! I bought it new in 1986 when I moved into my first house. It is a bit wider than the current wing chair in my new bedroom, so I'd need to do a bit of tweaking with furniture arrangement. I could be equally comfortable in that lovely old chair in the new den/library. So, things are up in the air with respect to the chair at present...
Things are still in transition. I haven't yet ordered throw rugs, and I'm still hemming and hawing about whether to order a pair of buffet lamps for the dresser (not show in photos) that I found on line that I absolutely fell in love with. Also, I'm not certain the old still-life print I have above the bed is the right "fit" - I may move it to above the bookcase and try some other arrangement above the headboard, or stash it somewhere else in the house. It IS one of my favorite prints, I hate the thought of putting it back in the closet. I keep thinking I should do something with toile pattern plates - but not sure that's really "me." On a lark I also printed out and framed one of the recent squirrel photos I took during the last major storm (we've had so many I forget which one, I think it was the one just before Christmas holiday), and I love how it looks - but it doesn't exactly fit in with a "toile bedroom" motif, LOL! On the other hand, I am SO bored with the cheap botanical prints that have been hanging in the small upstairs hallway for nearly 20 years, I took them down and tonight I put the sole squirrel print up in the vacated space. It looks lonely all by itself and I am thinking I will add one, two and possibly three additional squirrel prints, so I will have my little furry friends to greet me every morning on the way to the bathroom.
I did order an 18" bedskirt in black - I cannot abide that 4" gap between the standard 14" bedskirt and the floor! More purchases may follow, although I AM trying to be economical. Tonight I actually pulled out craft paints to repaint my old bedroom lamp. And although its current shade is cheap and tacky looking, it is still in perfect shape, and the aged color will go very well with the ivory colored background in the toile curtains in the "new" bedroom. Decisions, decisions...
I next added two of my experimental photograph prints done in grey-scale and framed them in a couple of frames and mats I had stashed in a closet. I love how they look, but they don't show up very well in photos and, indeed, look rather lost above the bookcase. They seem to anchor that space in person much better than in the photographs I took, hmmm...
Then I decided that the white and black striped curtains were too summery for this weather, and replaced them with a pair and a half of Waverly toile curtains I purchased a couple of years ago - and never got around to putting up in my former bedroom because I never got around to repainting it, etc. etc.Then I switched out the black/white checked top sheet with a top sheet that matches the print on the pillows against the headboard, keeping the black and white check on the fitted sheet and second set of pillow cases.
It was bothering me that the space above the headboard was BARE. When this room was the guest room, I had a very nice framed print of magnolias in primarily jewel-toned colors above the head board, and it suited the colors in the "bed in a bag" I used in that room perfectly.
I am still trying to decide what to do with that space (plates? a new print or prints? some other decoration flanked by sconces?), but in the meantime, I dug out a VERY old print I originally purchased back in 1978. It still has its original mat that has been repainted several times over the years - I used the most recent incarnation (done in bronze and gold paint sponged over the prior wine-red color, which had been painted over a prior mix of green and blue, which had been painted over the original mat of reddish-orange). I like how it looks in the room, but in the photo, it seems to lose something in translation.
Because the window on the right is much narrower than the window on the left, only one panel of the toile curtains covers it adequately, so I temporarily threw the second curtain panel over the wing chair in the corner. Not sure that chair will stay. At present, I think I will move it into the new guest room; it coordinates with that color scheme. I am thinking about moving a very old wing chair from my former bedroom into my new bedroom and buy a slipcover for it, since it's color does NOT remotely match anything in the new room! Or perhaps get a new chair and leave the old wing chair in what will become the den/library. I love that old chair, it's very comfortable! I bought it new in 1986 when I moved into my first house. It is a bit wider than the current wing chair in my new bedroom, so I'd need to do a bit of tweaking with furniture arrangement. I could be equally comfortable in that lovely old chair in the new den/library. So, things are up in the air with respect to the chair at present...
Things are still in transition. I haven't yet ordered throw rugs, and I'm still hemming and hawing about whether to order a pair of buffet lamps for the dresser (not show in photos) that I found on line that I absolutely fell in love with. Also, I'm not certain the old still-life print I have above the bed is the right "fit" - I may move it to above the bookcase and try some other arrangement above the headboard, or stash it somewhere else in the house. It IS one of my favorite prints, I hate the thought of putting it back in the closet. I keep thinking I should do something with toile pattern plates - but not sure that's really "me." On a lark I also printed out and framed one of the recent squirrel photos I took during the last major storm (we've had so many I forget which one, I think it was the one just before Christmas holiday), and I love how it looks - but it doesn't exactly fit in with a "toile bedroom" motif, LOL! On the other hand, I am SO bored with the cheap botanical prints that have been hanging in the small upstairs hallway for nearly 20 years, I took them down and tonight I put the sole squirrel print up in the vacated space. It looks lonely all by itself and I am thinking I will add one, two and possibly three additional squirrel prints, so I will have my little furry friends to greet me every morning on the way to the bathroom.
I did order an 18" bedskirt in black - I cannot abide that 4" gap between the standard 14" bedskirt and the floor! More purchases may follow, although I AM trying to be economical. Tonight I actually pulled out craft paints to repaint my old bedroom lamp. And although its current shade is cheap and tacky looking, it is still in perfect shape, and the aged color will go very well with the ivory colored background in the toile curtains in the "new" bedroom. Decisions, decisions...
Brrrrrrr!
Windchills have dropped to between 30 and 40 below zero F - no way I'm going to work tomorrow or Friday - can't make the walk to the bus stop without risking frostbite and I'm too cheap to pay the $60 round trip it would take for a taxi (including tip) to go to and from the office. Arrrggggh! I hate using "paid time off" days for something like this. On the plus side, I will be able to continue the total tear-down and revamp of the upstairs bedrooms.
The weather is supposed to turn on Saturday and I'll be headed to the office to make up for lost time. In the meantime, I hope to make further progress on switching out the upstairs rooms here. Tomorrow I tackle the bookcases, eek!
The past several days I've been experimenting with printing out photos since dondelion and my return from Las Vegas. I've also been experimenting with "effects" and printing photos in "grey scale" (something offered in my Microsoft images program) and "black and white" (something offered in my Ritz Pics program). Now if I could only figure out how to get my specially doctored-up Microsoft images to print centered in 5x7 or 8x10 size on my photo paper, I would be a very happy camper. But I haven't been able to figure that out, drat! Ritz Pics does print out beautifully centered photos with a nice border all the way around, but the photo quality cannot be adjusted and is not as crisp and clear as what I can generate in the Microsoft images program. So, I've been tinkering, and tinkering, and tinkering...so much so, I've been neglecting just about everything else! On the other hand, I have managed to produce some absolutely stunning photo prints. And - I may have found a sort-of solution -- tonight I discovered that I can import images from "My Photos" into the Ritz Pics program! It is in "My Photos" that I can do the digital magic to create special effects on an image, so I will do some further experimenting...
The weather is supposed to turn on Saturday and I'll be headed to the office to make up for lost time. In the meantime, I hope to make further progress on switching out the upstairs rooms here. Tomorrow I tackle the bookcases, eek!
The past several days I've been experimenting with printing out photos since dondelion and my return from Las Vegas. I've also been experimenting with "effects" and printing photos in "grey scale" (something offered in my Microsoft images program) and "black and white" (something offered in my Ritz Pics program). Now if I could only figure out how to get my specially doctored-up Microsoft images to print centered in 5x7 or 8x10 size on my photo paper, I would be a very happy camper. But I haven't been able to figure that out, drat! Ritz Pics does print out beautifully centered photos with a nice border all the way around, but the photo quality cannot be adjusted and is not as crisp and clear as what I can generate in the Microsoft images program. So, I've been tinkering, and tinkering, and tinkering...so much so, I've been neglecting just about everything else! On the other hand, I have managed to produce some absolutely stunning photo prints. And - I may have found a sort-of solution -- tonight I discovered that I can import images from "My Photos" into the Ritz Pics program! It is in "My Photos" that I can do the digital magic to create special effects on an image, so I will do some further experimenting...
Monday, January 12, 2009
Egypt hands over stolen goddess to Iraq
Mon, 12 Jan 2009 04:57:56 GMT
Egypt hands over an ancient Iraqi statue made of bronze, which was stolen from Iraq, to the country's Charge d'Affaires in Cairo.
Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), Zahi Hawass, while returning the statue of an ancient goddess at a ceremony on Sunday to Abdel Hadi Ahmed, said the stolen bronze statue had been stolen from Iraq and was found as an Egyptian man was trying to smuggle it into Egypt. He said the statue was to be smuggled via the port of Nuweiba, in the Sinai Peninsula.
According to SCA, the artifact, depicting a standing woman, was verified by an archaeological committee as an authentic Mesopotamian antique. Since the US war on Iraq in 2003, numerous Iraqi antiquities have been stolen out of Iraq, a country with rich cultural heritages.
FTP/MMA
Egypt hands over an ancient Iraqi statue made of bronze, which was stolen from Iraq, to the country's Charge d'Affaires in Cairo.
Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), Zahi Hawass, while returning the statue of an ancient goddess at a ceremony on Sunday to Abdel Hadi Ahmed, said the stolen bronze statue had been stolen from Iraq and was found as an Egyptian man was trying to smuggle it into Egypt. He said the statue was to be smuggled via the port of Nuweiba, in the Sinai Peninsula.
According to SCA, the artifact, depicting a standing woman, was verified by an archaeological committee as an authentic Mesopotamian antique. Since the US war on Iraq in 2003, numerous Iraqi antiquities have been stolen out of Iraq, a country with rich cultural heritages.
FTP/MMA
More on Scientific Basis for Sex-Based Differences in Chess Performance
Physorg.com weighs in on recent study about the differential in chess performance between males and females and what accounts for it:
Why Men Rank Higher than Women at Chess (It's Not Biological)
January 12th, 2009 by Lisa Zyga in General Science / Other
(PhysOrg.com) -- In the recorded history of chess, world champions have always been male, not female. Further, there is currently only one woman in the top 100 chess players in the world. Because chess is often considered to be the ultimate intellectual activity, male dominance at chess is often cited as an example of innate male intellectual superiority. But rather than resort to biological or cultural explanations, a recent study proposes a different explanation.
A team of researchers from the UK has shown that the under-representation of women at the top end in chess is almost exactly what would be expected, given the much greater number of men that participate in the game at all. Researchers Merim Bilalic, et al., have published their research on this statistical sampling explanation in a recent issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
The authors analyzed the population of about 120,000 German players as recorded by the German chess federation in April 2007. Based on more than 3,000 tournaments per year, the German chess federation measures the skill level of all competitive and most hobby players in the country (the rating correlates highly with the widely known Elo rating). The sample population included 113,386 men and 7,013 women (a ratio of 16:1).
First, the researchers estimated the expected performance of the top 100 male and top 100 female players. Then, they compared the expected differences in points between these high-ranking male and female players with the actual point differences. Theoretically, the size difference between the male and female groups should correspond to the point differences between the top performers in the two groups.
The results showed that the top three women had more points than expected, the next 70 or so pairs showed a small advantage for the men, and the last 20 pairs showed a small advantage for the women. Overall, men performed slightly better than expected, with an average advantage of 353 points, whereas the expected advantage was 341 points. Nevertheless, about 96% of the actual difference between genders could be explained by the statistical fact that the extreme values from a large sample are likely to be larger than those from a small one.
In the study, the scientists also discussed the question of why so few women participate in chess at all. While it's possible that there exists a self-selection process based on innate biological differences that leads women to drop out of chess early on, this argument rests on a controversial assumption, the researchers say. That is, it requires that there is an innate difference between genders in the intellectual abilities associated with chess - an assumption that has little empirical evidence to support it.
Whether or not statistical sampling covers all the bases of explaining male superiority in chess, the researchers hope that the explanation will be considered by both experts and laypeople. In previous discussions of gender difference, there is often no mention of participation rates, although a wide range of other reasons receive attention (e.g. different interests and gatekeeper effects, etc.).
In addition, the researchers question whether a statistical sampling explanation might explain the predominance of men at the top of science and engineering fields - although performance in these activities is much more difficult to measure than in objectively ranked chess populations.
More information: Bilalic, Merim; Smallbone, Kieran; McLeod, Peter; and Gobet, Fernand. "Why are (the best) women so good at chess? Participation rates and gender differences in intellectual domains." Proceedings of the Royal Society B. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2008.1576.
© 2009 PhysOrg.com
Why Men Rank Higher than Women at Chess (It's Not Biological)
January 12th, 2009 by Lisa Zyga in General Science / Other
(PhysOrg.com) -- In the recorded history of chess, world champions have always been male, not female. Further, there is currently only one woman in the top 100 chess players in the world. Because chess is often considered to be the ultimate intellectual activity, male dominance at chess is often cited as an example of innate male intellectual superiority. But rather than resort to biological or cultural explanations, a recent study proposes a different explanation.
A team of researchers from the UK has shown that the under-representation of women at the top end in chess is almost exactly what would be expected, given the much greater number of men that participate in the game at all. Researchers Merim Bilalic, et al., have published their research on this statistical sampling explanation in a recent issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
The authors analyzed the population of about 120,000 German players as recorded by the German chess federation in April 2007. Based on more than 3,000 tournaments per year, the German chess federation measures the skill level of all competitive and most hobby players in the country (the rating correlates highly with the widely known Elo rating). The sample population included 113,386 men and 7,013 women (a ratio of 16:1).
First, the researchers estimated the expected performance of the top 100 male and top 100 female players. Then, they compared the expected differences in points between these high-ranking male and female players with the actual point differences. Theoretically, the size difference between the male and female groups should correspond to the point differences between the top performers in the two groups.
The results showed that the top three women had more points than expected, the next 70 or so pairs showed a small advantage for the men, and the last 20 pairs showed a small advantage for the women. Overall, men performed slightly better than expected, with an average advantage of 353 points, whereas the expected advantage was 341 points. Nevertheless, about 96% of the actual difference between genders could be explained by the statistical fact that the extreme values from a large sample are likely to be larger than those from a small one.
In the study, the scientists also discussed the question of why so few women participate in chess at all. While it's possible that there exists a self-selection process based on innate biological differences that leads women to drop out of chess early on, this argument rests on a controversial assumption, the researchers say. That is, it requires that there is an innate difference between genders in the intellectual abilities associated with chess - an assumption that has little empirical evidence to support it.
Whether or not statistical sampling covers all the bases of explaining male superiority in chess, the researchers hope that the explanation will be considered by both experts and laypeople. In previous discussions of gender difference, there is often no mention of participation rates, although a wide range of other reasons receive attention (e.g. different interests and gatekeeper effects, etc.).
In addition, the researchers question whether a statistical sampling explanation might explain the predominance of men at the top of science and engineering fields - although performance in these activities is much more difficult to measure than in objectively ranked chess populations.
More information: Bilalic, Merim; Smallbone, Kieran; McLeod, Peter; and Gobet, Fernand. "Why are (the best) women so good at chess? Participation rates and gender differences in intellectual domains." Proceedings of the Royal Society B. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2008.1576.
© 2009 PhysOrg.com
Evidence for Ritual Sacrifice at Armenian Cave Site
From Sciencenews.org
Armenian cave yields ancient human brain
Excavations have produced roughly 6,000-year-old relics of a poorly known culture existing near the dawn of civilization
By Bruce Bower
Web edition : 12:59 pm
PHILADELPHIA — In a cave overlooking southeastern Armenia’s Arpa River, just across the border from Iran, scientists have uncovered what may be the oldest preserved human brain from an ancient society. The cave also offers surprising new insights into the origins of modern civilizations, such as evidence of a winemaking enterprise and an array of culturally diverse pottery.
Excavations in and just outside of Areni-1 cave during 2007 and 2008 yielded an extensive array of Copper Age artifacts dating to between 6,200 and 5,900 years ago, reported Gregory Areshian of the University of California, Los Angeles, January 11 at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America. In eastern Europe and the Near East, an area that encompasses much of southwest Asia, the Copper Age ran from approximately 6,500 to 5,500 years ago.
The finds show that major cultural developments occurred during the Copper Age in areas outside southern Iraq, which is traditionally regarded as the cradle of civilization, Areshian noted. The new cave discoveries move cultural activity in what’s now Armenia back by about 800 years.
“This is exciting work,” comments Rana Özbal of Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey.
A basin two meters long installed inside the Armenian cave and surrounded by large jars and the scattered remains of grape husks and seeds apparently belonged to a large-scale winemaking operation.
Researchers also found a trio of Copper Age human skulls, each buried in a separate niche inside the three-chambered, 600-square–meter cave. The skulls belonged to 12- to 14-year-old girls, according to anatomical analyses conducted independently by three biological anthropologists. Fractures identified on two skulls indicate that the girls were killed by blows from a club of some sort, probably in a ritual ceremony, Areshian suggested.
Remarkably, one skull contained a shriveled but well-preserved brain. “This is the oldest known human brain from the Old World,” Areshian said. The Old World comprises Europe, Asia, Africa and surrounding islands.
Scientists now studying the brain have noted preserved blood vessels on its surface. Surviving red blood cells have been extracted from those hardy vessels for analysis.
It’s unclear who frequented Areshi-1, where these people lived or how big their settlements were. No trace of household activities has been found in or outside the cave.
Whoever they were, these people participated in trade networks that ran throughout the Near East, Areshian proposes. Copper Age pottery at the site falls into four groups, only one of which represents a local product. A group of painted ceramic items came from west-central Iran. Some pots display a style typical of the Maikop culture from southern Russia and southeastern Europe. Still other pieces were characteristic of the Kura-Arax culture that flourished just west of Maikop territory in Russia.
Radiocarbon dating of pottery and other Copper Age finds pushes back the origins of the Maikop and Kura-Arax cultures by nearly 1,000 years, Areshian says.
Additional discoveries at Areni-1 include metal knives, seeds from more than 30 types of fruit, remains of dozens of cereal species, rope, cloth, straw, grass, reeds and dried grapes and prunes.
A hard, carbonate crust covering the Copper Age soil layers, along with extreme dryness and stable temperatures inside the cave, contributed to preservation of artifacts and, in particular, the young girl’s brain.
Medieval ovens from the 12th to 14th centuries have also been excavated at the cave’s entrance, underneath a rock shelter.
Areshian expects much more material to emerge from further excavations at Areni-1 and from explorations of the many other caves bordering the Arpa River. “One of these caves is much larger than Areni-1, covering about an acre inside,” he said.
Armenian cave yields ancient human brain
Excavations have produced roughly 6,000-year-old relics of a poorly known culture existing near the dawn of civilization
By Bruce Bower
Web edition : 12:59 pm
PHILADELPHIA — In a cave overlooking southeastern Armenia’s Arpa River, just across the border from Iran, scientists have uncovered what may be the oldest preserved human brain from an ancient society. The cave also offers surprising new insights into the origins of modern civilizations, such as evidence of a winemaking enterprise and an array of culturally diverse pottery.
Excavations in and just outside of Areni-1 cave during 2007 and 2008 yielded an extensive array of Copper Age artifacts dating to between 6,200 and 5,900 years ago, reported Gregory Areshian of the University of California, Los Angeles, January 11 at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America. In eastern Europe and the Near East, an area that encompasses much of southwest Asia, the Copper Age ran from approximately 6,500 to 5,500 years ago.
The finds show that major cultural developments occurred during the Copper Age in areas outside southern Iraq, which is traditionally regarded as the cradle of civilization, Areshian noted. The new cave discoveries move cultural activity in what’s now Armenia back by about 800 years.
“This is exciting work,” comments Rana Özbal of Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey.
A basin two meters long installed inside the Armenian cave and surrounded by large jars and the scattered remains of grape husks and seeds apparently belonged to a large-scale winemaking operation.
Researchers also found a trio of Copper Age human skulls, each buried in a separate niche inside the three-chambered, 600-square–meter cave. The skulls belonged to 12- to 14-year-old girls, according to anatomical analyses conducted independently by three biological anthropologists. Fractures identified on two skulls indicate that the girls were killed by blows from a club of some sort, probably in a ritual ceremony, Areshian suggested.
Remarkably, one skull contained a shriveled but well-preserved brain. “This is the oldest known human brain from the Old World,” Areshian said. The Old World comprises Europe, Asia, Africa and surrounding islands.
Scientists now studying the brain have noted preserved blood vessels on its surface. Surviving red blood cells have been extracted from those hardy vessels for analysis.
It’s unclear who frequented Areshi-1, where these people lived or how big their settlements were. No trace of household activities has been found in or outside the cave.
Whoever they were, these people participated in trade networks that ran throughout the Near East, Areshian proposes. Copper Age pottery at the site falls into four groups, only one of which represents a local product. A group of painted ceramic items came from west-central Iran. Some pots display a style typical of the Maikop culture from southern Russia and southeastern Europe. Still other pieces were characteristic of the Kura-Arax culture that flourished just west of Maikop territory in Russia.
Radiocarbon dating of pottery and other Copper Age finds pushes back the origins of the Maikop and Kura-Arax cultures by nearly 1,000 years, Areshian says.
Additional discoveries at Areni-1 include metal knives, seeds from more than 30 types of fruit, remains of dozens of cereal species, rope, cloth, straw, grass, reeds and dried grapes and prunes.
A hard, carbonate crust covering the Copper Age soil layers, along with extreme dryness and stable temperatures inside the cave, contributed to preservation of artifacts and, in particular, the young girl’s brain.
Medieval ovens from the 12th to 14th centuries have also been excavated at the cave’s entrance, underneath a rock shelter.
Areshian expects much more material to emerge from further excavations at Areni-1 and from explorations of the many other caves bordering the Arpa River. “One of these caves is much larger than Areni-1, covering about an acre inside,” he said.
The Mayans Suffered for Their Beauty
Whoever said "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" sure had that right! Reading about these "beauty" treatments made me feel queasy. Come to think of it, watching "The Swan" and "Extreme Makeover" made me queasy, too.
From The Times Online
January 13, 2009
Norman Hammond, Archaeology Correspondent
We may think we make sufficient sacrifices for our idea of beauty, what with false eyelashes, body perforations supporting various bits of metalwork from earrings to tongue studs, toupees and hair extensions, Spanx and padded bras. The Ancient Maya went much farther, however, reshaping their children’s skulls and inlaying their own teeth with jade.
“The Maya went to extreme lengths to transform their bodies,” Professor Mary Miller reports in the new year issue of Archaeology, the US journal.
“They invested vast wealth and endured unspeakable pain to make themselves beautiful.”
As an example, Professor Miller cites K’inich Janaab’ Pakal, who ruled the western Maya city of Palenque from AD615 to 683, and after his death at the age of 80 was interred in a great carved sarcophagus below the Temple of the Inscriptions. His skeleton shows that soon after his birth, his head was strapped between two cradle-boards to compress it from back to front, not unlike the crystal-skulled aliens in the recent Indiana Jones film.
This left an indentation above his browline, which was emphasised by an artificial nasal bridge, probably of clay or plaster, built up on to his forehead. Although this does not survive in the burial, a stucco portrait head found below the sarcophagus shows it clearly. The head also shows that Pakal’s hair was cut in a series of bluntly trimmed tresses, with longer strands on top flopping forward, which Professor Miller interprets as imitating the leaves and corn silk on a maize plant: at the site of Cacaxtla, Maya-style murals show maize cobs on the plant as human heads. Pakal was shown as ever-youthful, like the maize that springs up anew each year.
Pakal’s front teeth were filed into an inverted T-shape, marking him as also being the Sun God, something shown on his jade burial mask as well. For many Maya, notably those of the elite, dental decoration was seen as highly desirable.
Teeth, especially the upper incisors and canines were filed and notched in a variety of designs, giving in some cases a distinctly crooked smile. Most striking, however, were the dental inlays: a shallow hole was drilled into the front face of the tooth enamel (using a reed or bone hollow drill and an abrasive such as sand or jade dust), sometimes reaching the dentine within.
Small discs of jade, obsidian or haematite were then cemented into the holes: the plant adhesive was so powerful that many burials found by archaeologists today still have the inlays firmly in place. Up to three discs were inserted into a single tooth, and jade and the other materials were combined to give a flash of apple-green, dull red and shiny black across the mouth; inlays and filing were also combined. Dental decoration was probably applied as a rite of passage to adulthood, according to Professor Stephen Houston, of Brown University, Rhode Island.
The Maya also painted their bodies, in life and in death. Narrative scenes on polychrome vases show pigments applied to face, chest and buttocks. In death, Pakal’s corpse was treated with alternating layers of red and black pigments, Professor Miller reports. Red to the Maya was the colour of the sunrise, black of the sunset, alternating with each other in the diurnal cycle.
Some facial designs are in the form of long strings of dots, especially around the mouth, and when this is shown in sculpture or vase-painting it may be intended to show tattooing rather than just make-up. “Beauty was a way to display social, if not moral, value among the ancient Maya,” Professor Miller concludes. “The wealth they invested and pain they endured to create bodies that reflected their social beliefs make our modern-day obsession with beauty seem less excessive.”
Archaeology Vol 62 No. 1: 36-42
From The Times Online
January 13, 2009
Norman Hammond, Archaeology Correspondent
We may think we make sufficient sacrifices for our idea of beauty, what with false eyelashes, body perforations supporting various bits of metalwork from earrings to tongue studs, toupees and hair extensions, Spanx and padded bras. The Ancient Maya went much farther, however, reshaping their children’s skulls and inlaying their own teeth with jade.
“The Maya went to extreme lengths to transform their bodies,” Professor Mary Miller reports in the new year issue of Archaeology, the US journal.
“They invested vast wealth and endured unspeakable pain to make themselves beautiful.”
As an example, Professor Miller cites K’inich Janaab’ Pakal, who ruled the western Maya city of Palenque from AD615 to 683, and after his death at the age of 80 was interred in a great carved sarcophagus below the Temple of the Inscriptions. His skeleton shows that soon after his birth, his head was strapped between two cradle-boards to compress it from back to front, not unlike the crystal-skulled aliens in the recent Indiana Jones film.
This left an indentation above his browline, which was emphasised by an artificial nasal bridge, probably of clay or plaster, built up on to his forehead. Although this does not survive in the burial, a stucco portrait head found below the sarcophagus shows it clearly. The head also shows that Pakal’s hair was cut in a series of bluntly trimmed tresses, with longer strands on top flopping forward, which Professor Miller interprets as imitating the leaves and corn silk on a maize plant: at the site of Cacaxtla, Maya-style murals show maize cobs on the plant as human heads. Pakal was shown as ever-youthful, like the maize that springs up anew each year.
Pakal’s front teeth were filed into an inverted T-shape, marking him as also being the Sun God, something shown on his jade burial mask as well. For many Maya, notably those of the elite, dental decoration was seen as highly desirable.
Teeth, especially the upper incisors and canines were filed and notched in a variety of designs, giving in some cases a distinctly crooked smile. Most striking, however, were the dental inlays: a shallow hole was drilled into the front face of the tooth enamel (using a reed or bone hollow drill and an abrasive such as sand or jade dust), sometimes reaching the dentine within.
Small discs of jade, obsidian or haematite were then cemented into the holes: the plant adhesive was so powerful that many burials found by archaeologists today still have the inlays firmly in place. Up to three discs were inserted into a single tooth, and jade and the other materials were combined to give a flash of apple-green, dull red and shiny black across the mouth; inlays and filing were also combined. Dental decoration was probably applied as a rite of passage to adulthood, according to Professor Stephen Houston, of Brown University, Rhode Island.
The Maya also painted their bodies, in life and in death. Narrative scenes on polychrome vases show pigments applied to face, chest and buttocks. In death, Pakal’s corpse was treated with alternating layers of red and black pigments, Professor Miller reports. Red to the Maya was the colour of the sunrise, black of the sunset, alternating with each other in the diurnal cycle.
Some facial designs are in the form of long strings of dots, especially around the mouth, and when this is shown in sculpture or vase-painting it may be intended to show tattooing rather than just make-up. “Beauty was a way to display social, if not moral, value among the ancient Maya,” Professor Miller concludes. “The wealth they invested and pain they endured to create bodies that reflected their social beliefs make our modern-day obsession with beauty seem less excessive.”
Archaeology Vol 62 No. 1: 36-42
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Article on Rusudan Goletiani
A great article on one of the Bronze Medal winners for the U.S. Women's Chess Olympiad Team (Dresden 2008). Yaaahhhhh! (Photo: Goletiani at the 2008 Scandanavian Womens Open).From LoHud.com (Lower Hudson Valley, New York)
Master resumes classes in Westchester
By Stacy A. Anderson • The Journal News • January 11, 2009
HARTSDALE - Rusudan "Rusa" Goletiani, 28, has defeated some of the best chess players in the world.
Just back from her most recent accomplishment - taking a silver individual medal and sharing the bronze with the U.S. Women's Chess Team at the World Chess Olympics in Germany, she resumes teaching the game to students from age 5 to senior citizens at the Westchester Chess Academy today.
Goletiani said competing as a team member was more challenging than playing for herself, since she didn't want to let others down.
"It puts more pressure on you because you are not only playing for yourself, but playing for the team," she said. "But Russia and China are very strong, so it was a big accomplishment for us."
The Hartsdale resident, co-director of the Westchester academy, grew up in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, where her father taught her chess when she was 6 (the Georgia team took the gold medal in Germany).
By age 9, Goletiani had won the Soviet Junior Championship for girls and was the Soviet representative in the 1990 World Youth Chess Tournament for Peace in Wisconsin. As a teen, she won two Russian championships and three world junior championships.
For the love of chess and to seek a better life, she moved to the United States in 2000 when she was 19. She lived in Brooklyn and began learning English before working as an instructor at a chess camp in Pennsylvania.
Goletiani then moved to Yonkers and began giving private lessons while working as a baby sitter and housekeeper for a Scarsdale family. A chance meeting with the children's chess teacher landed her a job as an instructor in public school programs through the National Scholastic Chess Foundation.
"He said, 'What are you doing here,' " Goletiani said with a laugh, as she recalled defeating the teacher in two games.
She continued teaching at local schools while competing professionally. She won the North and South American Continental Chess Championship in Venezuela in 2003. The same year, she married Mancho Surguladze and moved to Hartsdale.
In 2005, Goletiani won the U.S. Women's Championship in San Diego. She placed second the following year.
After three years of teaching through the foundation, Goletiani and a colleague, Mike Amori, started the Westchester Chess Academy in Rye. The school teaches about 50 students each semester from Westchester, Connecticut and the Bronx.
"We share the same philosophies," said Amori, who has taught chess for 12 years. "It's hard work, and you have to train and get past what's available at the surface. You have to make a commitment and push it."
"In chess," Goletiani added, "You need to be pushed to the next level. We both love chess a lot, and we both love working with kids.
"As long as they are interested, the age doesn't matter," she said.
Goletiani took a break from competition to have her daughter, Sophie, in 2007. She returned to open tournament competing last year and placed third in the country, qualifying to compete in the World Chess Olympics a second time.
Goletiani said winning two medals in Germany was a worthwhile achievement. She played 11 rounds, about five hours each, during the world games.
"At the end, when you win, you feel content because the hard work has paid off," she said.
Her students, including Scarsdale resident Fred Wang, also appreciate her talent and hard work.
He played chess as child and took it up again after a 40-year hiatus. Wang, who has taken lessons with Goletiani for two years, referred to her as a hidden treasure.
"She brings tremendous vibrancy and calculating abilities," he said. "She makes the game exciting."
Good Chess News from India
I wish wish wish a national newspaper of the same status in the US as The Hindu is in India would cover chess here as The Hindu does there. Does McClain's blog at The New York Times come close? - Nah.
Hetul Shah stuns Ibrayev
Rakesh Rao
Monday, January 12, 2009
NEW DELHI: Globally, there could not have been a better advertisement for the growing chess talent in the country than the one provided by the nine-year-old Hetul Shah.
He became the “youngest” in the world to beat a Grandmaster when he maintained an accurate continuation against Kazakh Nurlan Ibrayev and prevailed in 44 moves to pull off the opening round stunner in the seventh Parsvnath International Open chess tournament here on Sunday.
Further, if any evidence was needed of the depth of country’s chess strength, then Kozhikode’s 45-year-old O. T. Anil Kumar produced one by bringing down top seeded Ukranian Alexander Areshchenko in the second round to complete the biggest upset of the 10-round competition.
Hetul was the star of the day until Anil hogged the spotlight. In the Ruy Lopez game, Hetul benefitted from a generous pawn sacrifice by Ibrayev, rated nearly 600 points above. [Over confident?] The GM then went on to sacrifice one more pawn but Hetul held on to the advantage and forced his unsuspecting rival to give up his queen in search of victory. Hetul, rated 1817, then pushed his central pawn menacingly and compelled Ibrayev to give up.
Hetul’s distinction
The All India Chess Federation treasurer and organiser Bharat Singh Chauhan said he had confirmation from the World Chess Federation (FIDE) that Hetul was indeed the youngest ever to beat a GM.
Hetul broke the Indian record of his ‘hero’ Parimarjan Negi. [Negi is a rising Indian star]. The Delhi-boy set the record when he scored over Switzerland’s Ivan Nemet in the Biel Masters in 2004 at the age of 11 years five months. Negi improved upon the record set in 1995 by Surya Shekhar Ganguly in the Goodricke Open at the age of 11 years 11 months.
The results (Indians unless stated):
Second round: Alexander Areshchenko (Ukr, 1) lost to O. T. Anil Kumar (2); Pradip Ghosh (1) lost to Yuriy Kuzubov (Ukr, 2); Surya Shekhar Ganguly (2) bt Vinoth Kumar (1); Manish Mehra (1) lost to Parimarjan Negi (2); Yuri Solodovnichenko (Ukr, 2) bt Vaibhav Suri (1); Rajkumar Apollosana (1.5) drew with Evgeny Gleizerov (Rus, 1.5); Abhijit Kunte (2) bt Tejas Ravichandran (1); K.V. Shantaram (1) lost to Anuar Ismagambetov (Kaz, 2); Saidali Iuldachev (Uzb, 2) bt Jitendra Kumar Choudhary (1); Javed Mohammad (Ban, 1) lost to Shukrat Safin (Uzb, 2); Mikhail Ulibin (Rus, 2) bt Shiven Khosla (1); Kiran Manisha Mohanty (1) lost to Petr Kostenko (Kaz, 2); S. Vinay Bhat (1) lost to G. V. Sai Krishna (2); Rupankar Nath (1) lost to Dibyendu Barua (2); Neelotpal Das (2) bt Shardul Gagare (1); Amrutha Mokal (1) lost to P. Magesh Chandran (2); R.R. Laxman (2) bt Maxim Ivanilov (Kaz, 1); Vinod Bhagwat (1) lost to M.R. Lalith Babu (2); M.R. Venkatesh (1.5) drew with Dushyant Das (1.5); M.G. Gahan (1.5) drew with P. Konguvel (1.5).
Important first round results: Dasharathi Sahoo lost to Areshchenko; Saripalli Niraj lost to Ganguly; Negi bt Vasantad Wettasinha (Sri); Gleizerov bt M. Natarajan; Anuar Ismagambetov bt S. Anjana Krishna; R. Sriram lost to Ulibin; Kostenko bt Aman Chahal; Johnharry Pereia (Sin) lost to Bhat; Magesh bt Ramesh Adhikari; Bheem Dutt Pandey lost to R.R. Laxman; Nandan Kumar lost to Venkatesh; Konguvel bt Kapil Gupta.
Hetul Shah stuns Ibrayev
Rakesh Rao
Monday, January 12, 2009
NEW DELHI: Globally, there could not have been a better advertisement for the growing chess talent in the country than the one provided by the nine-year-old Hetul Shah.
He became the “youngest” in the world to beat a Grandmaster when he maintained an accurate continuation against Kazakh Nurlan Ibrayev and prevailed in 44 moves to pull off the opening round stunner in the seventh Parsvnath International Open chess tournament here on Sunday.
Further, if any evidence was needed of the depth of country’s chess strength, then Kozhikode’s 45-year-old O. T. Anil Kumar produced one by bringing down top seeded Ukranian Alexander Areshchenko in the second round to complete the biggest upset of the 10-round competition.
Hetul was the star of the day until Anil hogged the spotlight. In the Ruy Lopez game, Hetul benefitted from a generous pawn sacrifice by Ibrayev, rated nearly 600 points above. [Over confident?] The GM then went on to sacrifice one more pawn but Hetul held on to the advantage and forced his unsuspecting rival to give up his queen in search of victory. Hetul, rated 1817, then pushed his central pawn menacingly and compelled Ibrayev to give up.
Hetul’s distinction
The All India Chess Federation treasurer and organiser Bharat Singh Chauhan said he had confirmation from the World Chess Federation (FIDE) that Hetul was indeed the youngest ever to beat a GM.
Hetul broke the Indian record of his ‘hero’ Parimarjan Negi. [Negi is a rising Indian star]. The Delhi-boy set the record when he scored over Switzerland’s Ivan Nemet in the Biel Masters in 2004 at the age of 11 years five months. Negi improved upon the record set in 1995 by Surya Shekhar Ganguly in the Goodricke Open at the age of 11 years 11 months.
The results (Indians unless stated):
Second round: Alexander Areshchenko (Ukr, 1) lost to O. T. Anil Kumar (2); Pradip Ghosh (1) lost to Yuriy Kuzubov (Ukr, 2); Surya Shekhar Ganguly (2) bt Vinoth Kumar (1); Manish Mehra (1) lost to Parimarjan Negi (2); Yuri Solodovnichenko (Ukr, 2) bt Vaibhav Suri (1); Rajkumar Apollosana (1.5) drew with Evgeny Gleizerov (Rus, 1.5); Abhijit Kunte (2) bt Tejas Ravichandran (1); K.V. Shantaram (1) lost to Anuar Ismagambetov (Kaz, 2); Saidali Iuldachev (Uzb, 2) bt Jitendra Kumar Choudhary (1); Javed Mohammad (Ban, 1) lost to Shukrat Safin (Uzb, 2); Mikhail Ulibin (Rus, 2) bt Shiven Khosla (1); Kiran Manisha Mohanty (1) lost to Petr Kostenko (Kaz, 2); S. Vinay Bhat (1) lost to G. V. Sai Krishna (2); Rupankar Nath (1) lost to Dibyendu Barua (2); Neelotpal Das (2) bt Shardul Gagare (1); Amrutha Mokal (1) lost to P. Magesh Chandran (2); R.R. Laxman (2) bt Maxim Ivanilov (Kaz, 1); Vinod Bhagwat (1) lost to M.R. Lalith Babu (2); M.R. Venkatesh (1.5) drew with Dushyant Das (1.5); M.G. Gahan (1.5) drew with P. Konguvel (1.5).
Important first round results: Dasharathi Sahoo lost to Areshchenko; Saripalli Niraj lost to Ganguly; Negi bt Vasantad Wettasinha (Sri); Gleizerov bt M. Natarajan; Anuar Ismagambetov bt S. Anjana Krishna; R. Sriram lost to Ulibin; Kostenko bt Aman Chahal; Johnharry Pereia (Sin) lost to Bhat; Magesh bt Ramesh Adhikari; Bheem Dutt Pandey lost to R.R. Laxman; Nandan Kumar lost to Venkatesh; Konguvel bt Kapil Gupta.
Susan Polgar's Texas Column
Here is SP's weekly column (minus the puzzle) from the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal Online. I thought it was especially fine this week.
Polgar: Best chess game of 2008; several tournaments planned in Lubbock
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Story last updated at 1/11/2009 - 5:53 am
Upcoming chess tournaments in Lubbock
The question of the week is which was the most brilliant chess game in 2008?
That is a good question. There were many spectacular games played last year. Therefore, it is hard to select just one. However, the following game is one that stood out in my mind.
Perhaps it is because it took place not long ago at the Dresden Chess Olympiad. This magnificent win by Grandmaster Akopian helped Armenia capture back-to-back gold medals in the 2006 and 2008 Olympiads.
Grandmaster Vladimir Akopian (Armenia) - Grandmaster Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France) Dresden Chess Olympiad (8), Nov. 21, 2008
1. e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e6 7.Be2 Qc7 8.a4 b6 9.f4 Bb7 10.Bf3 Nbd7 11.Qe2 g6 12.0-0 e5 13.Rad1!
Amazingly White can ignore the threat against the attacked knight.
13...Be7
If black accepts the sacrifice by 13...exd4, White gets an excellent position after 14.Bxd4 Bg7 15.e5.
14.fxe5 Nxe5
Perhaps 14...dxe5 would have been better.
15.Bh6
A good move to prevent Black from castling kingside.
15...Bf8 16.Bxf8 Kxf8 17.Qe3 h6?
This is a mistake. Better would have been 17...Kg7, and if 18.Qg5 Qc5 19.Kh1 Nxf3 20.Qf4 Qe5.
18.Bh5! Qe7
Of course 18...Nxh5? would not work, because of the fork with 19.Ne6+, thanks to the pin on the f-file.
19.Bxg6!
A nice combination!
19...Nxg6
If 19...fxg6, 20.Rxf6+! Qxf6 21.Rf1 Qxf1+ 22.Kxf1 with a clearly better endgame for White.
20.Nf5 Qe5 21.Qxb6
White gets a number of pawns for the sacrificed bishop, plus the black king is in danger.
21...Bxe4 22.Qxd6+ Qxd6 23.Nxd6 Bxc2
24.Rxf6!
This is another elegant move, sacrificing the rook on d1 to end the game in a few more moves.
24...Ra7
If 24...Bxd1 25.Rxf7+ Kg8 and after the quiet 26.Nd5, Black is helpless against the checkmate threat with Nd5-f6.
25.Rd2 Kg7 26.Rf3 1-0
Black resigned as the material loss is unavoidable. For example, if 26...Bb3 27.Nf5+ Kh7 (or 27...Kg8) 28.Ne4, while after 27...Kf6 28.Nd4+ wins.
Please keep questions and comments coming by e-mailing me at Susan.Polgar@ttu.edu. See also www.SPICE .ttu.edu and www.SusanPolgar.blogspot.com for more information.
The Susan Polgar Foundation (a non-profit 501(c)(3) foundation) would like to continue to develop structured, chess for success after-school programs in every elementary school in Lubbock, but we need your help.
Please consider working with us by helping sponsor after-school programs in local grade schools. Chess combines so many important qualities in life, such as concentration, focusing and planning ahead, social communication, precision, research, psychology, time management, responsibility, and discipline.
These qualities must be developed, and they can be practiced through quality chess instruction. Such practice is crucial for young people in our community right now. We provide supplies, organize chess programs, and support teachers and students.
Donations are tax deductible and can be forwarded to the Susan Polgar Foundation 6923 Indiana Ave. (No. 154) Lubbock, TX, 79413.
Upcoming chess events in Lubbock
• Knight Raiders' Open Scholastic Chess Championship, Feb. 7. A 5 Round Swiss System Tournament (Game/30)
Event site: Texas Tech Student Union Building, Lubbock.
Four rated sections: Primary (K-2), Elementary (K-5), Middle/High School (K-12) + parents / coaches. There is a total of 30 minutes maximum per player per game.
• "Get Smart! Play Chess!" Spring Scholastic Chess Championship, March 7. A four-round Swiss System Tournament (Game/30)
Event site: Science Spectrum 2579 S. Loop 289, Lubbock, TX
Five rated sections: Primary (K-2), elementary (K-5), middle school (K-8), high school (K-12) and quads for adults. There is a total of 30 minutes maximum per player per game. There are two unrated sections where USCF memberships are not required: K-5 and 6-12 plus parents/coaches.
For more information on these events, call (806) 742-7742; e-mail spice@ttu.edu or visit www.SPICE.ttu.edu or www.ChessDailyNews.com.
SUSAN POLGAR is a professional chess player, champion and founder of the Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence at Texas Tech, susan.polgar@ttu.edu.
Polgar: Best chess game of 2008; several tournaments planned in Lubbock
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Story last updated at 1/11/2009 - 5:53 am
Upcoming chess tournaments in Lubbock
The question of the week is which was the most brilliant chess game in 2008?
That is a good question. There were many spectacular games played last year. Therefore, it is hard to select just one. However, the following game is one that stood out in my mind.
Perhaps it is because it took place not long ago at the Dresden Chess Olympiad. This magnificent win by Grandmaster Akopian helped Armenia capture back-to-back gold medals in the 2006 and 2008 Olympiads.
Grandmaster Vladimir Akopian (Armenia) - Grandmaster Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France) Dresden Chess Olympiad (8), Nov. 21, 2008
1. e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e6 7.Be2 Qc7 8.a4 b6 9.f4 Bb7 10.Bf3 Nbd7 11.Qe2 g6 12.0-0 e5 13.Rad1!
Amazingly White can ignore the threat against the attacked knight.
13...Be7
If black accepts the sacrifice by 13...exd4, White gets an excellent position after 14.Bxd4 Bg7 15.e5.
14.fxe5 Nxe5
Perhaps 14...dxe5 would have been better.
15.Bh6
A good move to prevent Black from castling kingside.
15...Bf8 16.Bxf8 Kxf8 17.Qe3 h6?
This is a mistake. Better would have been 17...Kg7, and if 18.Qg5 Qc5 19.Kh1 Nxf3 20.Qf4 Qe5.
18.Bh5! Qe7
Of course 18...Nxh5? would not work, because of the fork with 19.Ne6+, thanks to the pin on the f-file.
19.Bxg6!
A nice combination!
19...Nxg6
If 19...fxg6, 20.Rxf6+! Qxf6 21.Rf1 Qxf1+ 22.Kxf1 with a clearly better endgame for White.
20.Nf5 Qe5 21.Qxb6
White gets a number of pawns for the sacrificed bishop, plus the black king is in danger.
21...Bxe4 22.Qxd6+ Qxd6 23.Nxd6 Bxc2
24.Rxf6!
This is another elegant move, sacrificing the rook on d1 to end the game in a few more moves.
24...Ra7
If 24...Bxd1 25.Rxf7+ Kg8 and after the quiet 26.Nd5, Black is helpless against the checkmate threat with Nd5-f6.
25.Rd2 Kg7 26.Rf3 1-0
Black resigned as the material loss is unavoidable. For example, if 26...Bb3 27.Nf5+ Kh7 (or 27...Kg8) 28.Ne4, while after 27...Kf6 28.Nd4+ wins.
Please keep questions and comments coming by e-mailing me at Susan.Polgar@ttu.edu. See also www.SPICE .ttu.edu and www.SusanPolgar.blogspot.com for more information.
The Susan Polgar Foundation (a non-profit 501(c)(3) foundation) would like to continue to develop structured, chess for success after-school programs in every elementary school in Lubbock, but we need your help.
Please consider working with us by helping sponsor after-school programs in local grade schools. Chess combines so many important qualities in life, such as concentration, focusing and planning ahead, social communication, precision, research, psychology, time management, responsibility, and discipline.
These qualities must be developed, and they can be practiced through quality chess instruction. Such practice is crucial for young people in our community right now. We provide supplies, organize chess programs, and support teachers and students.
Donations are tax deductible and can be forwarded to the Susan Polgar Foundation 6923 Indiana Ave. (No. 154) Lubbock, TX, 79413.
Upcoming chess events in Lubbock
• Knight Raiders' Open Scholastic Chess Championship, Feb. 7. A 5 Round Swiss System Tournament (Game/30)
Event site: Texas Tech Student Union Building, Lubbock.
Four rated sections: Primary (K-2), Elementary (K-5), Middle/High School (K-12) + parents / coaches. There is a total of 30 minutes maximum per player per game.
• "Get Smart! Play Chess!" Spring Scholastic Chess Championship, March 7. A four-round Swiss System Tournament (Game/30)
Event site: Science Spectrum 2579 S. Loop 289, Lubbock, TX
Five rated sections: Primary (K-2), elementary (K-5), middle school (K-8), high school (K-12) and quads for adults. There is a total of 30 minutes maximum per player per game. There are two unrated sections where USCF memberships are not required: K-5 and 6-12 plus parents/coaches.
For more information on these events, call (806) 742-7742; e-mail spice@ttu.edu or visit www.SPICE.ttu.edu or www.ChessDailyNews.com.
SUSAN POLGAR is a professional chess player, champion and founder of the Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence at Texas Tech, susan.polgar@ttu.edu.
Bare Bones Bedroom!
I have the essentials in place in my new bedroom (formerly the guest room). The curtains have been ironed and hung (I found my iron!!!), the dust ruffle was ironed and put in place, the mattress rotated and freshly-laundered mattress pad put on, and the bed made up with new sheets, new pillowcases and new comforter. Old artwork has come off the walls, leaving spots where I need to scrub and nail holes to patch! My clock radio has been installed on the bookcase (what is a bedroom without a bookcase and a clock radio?) The bed is now acceptably comfy, although the room is bare bones.
The red floral print draped over the wing chair is one of the valances for the windows, but since the windows in my new room are smaller than the windows the valances were meant for, I do not think I will install them - also, the curtains I put up already have their own attached valances. I may experiment and use them for a mini canopy on the wall over the bedstead... By the way, that IS a copy of Katherine Neville's "The Fire" on top of the bookshelf next to the lamp.I need a slipcover for my wing chair, which has pink, maroon and dark blue stripes (goes with the decor of the former guest room) - or a new chair, which is easier said than done! It's not so easy finding a comfortable chair small enough to fit in the space I have. My old lamp on the dresser (not in the photos) is pink and white. I need to repaint the base (what color?) and get an updated shade (what style, size and color?) - the shade that I have at present has definitely seen better days! I bought it at Woolworth's so long ago I can't even remember how old it is anymore - Woolworth's has been gone from Milwaukee for at least 10 years!
I have no artwork to coordinate with the new color scheme, and no area rugs to go down over the carpet. I don't really need area rugs, although I like the look and extra plushness and warmth of a rug on top of a rug in the winter (they are taken up during the summer months when all curtains and accessories in the house are swapped out for more "summery" fare) and they also help protect my nearly 20 year old(!) carpeting from wear and tear. I feel another shopping trip coming on...Jan single-handedly trying to keep the economy going through deficit spending!
Article on Alexandra Kosteniuk
Story from the Miami Herald Online (Image - from my archive - Kosteniuk at the 2007 European Team Championships)World chess queen plots her next move
The women's world chess champion is a 24-year-old Russian aspiring model who lives with her husband and baby in Key Biscayne.
BY EVAN S. BENN
January 11, 2009
The best women's chess player in the world flipped a dirty diaper into the trash as she pondered her next move after a dominating year.
"I want to open a chess academy online, keep training, doing the podcast," South Floridian Alexandra Kosteniuk said during a recent stroll with her baby, Francesca. "But right now, my priority is being a mommy."
Kosteniuk, 24, won the Women's World Championship in her homeland of Russia in September. After several months of traveling the globe, Kosteniuk, her husband, Diego Garces, and their 20-month-old daughter are settled back at their home in Key Biscayne.
An aspiring model who uses her good looks to promote chess, Kosteniuk has been compared to Russian tennis knockout (and Miami Beach resident) Anna Kournikova. (Kosteniuk debunks the comparison by noting that she has won individual tournaments, a feat the other Russian cannot claim.)
But, like Kournikova, Kosteniuk has managed to broaden her sport's appeal by selling her combination of talent and beauty.
About 3,000 people subscribe to her podcast at chessiscool.com, and about 10,000 others log on each month to her website, where they can see photos of Kosteniuk in bikinis and buy her instructional DVDs.
"It's the most popular chess site out there," said her husband, 49, who is also her webmaster and publicist.
They met at a chess demonstration that Kosteniuk hosted in Switzerland, Garces' home country. He is an attentive handler, lugging oversize chess pieces to photo shoots and making sure that certain shots are off-limits -- nothing promiscuous and no photos of the hubby, please.
The pair decided to make South Florida their home because Kosteniuk prefers the weather to Moscow's, and Garces' parents live here. An added perk: They are close to the World Chess Hall of Fame, situated just off the turnpike in West Kendall, where there is an Alexandra the Great exhibit highlighting Kosteniuk's successes.
The museum is not the only one trumpeting her talents. The chess news site ChessBase.com hails her "very analytical, incisive mind and an extremely determined spirit."
She learned to play from her father when she was 5 years old. The young prodigy advanced so quickly that she was soon playing games blindfolded and dominating European tournaments. She made it to the finals of the World Championship in 2001 when she was 17 but lost.
She continued her climb to the top, becoming the 10th woman to earn the rank of international grandmaster.
Jerry Hanken, president of Chess Journalists of America, says he hopes she will inspire more women and young people to play.
But after giving birth prematurely to Francesca in April 2007, Kosteniuk took time away from the game.
She trained with fellow grandmasters and got into a daily running regimen that led her to enter several South Florida 5K races. She returned to Russia this past fall to win the World Championship -- good for a $60,000 prize and a jewel-encrusted tiara. (It's about as big a payday as professional chess players see; Kosteniuk's income comes in small doses from regional exhibitions and by selling merchandise from her website.)
The title hasn't brought Kosteniuk worldwide fame. She gets noticed sometimes in Moscow, but "in Miami, I'm just like anyone else."
And that, she said, is fine with her. "The modeling is just a hobby. What I really want is for people to enjoy chess the way I do."
When the time is right, the champion said, she "of course" will teach her daughter to play. In the meantime, she plans to keep playing, keep studying and keep up with diaper duty.
"Being a mommy is much harder than chess," she said. "But playing chess has taught me how to predict and analyze the next move. I'd say that's pretty useful in chess and in life."
Miami Herald intern Carolina Navarro contributed to this report.
*************************
Darlings, I love Alexandra Kosteniuk. Years ago when I had the Chess Goddesses website online, I did an interview with her before she became the international chess star she is today.
But to say that her website with 10,000 visitors a month is the most popular chess website on the internet? Even I, naive as I am, know better than that. Hell, this blog gets about 10,000 visitors a month! I'm sure sites such as The Week in Chess, Chessbase, Mig's Daily Dirt, Chessville and Susan Polgar's blog get a lot more than 10,000 visitors a month. Did he perhaps mean 10,000 visitors a day and the reporter mis-interpreted?
All power and glory to Alexandra Kosteniuk. I'd love to see her successfully defend her world title next cycle (if there is one) and I'd love to see her mix it up in more events against guys rated 200 points above her - that's where she will get the experience she needs to truly become a top performer. I'd also love to see her switch her federation to the USA and start playing under the US flag. Is it patriotism and loyalty to her home country that keeps her from doing so, despite what I can't help but see would be more lucrative opportunities playing for the US as a young, beautiful and highly-rated female chessplayer?
Worshipping Women: Onassis Center
Love the title of this article! I'm sure I've blogged about this exhibit at the Onassis Center before; this provides fresh insight.
Onassis Center Lets Teen Brides Bathe, Satyrs Romp in N.Y. Show
Review by Cynthia Cotts
Last Updated: January 6, 2009 00:01 EST
Jan. 6 (Bloomberg) -- On a broken piece of pottery, two young girls dance around the altar of Artemis, holding hands and praying that she will ensure their fertility.
The painted fragment, found in a well in Athens, is a glimpse of the world inhabited by the women of ancient Greece who, denied a role in political activities, flocked to religious rituals and elaborate ceremonies surrounding marriage and death.
It’s part of “Worshiping Women: Ritual and Reality in Classical Athens,” a crisply conceived exhibition at the Onassis Cultural Center in midtown Manhattan that pulls together riches from the Vatican and the Louvre, as well as rarely shown pieces from regional museums in Greece.
The stars of the show are the Greek goddesses -- the wise warrior Athena, the huntress Artemis and sex-symbol Aphrodite -- but they share the stage with mortal women who left stone carvings and bronze figurines in the deities’ sanctuaries and poured them daily libations.
The show is organized into mini-shrines, matched with photos of the sanctuary grounds as they are preserved today. Its centerpiece is a strapping statue of Artemis, who inspired her prepubescent followers to be athletes and demanded that they be virgins.
The statue is on loan from the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, which contributed many of the 155 pieces in the show.
Married at 15
Ancient Greece, the birthplace of democracy, was also known as a phallocracy, in which men dominated women. While young men were educated and given a vote, their sisters were traded for marriage at age 15 or earlier. The show aims to refute the stereotype that the women of yore ended up stuck at home, living lives of quiet desperation.
The exhibition focuses on work from the 5th century B.C., a time when Greece produced political discourse, oral poetry and art -- but no written chronicles. The art from that period is exquisitely wrought, but shrouded in mystery. Each piece leaves the viewer to imagine: Who created it, in what workshop and to what end?
Many of the works here tell a layered story: A volute-krater -- a vessel used to mix water and wine -- is illustrated with two ceremonies: a formal one with a woman preparing to make an offering to the gods; the other, a frolic of maenads and satyrs.
Though the rituals often involved animal sacrifice, such violent scenes are rarely seen in Greek art, said Alan Shapiro, a classics professor at Johns Hopkins University, who co-curated the show with Nikolaos Kaltsas, director of Greece’s National Archaeological Museum.
Nor do we see wedding nights, though the vases depict the moments leading up to that conventional plot point.
Teenage girls were often married to undesirable men twice their age. But as the vase paintings show, when a girl was being handed off to a stranger, her family tried to distract her with sacred water baths and paintings that depicted Eros as a nubile young man.
Sexy Pluto
Loss of virginity wasn’t always traumatic. On a marble tablet, the goddess Persephone is shown twice: first, attending to her mother, Demeter; and then partying with Pluto, who carted her off to hell. With Demeter, the young deity looks shy and aggrieved; but next to sexy Pluto, she smirks knowingly, eyeing a spread of sweetmeats and cakes.
Because the craftsmen left behind no documents, it is difficult to know whether the scenes they painted were the product of observed reality, or visually and emotionally heightened fantasy.
The loutrophoros, a vessel used to carry sacred water, also appeared in death rituals. One such vase in the exhibit shows a woman caressing the head of a dead young man; around the curve, a team of men lowering his coffin into the grave.
Greek women were skilled at lamenting and beating their breasts. But Shapiro points out a plus-side to funerals: They were a respectable place to chat up members of the opposite sex.
“Worshiping Women” runs through May 9 at the Onassis Cultural Center, 645 Fifth Ave. Admission is free. Information: +1-212-486-4448; http://www.onassisusa.org/.
(Cynthia Cotts is a reporter for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are her own.)
Image: Athena, from Tillya Tepe, 1st century CE. Notice the fringe of serpents that serve as the Goddess' "apron." The archaic symbolism still survived into the first century CE. This particular image reminds me of some ancient Egyptian images I have scene of the pre-dynastic Goddess Neith.
Help! In Over My Head!
Oy yi yi. I should have known. I've lived in this house almost 20 years and NOW I'm undertaking a major rearranging project - and my house is a mess! It all started when my desk top mysteriously decided to quit the wireless network that had been working like a charm since I pulled hair out of my head last September setting it up. What's more, it decided to do this on December 23rd, when I was waiting for dondelion to arrive from Montreal and the weather was causing everyone fits, and we were due the next day to depart for Las Vegas, and I was in serious danger of having a heart attack and/or a stroke.
To make a long, complicated story short, I was not able to get the desk top back on the wireless network but somehow my laptop became the main connector - or, what the hell, I don't know what I'm talking about! LOL! Anyway, I did get the desktop jerry-rigged to restore it's internet connection - by wheeling the mobile hutch it rests on back into my bedroom - which was the main reason I'd wanted to go wireless to begin with - to get that darn set-up out of my room! Okay, so the desktop is still jerry-rigged with a wired connection to the wireless router and I've got cords running all over the place, and I can't see the t.v. from where I've got the computer hutch set up - oy!
So I decide I'm going to move my bedroom. I hemmed and hawed about that since December 26th, and yesterday I arrived at a plan. The present guest room will be turned into my bedroom. The middle bedroom (which is also the smallest), where the desktop used to sit before entering menopause and getting all bitchy on me, will become the guest bedroom. And my present bedroom, complete with pink walls (hey, 20 years ago I liked pink), will become the new den/library/computer room. It's the biggest bedroom and has a walk-in closet, so I'm not going to move my clothes out, just my bed.
Okay - so with a plan in hand, I pondered how to get the beds moved. Then I decided I wouldn't move the present bed out of the guest room that is being turned into my bedroom, I will just swap out the box springs and mattresses. Only, I can't handle the box spring by myself, they are too heavy. So, I tugged and pulled and lugged and huffed and puffed, and knocked pictures off the wall and knocked a few holes in the drywall in the hallway, but in the end I managed to get the current mattress out of the guest room into the spare bedroom that will soon become the guest room, and my current mattress on to the bed in the guest room that will soon become my room. Now I'm stuck with a bed frame, headboard and box spring in my "former" bedroom, what used to be the guest bed mattress lounging against a wall in the spare soon-to-be guest room, and my nice cushy mattress is now resting on top of a box spring in the former guest room that wasn't designed to hold the nice cushy mattress. And so it will be until dondelion arrives in May and can help me with the box spring dilemma!
So now I'm in the middle of trying to fix up my new room (the former guest room). It doesn't need to be painted (thank Goddess!) but now I can't decide whether I should use the red floral comforter with the red and white plaid flip side (very lumber-jacky and "warm, cozy feeling") or the black and white paisley print comforter, and whether I should use the black and white striped curtains or the black and ecru toile curtains and use the matching sheet set, and whether to use the black and ecru striped bed skirt or my old while petit-point bed skirt, and whether valances should go up, and all of the old pictures in that room have to come down because they were color-coordinated with the color scheme of the guest room, which I am NOT using in my bedroom. Oh, and I was going to use the black and white checked sheet set but the white doesn't match the ecru, so now I'm wondering what to do with the black and white checked sheet set.
All of this is the fault of my scheme to decorate my bedroom conceived more than 2 years ago when I was paging through some old decorating magazines and saw this fabulous toile bedroom with red walls, and I went nuts buying black, white and red toile and assorted accessories all for a room that was never repainted to host such new colors. So, I was stuck with my pink and grey scheme (that I was tired of). Now in the guest room (now my room), which is painted a nice neutral antique white with gold stenciled stars here and there, the new stuff that has bided its time in my closet for over 2 years will actually "go." Only I can't make up my mind what to use. That's what I get for buying too much stuff. I could have taken a trip to Egypt for what I spent on this stuff, geez! I should have stuck with ONE comforter set, and ONE set of curtains. And ONE bedskirt.
Oy yi yi. So you see my problems - no, I'm not mental, it's purely a decorator's dilemma, darlings! And - get this - the stuff has to be IRONED. I know I've got an iron around here somewhere, because I found an ironing board in the same closet where I stash the vacuum that I hardly ever use (only when company is coming).
Add to this the fact that I lost an entire day yesterday first shopping with my sister Debs - and boy, did I haul in some great bargains - and then shoveling out from the snow we got Friday. More snow is expected tonight and tomorrow, and then we're in for the DEEP FREEZE, and I'm scared to death about walking to and from the bus stop. The local forecasters are saying it will be as bad as 1994, when I missed several days of work because wind chills were down to 60 below zero and I didn't think I could make it to the nearest bus stop (about half a mile away in open country) without getting frostbite - which I've had and believe me, it really sucks big time! Schools were closed then, people had water pipes bursting in their homes, car batteries froze solid, the buses were packed because people couldn't get their cars started and people actually STOLE batteries out of other people's cars - it was an awful, scary time. And we're in for it again. Goddess, I HATE this frigging climate.
And so, in panic-mode (everyone is in panic mode, it seems) amongst other stops, Debs took me to the supermarket where I stocked up on my favorite cheap boxed wine, bread, milk, bird seed, critter food and dog food (for the crows) - enough to last a good week. I didn't need to actually buy food, but I did buy four boxes of Kraft's Macaroni and Cheese (although that's not really food), thanks to the generous Christmas gift I received from Isis and Michelle - a freezer full of Omaha Steaks' best offerings! I have enough food in that freezer to last two months, maybe more. $68 later, Debs is shaking her head over why I spent $10 on myself (not including the wine) and $20 on all the food for the animals. We also stopped at the Walgreens and Debs showed me these hand and foot-warmer thingies that one puts inside of one's gloves or mittens and inside of one's shoes or boots. Oh my! I'd only recently become aware of these miracles of modern technology, but evidently they've existed for years. I just hope my shoes don't start on fire tomorrow when I test drive them for the first time - before the DEEP FREEZE arrives early Tuesday morning. I am hopeful that I can figure out how they operate - I understand one merely has to open the package in a certain way, but I'm somewhat skeptical about that... Well, I should be able to figure it out, I do have a college education!
Another issue I've been wrestling with the past three days is how to get my photos to print out looking less BLUE. Arggggh. It's driving me NUTS! I've wasted untold amounts of prime photo paper and have experimented with settings, etc. etc. - and each photo I print comes out the same - looking decided blue-ish. But the reds looks fine - so I figure it must be an issue with green and/or yellow, but I don't know how to solve the problem!
So, amongst moving mattresses and whatnot from room to room, decorating issues, shoveling issues, BLUE photo issues, shopping for bargains - you should see this sexy black blouse I bought for our New York trip - oh, Mr. Don is going to have his eyes popping out of his head when he sees me in THAT number with my boobs popping out above a layer of small, demure ruffles - house cleaning, trying to keep up with my weight-loss dancing regime (I only did my Lady Marmalade routine twice last night) -- well, darlings, NOW you know how come I haven't been blogging.
I will try to do better today... Oh - and dondelion and I are going to Las Vegas for my birthday in August - spent lots of time tracking down hotel rates and flight schedules - what a hassle, but in the end, I prevailed (I always do :)) It will be the 10 year anniversary of my first "modern" visit to Las Vegas, when I met Isis and Michelle face to face for the first time and also covered the FIDE World Chess Championship at Caesar's Palace in August, 1999 for the then fledgling Goddesschess website. Wow - talk about a blast from the past! Check out:
TOURNAMENT CHESS
The Anatomy of a Coronation JanXena's Posts Regarding the 1999 World Chess Championship (July-August, 1999 - by Jan Newton)
What follows are the postings I did live from Las Vegas on Isis' laptop computer, as well as posts about the final games that took place after I had to return home. These are, of course, my personal observations, brash, unabashed and unabridged - and you will see that, as always, JanXena pulls no punches!
As a counterpoint to my admittedly neophyte and quite personal observations, the following are five articles written about the 1999 World Chess Championship written by the professionals: reporters, an arbiter, and players, that I found while perusing the archives of Chess Cafe. They are informative and fascinating because of the different perspectives they bring regarding what actually took place in Las Vegas, and what it all might mean to chess history and to the future of The Game itself:
Vegas Views from Chess Cafe's "Skittles Room" Archive - by Hanon W. Russell
High Anxiety from Chess Cafe's "Dutch Treat" Archives, August, 1999 - by Hans Ree
Las Vegas: Surprise, surprise!! from Chess Cafe's "An Arbiter's Notebook" Archives, September, 1999 - by Geurt Gijssen
Is Khalifman the Real World Champion? from Chess Cafe's "The Kibitzer" Archives, September, 1999 - by Tim Harding
Odd One Out from Chess Cafe's "The Miles Report" Archives, September, 1999 - by Tony Miles
Conclusion October, 1999 Jan Newton
I'm an unabashed egotist. I find it fascinating going back and reading those old posts about my "I'M HERE AND LOVING IT EVERY SECOND OF IT" first and only trip to a World Chess Championship. I hope all the links still work - this stuff IS nearly 10 years old! Enjoy!
To make a long, complicated story short, I was not able to get the desk top back on the wireless network but somehow my laptop became the main connector - or, what the hell, I don't know what I'm talking about! LOL! Anyway, I did get the desktop jerry-rigged to restore it's internet connection - by wheeling the mobile hutch it rests on back into my bedroom - which was the main reason I'd wanted to go wireless to begin with - to get that darn set-up out of my room! Okay, so the desktop is still jerry-rigged with a wired connection to the wireless router and I've got cords running all over the place, and I can't see the t.v. from where I've got the computer hutch set up - oy!
So I decide I'm going to move my bedroom. I hemmed and hawed about that since December 26th, and yesterday I arrived at a plan. The present guest room will be turned into my bedroom. The middle bedroom (which is also the smallest), where the desktop used to sit before entering menopause and getting all bitchy on me, will become the guest bedroom. And my present bedroom, complete with pink walls (hey, 20 years ago I liked pink), will become the new den/library/computer room. It's the biggest bedroom and has a walk-in closet, so I'm not going to move my clothes out, just my bed.
Okay - so with a plan in hand, I pondered how to get the beds moved. Then I decided I wouldn't move the present bed out of the guest room that is being turned into my bedroom, I will just swap out the box springs and mattresses. Only, I can't handle the box spring by myself, they are too heavy. So, I tugged and pulled and lugged and huffed and puffed, and knocked pictures off the wall and knocked a few holes in the drywall in the hallway, but in the end I managed to get the current mattress out of the guest room into the spare bedroom that will soon become the guest room, and my current mattress on to the bed in the guest room that will soon become my room. Now I'm stuck with a bed frame, headboard and box spring in my "former" bedroom, what used to be the guest bed mattress lounging against a wall in the spare soon-to-be guest room, and my nice cushy mattress is now resting on top of a box spring in the former guest room that wasn't designed to hold the nice cushy mattress. And so it will be until dondelion arrives in May and can help me with the box spring dilemma!
So now I'm in the middle of trying to fix up my new room (the former guest room). It doesn't need to be painted (thank Goddess!) but now I can't decide whether I should use the red floral comforter with the red and white plaid flip side (very lumber-jacky and "warm, cozy feeling") or the black and white paisley print comforter, and whether I should use the black and white striped curtains or the black and ecru toile curtains and use the matching sheet set, and whether to use the black and ecru striped bed skirt or my old while petit-point bed skirt, and whether valances should go up, and all of the old pictures in that room have to come down because they were color-coordinated with the color scheme of the guest room, which I am NOT using in my bedroom. Oh, and I was going to use the black and white checked sheet set but the white doesn't match the ecru, so now I'm wondering what to do with the black and white checked sheet set.
All of this is the fault of my scheme to decorate my bedroom conceived more than 2 years ago when I was paging through some old decorating magazines and saw this fabulous toile bedroom with red walls, and I went nuts buying black, white and red toile and assorted accessories all for a room that was never repainted to host such new colors. So, I was stuck with my pink and grey scheme (that I was tired of). Now in the guest room (now my room), which is painted a nice neutral antique white with gold stenciled stars here and there, the new stuff that has bided its time in my closet for over 2 years will actually "go." Only I can't make up my mind what to use. That's what I get for buying too much stuff. I could have taken a trip to Egypt for what I spent on this stuff, geez! I should have stuck with ONE comforter set, and ONE set of curtains. And ONE bedskirt.
Oy yi yi. So you see my problems - no, I'm not mental, it's purely a decorator's dilemma, darlings! And - get this - the stuff has to be IRONED. I know I've got an iron around here somewhere, because I found an ironing board in the same closet where I stash the vacuum that I hardly ever use (only when company is coming).
Add to this the fact that I lost an entire day yesterday first shopping with my sister Debs - and boy, did I haul in some great bargains - and then shoveling out from the snow we got Friday. More snow is expected tonight and tomorrow, and then we're in for the DEEP FREEZE, and I'm scared to death about walking to and from the bus stop. The local forecasters are saying it will be as bad as 1994, when I missed several days of work because wind chills were down to 60 below zero and I didn't think I could make it to the nearest bus stop (about half a mile away in open country) without getting frostbite - which I've had and believe me, it really sucks big time! Schools were closed then, people had water pipes bursting in their homes, car batteries froze solid, the buses were packed because people couldn't get their cars started and people actually STOLE batteries out of other people's cars - it was an awful, scary time. And we're in for it again. Goddess, I HATE this frigging climate.
And so, in panic-mode (everyone is in panic mode, it seems) amongst other stops, Debs took me to the supermarket where I stocked up on my favorite cheap boxed wine, bread, milk, bird seed, critter food and dog food (for the crows) - enough to last a good week. I didn't need to actually buy food, but I did buy four boxes of Kraft's Macaroni and Cheese (although that's not really food), thanks to the generous Christmas gift I received from Isis and Michelle - a freezer full of Omaha Steaks' best offerings! I have enough food in that freezer to last two months, maybe more. $68 later, Debs is shaking her head over why I spent $10 on myself (not including the wine) and $20 on all the food for the animals. We also stopped at the Walgreens and Debs showed me these hand and foot-warmer thingies that one puts inside of one's gloves or mittens and inside of one's shoes or boots. Oh my! I'd only recently become aware of these miracles of modern technology, but evidently they've existed for years. I just hope my shoes don't start on fire tomorrow when I test drive them for the first time - before the DEEP FREEZE arrives early Tuesday morning. I am hopeful that I can figure out how they operate - I understand one merely has to open the package in a certain way, but I'm somewhat skeptical about that... Well, I should be able to figure it out, I do have a college education!
Another issue I've been wrestling with the past three days is how to get my photos to print out looking less BLUE. Arggggh. It's driving me NUTS! I've wasted untold amounts of prime photo paper and have experimented with settings, etc. etc. - and each photo I print comes out the same - looking decided blue-ish. But the reds looks fine - so I figure it must be an issue with green and/or yellow, but I don't know how to solve the problem!
So, amongst moving mattresses and whatnot from room to room, decorating issues, shoveling issues, BLUE photo issues, shopping for bargains - you should see this sexy black blouse I bought for our New York trip - oh, Mr. Don is going to have his eyes popping out of his head when he sees me in THAT number with my boobs popping out above a layer of small, demure ruffles - house cleaning, trying to keep up with my weight-loss dancing regime (I only did my Lady Marmalade routine twice last night) -- well, darlings, NOW you know how come I haven't been blogging.
I will try to do better today... Oh - and dondelion and I are going to Las Vegas for my birthday in August - spent lots of time tracking down hotel rates and flight schedules - what a hassle, but in the end, I prevailed (I always do :)) It will be the 10 year anniversary of my first "modern" visit to Las Vegas, when I met Isis and Michelle face to face for the first time and also covered the FIDE World Chess Championship at Caesar's Palace in August, 1999 for the then fledgling Goddesschess website. Wow - talk about a blast from the past! Check out:
TOURNAMENT CHESS
The Anatomy of a Coronation JanXena's Posts Regarding the 1999 World Chess Championship (July-August, 1999 - by Jan Newton)
What follows are the postings I did live from Las Vegas on Isis' laptop computer, as well as posts about the final games that took place after I had to return home. These are, of course, my personal observations, brash, unabashed and unabridged - and you will see that, as always, JanXena pulls no punches!
As a counterpoint to my admittedly neophyte and quite personal observations, the following are five articles written about the 1999 World Chess Championship written by the professionals: reporters, an arbiter, and players, that I found while perusing the archives of Chess Cafe. They are informative and fascinating because of the different perspectives they bring regarding what actually took place in Las Vegas, and what it all might mean to chess history and to the future of The Game itself:
Vegas Views from Chess Cafe's "Skittles Room" Archive - by Hanon W. Russell
High Anxiety from Chess Cafe's "Dutch Treat" Archives, August, 1999 - by Hans Ree
Las Vegas: Surprise, surprise!! from Chess Cafe's "An Arbiter's Notebook" Archives, September, 1999 - by Geurt Gijssen
Is Khalifman the Real World Champion? from Chess Cafe's "The Kibitzer" Archives, September, 1999 - by Tim Harding
Odd One Out from Chess Cafe's "The Miles Report" Archives, September, 1999 - by Tony Miles
Conclusion October, 1999 Jan Newton
I'm an unabashed egotist. I find it fascinating going back and reading those old posts about my "I'M HERE AND LOVING IT EVERY SECOND OF IT" first and only trip to a World Chess Championship. I hope all the links still work - this stuff IS nearly 10 years old! Enjoy!
Friday, January 9, 2009
Optical Illusions: Photos from The Venetian, Las Vegas
I'm always a sucker for a good optical illusion. Here are a couple of particularly fine shots of such illusions taken by dondelion - found within the flooring of the main public entry hall at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas.
Thank Goddess for The Venetian. This is perhaps the ONLY hotel in Las Vegas where one does NOT have to walk through the casino in order to check into the hotel! It's a gorgeous spot, one of my favorite places in Las Vegas. The ambiance is incredible - they seem to have the colors and the lighting JUST right. I also love the shops and the faux "canal" complete with gondolas, although when dondelion and I were trying to find the faux "St. Martin's Square" (the restaurant where we had a 10:30 PM reservation was on the Square), the pathways on the shopping floor turned into a veritable labyrinth!
The particular path we needed to take was down a certain lane that - from the general perspective on the main path - looked like a dead-end with an ice cream shop dead center. I really wanted to visit the ice-cream shop but I kept that wish to myself. Half an hour later, after wandering around (I was enjoying looking in the shop windows) I was miffed when dondelion stopped and asked for directions (can you imagine - a man who actually stops and asks for directions! - that's why I love him so much!) and led me down the very same path that we both had previously judged to be a dead end - ending in the ice cream shop! Oh well.
We strolled past the shop with my salivating tongue hanging out and suddenly appeared what seemed to be the equivalent of a yellow brick road! Before we knew it, there was the Mikomoto shop that I remembered SO well from dondelion's and my last visit (in November, 2003, when we got officially engaged) with the $50,000 strands of pearls in the windows! We had arrived in the faux St. Martin's Square!
It was filled with people. A group was playing venue-appropriate music, far too loudly in the echoing confines of the Square, and there was no place to stop for a minute (or even 10 seconds) to catch one's breath and simply and enjoy the views and the people all around. But we did find a spot or two anyway. I am not a fan of the rudeness of elbow use in general, but in Las Vegas, sometimes, one has to use elbows in order to MOVE!
Anyway, back to the optical illusions. The first shot is at the main entry into the hotel lobby where guests check-in. It is a bit dark - I'm too tired tonight to do photo-stuff to try and lighten it a bit - anyway, the spectacular astrolabe is not the primary subject of the photo, it's the floor! Take a look at it. dondelion's photo captured a lady walking gingerly across what appear to be raised planks!
The second photo was taken at the end of a long promenade from the check-in area toward the casino. On one side are exclusive shoppes, on the other side are windows looking out onto the grounds of the hotel and the busy sight of limos, cars and taxis pulling in and out. Where the casino begins, the marble flooring ends and plush carpeting takes over. Shades of Escher! You also get a very good view of the lushly painted vaulted ceiling over the promenade.
Thank Goddess for The Venetian. This is perhaps the ONLY hotel in Las Vegas where one does NOT have to walk through the casino in order to check into the hotel! It's a gorgeous spot, one of my favorite places in Las Vegas. The ambiance is incredible - they seem to have the colors and the lighting JUST right. I also love the shops and the faux "canal" complete with gondolas, although when dondelion and I were trying to find the faux "St. Martin's Square" (the restaurant where we had a 10:30 PM reservation was on the Square), the pathways on the shopping floor turned into a veritable labyrinth!
The particular path we needed to take was down a certain lane that - from the general perspective on the main path - looked like a dead-end with an ice cream shop dead center. I really wanted to visit the ice-cream shop but I kept that wish to myself. Half an hour later, after wandering around (I was enjoying looking in the shop windows) I was miffed when dondelion stopped and asked for directions (can you imagine - a man who actually stops and asks for directions! - that's why I love him so much!) and led me down the very same path that we both had previously judged to be a dead end - ending in the ice cream shop! Oh well.
We strolled past the shop with my salivating tongue hanging out and suddenly appeared what seemed to be the equivalent of a yellow brick road! Before we knew it, there was the Mikomoto shop that I remembered SO well from dondelion's and my last visit (in November, 2003, when we got officially engaged) with the $50,000 strands of pearls in the windows! We had arrived in the faux St. Martin's Square!
It was filled with people. A group was playing venue-appropriate music, far too loudly in the echoing confines of the Square, and there was no place to stop for a minute (or even 10 seconds) to catch one's breath and simply and enjoy the views and the people all around. But we did find a spot or two anyway. I am not a fan of the rudeness of elbow use in general, but in Las Vegas, sometimes, one has to use elbows in order to MOVE!
Anyway, back to the optical illusions. The first shot is at the main entry into the hotel lobby where guests check-in. It is a bit dark - I'm too tired tonight to do photo-stuff to try and lighten it a bit - anyway, the spectacular astrolabe is not the primary subject of the photo, it's the floor! Take a look at it. dondelion's photo captured a lady walking gingerly across what appear to be raised planks!
The second photo was taken at the end of a long promenade from the check-in area toward the casino. On one side are exclusive shoppes, on the other side are windows looking out onto the grounds of the hotel and the busy sight of limos, cars and taxis pulling in and out. Where the casino begins, the marble flooring ends and plush carpeting takes over. Shades of Escher! You also get a very good view of the lushly painted vaulted ceiling over the promenade.
Carmen Report: Photos from Egypt
Our friend from Madrid, Carmen Romero, widow of IM Ricardo Calvo (a chess historian and the mentor of our tiny "Tribe") spent the Christmas holiday on tour in Egypt this holiday season.
Carmen is a noted chess historian in her own right and has presented many papers to gatherings of chess historians and chess collectors at symposia around the world. Carmen has offered her work for first internet publication at Goddesschess, for which we are very grateful. It is impossible to describe the depth of our affection and regard for our dear "W.I." and her unfailing support of the vision and mission of Goddesschess.
Carmen read my post of yesterday about the discovery of the tomb of Queen Sesheshet, and emailed me the following information, along with two photographs taken at the Valley of the Kings during her recent holiday there over the Christmas vacation. Here is part of her email:
Dear Patton [that is a nickname The Chief gave me], I have seen in the blog your post about Queen Shesheti in Saqqara.
They are making continuous excavations in the "Kings's Valley", like in the "Queens's Valley", and in Saqqara. In the Spanish newspaper "EL PAIS" was an article about the few historical evidences on Sesheshet: she is mentioned as "Mother of the King" in the tomb of the Visir Mehu (I have seen) and, mainly in passing, as the mother of Teti, also in a passage about baldness in the medical papyrus [of] Ebers (very curious). Teti, according to [historian] Manetón, was murdered by eunuchs [of one or more of his wives], and the son of one of his wives became Pepi I.
Best regardsWI
Thank you, W.I.!
I am not the best historian on ancient Egypt, and I may be wrong about this, but I believe that Pharaoh Pepi I ruled for about 40 years and was considered one of the greatest of all the Pharaohs. He was one of the last Pharaohs of the Old Kingdom.
Here are the photos that W.I. sent - excavation in the Valley of the Kings:
Egypt will continue to reveal her ancient mysteries to us long after I am gone - perhaps for the next 4,000 years! May we ALL learn to appreciate her precious gifts from the past.
Carmen is a noted chess historian in her own right and has presented many papers to gatherings of chess historians and chess collectors at symposia around the world. Carmen has offered her work for first internet publication at Goddesschess, for which we are very grateful. It is impossible to describe the depth of our affection and regard for our dear "W.I." and her unfailing support of the vision and mission of Goddesschess.
Carmen read my post of yesterday about the discovery of the tomb of Queen Sesheshet, and emailed me the following information, along with two photographs taken at the Valley of the Kings during her recent holiday there over the Christmas vacation. Here is part of her email:
Dear Patton [that is a nickname The Chief gave me], I have seen in the blog your post about Queen Shesheti in Saqqara.
They are making continuous excavations in the "Kings's Valley", like in the "Queens's Valley", and in Saqqara. In the Spanish newspaper "EL PAIS" was an article about the few historical evidences on Sesheshet: she is mentioned as "Mother of the King" in the tomb of the Visir Mehu (I have seen) and, mainly in passing, as the mother of Teti, also in a passage about baldness in the medical papyrus [of] Ebers (very curious). Teti, according to [historian] Manetón, was murdered by eunuchs [of one or more of his wives], and the son of one of his wives became Pepi I.
Best regardsWI
Thank you, W.I.!
I am not the best historian on ancient Egypt, and I may be wrong about this, but I believe that Pharaoh Pepi I ruled for about 40 years and was considered one of the greatest of all the Pharaohs. He was one of the last Pharaohs of the Old Kingdom.
Here are the photos that W.I. sent - excavation in the Valley of the Kings:
Egypt will continue to reveal her ancient mysteries to us long after I am gone - perhaps for the next 4,000 years! May we ALL learn to appreciate her precious gifts from the past.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Queen Seshestet's Tomb Found
I'm not sure if I published something on this story earlier - here is a news story from Yahoo/News today. Note the difference in how the Queen's name is spelled in the photo credit and in the article itself: Shesheti versus Seshestet.
Photo credit: Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass (L) excavates a newly discovered grave containing the remains of Queen Shesheti in Saqqara, in this handout photo taken January 6, 2009.(Handout/Reuters)
Mummy thought to be Queen Seshestet found in Egypt
Thu Jan 8, 7:21 am ET
CAIRO (Reuters) – Egyptian archaeologists have found the remains of a mummy thought to be that of Queen Seshestet, the mother of a pharaoh who ruled Egypt in the 24th century BC, the government said on Thursday.
After five hours spent lifting the lid of a sarcophagus in a pyramid discovered south of Cairo last year, they found a skull, legs, pelvis, other body parts wrapped in linen, and ancient pottery, the government's antiquities department said.
They also found gold wrappings which would have been put on the fingers of the mummified person. Grave robbers ransacked the burial chamber in ancient times and stole the other objects.
"Although they did not find the name of the queen buried in the pyramid, all the signs indicate that she is Seshestet, the mother of King Teti, the first king of the Sixth Dynasty," chief archaeologist Zahi Hawass said in a statement.
Teti ruled Egypt for at least 10 years around the year 2300 BC and is buried nearby. While archaeologists have found many royal mummies from ancient Egypt, most of them are from the New Kingdom, which began 500 years after Teti's time.
(Writing by Jonathan Wright; Editing by Sophie Hardach)
Photo credit: Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass (L) excavates a newly discovered grave containing the remains of Queen Shesheti in Saqqara, in this handout photo taken January 6, 2009.(Handout/Reuters) Mummy thought to be Queen Seshestet found in Egypt
Thu Jan 8, 7:21 am ET
CAIRO (Reuters) – Egyptian archaeologists have found the remains of a mummy thought to be that of Queen Seshestet, the mother of a pharaoh who ruled Egypt in the 24th century BC, the government said on Thursday.
After five hours spent lifting the lid of a sarcophagus in a pyramid discovered south of Cairo last year, they found a skull, legs, pelvis, other body parts wrapped in linen, and ancient pottery, the government's antiquities department said.
They also found gold wrappings which would have been put on the fingers of the mummified person. Grave robbers ransacked the burial chamber in ancient times and stole the other objects.
"Although they did not find the name of the queen buried in the pyramid, all the signs indicate that she is Seshestet, the mother of King Teti, the first king of the Sixth Dynasty," chief archaeologist Zahi Hawass said in a statement.
Teti ruled Egypt for at least 10 years around the year 2300 BC and is buried nearby. While archaeologists have found many royal mummies from ancient Egypt, most of them are from the New Kingdom, which began 500 years after Teti's time.
(Writing by Jonathan Wright; Editing by Sophie Hardach)
Awwww...
He's so cute! Someone feeding a squirrel in a Nicaraguan nature preserve, I just found this photograph at Yahoo/news while I was reading a different story. Photo credit: Nueva Guinea Town, some 300 km (186 miles) south of Managua, December 29, 2008. REUTERS/Oswaldo Rivas (NICARAGUA)
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Jessie Gilbert
Does anyone remember Jessie Gilbert? Who cries for Jessie Gilbert?
Jessie Gilbert died on July 26, 2006. Jessie fell from a window up some 8 stories one night at age 19, while attending a chess tournament in the Czech Republic. At the time of her death, Jessie was due to give testimony against her father on criminal charges of sexual abuse of Jessie and other minor females. After Jessie's death, Mr. Gilbert was found the equivalent of "not guilty."
"I loved my daughter", said Mr. Gilbert. Yeah, it seems he loved her to death. Jessie's mother says her daughter killed herself.
After the inquest into Jessie's death, Mr. Gilbert sued his former wife for custody of their two minor daughters (Jessie's sisters), then aged 15 and 9. The former Mrs. Gilbert was said to have threatened the life of Mr. Gilbert at the time, but no charges were ever filed against her. Eventually, the story dropped from the public eye.
There was substantial evidence of a long history of self-abuse (such as self-slashing) by Jessie Gilbert and earlier suicide attempts. According to news reports at the time, Jessie was on antidepressants at the time of her death.
From what I've read, these are classic symptoms of a young child who has suffered sexual abuse. I wonder if Mr. Gilbert had private visitation rights with his two minor daughters after his divorce from their mother.
On this day in history:
1999 – Eleven-year-old Jessie Gilbert from Croydon became the World Women’s Amateur Chess Champion.
Background coverage at Chessbase.
Jessie Gilbert died on July 26, 2006. Jessie fell from a window up some 8 stories one night at age 19, while attending a chess tournament in the Czech Republic. At the time of her death, Jessie was due to give testimony against her father on criminal charges of sexual abuse of Jessie and other minor females. After Jessie's death, Mr. Gilbert was found the equivalent of "not guilty."
"I loved my daughter", said Mr. Gilbert. Yeah, it seems he loved her to death. Jessie's mother says her daughter killed herself.
After the inquest into Jessie's death, Mr. Gilbert sued his former wife for custody of their two minor daughters (Jessie's sisters), then aged 15 and 9. The former Mrs. Gilbert was said to have threatened the life of Mr. Gilbert at the time, but no charges were ever filed against her. Eventually, the story dropped from the public eye.
There was substantial evidence of a long history of self-abuse (such as self-slashing) by Jessie Gilbert and earlier suicide attempts. According to news reports at the time, Jessie was on antidepressants at the time of her death.
From what I've read, these are classic symptoms of a young child who has suffered sexual abuse. I wonder if Mr. Gilbert had private visitation rights with his two minor daughters after his divorce from their mother.
On this day in history:
1999 – Eleven-year-old Jessie Gilbert from Croydon became the World Women’s Amateur Chess Champion.
Background coverage at Chessbase.
A Grandmaster Who Gives Back
A great story that deserves more publicity. Thank you, GM Murray Chandler.
From www.scene.co.nz
The $100,000 thank-you
Russell Blackstock
January 8, 2009
Queenstown Chess Classic organiser Murray Chandler is personally underwriting the international tournament with a six-figure sum.
The New Zealand grandmaster – who owns property in the resort – also put his hand in his pocket to the tune of $30,000 for the inaugural contest three years ago.
This time the prize pot for the 10-day competition – which starts at the Millennium Hotel next Thursday – is a whopping $50,000.
“I’m underwriting the tournament again for about $100,000 as a thank you to the NZ chess community, who were fantastic to me when I started out as a professional player in 1975 when I was aged 15,” says Chandler.
“I’ve had a wonderful time playing throughout the world and will never forget the tremendous support I received as a youngster.”
About 115 competitors have registered for this year’s event, including strong representation from Europe.
An additional $6500 is also on offer in the NZ Rapidplay and Lightning Championships – and for under-18s, a Queenstown Junior Classic is being introduced over four mornings.
From www.scene.co.nz
The $100,000 thank-you
Russell Blackstock
January 8, 2009
Queenstown Chess Classic organiser Murray Chandler is personally underwriting the international tournament with a six-figure sum.
The New Zealand grandmaster – who owns property in the resort – also put his hand in his pocket to the tune of $30,000 for the inaugural contest three years ago.
This time the prize pot for the 10-day competition – which starts at the Millennium Hotel next Thursday – is a whopping $50,000.
“I’m underwriting the tournament again for about $100,000 as a thank you to the NZ chess community, who were fantastic to me when I started out as a professional player in 1975 when I was aged 15,” says Chandler.
“I’ve had a wonderful time playing throughout the world and will never forget the tremendous support I received as a youngster.”
About 115 competitors have registered for this year’s event, including strong representation from Europe.
An additional $6500 is also on offer in the NZ Rapidplay and Lightning Championships – and for under-18s, a Queenstown Junior Classic is being introduced over four mornings.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
More Photos from Christmas, 2008
A couple of dondelion's photos from The Venetian.This is "St. Martin's Square" inside the Venetian Hotel. This shot was taken on Christmas night, after we'd seen "Phantom of the Opera." We had 10:30 PM dinner reservations at a restaurant on the "Square" and were reconnoitering the territory and taking in some of the local entertainment prior to supper. There was a musical group playing (off camera). The "Square" was packed with people (I've never seen it otherwise during my prior visits) and dondelion chose this shot toward a corner of the "Square" to show the skyline and realistic "architecture"The sky was tending toward "sunset" at the time (it changes on a regular schedule from sunrise to sunset).
Another shot of "St. Martin's Square," this one toward the opposite end of the "Square." The sky is deepening in color toward evening and the "Square" is packed with revelers! Our restaurant is on the right (outdoor seating), marked with the small oval yellow sign on the wrought-iron fencing. The lights and fencing on the right mark off one of Wolfgang Puck's restaurants.
Think Burning "Witches" Is a Thing of the Past?
Think again. Ohmygoddess! What a horrible, monstrous story.
Report from ABC News.com
Woman burnt at stake in PNG: reports
Posted 8 minutes ago Updated 9 minutes ago
A young Papua New Guinea woman was lashed naked to a pole and burnt to death in what authorities fear may be another sorcery killing in the jungle interior of the country, local media reported.
Black magic is still practiced in the highlands of Papua New Guinea and women are often killed for having extra marital affairs, being accused of sorcery, or blamed for spreading HIV/AIDS.
Witnesses told The Post Courier newspaper that the woman, aged between 16 and 20, was stripped, blindfolded, gagged and tied to a pole on Tuesday.
"The girl was stripped naked and could not shout for assistance or resist as she was tightly strapped and her mouth gagged," witness Jessie James told the newspaper.
Truck tyres and firewood were then placed around her, petrol poured over the tyres and wood and set alight, Mr James said.
"I don't know the right words to describe it but it's barbaric. Can you find the best words to describe such acts that are rampant here?" highlands police chief Simon Kauba said.
The Post Courier newspaper editorial condemned the killing, saying PNG's hysteria over sorcery was creating a climate similar to the 17th century witch trials in America.
"If it is alleged she was a sorcerer, this is yet one more example of hysteria and superstition running rampant in parts of our country," the editorial said.
"Sorcery is a most difficult crime to prove.
"In the witchery trials of America, hundreds of years ago, hysteria took charge and terrible injustices were done.
"People were burned at the stake. We are doing the same thing now.
"How many of our young are afraid to go home because of these sorcery beliefs and vengeance practices?
"Those who say she got primitive justice should pause to think, it could be you next on that truckload of burning tyres."
- Reuters
Report from ABC News.com
Woman burnt at stake in PNG: reports
Posted 8 minutes ago Updated 9 minutes ago
A young Papua New Guinea woman was lashed naked to a pole and burnt to death in what authorities fear may be another sorcery killing in the jungle interior of the country, local media reported.
Black magic is still practiced in the highlands of Papua New Guinea and women are often killed for having extra marital affairs, being accused of sorcery, or blamed for spreading HIV/AIDS.
Witnesses told The Post Courier newspaper that the woman, aged between 16 and 20, was stripped, blindfolded, gagged and tied to a pole on Tuesday.
"The girl was stripped naked and could not shout for assistance or resist as she was tightly strapped and her mouth gagged," witness Jessie James told the newspaper.
Truck tyres and firewood were then placed around her, petrol poured over the tyres and wood and set alight, Mr James said.
"I don't know the right words to describe it but it's barbaric. Can you find the best words to describe such acts that are rampant here?" highlands police chief Simon Kauba said.
The Post Courier newspaper editorial condemned the killing, saying PNG's hysteria over sorcery was creating a climate similar to the 17th century witch trials in America.
"If it is alleged she was a sorcerer, this is yet one more example of hysteria and superstition running rampant in parts of our country," the editorial said.
"Sorcery is a most difficult crime to prove.
"In the witchery trials of America, hundreds of years ago, hysteria took charge and terrible injustices were done.
"People were burned at the stake. We are doing the same thing now.
"How many of our young are afraid to go home because of these sorcery beliefs and vengeance practices?
"Those who say she got primitive justice should pause to think, it could be you next on that truckload of burning tyres."
- Reuters
How Britain Planned to "Resist" A German Occupation
A fascinating story, all the more so because it's true.
From The Times
January 5, 2009
Secret army of ‘scallywags’ to sabotage German occupation
Michael Evans, Defence Editor
By day they were ordinary civilians — from dentists and clergymen to gamekeepers and roadmenders – in a Britain gripped by fear of imminent invasion by Hitler’s blitzkreig troops.
The only clue to their alter egos might have been the pieces of paper in their pockets – informing any police officer suspicious of their behaviour “to ask no questions of the bearer but phone this number”.
But new details have now emerged of the highly secretive role played by a “resistance” army of fit young men and women chosen as would-be saboteurs and spies in the event of a German landing.
In the dark days of 1940, the unit grew to about 6,000 members, who knew little of each other and operated in small guerrilla groups. Recruited to disrupt a German occupation force – including roles such as blowing up tanks, lorry parks and communications – the teams prepared by carrying out covert missions, known as “scallywagging”, at night.
The Auxiliers, as they were known, formed operational patrols of seven or eight heavily armed men who emerged from hideouts to watch the coastlines of East Anglia for any sign of approaching German commandos.
Their role was to engage in irregular warfare, which meant that, as civilians, their capture by the Germans would have led to their instant execution as spies. Not everyone in the military hierarchy approved of the concept, believing that only men in uniform should be recruited to fight the enemy.
Official records of the GHQ Auxiliary Units – whose creation was authorised by the inner War Cabinet, chaired by Winston Churchill – have rarely been released by the National Archives.
Now John Warwicker, a 78-year-old retired Scotland Yard Special Branch officer, has unlocked some of the secrets and written an account of the resistance organisation-in-waiting, called Churchill’s Underground Army. “There is unnecessary secrecy about these units [but] Britain’s stay-behind army of civilian men and women should not be cast aside or written off as insignificant,” Mr Warwicker said.
Even those recruited for bombing missions never knew who was really behind the idea. Mr Warwicker said that they had thought they were working for the War Office, but GHQ Auxiliary Units were financed by MI6, and one element of it, the Special Duties Section, became so experienced in covert operations that after the threat of invasion receded, members of the section were snatched up by the SAS for the rest of the war. Some of the Special Duties Section spies were women.
Many of those who were recruited into the Auxiliary Units had been selected from the ranks of the Home Guard – yet as one senior officer recorded at the time: “To compare them with the Home Guard was to compare the Brigade of Guards with the Salvation Army.”
“They were a secret guerrilla group – the members were not to know each other. As cover for their activities they were to appear to continue their lives entirely normally,” Mr Warwicker said. The key man in each patrol group had a store of explosives and weaponry hidden away and only he knew where it was.
When the idea was first mooted in 1940, recruiters were dispatched around the country to find suitable candidates: men and women who had not been sent to war because they were needed on the land or in other vital jobs. The trawl included clergymen, gamekeepers, poachers, dentists and roadmenders. “A minor police record was not necessarily a disadvantage,” Mr Warwicker said.
Each operational patrol was also issued with one gallon of rum. The jar was to be opened only to relieve pain in the event of injury or in the face of imminent capture, in the belief that “a tot or two might help to extend the time an auxilier could be expected to resist interrogation and torture”. In 1944 an ungrateful War Office demanded the return of every jar of rum, unopened and still with an official seal. It failed to notice that many, while still apparently sealed, were filled with green tea – or something similar.
‘I said I would do anything’
Case study
Don Handscombe, an early recruit to Churchill’s underground army, recalls the moment when he was arrested by a sharp-eyed police constable who wanted to know why he was scurrying around at night with a revolver in a holster.
Now 90 and living in Suffolk, Mr Handscombe told The Times: “I said I was with the Home Guard but he didn’t believe me. He didn’t like the look of me — this was after Dunkirk when we expected to be invaded. I had to spend a few hours in a police cell until our intelligence officer arrived to release me.” After that, Auxiliers were given a note to produce in such circumstances.
Mr. Handscombe, who was trained in explosives and marksmanship, had been recruited while he was working as a farm manager: “I was asked what I was prepared to do for my country and I said I would do anything.”
This is scary stuff. I remember in college back in early 80's in one political science class, we did a series of exercises trying to imagine what it would be like if the - then - seemingly powerful Soviet Union invaded the United States. (Remember the television mini-serie
From The Times
January 5, 2009
Secret army of ‘scallywags’ to sabotage German occupation
Michael Evans, Defence Editor
By day they were ordinary civilians — from dentists and clergymen to gamekeepers and roadmenders – in a Britain gripped by fear of imminent invasion by Hitler’s blitzkreig troops.
The only clue to their alter egos might have been the pieces of paper in their pockets – informing any police officer suspicious of their behaviour “to ask no questions of the bearer but phone this number”.
But new details have now emerged of the highly secretive role played by a “resistance” army of fit young men and women chosen as would-be saboteurs and spies in the event of a German landing.
In the dark days of 1940, the unit grew to about 6,000 members, who knew little of each other and operated in small guerrilla groups. Recruited to disrupt a German occupation force – including roles such as blowing up tanks, lorry parks and communications – the teams prepared by carrying out covert missions, known as “scallywagging”, at night.
The Auxiliers, as they were known, formed operational patrols of seven or eight heavily armed men who emerged from hideouts to watch the coastlines of East Anglia for any sign of approaching German commandos.
Their role was to engage in irregular warfare, which meant that, as civilians, their capture by the Germans would have led to their instant execution as spies. Not everyone in the military hierarchy approved of the concept, believing that only men in uniform should be recruited to fight the enemy.
Official records of the GHQ Auxiliary Units – whose creation was authorised by the inner War Cabinet, chaired by Winston Churchill – have rarely been released by the National Archives.
Now John Warwicker, a 78-year-old retired Scotland Yard Special Branch officer, has unlocked some of the secrets and written an account of the resistance organisation-in-waiting, called Churchill’s Underground Army. “There is unnecessary secrecy about these units [but] Britain’s stay-behind army of civilian men and women should not be cast aside or written off as insignificant,” Mr Warwicker said.
Even those recruited for bombing missions never knew who was really behind the idea. Mr Warwicker said that they had thought they were working for the War Office, but GHQ Auxiliary Units were financed by MI6, and one element of it, the Special Duties Section, became so experienced in covert operations that after the threat of invasion receded, members of the section were snatched up by the SAS for the rest of the war. Some of the Special Duties Section spies were women.
Many of those who were recruited into the Auxiliary Units had been selected from the ranks of the Home Guard – yet as one senior officer recorded at the time: “To compare them with the Home Guard was to compare the Brigade of Guards with the Salvation Army.”
“They were a secret guerrilla group – the members were not to know each other. As cover for their activities they were to appear to continue their lives entirely normally,” Mr Warwicker said. The key man in each patrol group had a store of explosives and weaponry hidden away and only he knew where it was.
When the idea was first mooted in 1940, recruiters were dispatched around the country to find suitable candidates: men and women who had not been sent to war because they were needed on the land or in other vital jobs. The trawl included clergymen, gamekeepers, poachers, dentists and roadmenders. “A minor police record was not necessarily a disadvantage,” Mr Warwicker said.
Each operational patrol was also issued with one gallon of rum. The jar was to be opened only to relieve pain in the event of injury or in the face of imminent capture, in the belief that “a tot or two might help to extend the time an auxilier could be expected to resist interrogation and torture”. In 1944 an ungrateful War Office demanded the return of every jar of rum, unopened and still with an official seal. It failed to notice that many, while still apparently sealed, were filled with green tea – or something similar.
‘I said I would do anything’
Case study
Don Handscombe, an early recruit to Churchill’s underground army, recalls the moment when he was arrested by a sharp-eyed police constable who wanted to know why he was scurrying around at night with a revolver in a holster.
Now 90 and living in Suffolk, Mr Handscombe told The Times: “I said I was with the Home Guard but he didn’t believe me. He didn’t like the look of me — this was after Dunkirk when we expected to be invaded. I had to spend a few hours in a police cell until our intelligence officer arrived to release me.” After that, Auxiliers were given a note to produce in such circumstances.
Mr. Handscombe, who was trained in explosives and marksmanship, had been recruited while he was working as a farm manager: “I was asked what I was prepared to do for my country and I said I would do anything.”
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This is scary stuff. I remember in college back in early 80's in one political science class, we did a series of exercises trying to imagine what it would be like if the - then - seemingly powerful Soviet Union invaded the United States. (Remember the television mini-serie