Busy Crazy Cougar!

Long story - I'm now a member of the "Crazy Cougars Rock" (CCR) Club consisting of several ladies of a certain age who ride the bus to and from work five days a week on the same route.  I'm not going to reveal all of the details of how we all met, who we are, our personal stories and how we arrived at our group name, you would certainly blush, darlings.

Anyway, it is in part due to my fledgling membership in the CCR that I decided to enter the Hales Corners Chess Challenge XIV (October 22, 2011, details) as well as a certain nostalgia because it will be about a year ago that Shira-then-Evans and now Shira Sanford and her then-fiance, Crispin Sanford, came up from a work project in Chicago to visit me for a happy weekend!  That weekend visit happened to coincide with the Hales Corners Chess Challenge XII, for which Goddesschess was sponsoring prizes for the chess femmes.  The upshot was that Shira and I played in the HCC Challenge XII.  Crispin was also supposed to play but he chickened out at the last moment and spent the day, instead, taking photographs of Shira and I (to be fair, almost entirely of Shira) playing chess and doing intense work on his Mac tablet thingy on several projects he had going at the time. 

Well, water under the bridge and all that.  The CCR think I'm some sort of genius or something, despite my repeated and heated denials that I don't know a damn thing about how to play chess other than the basic moves, and that's why 8 year olds with no ratings can beat my pants off.  Hmmm, that sounds rather vulgar, doesn't it?  Oh well... And the funniest part is I haven't even begun to tell them my Chess Tales. 

It's not just a personal life I have, darlings.  I also have a Goddesschess Life that is entirely separate and sometimes IT takes over everything!  I had committed to writing an article for a certain chess magazine to be published in the near future that I had - honest - in the back of my mind but the time somehow crept up on me and here it was, the last day of September and the article was due.  EEK!

Thank Goddess for lunch hours!  I wrote most of it during that hour and in about 2.5 frantic hours this evening after I got home from the office, I did the rest and emailed it off, complete with a couple of  images that are not properly embedded into the Word document.  Oh well.  That is now the editor's problem, not mine :)  I made my deadline.

That project relates to our newly-undertaken sponsorship of the 2012 Goddesschess Canadian Women's Closed Chess Championship.  HOORAH, HOORAH!

With the start of a new blog entirely devoted to female fashion and personal care things that - trust me - our male readers will not want to read about, including the undertaking of certain sewing projects (that ancient Kenmore sewing machine of mine still works!) -- plus we had a tremendous windstorm come through the last 1.5 days and my backyard is now an incredible MESS of prematurely fallen leaves, fallen branches, twigs, and LIMBS (big tree limbs) that need to be cleaned up before I can venture forth with the trusty Sears Craftsman lawnmower with 6.5 HP (zoom zoom zoom) --

To sum it up for you, darlings, I'VE BEEN BUSY. 

NOW the Milwaukee Brewers decide to go into play-off mode!  NOW the Wisconsin Badgers are scheduled to play the Nebraska Corn Huskers and Madison is going to be ROCKING so hard I'll be able to go to sleep tonight like a baby being rocked in a cradle - and the game isn't until tomorrow!  And of course, on Sunday, the 2011 WORLD FOOTBALL (not soccer) CHAMPIONS, THE GREEN BAY PACKERS, will be playing against - I've no idea.  But come game time on Sunday my eyes will be glued to the television set with the volume turned all the way down whilst my ears are attuned to Packers the volume turned up coverage on WTMJ Radion 620 AM in Milwaukee, WI.  Yeah, baby!  As far as I'm concerned, nobody does play-by-play radio announcing of pro football better than our WTMJ radio team.  I prefer to listen to them while watching the action on televison rather than the t.v. announcers.

So - mea culpa, darlings.  Right now I'm busy doing other things rather than blogging here. I'll be back once the blizzards start roaring in Wisconsin.  You know they always do :)

16th European Club Cup for Women 2011

Team standings after R 6 - 1 more round to go:

Rank	Team	Gam.	+	=	-	MP	Pts.	BH.
1	AVS	6	5	0	1	10	16	81½
2	AEM Luxten Timisoara	6	5	0	1	10	16	69
3	Mika	6	4	0	2	8	15	73½
4	Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo	6	3	1	2	7	16½	65½
5	SHSM-RGSU	6	3	1	2	7	14½	73
6	BAS	6	3	1	2	7	12½	59½
7	Giprorechtrans	6	3	1	2	7	11½	74½
8	CS R. Fischer Chieti	6	3	0	3	6	11	56
9	Anatolia	6	2	0	4	4	7½	65
10	ZSK Maribor	6	2	0	4	4	7	59
11	Oslo Schakselskap	6	1	0	5	2	4½	61½

---

Round 6 on 2011/09/30 at 15:00
6.1	2	AVS		3 - 1	3	Mika
1	GM	Stefanova Antoaneta	2528	1 : 0	GM	Danielian Elina	2517
2	GM	Lahno Kateryna	2554	½:½	IM	Harika Dronavalli	2505
3	GM	Cmilyte Viktorija	2525	1 : 0	GM	Zhu Chen	2490
4	WGM	Pogonina Natalija	2446	½:½	IM	Mkrtchian Lilit	2475
6.2	4	AEM Luxten Timisoara		2½ - 1½	5	SHSM-RGSU
1	GM	Dzagnidze Nana	2525	½:½	GM	Kosteniuk Alexandra	2469
2	IM	Zatonskih Anna	2508	½:½	IM	Gunina Valentina	2499
3	IM	Javakhishvili Lela	2464	1 : 0	WGM	Girya Olga	2390
4	IM	Foisor Cristina-Adela	2416	½:½	WGM	Kashlinskaya Alina	2385
6.3	7	BAS		2 - 2	1	Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo
1	IM	Bojkovic Natasa	2378	1 : 0	GM	Hou Yifan	2578
2	IM	Dembo Yelena	2471	½:½	IM	Muzychuk Anna	2545
3	WGM	Chelushkina Irina	2287	0 : 1	GM	Cramling Pia	2489
4	WIM	Drljevic Ljilja	2256	½:½	IM	Skripchenko Almira	2470
6.4	8	CS R. Fischer Chieti		2½ - 1½	10	Anatolia
1	IM	Fierro Baquero Martha L	2378	1 : 0	WIM	Yildiz Betul Cemre	2308
2	IM	Sedina Elena	2337	½:½	WIM	Ozturk Kubra	2260
3	IM	Zimina Olga	2337	1 : 0	WCM	Kaya Emel	1994
4		Di Primio Eugenia	1974	0 : 1	WCM	Sop Selen	1977
6.5	9	ZSK Maribor		2½ - 1½	11	Oslo Schakselskap
1	WFM	Dimitrijevic Aleksandra	2287	1 : 0	WFM	Johnsen Sylvia	2038
2	WGM	Srebrnic Ana	2222	½:½	WFM	Frank-Nielsen Marie	2020
3	WIM	Ankerst Milka	2084	0 : 1		Khachatourian Yerazik	1967
4		Orehek Spela	2020	1 : 0		Reppen Ellisiv	1969

Hou Yifan lost to a player rated 200 ELO points below her?  Can you say - OVERTRAINED?  Still, there is much time between now and her Women's World Championship Match with GM Koneru Humpy of India, so -- we shall see...

Here is the "Best Players" List after R6.  I have highlighted the chess femmes I've been following in red:

Board list after round 6

(inclusive forfeit points), sorted according to Performance, Manually input, Rtg-O

Board 1

Rank		Name	Rtg	Team	Rp	man	Rtg-O
1	GM	Stefanova Antoaneta	2528	AVS	2733	0	2493
2	GM	Zhukova Natalia	2416	Giprorechtrans	2559	0	2487
3	IM	Bojkovic Natasa	2378	BAS	2460	0	2388
4	GM	Kosteniuk Alexandra	2469	SHSM-RGSU	2459	0	2459
5	GM	Dzagnidze Nana	2525	AEM Luxten Timisoara	2451	0	2394
6	GM	Hou Yifan	2578	Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo	2448	0	2376
7	IM	Fierro Baquero Martha L	2378	CS R. Fischer Chieti	2436	0	2364
8	GM	Danielian Elina	2517	Mika	2406	0	2406
9	WIM	Yildiz Betul Cemre	2308	Anatolia	2207	0	2447
10	WFM	Dimitrijevic Aleksandra	2287	ZSK Maribor	2155	0	2395
11	WFM	Johnsen Sylvia	2038	Oslo Schakselskap	1584	0	2384

Board 2

Rank		Name	Rtg	Team	Rp	man	Rtg-O
1	IM	Muzychuk Anna	2545	Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo	2640	0	2400
2	IM	Dembo Yelena	2471	BAS	2634	0	2394
3	IM	Harika Dronavalli	2505	Mika	2604	0	2411
4	IM	Gunina Valentina	2499	SHSM-RGSU	2550	0	2425
5	GM	Lahno Kateryna	2554	AVS	2535	0	2463
6	IM	Munguntuul Batkhuyag	2465	Giprorechtrans	2494	0	2494
7	IM	Zatonskih Anna	2508	AEM Luxten Timisoara	2456	0	2399
8	WGM	Srebrnic Ana	2222	ZSK Maribor	2280	0	2352
9	WIM	Ozturk Kubra	2260	Anatolia	2262	0	2411
10	IM	Sedina Elena	2337	CS R. Fischer Chieti	2211	0	2360
11	WFM	Frank-Nielsen Marie	2020	Oslo Schakselskap	1998	0	2364

Board 3

Rank		Name	Rtg	Team	Rp	man	Rtg-O
1	IM	Javakhishvili Lela	2464	AEM Luxten Timisoara	2622	0	2382
2	IM	Zaiatz Elena	2441	Giprorechtrans	2496	0	2424
3	GM	Cramling Pia	2489	Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo	2474	0	2325
4	GM	Cmilyte Viktorija	2525	AVS	2433	0	2433
5	GM	Zhu Chen	2490	Mika	2378	0	2378
6	GM	Socko Monika	2490	Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo	2353	0	2281
7	IM	Zimina Olga	2337	CS R. Fischer Chieti	2318	0	2246
8		Khachatourian Yerazik	1967	Oslo Schakselskap	2216	0	2288
9	WGM	Chelushkina Irina	2287	BAS	2096	0	2336
10	WCM	Kaya Emel	1994	Anatolia	2083	0	2323
11	WIM	Ankerst Milka	2084	ZSK Maribor	1887	0	2253

Board 4

Rank		Name	Rtg	Team	Rp	man	Rtg-O
1	IM	Mkrtchian Lilit	2475	Mika	2491	0	2298
2	WGM	Kashlinskaya Alina	2385	SHSM-RGSU	2484	0	2291
3	WGM	Pogonina Natalija	2446	AVS	2482	0	2357
4	WIM	Drljevic Ljilja	2256	BAS	2252	0	2252
5	IM	Vasilevich Irina	2393	Giprorechtrans	2161	0	2401
6		Di Primio Eugenia	1974	CS R. Fischer Chieti	2041	0	2190
7		Reppen Ellisiv	1969	Oslo Schakselskap	1398	0	2198

Children Were Taught Art in Neolithic Times

Well, duh!  Where else might those tiny little hand prints have come from?  We've all seen images of them from Lascaux?

From guardian.co.uk

Stone-age toddlers had art lessons, study says

Research on Dordogne cave art shows children learned to finger-paint in palaeolithic age, approximately 13,000 years ago

Caroline Davies

The Guardian, Thursday 29 September 2011

Stone age toddlers may have attended a form of prehistoric nursery where they were encouraged to develop their creative skills in cave art, say archaeologists.

Research indicates young children expressed themselves in an ancient form of finger-painting. And, just as in modern homes, their early efforts were given pride of place on the living room wall.

A Cambridge University conference on the archaeology of childhood on Friday reveals a tantalising glimpse into life for children in the palaeolithic age, an estimated 13,000 years ago.

Archaeologists at one of the most famous prehistoric decorated caves in France, the complex of caverns at Rouffignac in the Dordogne known as the Cave of a Hundred Mammoths, have discovered that children were actively helped to express themselves through finger fluting – running fingers over soft red clay to produce decorative crisscrossing lines, zig-zags and swirls.

The stunning drawings, including 158 depictions of mammoths, 28 bisons, 15 horses, 12 goats, 10 woolly rhinoceroses, four human figures and one bear, form just a small proportion of the art found within the five-mile cave system.

The majority of the drawings are flutings covering the walls and roofs of the many galleries and passages in the complex. One chamber is so rich in flutings by children it is believed to be an area set aside for them. The marks of four children, estimated to be aged between two and seven, have been identified there.

"It suggests it was a special place for children. Adults were there, but the vast majority of artwork is by children," said Jess Cooney, a PhD student at the university's archaeology department.

"It's speculation, but I think in this particular chamber children were encouraged to make more art than adults. It could have been a playroom where the children gathered or a room for practice where they were encouraged to make these marks in order that they could grow into artists and make the beautiful paintings and engravings we find throughout the cave, and throughout France and Spain. Or it could have been a room used for a ritual for particular children, perhaps an initiation of sorts."
The presence of children's art was first revealed in 2006 by archaeologists Leslie Van Gelder, of Walden University, in the US, and her husband Kevin Sharpe. Cooney, working alongside Van Gelder, has spent two years analysing the presence of the hunter-gatherer offspring.

Flutings thought to be by a five-year-old girl are the most prolific throughout the cave system. Work by four adults has also been identified, though it is possible there were two further adults present.

The juxtaposition of the flutings of individuals indicate the relationships between the cave dwellers, the researchers say. For example, the markings show that one seven-year-old girl was most often in the company of the smallest of the adults, probably a male and possibly an older brother.

"Some of the children's flutings are high up on walls and on the ceilings, so they must have been held up to make them or have been sitting on someone's shoulders," said Cooney.

Flutings by the two-year-old suggest the child's hand was guided by an adult. Cooney said: "The flutings and fingers are very controlled, which is highly unusual for a child of that age, and suggests it was being taught. The research shows us that children were everywhere, even in the deepest, darkest, caves, furthest from the entrance. They were so involved in the art you really begin to question how heavily they were involved in everyday life.

"To be honest, I think there were probably very few restrictions on what children were allowed to do, and where they were allowed to go, and who they were allowed to go with.

"The art shows us this is not an activity where children were running amok. It shows collaboration between children and adults, and adults encouraging children to make these marks. This was a communal activity."

The significance of finger flutings, also found in other caves in France, Spain, New Guinea and Australia, has been widely debated in archaeological circles. Some regard the marks as doodlings, prehistoric graffiti, while others suggest rituals.

"We don't know why people made them. We can make guesses like they were for initiation rituals, for training of some kind, or simply something to do on a rainy day," said Cooney.

"In addition to the simple, meandering lines, there are flutings of animals and shapes that appear to be crude outlines of faces, almost cartoon-like in appearance. There are hut shapes called tectiforms, markings thought to have a symbolic meaning which are only found in a very specific area of France.
Cooney said the object of her research was "to allow prehistoric children to have a voice", because so much archaeological study focused on men's activities.

"What I found in Rouffignac is that the children are screaming from the walls to be heard. Their presence is everywhere. And there is a five-year-old girl constantly shouting: 'I wanna paint, I wanna paint'."

16th European Club Cup for Women 2011

Team standings after R5:

Rank	Team	Gam.	+	=	-	MP	Pts.
1	Mika	5	4	0	1	8	14
2	AEM Luxten Timisoara	5	4	0	1	8	13½
3	AVS	5	4	0	1	8	13
4	SHSM-RGSU	5	3	1	1	7	13
5	Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo	5	3	0	2	6	14½
6	BAS	5	3	0	2	6	10½
7	Giprorechtrans	5	2	1	2	5	9½
8	CS R. Fischer Chieti	5	2	0	3	4	8½
9	Anatolia	5	2	0	3	4	6
10	ZSK Maribor	5	1	0	4	2	4½
11	Oslo Schakselskap	5	1	0	4	2	3

Round 5 on 2011/09/29 at 15:00 - Board by Board results:
5.1	4	AEM Luxten Timisoara		½ - 3½	2	AVS
1	GM	Dzagnidze Nana	2525	0 : 1	GM	Stefanova Antoaneta	2528
2	IM	Zatonskih Anna	2508	0 : 1	GM	Lahno Kateryna	2554
3	IM	Javakhishvili Lela	2464	½:½	GM	Cmilyte Viktorija	2525
4	IM	Bodnaruk Anastasia	2417	0 : 1	WGM	Pogonina Natalija	2446
5.2	6	Giprorechtrans		1½ - 2½	3	Mika
1	GM	Zhukova Natalia	2416	1 : 0	GM	Danielian Elina	2517
2	IM	Munguntuul Batkhuyag	2465	½:½	IM	Harika Dronavalli	2505
3	IM	Zaiatz Elena	2441	0 : 1	GM	Zhu Chen	2490
4	IM	Vasilevich Irina	2393	0 : 1	IM	Mkrtchian Lilit	2475
5.3	5	SHSM-RGSU		3½ - ½	10	Anatolia
1	GM	Kosteniuk Alexandra	2469	1 : 0	WIM	Yildiz Betul Cemre	2308
2	IM	Gunina Valentina	2499	½:½	WIM	Ozturk Kubra	2260
3	IM	Romanko Marina	2409	1 : 0	WCM	Kaya Emel	1994
4	WGM	Kashlinskaya Alina	2385	1 : 0		Menzi Nezihe Ezgi	1887
5.4	1	Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo		4 - 0	9	ZSK Maribor
1	GM	Hou Yifan	2578	1 : 0	WFM	Dimitrijevic Aleksandra	2287
2	IM	Muzychuk Anna	2545	1 : 0	WGM	Srebrnic Ana	2222
3	GM	Cramling Pia	2489	1 : 0	WIM	Ankerst Milka	2084
4	GM	Socko Monika	2490	1 : 0		Orehek Spela	2020
5.5	11	Oslo Schakselskap		0 - 4	8	CS R. Fischer Chieti
1	WFM	Johnsen Sylvia	2038	0 : 1	IM	Fierro Baquero Martha L	2378
2	WFM	Frank-Nielsen Marie	2020	0 : 1	IM	Sedina Elena	2337
3		Khachatourian Yerazik	1967	0 : 1	IM	Zimina Olga	2337
4		Reppen Ellisiv	1969	0 : 1		Di Primio Eugenia	1974

---

With these statistics, you can see how each individual player is doing after R5.  I have highlighted in red the players I've been following:

Rank after round 5

3. Mika (8 MP/14 Pts.)

Bo.		Name	Rtg	FED	1	2	3	4	5	Pts	Gam.	%	Rtg-O
1	GM	Danielian Elina	2517	ARM	1	1	½	½	0	3	5	60,0	2381
2	IM	Harika Dronavalli	2505	IND	1	1	1	½	½	4	5	80,0	2383
3	GM	Zhu Chen	2490	QAT	½	1	½	0	1	3	5	60,0	2348
4	IM	Mkrtchian Lilit	2475	ARM	1	1	½	½	1	4	5	80,0	2269

4. AEM Luxten Timisoara (8 MP/13½ Pts.)

Bo.		Name	Rtg	FED	1	2	3	4	5	Pts	Gam.	%	Rtg-O
1	GM	Dzagnidze Nana	2525	GEO	1	½	1	½	0	3	5	60,0	2379
2	IM	Zatonskih Anna	2508	USA	1	½	1	½	0	3	5	60,0	2378
3	IM	Javakhishvili Lela	2464	GEO	½	1		1	½	3	4	75,0	2380
4	IM	Foisor Cristina-Adela	2416	ROU	1		1	½		2½	3	83,3	2169
	IM	Bodnaruk Anastasia	2417	RUS		1	1		0	2	3	66,7	2285

2. AVS (8 MP/13 Pts.)

Bo.		Name	Rtg	FED	1	2	3	4	5	Pts	Gam.	%	Rtg-O
1	GM	Stefanova Antoaneta	2528	BUL	½	½		1	1	3	4	75,0	2488
2	GM	Lahno Kateryna	2554	UKR	0		1	½	1	2½	4	62,5	2453
3	GM	Cmilyte Viktorija	2525	LTU		0	½	½	½	1½	4	37,5	2419
4	WGM	Pogonina Natalija	2446	RUS	1	½	½	½	1	3½	5	70,0	2334
	IM	Muzychuk Mariya	2456	UKR	1	½	1			2½	3	83,3	2232

5. SHSM-RGSU (7 MP/13 Pts.)

Bo.		Name	Rtg	FED	1	2	3	4	5	Pts	Gam.	%	Rtg-O
1	GM	Kosteniuk Alexandra	2469	RUS		½	½	0	1	2	4	50,0	2442
2	IM	Gunina Valentina	2499	RUS	1	1	0	1	½	3½	5	70,0	2408
3	IM	Romanko Marina	2409	RUS	½		½		1	2	3	66,7	2240
4	WGM	Girya Olga	2390	RUS	1	½		0		1½	3	50,0	2324
	WGM	Kashlinskaya Alina	2385	RUS	1	½	½	1	1	4	5	80,0	2266

1. Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo (6 MP/14½ Pts.)

Bo.		Name	Rtg	FED	1	2	3	4	5	Pts	Gam.	%	Rtg-O
1	GM	Hou Yifan	2578	CHN		1	1	0	1	3	4	75,0	2375
2	IM	Muzychuk Anna	2545	SLO	1		1	½	1	3½	4	87,5	2382
3	GM	Cramling Pia	2489	SWE	0	1		½	1	2½	4	62,5	2335
4	GM	Socko Monika	2490	POL	0	1	½	½	1	3	5	60,0	2281
	IM	Skripchenko Almira	2470	FRA	½	1	1			2½	3	83,3	2178

7. BAS (6 MP/10½ Pts.)

Bo.		Name	Rtg	FED	1	2	3	4	5	Pts	Gam.	%	Rtg-O
1	IM	Bojkovic Natasa	2378	SRB	½	0	½	1		2	4	50,0	2340
2	IM	Dembo Yelena	2471	GRE	1	1	½	1		3½	4	87,5	2357
3	WGM	Chelushkina Irina	2287	SRB	0	1	0	0		1	4	25,0	2298
4	WIM	Drljevic Ljilja	2256	SRB	0	½	½	1		2	4	50,0	2198

6. Giprorechtrans (5 MP/9½ Pts.)

Bo.		Name	Rtg	FED	1	2	3	4	5	Pts	Gam.	%	Rtg-O
1	GM	Zhukova Natalia	2416	UKR	0	½	½	1	1	3	5	60,0	2487
2	IM	Munguntuul Batkhuyag	2465	MGL	1	½	½	0	½	2½	5	50,0	2494
3	IM	Zaiatz Elena	2441	RUS	1	0	1	1	0	3	5	60,0	2424
4	IM	Vasilevich Irina	2393	RUS	½	0	½	0	0	1	5	20,0	2401

8. CS R. Fischer Chieti (4 MP/8½ Pts.)

Bo.		Name	Rtg	FED	1	2	3	4	5	Pts	Gam.	%	Rtg-O
1	IM	Fierro Baquero Martha L	2378	ECU	0	1	0		1	2	4	50,0	2378
2	IM	Sedina Elena	2337	ITA	0	0	0		1	1	4	25,0	2385
3	IM	Zimina Olga	2337	ITA	½	0	½		1	2	4	50,0	2309
4		Di Primio Eugenia	1974	ITA	0	½	0		1	1½	4	37,5	2243

10. Anatolia (4 MP/6 Pts.)

Bo.		Name	Rtg	FED	1	2	3	4	5	Pts	Gam.	%	Rtg-O
1	WIM	Yildiz Betul Cemre	2308	TUR	0	0		1	0	1	4	25,0	2465
2	WIM	Ozturk Kubra	2260	TUR	0	0		½	½	1	4	25,0	2430
3	WCM	Kaya Emel	1994	TUR	½	0		½	0	1	4	25,0	2320
4	WCM	Sop Selen	1977	TUR	0			1		1	2	50,0	2231
		Menzi Nezihe Ezgi	1887	TUR		0			0	0	2	0,0	2287

9. ZSK Maribor (2 MP/4½ Pts.)

Bo.		Name	Rtg	FED	1	2	3	4	5	Pts	Gam.	%	Rtg-O
1	WFM	Dimitrijevic Aleksandra	2287	BIH	0		0	0	0	0	4	0,0	2485
2	WGM	Srebrnic Ana	2222	SLO	½		½	½	0	1½	4	37,5	2435
3	WFM	Mihevc-Mohr Narcisa	2098	SLO				½		½	1	50,0	1994
4	WIM	Ankerst Milka	2084	SLO	0		½	0	0	½	4	12,5	2324
		Orehek Spela	2020	SLO	0		0		0	0	3	0,0	2408

11. Oslo Schakselskap (2 MP/3 Pts.)

Bo.		Name	Rtg	FED	1	2	3	4	5	Pts	Gam.	%	Rtg-O
1	WFM	Johnsen Sylvia	2038	NOR		0	0	0	0	0	4	0,0	2408
2	WFM	Frank-Nielsen Marie	2020	DEN		0	0	0	0	0	4	0,0	2399
3		Khachatourian Yerazik	1967	NOR		0	0	1	0	1	4	25,0	2340
4		Reppen Ellisiv	1969	NOR		0	0	0	0	0	4	0,0	2242

16th European Club Cup for Women 2011

Team standings after R4:

Rank	Team	Gam.	+	=	-	MP	Pts.
1	AEM Luxten Timisoara	4	4	0	0	8	13
2	Mika	4	3	0	1	6	11½
3	AVS	4	3	0	1	6	9½
4	SHSM-RGSU	4	2	1	1	5	9½
5	Giprorechtrans	4	2	1	1	5	8
6	Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo	4	2	0	2	4	10½
7	BAS	4	2	0	2	4	8½
8	Anatolia	4	2	0	2	4	5½
9	CS R. Fischer Chieti	4	1	0	3	2	4½
10	ZSK Maribor	4	1	0	3	2	4½
11	Oslo Schakselskap	4	1	0	3	2	3

Board Pairings Round 4 on 2011/09/28 at 15:00
4.1	3	Mika		-	4	AEM Luxten Timisoara
1	GM	Danielian Elina	2517	0.5:0.5	GM	Dzagnidze Nana	2525
2	IM	Harika Dronavalli	2505	0.5:0.5	IM	Zatonskih Anna	2508
3	GM	Zhu Chen	2490	1.0:0.0	IM	Javakhishvili Lela	2464
4	IM	Mkrtchian Lilit	2475	0.5:0.5	IM	Foisor Cristina-Adela	2416
4.2	2	AVS		-	1	Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo
1	GM	Stefanova Antoaneta	2528	1.0:0.0	GM	Hou Yifan	2578
2	GM	Lahno Kateryna	2554	0.5:0.5	IM	Muzychuk Anna	2545
3	GM	Cmilyte Viktorija	2525	0.5:0.5	GM	Cramling Pia	2489
4	WGM	Pogonina Natalija	2446	0.5:0.5	GM	Socko Monika	2490
4.3	5	SHSM-RGSU		-	6	Giprorechtrans
1	GM	Kosteniuk Alexandra	2469	0.0:1.0	GM	Zhukova Natalia	2416
2	IM	Gunina Valentina	2499	0.0:1.0	IM	Munguntuul Batkhuyag	2465
3	WGM	Girya Olga	2390	0.0:1.0	IM	Zaiatz Elena	2441
4	WGM	Kashlinskaya Alina	2385	1.0:0.0	IM	Vasilevich Irina	2393
4.4	7	BAS		-	11	Oslo Schakselskap
1	IM	Bojkovic Natasa	2378	1.0:0.0	WFM	Johnsen Sylvia	2038
2	IM	Dembo Yelena	2471	1.0:0.0	WFM	Frank-Nielsen Marie	2020
3	WGM	Chelushkina Irina	2287	0.0:1.0		Khachatourian Yerazik	1967
4	WIM	Drljevic Ljilja	2256	1.0:0.0		Reppen Ellisiv	1969
4.5	9	ZSK Maribor		-	10	Anatolia
1	WFM	Dimitrijevic Aleksandra	2287	0.0:1.0	WIM	Yildiz Betul Cemre	2308
2	WGM	Srebrnic Ana	2222	0.5:0.5	WIM	Ozturk Kubra	2260
3	WFM	Mihevc-Mohr Narcisa	2098	0.5:0.5	WCM	Kaya Emel	1994
4	WIM	Ankerst Milka	2084	0.0:1.0	WCM	Sop Selen	1977

16th European Club Cup for Women 2011

Team standings after R3:

Rank	Team	Gam.	+	=	-	MP	Pts.
1	AEM Luxten Timisoara	3	3	0	0	6	10½
2	Mika	3	3	0	0	6	10
3	Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo	3	2	0	1	4	9
4	SHSM-RGSU	3	2	0	1	4	7½
5	AVS	3	2	0	1	4	7
6	Giprorechtrans	3	2	0	1	4	6
7	BAS	3	1	0	2	2	5½
8	ZSK Maribor	3	1	0	2	2	3½
9	Anatolia	3	1	0	2	2	2½
10	Oslo Schakselskap	3	1	0	2	2	2
11	CS R. Fischer Chieti	3	0	0	3	0	2½

How are the ladies doing I'm keeping an eye on?

GM Pia Cramling (SWE 2489) - Monte Carlo: 0; 1.0; Bye GM Kateryna Lahno (UKR 2554) - AVS: 0; Bye; 1.0 IM Dronavalli Harika (IND 2505) - Mika: 1.0; 1.0; 1.0 IM Anna Zatonskih (USA 2508) - Timisoara: 1.0; 0.5; 1.0 GM Alexandra Kosteniuk (RUS 2469) - SHSM-RGSU: Bye; 0.5; 0.5

Jane Goodall Talks Women in Science

From the Huffington Post

Jane Goodall Talks Women In Science
Posted: 9/27/11 09:22 AM ET
Laura Stampler

When an 11 year-old Jane Goodall first began telling people in 1945 that she wanted to go to Africa, her declaration was often met with laughter.

Goodall, who loved apes ever since infancy, when her father gave her a stuffed chimpanzee named Jubilee, was rebuked for many reasons: "We didn't have any money and World War Two was raging ... but mostly because I was a girl -- I was the wrong sex," she told The Huffington Post. Her family, she said, told her, "Jane get real. You know girls don't do this kind of thing, living with animals in the forest."

Now 77, Goodall has become the world's leading expert on chimpanzees. She travels 300 days out of the year, and holds five professorships, 24 degrees and more than 60 awards. And she doesn't think being a woman kept her from "doing this kind of thing" at all.

"In fact," said Goodall, "my gender, I think it helped me."

She started her career as a secretary to paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey in Kenya and then Tanzania. Leakey first supported her desire to work out in the field. He "thought women made better observers," Goodall told journalist Ros Coward in 2004. Goodall didn't disagree.

"I think, actually, that probably had I been a male, I wouldn't have been pushing these anthropomorphic ideas that I had," Goodall said, referring to the correlation she soon began noting between human and primate behavior.

"I learned the tremendous importance of early experience in the lives of chimpanzee infants," Goodall said. "Good mothers, bad mothers, traumatic experiences in the first couple of years really do make a different in adult behavior. And of course human child psychiatrists today are emphasizing that this is true for human infants."

Goodall faced initial criticism from peers and professors at Cambridge because she gave her primate subjects names rather than numbers (deemed more scientific), anthropomorphizing them. But Goodall stuck with her convictions and began her influential research. And in some ways, she found the life of an anthropologist easier than the men around her did.

"Going out into the field as a [single] woman, there wasn't that urgency that most men felt back then, that they've got to be the breadwinner and they have to get on with the job and get their Ph.D. and get some kind of livelihood so that they can raise a family"

Goodall saw her independence as an asset.

"I was never competing for a woman's place in a man's world," Goodall said. "I wasn't interested in academia." (She entered the Cambridge Ph.D. program without a prior university degree .) "I didn't want to have some kind of tenure in a university."

Her gender worked in her favor, too, in her interactions with African communities, she said. She was doing field research in Tanzania just a year after the country gained independence and found that while there was a mistrust of white men who had controlled the country under colonialism, "They didn't see me as a woman being a threat -- they were much more likely to help me achieve what I wanted to achieve."

Although she was dubbed by her biographer "the woman who redefined man," Goodall also redefines the realities of young women around the world through her work with the Take Care Program at the Jane Goodall Institute.

"How could we even try to save the chimpanzees when the people were struggling to survive?" Goodall asked. "[We make a] holistic effort to help people to improve their lives with farming methods, programs working with women so that they can choose to own environmentally sustainable projects through microcredit loans, scholarships to keep girls in school and better health care."

Goodall knows how influential the support of a strong woman can be.

Goodall told HuffPost that she remembers the advice that her mother gave her when she announced her intended career path to a reticent audience.

"She used to say, 'If you really want something, and you work hard, and you take advantage of opportunities and you never give up, you will find a way'," Goodall said. "That's a message I've been able to bring to children, particularly girls, all around the world. It has been very, very useful to me."

A Witch Burial?

I have doubts about the explanation for these burials. I am wondering if something other than "witchcraft" was at work in what sounds like ritualistic ways the three women were buried.

'Witch's graveyard' unearthed in Italy13:30 AEST Mon Sep 26 2011
By ninemsn staff
From news.ninemsn.com.au

Archaeologists have unearthed the skeletal remains of an 800-year-old woman with nails driven into her jaw in what could be a 'witch's graveyard' in Italy.

The bones found at Piombino, near Lucca in Tuscany, were surrounded by 13 nails, were not wrapped in any burial shroud and the woman was not buried in a coffin, Daily Mail reports.

The nails, driven into the woman's jaw, may have been placed there to prevent her from rising from the dead.

Two years ago a female skull was found near Venice with a stone driven through its mouth, which experts said was a traditional way of preventing vampires rising from the dead.

Another female body dug up at the site was surrounded by 17 dice — 17 is an unlucky number in Italy because of its association with death.

When 17 is written in Roman numerals the letters can be easily rearranged to make the Latin word vixi which means 'I have lived' and can be considered a euphemism for 'I am dead'.

Dice were also used in a game women were banned from playing 800 years ago. [What game?]

Alfonso Forgione, an archaeologist from L'Aquila University who is leading the dig, is convinced the women were killed for practicing witchcraft.

"She was buried in bare earth, not in a coffin and she had no shroud around her either, intriguingly other nails were hammered around her to pin down her clothes," Forgione said.

"This indicates to me that it was an attempt to make sure the woman even though she was dead did not rise from the dead and unnerve the locals who were no doubt convinced she was a witch with evil powers."

However, the archaeologist remains unable to explain why the women, if they were witches, were interred in hallowed ground, as the burial site is also the site of an ancient church.

"The only possible explanation is that perhaps both women came from influential families and were not peasant class and so because of their class and connections were able to secure burial in consecrated Christian ground," Forgione said.

Rare "Black Jew" Indian Book Found in England

From BBC News

24 June 2011 (I believe this must be an incorrectly posted date - probably 24 September 2011)
Rare Jewish-Indian Haggadah found in Salford

A rare Jewish text, published for the "Black Jews of India" in the 19th Century, has been discovered in a garage sale in Salford.

The 137-year-old Poona Haggadah, used by the Bene Israel community at Passover, was found by University of Manchester historian, Dr Yaakov Wise. He said he paid a "substantial" fee after recognising it at the sale. "I knew it was a very rare book - in fact, it may be the only copy of it in Britain," he said.

The Prestwich-based historian said he was a regular at second-hand book sales as far away as Hay-on-Wye in Powys. He said he had come across the Haggadah, which features text in both Hebrew and Marathi, an Indian language, in a pile of books at a local sale in Salford's Higher Broughton area. "A man had passed away and his family were selling his library," he said. "There were hundreds and hundreds of books for sale, but as soon as I saw it, I knew what it was."

Dr Wise said he recognised it because he had given a lecture on the book's original audience, the Bene Israel, in Liverpool a few years before. The Bene Israel are known as "the Black Jews of India" because of their Indian appearance, as opposed to the "White Jews of India", who he said were of Middle Eastern descent and had settled in the country much later.

'Primary source'

The historian said he believed that the book had come to England during the post-colonial turmoil in India, when many Jews, who had British passports because of their work with the Imperial government, moved to the safety of London. He said the book then probably came to Salford "by sale or inheritance".

"The format and illustrations give an insight into the Black Jews," he added. "The illustrations, in particular, are fascinating, as the major Biblical figures, such as Moses and Abraham, look Western, while the people celebrating Passover are very Indian."

He said he had yet to check with the British Library in London and Oxford's Bodleian Library as to whether the book was unique in Britain, but that it was certainly a very rare text. "There are very few books that have translations from Hebrew into any Indian language," he said. "As far as I know, there is only one of these in the whole of North America and that is in the Library of Congress in Washington DC."

16th European Club Cup for Women 2011

For individual team composition, see my post from yesterday.  Team standings after R2:

Rank	Team	Gam.	+	=	-	MP	Pts.
1	Mika	2	2	0	0	4	7½
2	AEM Luxten Timisoara	2	2	0	0	4	6½
3	SHSM-RGSU	2	2	0	0	4	6
4	Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo	2	1	0	1	2	5½
5	AVS	2	1	0	1	2	4
6	BAS	2	1	0	1	2	4
7	Giprorechtrans	2	1	0	1	2	3½
8	ZSK Maribor	2	1	0	1	2	2½
9	Oslo Schakselskap	2	1	0	1	2	2
10	CS R. Fischer Chieti	2	0	0	2	0	2
11	Anatolia	2	0	0	2	0	½

Individual performances thus far by the ladies I'm watching:

GM Pia Cramling (SWE 2489) - Monte Carlo:  0; 1.0
GM Kateryna Lahno (UKR 2554) - AVS:  0; bye
IM Dronavalli Harika (IND 2505) - Mika:  1.0; 1.0
IM Anna Zatonskih (USA 2508) - Timisoara:  1.0; 0.5
GM Alexandra Kosteniuk (RUS 2469) - SHSM-RGSU: Bye; 0.5