Kumar Purnima and Puja to Laxmi

Two celebrations running concurrently in parts of India: Hemant Kumar Rout I ENS First Published : 14 Oct 2008 11:05:00 AM IST Last Updated : 14 Oct 2008 01:24:34 PM IST BALASORE: After bidding adieu to Goddess Durga, girls of the coastal district of Balasore are all set to celebrate Kumar Purnima, on Tuesday. It is a festival of unmarried girls. This autumn festival is celebrated on a full-moon day in the month of Aswina and is one of the most popular festivals of Orissa. Kumar or Kartikeya, the son of Lord Shiva was born on this day. During the festival, instead of any God, the girls worship the Sun and the Moon. “We have been celebrating this festival for years. As this is the only festival for teenage girls, we eagerly wait to celebrate it. It spreads the message of togetherness,” said Sumitra Mohanty, a college girl. Puja to Laxmi, the Goddess of Wealth, also starts from the day of Kumar Purnima and continues for a week. Beautiful images of Goddess Laxmi are prepared in clay and worshiped in brightly decorated puja pandals. Besides the ‘sarbajanin’ pujas, some people also offer puja to the Goddess after installing idols in their houses. “Many people worship the Goddess in their homes and keep themselves awake by playing pasa (chess), and other indoor games. Significantly, it suggests that those who wish to acquire wealth should always be vigilant at night. It is for this reason that the owl, the carrier of Goddess Laxmi, sleeps in the day and comes out only at night,” said Gananatha Padhi, a priest.

Politkovskaya family lawyer ill, possibly poisoned

From the website for The Committee to Protect Journalists: FRANCE/RUSSIA: Politkovskaya family lawyer ill, possibly poisoned New York, October 14, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned about the welfare of Russian lawyer Karinna Moskalenko, who represents the family of slain Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Moskalenko was the target of an apparent poisoning in Strasbourg, France, days before she was due to appear in a Moscow court for pretrial proceedings for three suspects charged in Politkovskaya’s October 2006 slaying, news reports said. “We are shocked by this apparent attempt to intimidate Karinna Moskalenko,” CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said. “We wish Moskalenko and her family a speedy recovery, and we call on French and Russian authorities to investigate the matter thoroughly.” Moskalenko was sickened by a mercury-like substance she found beneath the rugs of her car on Sunday morning, according to Sergei Sokolov, Novaya Gazeta’s deputy editor-in-chief. French police opened a criminal investigation but have not commented publicly, Agence France-Presse reported. Investigators were working to identify the substance, which the Moskalenkos found because the car’s rugs were not fitting properly, according to Russian press reports. Moskalenko had felt weak for several days, suffering nausea, coughing, swelling, and headaches, according to Russian press reports. The lawyer, who lives part-time in Strasbourg with her husband and three children because of her frequent appearances before the European Court of Human Rights, told the independent Russian radio station Ekho Moskvy, that her children suffered similar symptoms. Sokolov, who is in contact with the lawyer, said Moskalenko and her family were examined by doctors in Strasbourg today and were told they would recover. Doctors did not publicly disclose a diagnosis, but the lawyer said she believed the illnesses were tied to the substance, news reports said. Sokolov said lingering illness would preclude Moskalenko from traveling to Moscow for Wednesday’s scheduled opening of the Politkovskaya murder proceedings. A preliminary hearing in the case against Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, a former police officer with the Moscow Directorate for Combating Organized Crime, and brothers Ibragim and Dzhabrail Makhmudov is due to start on Wednesday in Moscow District Military Court, Sokolov said. He said Politkovskaya’s son, Ilya, and defense lawyer Anna Stavitskaya are expected to seek a postponement because of the Strasbourg incident. The preliminary hearing is significant. Sokolov told CPJ that the hearing would determine whether the case would be heard by a jury or a judge; if the defendants would be held in custody during the proceedings; and whether the trial would be open to the public. Novaya Gazeta and CPJ have called for the proceedings to be open. Sokolov told CPJ that the motive for the apparent poisoning is unclear. Moskalenko has been involved in a number of sensitive cases. Her clients include Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the imprisoned former chief executive of oil conglomerate Yukos; Garry Kasparov, the world chess champion turned opposition leader, dissident Aleksandr Litvinenko, who was slained in London in 2006; and the relatives of slain journalist Dmitry Kholodov, who was murdered in October 1994. Moskalenko and her team of lawyers at the Moscow-based International Protection Center have won 27 cases before the European Court of Human Rights and have more than a 100 cases pending, according to the Russian independent news Web site Gazeta. She has represented families of torture victims in Chechnya, as well as relatives of victims of the 2002 Nord-Ost theater hostage crisis in Moscow and the 2004 school hostage crisis in Beslan, according to Russian press reports. © 2008 Committee to Protect Journalists. http://www.cpj.org E-mail: info@cpj.org

Katherine Neville "The Fire"

Whoa! My copy of Neville's long-awaited seqel to "The Eight" is on its way from Borders online, yippee! Saw this - an excerpt from USA Today!!! Excerpt from 'The Fire' 9/4/2008 11:33 AM By Katherine Neville EXCERPT... THE BLACK LAND Wyrd oft nereth unfaegne eorl, ponne his ellen deah. (Unless he is already doomed, fortune is apt to favor the man who keeps his nerve.) –Beowulf Mesa Verde, Colorado Spring 2003 BEFORE I'D EVEN REACHED THE HOUSE, I KNEW SOMETHING was wrong. Very wrong. Even though on the surface, it all seemed picture-perfect. The steep, sweeping curve of drive was blanketed deep in snow and lined with stately rows of towering Colorado blue spruce. Their snow-covered branches sparkled like rose quartz in the early morning light. Atop the hill, where the driveway flattened and spread out for parking, I pulled up my rented Land Rover in front of the lodge. A lazy curl of blue-gray smoke rose from the moss rock chimney that formed the center of the building. The rich scent of pine smoke pervaded the air, which meant that–although I might not be warmly welcomed after all this time–at least I was expected. To confirm this, I saw that my mother's truck and jeep were both sitting side-by-side in the former horse stable at the edge of the parking area. I did find it odd, though, that the drive had not yet been plowed and there were no tracks. If I were expected, wouldn't someone have cleared a path? Now that I was here at last, in the only place I'd ever called home, you would think I could finally relax. But I couldn't shake the sense that something was wrong. Our family lodge had been built at about this same period in the prior century, by neighboring tribes, for my great-great-grandmother, a pioneering mountain lass. Constructed of hand-hewn rock and massive tree trunks chinked together, it was a huge log cabin that was shaped like an octagon–patterned after a hogan or sweat lodge–with many-paned windows facing in each cardinal direction, like a vast, architectural compass rose. Each female descendant had lived here at one time or another, including my mother and me.. .. So what was wrong with me? Why couldn't I ever come here without this sense of impending doom? I knew why, of course. And so did my mother. It was the thing we never spoke about. That's why–when I had finally left home for good–my mother understood. She'd never insisted, like other mothers, that I come back for familial visits. That is, not until today. But then, my presence today hadn't exactly been by invitation–it was more of a summons, a cryptic message that Mother had left on my home phone back in Washington D.C., when she knew very well I'd be off at work. She was inviting me, she said, to her birthday party. And that, of course, was a big part of the problem. You see, my mother didn't have birthdays. She'd never had birthdays. I don't mean she was concerned about her youth or appearance or wished to lie about her age–in fact, she looked more youthful each year. But the strange truth was, she didn't want anyone outside of our family even to know when her birthday was. This secrecy, combined with a few other idiosyncracies–like the fact that she'd been in hermetic retreat up on top of this mountain for the past ten years, ever since. .. the thing we never spoke about–all went far to explain why there were those who may have perceived my mother, Catherine Velis, as a pretty eccentric duck. The other part of my current problem was that I hadn't been able to contact my mother for an explanation of her sudden revelation. She'd answered neither her phone nor the messages I'd left for her, here at the lodge. The alternate number she'd given me was clearly not right–it was missing some final digits. With my first true inkling that something was really wrong, I'd taken a few days off work, bought a ticket, caught the last flight into Cortez, Colorado, in a blizzard, and rented the last four-wheel-drive vehicle in the airport lot. Now I left the engine running as I sat here for a moment, letting my eyes graze over the breathtaking panoramic view. I hadn't been home in more than four years. And each time I saw it afresh, it smacked the wind out of me. I got out of the Rover in knee-deep snow and let the engine run. From here on the mountaintop, fourteen thousand feet atop the Colorado Plateau, I could see the vast, billowing sea of three-mile-high mountain peaks, licked by the rosy morning light. On a clear day like this, I could see all the way to Mount Hesperus–which the Diné call Dibé Nitsaa: Black Mountain. One of the four sacred mountains created by First Man and First Woman. Together with Sisnaajinii, white mountain (Mt. Blanca) in the east; Tsoodzil, blue mountain (Mt. Taylor) in the south, and Dook'o'osliid, yellow mountain (San Francisco Peaks) in the west, these four marked out the four corners of Dinétah–"Home of the Diné," as the Navajo call themselves. And they pointed as well to the high plateau I was standing on: Four Corners, the only place in the U.S. where four states–Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona–come together at right angles to form a cross. Long before anyone ever thought to draw dotted lines on a map, this land was sacred to everyone who ever walked across it. If my mother was going to have her first-ever birthday party in the nearly twenty-two years I had known her, I could understand why she wanted to have it here. Regardless of how many years she had lived abroad or away, like all the women in our family she was part of this land. For some reason, I knew that this connection with the land was somehow important. I knew that was why she had left a message strange enough to bring me to this spot. And I knew something else, even if no one else did. I knew why she'd insisted I come here today. For today–April fourth–actually was my mother, Cat Velis's, birthday. I YANKED MY KEYS FROM THE IGNITION, GRABBED MY hastily packed duffle bag from the passenger seat, and plowed my way through the snow to our hundred-yearold front doors. These huge doors–two massive slabs of heart pine ten feet high, cut from ancient trees–were carved in bas-relief with two animals that seemed to be coming right at you. On the left, a golden eagle soared straight at your face. And from the right door burst an angry, upright female bear. Despite the weathering of these carvings, they were pretty realistic–with glass eyes and real talons and claws. The early twentieth century had loved clever inventions, and this one was a doozy: If you pulled the bear's paw, her jaw dropped open to reveal very real and frightening teeth. If you had the nerve to stick your hand into her mouth, you could twist the old-fashioned door chime, to alert those within. I did both and waited. But even after a few moments, there was no response. Someone must have been inside–the chimney was active. And I knew from practice that stoking that fire pit took hours of tending and a Herculean effort to haul the wood. But with our hearth, which was capable of receiving a log of fifty caliper inches, a fire could have been laid days ago and still be burning. My situation suddenly dawned on me: Having flown and driven a few thousand miles, I was standing in the snow on top of a mountain, trying to get access to my own house, desperate to know if anyone was inside. But I didn't have a key. My alternative–wading through acres of deep snow to peep through a window–seemed a poor idea. What would I do if I got wetter than I already was and still couldn't get inside? What if I got inside and no one was there? There were no car tracks, ski tracks–even deer tracks–anywhere near the house. So I did the only intelligent thing I could think of: I yanked my cellphone out of my pocket and dialed Mother's number, right here at the lodge. I was relieved when her message machine picked up after six rings, thinking she might have left some clue as to her whereabouts. But when her recorded voice came on, my heart sank: "I can be reached at. .. " and she rattled off the same number she'd left on my D.C. phone–still missing the very last digits! I stood before the door, wet and cold, and fuming with confusion and frustration. Where did one go from here? And then I remembered the game. My favorite uncle, Slava, was famed throughout the world as the noted technocrat and author Ladislaus Nim. He'd been my best friend in my childhood, and though I hadn't seen him in years, I felt he still was. Slava hated telephones. He vowed he would never have one in his house. Telephones, no–but Uncle Slava loved puzzles. He'd written several books on the topic. Through my childhood, if anyone received a message from Slava with a phone number where you could reach him, they always knew it wasn't real–it must be some kind of encrypted message. That was his delight. It seemed unlikely, though, that my mother would use such a technique to communicate with me. For one thing, she wasn't even good at deciphering such messages herself, and she couldn't invent a puzzle if her life depended upon it. More unlikely still, was the idea that Slava had created a message for her. As far as I knew, she hadn't talked to my uncle in years, not since. .. the thing we never spoke about. Yet I was sure, somehow, that this was a message. I jumped back up into the Land Rover and switched on the engine. Decrypting puzzles to locate my mother sure beat all hell out of the alternatives: breaking into an abandoned house, or flying back to D.C. and never learning where she'd gone. I called her machine again: I jotted down the phone number she'd left there, for all the world to hear. If she was in real trouble of some kind and trying to contact only me, I prayed that I would decipher it first. "I can be reached at 615-263-94.. ." my mother's recorded voice said. My hand was shaking as I wrote out the numbers on a pad. I'd been provided eight numbers, rather than the ten numbers required to make a long-distance call. But as with Uncle Slava's puzzles, I suspected this had nothing to do with phones. Here was a ten-digit code, of which the final two numbers were missing. Those two numbers themselves were my hidden message. It took about ten minutes to figure it out–much longer than when I was running neck and neck with my crazy but wonderful uncle. If you divided the string of numbers into twos (hint: we were missing the last two digits), then you ended up with: 61-52-63-94 If you reversed those numbers, as I quickly saw, you ended up with two-digit square numbers, starting with the square of four. That is, the products of four, five, six, and seven when multiplied by themselves: 16-25-36-49 The next number in the sequence–and the missing number–was eight. So the missing last two digits of the series were the square of eight–that is, 64. In the real puzzle, of course, if you reversed the number, the answer would have been 46–but that wasn't it. I knew–and so did my mother–that 64 had another meaning for me. It was the number of squares on a chess board, with eight squares on each side. In a nutshell: the thing we never talked about. My distraught and intractable mother had refused ever to speak of the game of chess–even to permit it into her house. Since my father's death (the other thing which we never talked about), I was forbidden ever to play the game–the only thing I'd ever known how to do, the only thing that helped me connect with the world around me. I might as well have been ordered, at the age of twelve, to become autistic. My mother was opposed, in every way imaginable, to the idea of chess. Though I'd never been able to follow her logic–if indeed, it was logic–to my mother's mind, chess would prove as dangerous to me as it had been to my father. But now it seemed that by bringing me here on her birthday, by leaving that cryptic phrase with its encrypted message, she was welcoming me back to the game. I TIMED IT: IT TOOK ME TWENTY-SEVEN MINUTES AND– since I'd left the engine running–a gallon of hog-guzzling gas, until I figured out how to get inside. By now, anyone with half a brain would have guessed that those two-digit numbers were also combinations on a tumbler. But there were no locks on the house. Except there was one in the barn. On a lock box. The keys to the cars were kept there. Would I be justified in saying "Duh"? I switched off the Rover, plowed through the snow to the barn–and voil?!–a few tumblers dropped, the door to the lock box opened, and the door key appeared on a chain. Back at the house, it took a moment to recall that the key was inserted into the eagle's left claw. Then the ancient doors groaned open a crack. I scraped my boots on the rusty old fireplace grille we kept beside the entrance, shoved open the heavy front doors of the lodge, and slammed them shut behind me, causing a flurry of sparkling snowflakes to sift through the slanted morning light. Within the dim interior of the mud room–an entry not much bigger than a confessional that kept the cold winds out–I kicked off my dripping boots and pulled on a pair of the fuzzy sheepskin apr?s-ski booties that always sat there atop our frozen-food locker. When I'd hung up my parka, I opened the inner doors and stepped into the vast octagon, warmed by the giant log that was burning in the central hearth. The octagon was a room perhaps one hundred feet across and thirty feet high. The fire pit took up the center, with a copper hood above it, hung with pots, rising to the moss stone chimney that pulled smoke upward to the sky. It was like an enormous teepee, except for the massive furniture scattered everywhere. My mother had always been averse to things one might actually sit on, but there was our ebony parlor grand piano, a sideboard, an assortment of desks, library tables, and revolving bookcases, and a billiard table that no one ever played on. The upper floor was an octagonal balcony that overhung the room. There were small chambers there where people could sleep and even, sometimes, bathe. Molten light poured through the lower windows at every side, glittering across the dust that draped the mahogany. From the ceiling skylights, rosy morning light sifted down, picking out the features of the colorfully painted heads of animal totems that were carved into the enormous beams supporting the balcony: bear, wolf, eagle, stag, buffalo, goat, cougar, ram. From their lofty perspective, nearly twenty feet high, they seemed to be floating timelessly in space. Everything seemed to be frozen in time. The only sound was the occasional cracking of fire from the log. I walked around the perimeter, from one window to another, looking out at the snow: There was not one print to be seen, anywhere. I went up the spiral stairs to the balcony and checked each partitioned sleeping space. Not the slightest trace. But how had she done it? It appeared that my mother, Cat Velis, had vanished into thin air. A jarring noise broke the silence: A telephone was ringing. I dashed down the steep, twisted stair and snatched the receiver from atop mother's British campaign desk, just before the machine kicked in. "Good Lord, what were you thinking, darling, choosing this god forsaken spot?" came the throaty voice, tinted with a bit of British accent, of a woman I knew only too well. "And for that matter, where on earth are you? We've been driving around this wilderness for what seems like days!" There was a pause, when she seemed to be speaking to someone else. "Aunt Lily?" I said. For it was surely she–my aunt, Lily Rad–my first chess mentor, and still one of the top women grandmasters in the game. Once, she'd been my mother's best friend, though they hadn't touched base in years. But what was she doing calling here now? And driving around–what on earth did that mean? "Alexandra?" said Lily, confused. "I thought I was phoning your mother. What are you doing there? I thought you and she weren't. .. on the best of terms." "We've reconciled," I said hastily, not wanting to open that can of worms again. "But mother doesn't seem to be here right now. And where exactly are you?" "She's not there?! You can't be serious," Lily said, fuming. "I've come all the way from London just to see her. She insisted! Something about a birthday party– God knows what that means. As for where I am right now, it is anyone's guess! The satellite positioning system on my automobile keeps insisting that I'm in Purgatory–and I'm fully able to accept that judgment. We haven't seen anything resembling civilization for hours." "You're here? In Purgatory?" I said. "That's a ski area; it's less than an hour from here." But it seemed crazy: The top female British-American chess champion came from London to Purgatory, Colorado, to attend a birthday party? "When did mother invite you?" "It wasn't so much an invitation as an edict," Lily admitted. "She left the news on my cellphone, with no means to reply." There was a pause, then Lily added, "I adore your mother–you know that, Alexandra. But I could never accept–" "Neither could I," I agreed. "Let's drop it. So how did you know how to find her?" "I didn't! Good God, I still don't! My car's by the road someplace near a town that promotes itself as the next stop from Hell; there's no edible food; my driver refuses to budge without being given a pint of vodka; my dog has disappeared into some. .. dune of snow, chasing some local rodent. .. and–I might add–I have had more trouble locating your mother by phone, this past week, than the Mossad had in tracking down Doctor Mengele in South America!" She was hyperventillating. I considered it was time to intervene. "It's okay, Aunt Lily," I told her. "We'll get you here. As for food, you know I can whip something up. There's always plenty of tinned food here and vodka for your driver–we can put him up, too, if you like. I'm too far away; it would take me too long to reach you. But if you'll give me your satellite coordinates, I've a friend quite near there who can escort you here to the lodge." "Whomever he may be, bless him," said my aunt Lily, not a person normally given to gratitude. "It's a she," I said. "And her name is Key. She'll be there in half an hour." I took down Lily's cellphone number and left a message at the airstrip to arrange for Key to pick her up. Key had been my best friend since childhood, but she'd be more than surprised to learn that I'd turned up here with no warning after all this time. As I hung up the phone, I saw something across the room that I hadn't noticed before. The top of Mother's parlor grand piano–which was always raised, in case she got the urge to play–had been lowered flat. Atop was a piece of paper with a round, dark weight set upon it. I went over to look, and I felt the blood flooding into my brain. The paperweight was overt enough: Propped on a metal key ring, to keep it from rolling, was the eight ball from our billiard table. The note itself was definitely from my mother; the code was so simplistic that no one else could have invented it. I saw how hard she'd worked to communicate cryptically, clearly with no help. The note, in large print, read: –Washington –Luxury Car –Virgin Isles –Elvis Lives –As Above So Below The Elvis part was simple: My mother's last name– Velis–was spelled two different ways to show it was from her. As if I needed that helpful clue. The rest was a lot more upsetting. And not because of the code. Washington was, of course, "DC"; Luxury Car was "LX"; Virgin Isles was "VI." Together, in Roman numerals (as they clearly were), their numeric value was: D = 500 C = 100 L = 50 X = 10 V = 5 I = 1 Tally them up, and it's 666–the Number of the Beast from the apocalypse. I wasn't worried about that Beast–we had plenty of those protecting us, scattered about the lodge as our animal totems. But for the first time, I was truly worried about my mother. Why had she used this hackneyed pseudomillennial ruse to grab my attention? What about the paperweight on top–another standard bunkum, "Behind the eight ball"–what on earth did that mean? And what should one make of that old alchemical drivel, "As Above, So Below"? Then, of course, I got it. I removed the eight ball and the bit of paper, setting them on the keyboard music stand, and I opened the piano. Before I could set the strut in place, I nearly dropped the lid. There, inside the hollow body of the instrument, I saw something I thought I would never, ever see again inside my mother's house as long as she lived. A chess set. Not just a chess set–but a chess set with a game set up, a game that was partially in play. There were pieces that had been removed from the field of play and set out upon the keyboard strings at either side–black or white. The first thing I noticed was that the Black Queen was missing. I glanced over at the billiard table–good heavens, Mother, really!–and saw that the missing queen had been placed in the rack where the eight ball was supposed to be. It was something like being drawn into a vortex. I began to feel the game in play. Good Lord, how I had missed this. How had I been able to leave it behind? It was nothing like a drug at all, as people sometimes said. It was an infusion of life. I forgot the pieces that were off the board or behind the eight ball; I could reconstruct everything from the patterns that were still there. For several long moments, I forgot my missing mother, my aunt Lily lost in Purgatory with her chauffeur, her dog, and her car. I forgot what I'd sacrificed–what my life had become against my will. I forgot everything except the game before me–the game cached away like a dark secret, in the belly of that piano. But as I reconstructed the moves, dawn arose through the high glass windows–just as a sobering realization dawned within my mind. I could not stop the horror of this game. How could I stop it, when I had replayed it over and over again in my mind, these past ten years? For I knew this game quite well. It was the game that had killed my father. THE FIRE ISBN: 978-0-345-50067-0 On Sale: October 14, 2008 $26.00 Publisher: Ballantine Books

Young Philippines Players Headed to World Youth Chess Championships

Wednesday, October 15, 2008 4 Pangasinense chess players to compete in Vietnam LINGAYEN -- Four Pangasinense young chess protégés will be flying to Vietnam to compete in the upcoming World Youth Chess Championships on October 19-31 in Vungtau, Vietnam. The chess players are Haridas Pascua of Mangatarem (15 years old), Prince Mark Aquino of San Nicolas (13 years old), Cherry Ann Mejia of San Jacinto (13 years old), and Samantha Glo Revita of Rosales (eight years old). Pascua and Revita had played in several international competitions and brought home several medals. Mejia said it will be her second competition abroad. Aquino has also experienced playing in other countries. Last Monday, Sangguniang Kabataan Provincial Federation president Kazel Celeste wished Mejia and the other players good luck during their visit to the provincial Capitol. Celeste also commended the parents of the four chess players for supporting their children especially when they compete abroad. One of the parents said it is really hard work and patience for them as they shoulder all of the expenses of their children. The National Chess Federation extends no financial assistance to the players. (LCMY/Sunnex)

Alisha Chawla: Chess Princess

Fremont girl is a chess star at age 7 Posted by tomlangland on Tuesday, October 14 @ 10:58:59 CDT Photo: From Susan Polgar Girls Blog Alisha Chawla isn't much for dolls, but she loves the children's book, "A Little Princess," and adores the queen. How fitting for Fremont's 7-year-old little princess of chess, the highest-rated female player for her age in Northern California, who is rapidly becoming one of the best in the country. Alisha is adorable. She's sweet and petite. Like most 7-year-olds, she's precocious at times and shy at others. For her first newspaper interview, she pretty much stuck to one-word answers and required frequent eye-glance reassurance from her mother. But on a chess board, particularly wielding her favorite piece — the queen — Little Miss Chawla quickly transforms into a tiger. She moves the pieces authoritatively and thumps them hard onto the board wherever she places them. It's intimidating, even for an adult sports columnist who challenged her to a game. "I like to win," Alisha said with an innocent but confident smile. A large shelf in her room proves that she's already won a lot. It's loaded with trophies, and she quickly removed her piano recital and softball trophies to display just the ones she's accumulated playing chess — 22 by her count. It looked like more. One of the largest trophies in Alisha's growing collection came less than two weeks ago, when she tied for first in her age group at the Las Vegas International Chess Festival, winning four of five games. Her achievement landed her a spot in the prestigious Susan Polgar National Invitational For Girls at Texas Tech in July, an event that will bring together the country's top young female players. Alisha's biggest honor, however, was the invitation she recently received to participate in the World Youth Chess Championships in Vung Tau, Vietnam, Oct. 19 to 31. It's an unprecedented development for the renowned Weibel Elementary School chess program, which attracts more than 200 K-6 students every year to learn and play the most cerebral of strategy games. "We've had some fine, highly ranked players who placed high at the state and national levels in the past," said Dr. Alan Kirshner, an Ohlone College history/political science professor who has run the Weibel program since 1988. "But this is the first time we've ever had any of our players invited to a world championship — male or female — so it's very, very exciting for us." The Bay Area boasts some of the best preteen chess talent in the world. In March, 9-year-old Nicholas Nip of San Francisco became the youngest master in history by reaching a 2200 rating, an accomplishment that the late Bobby Fischer did not achieve until he was 13. In the East Bay, 7-year-old Tanuj Vasudeva of Newark tied for first in the Lerner National Elementary Championships in May, an event in which Chawla finished 57th but was the second-highest female finisher. The United States Chess Federation lists Vasudeva as the fifth-ranked 7-and-under player in the country with a rating of 1545. Another Weibel 7-year-old, Kevin Moy, is ranked 42nd nationally (1020 rating), and Chawla is 77th and rated at 924. Ratings go up or down with wins and losses against other rated competition in tournaments, and Alisha has nearly doubled her rating in the past year. "I'm no match for her now," said Alisha's mother, Sunanda Chawla, who taught her daughter to play when she was 3. Neither is her older brother, Ashwin, whom she followed into the Weibel program. Her father, Sanjeev, a telecommunications software executive, has to study constantly to keep up and win an occasional game. While there are better players her age nationally, Alisha's distinction in chess is her gender. Young male chess players outnumber females by nearly 10 to 1, and the disparity grows as the competition gets tougher. Only in the past two decades have top women started to gain notice, largely because of the Hungarian-born Polgar sisters, Susan and Judit. Susan, the world women's chess champ from 1995 to 1999, is one of the game's leading promoters and authors. Judit is the highest-rated woman in history (eighth) and the only woman among the top 100 chess players in the world. It's too early to know the full level of Alisha's potential. Her skills must be developed and refined. She has to increase her game study and also maintain her verve for playing. But she showed rare talent and the instincts of a fearless competitor in kindergarten. "She doesn't like losing," said Ted Castro of Newark, chess tutor to 10 East Bay youngsters ranked in the top 100 nationally, including Chawla and Vasudeva. "She's very, very competitive and very feisty, too. She's very good at opening and she has excelled at tactics, but endgame is an area where she definitely needs to get better. She's a work in progress, but she has many, many years to improve." She definitely has the heart of a champion. Chawla and Vasudeva "fought it out" for the state kindergarten championship last year, but Vasudeva won — no disgrace considering he had beaten Weibel's top sixth-graders. Kirshner and Castro said she did not take it well. "She was so upset by losing, she would not accept the second-place trophy," said Kirshner. "You can see a determination in this young lady that's just unreal." After losing three consecutive times to Vasudeva in competition, she finally beat him in a regional tournament last year. "She didn't care how she did the rest of the tournament," said Castro, who tutors Alisha four hours a week. "She was jumping around and yelling, 'I beat Tanuj, I finally beat Tanuj.' " Earlier this week, five other young Weibel players gathered in the Chawla's garage for a "simul" against Alisha. She played the five kids and one columnist on six boards at once. She went 3-3, beating 8-year-old Sangetha Bharath, 7-year-old Desiree Ho (state K-1 girls champ) and 7-year-old Luke Bugbee. She lost to Moy, in the top 50 nationally; 9-year-old Nick Bugbee and the 50-something columnist named Carl ... barely. She had the columnist in trouble but missed a key move late that would have sealed her win. Ah, that endgame. Then again, it was Alisha's first real simul, and she doesn't often play adults other than her parents. She offered her tiny hand when the game ended, congratulated me and then ran away to play, later returning to pronounce me a good player. In truth, I was probably lucky. I asked Alisha for some sage 7-year-old chess advice, which she graciously provided. "Castle as early as you can, knights before bishops and hold back the queen," she said. Add this one: If you're playing Alisha Chawla, ignore the puppy-dog eyes and the little princess look. She'll have you in checkmate before you can say, "Aw, how cute." Source: http://www.contracostatimes.com/sports/ci_9630401?source=rss%C2%A0

On Auction: Game Counters Owned by Frank Marshall

From Sotheby's, on auction October 18, 2008: Sale: N08478 Location: New York Auction Dates: Session 1: Fri, 17 Oct 08 10:00 AM LOT 106 A SET OF THIRTY SILVER AND ENAMEL AND IVORY GAMING COUNTERS, PROBABLY AUSTRIAN, LATE 19TH CENTURY 5,000—7,000 USD MEASUREMENTS diameter 1 3/8 in. (3.6cm) DESCRIPTION the ivory discs applied with crowned cartouches enameled in translucent green or red with pellets, stars or crescents on ermine backgrounds, each with blue enamel ribbon suspending a crescent, fitted case CATALOGUE NOTE Stated to have been given as a chess prize to Frank Marshall, American chess champion.

A Pledge to the Goddess to Stop Female Foeticide

From IndiaExpress.com: Ambaji pilgrims pledge before goddess to fight female foeticide Amrita Didyala Posted: Oct 13, 2008 at 0313 hrs IST Ahmedabad, October 12 A total of five lakh ‘Sankalp Patras’ signed to save the girl child and curb sex discrimination Pilgrims at the famous Ambaji temple in Banaskantha district found a new way to check the dwindling female sex ratio in the state - ‘Sankalp Patras’. The Ambaji Temple Committee members made the devotees sign the ‘Sankalp Patras’ to curb sex discrimination and female foeticide, along with a pledge to save the girl child. A total of five lakh ‘Sankalp Patras’ were signed. R.J Patel, District Collector of Banaskantha and Chairman of the Ambaji Temple Committee, said: “Out of the 25 lakh pilgrims who visited Ambaji Temple, a total of 5 lakh devotees signed the Sankalp Patras in a span of 5 days between September 11 and 15.” He added: “While the idea has been implemented for the first time at any religious place, the chances of its success are quite high as people have willingly taken a pledge before the goddess and are most likely to abide by it. In fact, we did not have to make too many efforts to persuade the devotees. All we had to do was to put up notice boards along with the Sankalp Patras.” The Ambaji Development Authority also plans to implement the same method to make devotees pledge for saving the girl child by making the Sanklap Patras available in the soon-to-be developed replicas of the 51 Shaktipeeths at the Gabbar mountain. Patel said: “We have plans to extend the experiment to other religious destinations in the area as well. This is for the first time that such an experiment has been undertaken at a religious place in the state. However, with the active participation of future devotees, the awareness campaign is bound to be effective.”

It's That Time of Year Again: Durga Puja Returns

A look at the Goddess and her Festival in the United States, from the NorthIndyStar.com: For weekend, school hosts Hindu goddess By Chris Sikich Posted: October 13, 2008 Northview Middle School took on a new look this weekend for a Bengali religious event called the Durga Puja. Hundreds of people from Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana flocked to Indianapolis on Saturday and Sunday for the 24th annual Tri State Durga Puja and erected a shrine in the Far-Northside school's gym. The holiday honors the goddess Durga. Hindus believe she comes to Earth once a year to destroy evil and bring happiness to families. Bengal is a state in northeast India, and the Bengali people practice a form of Hinduism that celebrates Durga Puja as its major holiday. Dipan Basu, 60, president of the Bengali Association of Indiana, compares Durga Puja to Christmas in its importance. The Indianapolis event drew 700 adults and 200 children. A statue of the 10-armed goddess showed her riding a lion and defeating a blue demon. Statues of her four children flanked her. The devotees left their everyday clothes behind and donned traditional colorful robes and shirts for the celebration. They took off their shoes, knelt and prayed, and placed offerings of fruit, flowers and sweets on the floor before the statues. They also listened to and watched musical and dance performances in the school's auditorium and enjoyed traditional Indian food. Basu, a Rolls-Royce Corp. engineer from Carmel, said the event also serves social and cultural purposes, giving participants who don't see one another often the chance to connect. Rabindra Mukerjea, 63, West Lafayette, director of strategic planning and assessment at Purdue University, sang philosophical and religious songs Saturday night. "This is a wonderful gathering of people, not only for religious traditions but also for fellowship," Mukerjea said. Saturday's festivities lasted past midnight, but many people were back at the school in time for the closing religious ceremony at 10 a.m. Sunday. In Bengal, the holiday lasts 10 days; families observe five of the days privately and five with the community. Here, the five public days of celebration are condensed into a weekend, said Sudip Das, 49, Carmel. The Tri State Durga Puja comes to Indiana every four years after making a stop in Kentucky and two in Ohio. Related Information: Durga: The most powerful deity The Bengali believe the goddess Durga visits Earth once a year to destroy all evil and bring happiness to families. She's the most powerful god or goddess in Bengali tradition and is depicted with 10 arms. During Durga Puja, the Bengali pray and offer the goddess and her four children gifts such as fruit, flowers and sweets. After she defeats evil, she leaves Earth and returns to her husband, the god Shiva. Source: Dipan Basu, president, Bengali Association of Indiana

Göbekli Tepe - Oldest Constructed Place of Worship Yet Discovered

From Archaeology Magazine: The World's First Temple Volume 61 Number 6, November/December 2008 by Sandra Scham Turkey's 12,000-year-old stone circles were the spiritual center of a nomadic people [Image: carved pillar, two boars and what the article calles "ostrich-like" birds on the top] At first glance, the fox on the surface of the limestone pillar appears to be a trick of the bright sunlight. But as I move closer to the large, T-shaped megalith, I find it is carved with an improbable menagerie. A bull and a crane join the fox in an animal parade etched across the surface of the pillar, one of dozens erected by early Neolithic people at Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey. The press here is fond of calling the site "the Turkish Stonehenge," but the comparison hardly does justice to this 25-acre arrangement of at least seven stone circles. The first structures at Göbekli Tepe were built as early as 10,000 B.C., predating their famous British counterpart by about 7,000 years. The oldest man-made place of worship yet discovered, Göbekli Tepe is "one of the most important monuments in the world," says Hassan Karabulut, associate curator of the nearby Urfa Museum. He and archaeologist Zerrin Ekdogan of the Turkish Ministry of Culture guide me around the site. Their enthusiasm for the ancient temple is palpable. By the time of my visit in late summer, the excavation team lead by Klaus Schmidt of the German Archaeological Institute has wrapped up work for the season. But there is still plenty to see, including three excavated circles now protected by a large metal shelter. The megaliths, which may have once supported roofs, are about nine feet tall. Göbekli Tepe's circles range from 30 to 100 feet in diameter and are surrounded by rectangular stone walls about six feet high. Many of the pillars are carved with elaborate animal figure reliefs. In addition to bulls, foxes, and cranes, representations of lions, ducks, scorpions, ants, spiders, and snakes appear on the pillars. Freestanding sculptures depicting the animals have also been found within the circles. During the most recent excavation season, archaeologists uncovered a statue of a human and sculptures of a vulture's head and a boar. As we walk around the recently excavated pillars, the site seems at once familiar and exotic. I have seen stone circles before, but none like these. Excavations have revealed that Göbekli Tepe was constructed in two stages. The oldest structures belong to what archaeologists call the early Pre-Pottery Neolithic A period, which ended around 9000 B.C. Strangely enough, the later remains, which date to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period, or about 8000 B.C., are less elaborate. The earliest levels contain most of the T-shaped pillars and animal sculptures. Archaeologist Klaus Schmidt downplays extravagant spiritual interpretations of Göbekli Tepe, such as the idea, made popular in the press, that the site is the inspiration for the Biblical Garden of Eden. But he does agree that it was a sanctuary of profound significance in the Neolithic world. He sees it as a key site in understanding the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture, and from tribal to regional religion. Schmidt and his colleagues estimate that at least 500 people were required to hew the 10- to 50-ton stone pillars from local quarries, move them from as far as a quarter-mile away, and erect them. How did Stone Age people achieve the level of organization necessary to do this? Hauptmann speculates that an elite class of religious leaders supervised the work and later controlled the rituals that took place at the site. If so, this would be the oldest known evidence for a priestly caste--much earlier than when social distinctions became evident at other Near Eastern sites. [Typical assumption, that the ancient people used an organizational structure similar to our hierarchal way of thinking! Why not just admit the truth, WE DON'T KNOW, and leave it at that.] Before the discovery of Göbekli Tepe, archaeologists believed that societies in the early Neolithic were organized into small bands of hunter-gatherers and that the first complex religious practices were developed by groups that had already mastered agriculture. Scholars thought that the earliest monumental architecture was possible only after agriculture provided Neolithic people with food surpluses, freeing them from a constant focus on day-to-day survival. A site of unbelievable artistry and intricate detail, Göbekli Tepe has turned this theory on its head. [Yes, and if we were wrong about that, what else are we wrong about?] Schmidt believes the people who created these massive and enigmatic structures came from great distances. It seems certain that once pilgrims reached Göbekli Tepe, they made animal sacrifices. Schmidt and his team have found the bones of wild animals, including gazelles, red deer, boars, goats, sheep, and oxen, plus a dozen different bird species, such as vultures and ducks, scattered around the site. Most of these animals are depicted in the sculptures and reliefs at the site. There is still much that we don't understand about religious practices at Göbekli Tepe, Schmidt cautions. But broadly speaking, the animal images "probably illustrate stories of hunter-gatherer religion and beliefs," he says, "though we don't know at the moment." The sculptors of Göbekli Tepe may have simply wanted to depict the animals they saw, or perhaps create symbolic representations of the animals to use in rituals to ensure hunting success. Schmidt has another theory about how Göbekli Tepe became a sacred place. Though he has yet to find them, he believes that the first stone circles on the hill of the navel marked graves of important people. Hauptmann's team discovered graves at Nevali Cori, and Schmidt is reasonably confident that burials lie somewhere in the earliest layers of Göbekli Tepe. This leads him to suspect the pillars represent human beings and that the cult practices at this site may initially have focused on some sort of ancestor worship. The T-shaped pillars, he points out, look like human bodies with the upper part of the "T" resembling a head in profile. Once, Schmidt says, they stood on the hillside "like a meeting of stone beings." Sandra Scham is ARCHAEOLOGY's Washington, D.C., correspondent and a fellow at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. © 2008 by the Archaeological Institute of Americawww.archaeology.org/0811/abstracts/turkey.html

Hou Wins First Gold Medal at Mind Sports Games

From People's Daily Online: China's hopeful Hou reaps first chess gold at World Mind Games 09:27, October 13, 2008 China's ace chess player Hou Yifan claimed her first title at the World Mind Sports Games here on Sunday as the 14-year-old promising star paced the host's pairs toa convincing victory in the rapid finals. Hou, combined with her teammate Ni Hua, whitewashed their Vietnamese counterpart 4-0 in the two round finals, presenting China's chess team the second gold of the 15-day Games. Though winning the gold, Hou said it was only her start. "It feels great to win my first gold medal. But there are still two team events in the following days. They are more important than the pairs competitions." said Hou, adding that the coach's timely directions helped her back to track. "I wanted to say 'thank you' to my coach. He helped me a lot and made me feel less pressure today. I was in good form and played better than I did in the blitz round. I hoped to win more golds in the following days." said the winner. China's leading pairs witnessed a slump in blitz chess on last Wednesday. They failed to advance to the finals after their upset defeat to Ecuador in the preliminaries. China's head coach Ye Jiangchuan said lacking experience was the reason to their failure. "Both of them played less blitz chess before and they were still not used to it. Take Hou for example, she lost both in the individual and pairs competitions though she played much better in the slow chess in other world tournaments. We will do more trainings on this event after the Games," said Ye. Hou is the highest ranking player in China's women team. In last month's world championships, the wunderkind could have become the world's youngest chess queen by a finger's breadth. In the final, Hou lost to Russian pinup player Kosteniuk, who is ten-year-older than her Chinese opponent. However, China's coach still showed his confidence to the hopeful girl. "She is a talented player with good potentials. In the preliminaries, she collected nine straight victories, which is not common in the world's top level competitions. Besides, her steady performance is the key to the pairs' victory today. I hope she can learn some lessons from the Games and do better in the oncoming tournaments." said Ye. In the third-place playoff, Iran beat Indonesia to wrap up the bronze. The 1st World Mind Games have attracted more than 3,000 players from 143 countries and regions. Bridge, Chess, Go, Draughts and Xiangqi were on the program. Source: Xinhua

Phillipines Chess News

From the Sun Star: Tuesday, October 14, 2008 Lady chessers sow terror in 14U class A PAIR of lady woodpushers threatens to spoil the party of the boys' pre dominated 14-under field in the well-attended 1st Ace Hardware Youth Challenge Open chess tournament in Cagayan de Oro at the Inilog Grill. Alyssa Joshua Jamaca bestowed her Polgar-like aura in mesmerizing fashion to conquer Ven Christian Salcedo, as Carol Anne Chua protects her own winning streak by holding early pacesetter Kenneth Norman Honculada to a fighting draw. With this development, the two little señoritas are assured to dispute the top honors in this exciting event, which also stakes fabulous trophies, medals and knowledge book on top of the cash prizes. While the top-board features an all-male clash between Honculada and Chezter Jayson Coquilla, fellow 4.5 pointers Chua and Jamaca were taking on Jan Eduard Amper and Annerose Manilhig, respectively, on the second and third boards in the penultimate sixth round. "Now we witness a fighting chess unfolding in the kiddies rivalry that it's not a remote possibility to see a girl ending up in a big triumph," surmised tournament arbiter Lorenzo "Jun" Cuizon. Half a point behind at 4 points each are Christian Mario Pabillore and Harold Taganas who were still locked in horns against Alexander Ray Sumania and Keenard Troy Ibaoc. In the junior division for 20 and below participants, chess buddies Alfredo Rapanot Jr., Lennon Hart Salgados and Charles Joseph Laya went on to share the lead after the third round. "I wish them luck in the last two rounds," the 15-year-old Salgados said of Laya and Rapanot who were still battling in the pivotal fourth round. "I just keep on playing over the board matches so as to prepare myself for the grandfinals of the 2008 National Shell Youth Active tourney," said Cagayan de Oro's lone finalist to the national Shell junior championship.

Sunday Miscellany!

Hola darlings! I'm tapping away on the Toshiba laptop outdoors at the moment, with the Packers/Seahawks game on the radio in the background. It's a gorgeous day, one of summer's last gasps. Hot, humid, sunny, a fitful breeze. It's after 5 now and the squirrels are out in force, foraging for peanuts and other treats, and the sun is sinking in the southwest. I should have cut the grass in the backyard today, but I didn't. It was too damn hot and humid! I think it reached 80 degrees, incongruous when looking at the trees colored and shedding their leaves, my hostas and grape-vine covered fence turning yellow. At the moment the Packers/Seahawks are tied 10-10, but the Seahawks have the ball at the moment... Today was the ladies' investment club meeting. One of our members left at the end of June, but our newest member joined at about the same time, so we are still at five members. Despite - oh yippee! Packers just scored, and now lead 17/10 - Despite losing most of our gains accrued during the past three plus years in the past seven days' market crash, we have accumulated some cash and are buying great companies at Depression-era prices. It's just amazing to me that we have already purchased stock in two companies whose shares are selling for less than solid book value. People are so fricking stupid some times, selling their stocks at the worst possible moment! But hell, we're just a small group of middle-aged LIBERAL Democrats, what do we know from Wall Street, heh? We're all old enough to have lived through several recessions before, and it doesn't make any difference to us that this one is caused by a "liquidity" problem. Eventually it will be solved, one way or another, and things will either go on as before or we'll all be living in caves and it won't make any difference. Darlings, despite the Republicans' best efforts to force us back to the Stone Age in the USA, I do not believe we will be living in the Stone Age. So, here I sit, gingerly typing away on this yet unfamiliar keyboard as the squirrels cavort around - much to the ladies' delight earlier today a couple came up to the open patio screen door and peered in, seeming to intently listen as we discussed the current market conditions and our potential purchases! So, here I sit, not writing about anything of substance, just knowing that despite the market's gyrations, the world, and life, go on, oblivious of Wall Street and all of our collective Angst. This too, shall pass. The leaves are turning, and are dropping from the trees; the sun is going down before 6:30 now, and now rising until after 7 a.m.; the squirrels have fat white bellies, well, at least the squirrels who hang around here have fat white bellies! Today is beautiful, and I'm enjoying it. I've got a hot pizza waiting in the oven, a full glass of wine, and the Packers are winning against that TRAITOR MIKE HOLMGREN. All is right with the world.

Palin Buzz

Commentary on Presidential Politics - read only if you have an exceptionally strong stomach, otherwise, I highly recommend you skip this post. The McCain/Palin campaign, backed by whatever millions the Republican National Committee has left after the Mother of All Stock Market Crashes, has been in attack/lie/attack/MONDO lie mode ever since McCain lost the second debate to Obama on national television. I say that McCain lost not out of personal bias, but by the evidence presented by national polls taken about the debate performances of McCain and Obama. Today the Republican National Committee and the McCain campaign unleashed a new round of attack ads that feature the most blatant misrepresentations and outright lies - and absolute character assassination of an opponent, that I have ever seen. And believe me, darlings, I've seen plenty since my first "official" presidential election in 1972, not to mention the b.s. I had to dig my way through when I actively practiced law (including going up against a couple of New York lawyers, who were blasphemously against the Great Goddess called "snakes"!) That's par for the course; normally I don't pay any attention to this type of bullshit politics in an election. But in the case of our presidential election now less than a month away, the issues at hand are too pressing, too important, and too overwhelming to deal with crap like the lies McCain is tossing up at the 11th hour in an attempt to sway the "undecided" voters out there. McCain and Palin are triggering my gag reflex big time. I destest, hate and positively loathe the "new and improved" McCain ads plastered all over television in this "battleground" state of Wisconsin. These feelings are even more intensified against Senator McCain for abandoning his ethics in what will prove, I have no doubt, to be a totally futile attempt to win the White House. I used to think he was an honorable man, although misguided in his political leanings. But a good man, nonetheless. I no longer think so, and it makes me sad, and it makes me very very angry, too. How could he have sold himself out like this? A good man could not condone the lies and garbage being passed off as political commentary in the new Republican ads. Earlier today I read an article at The New York Times - I don't remember what the article was, perhaps it was on the political blog; it was short, and there were a lot of comments. I usually don't read such commentary at all, but given the recent dramatic economic developments that have directly affected my pocketbook and my 401(k)s and my retirement nestegg, which has had five years of hard-earned gains wiped out in seven days, I've been reading more of this type of commentary. I used to think I could retire at my "full" Social Security retirement age of 67 years and 4 months. I no longer think so. Now I think I'll be working until I drop dead at the copy machine with some first year associate standing over me bitching that I'm not moving fast enough. Today I happened upon a comment that linked the new aggressive and full of lies attack mode of the Republican campaign and the Republican National Committee to the soon to be released report on what the press is calling Palin's "Troopergate." It seems the person who wrote that post was 100% on and showed a great deal of astuteness. I checked the news a bit ago and saw that the bipartisan committee of the Alaskan Legislature that was investigating Troopergate found improprieties in Palin's conduct. Tsk tsk. Fifi the Alaskan Attack Dog has been caught out. Is she going to take a rifle to the Alaskan Assembly and gut them out??? Legislative panel: Palin abused authority 2 hours, 16 minutes ago ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A legislative committee investigating Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has found she unlawfully abused her authority in firing the state's public safety commissioner. The investigative report concludes that a family grudge wasn't the sole reason for firing Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan but says it likely was a contributing factor. The Republican vice presidential nominee has been accused of firing a commissioner to settle a family dispute. Palin supporters have called the investigation politically motivated. Monegan says he was dismissed as retribution for resisting pressure to fire a state trooper involved in a bitter divorce with the governor's sister. Palin says Monegan was fired as part of a legitimate budget dispute. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below. ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Alaska lawmakers have emerged from a private session in Anchorage where they spent more than six hours discussing a politically charged ethics report into Gov. Sarah Palin's firing of her state public safety commissioner. The legislative panel began its public session by discussing whether to release the report's findings. The investigation was examining whether Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, fired a state commissioner to settle a family dispute. The report was also expected to touch on whether Palin's husband meddled in state affairs and whether her administration inappropriately accessed employee medical records. Critics claim Palin fired Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan after months of pressure on him to fire Mike Wooten, a state trooper involved in a nasty divorce and custody dispute with the governor's sister. Lawmakers indicated they planned to release the report even though there was disagreement about its findings. "I think there are some problems in this report," Republican state Sen. Gary Stevens. "I would encourage people to be very cautious, to look at this with a jaundiced eye." ******************************************************************************* It's shame shame on the Alaskan Republicans for trying to hush this up at the 11th hour - once Palin was pinned as the VP candidate. They filed - and lost - a law suit in an attempt to block release of the investigation's results until AFTER the presidential election. I find it very strange, don't you, that the Republicans in the Alaskan State Legislature had no problems with investigating their very own Governor Palin BEFORE she hit the national spotlight. Their actions triggers that gag reflex again, doesn't it. Pathetic. They can try - and will try - to put a different twist on the plain truth that Palin was trying to get her former brother-in-law fired from his job as a state trooper and she brought as much pressure on the man who could fire him as she could. But anyone who isn't already leaning in one direction or the other who can read will see the truth of the matter. Palin is guilty of malfeasance in office.

A Heart-Tugging Story from Stonehenge

From the Daily Mail (co.uk) online: Prehistoric child is discovered buried with 'toy hedgehog' at Stonehenge By Daily Mail Reporter Last updated at 9:42 AM on 10th October 2008 This toy hedgehog, found in a child's grave at Stonehenge, is proof of what we have always known - children have always loved to play. The chalk figurine was probably a favourite possession of the three year old, and placed next to the child when they died in the late Bronze Age or early Iron Age, around 3,000 years ago. Archaeologists who discovered the grave, where the child was laying on his or her side, believe the toy - perhaps placed there by a doting father - is the earliest known depiction of a hedgehog in British history. The diggers were working to the west of Stonehenge in what is known as the Palisade Ditch when they made the remarkable discovery last month in the top of the pit in which the child was buried. Archaeologist Dennis Price said: 'It is not difficult to envisage the raw emotion and harrowing grief that would have accompanied the death of this child. 'Amid the aura of gloom that surrounds Stonehenge, it comes as a beam of light to find a child's toy lovingly placed with the tiny corpse to keep him or her company through eternity. 'I'm not aware of hedgehogs having any significance in pagan tradition so the discovery must rank as yet another unique and baffling aspect of one of the most famous and instantly recognisable prehistoric monuments on Earth. To my mind, the hedgehog possesses a real charm and an innocent beauty. ' Dr. Joshua Pollard, of the Stonehenge Riverside Project, said: 'Representational art from this period is very rare and so far as I'm aware, if the identification is correct, it's the only known prehistoric depiction of a hedgehog from Britain.' Fay Vass, of the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, said: 'We are very excited to hear about this find. It shows humans have taken hedgehogs to their hearts for a very long time. ************************************************************************* I confess I'm not exactly sure what a hedgehog looks like! At first I thought this resembled a "hippo" - but the ears aren't right for a hippo (they have little rounded upright ears) - this animal has floppy ears. Then I thought, perhaps it is a sow. Sows were a symbol of the Great Mother Goddess and the timing would be right (circa 1000 BCE) for worship of the Sow aspect of the Great Goddess in old England. Is it really a hedgehog - or is this a presumption imposed on a singular find? I don't know. I'd be interested to know if they can tell the origin of the chalk from which this was carved. That might not mean, though, that the piece was carved where the chalk came from.

Learn and Play Chess in Madison, Wisconsin

Madison is the capital of my home state, and a beautiful town. It is situated amongst three lakes (Mendota, Monona and Wingra, the one nobody ever remembers the name!), with the State Capitol building situated on rising ground that can be viewed from just about all approaches into the city. It has breathtakingly beautiful views. Home to the largest University of Wisconsin campus and the nationally known Wisconsin Badgers Football Team (part of the original Big Ten), Madison is a cosmopolitan, liberal city and proud of it. From the Madison Eagle: Chess sharpens minds Fridays at YMCA Published: Friday, October 10, 2008 7:01 AM EDT MADISON – For both aficionados and people who have always wanted to learn how to play, the Madison Area YMCA at 111 Kings Road hosts its own chess club at 7 p.m. each Friday. The chess club is free and open to the public. Players from teens to seniors are invited to play chess with all age groups, learn from someone who knows the game well, stimulate their minds and develop strategic thinking. For information, contact Barbara Carkhuff at (973) 822-9622, ext. 2307, or bcarkhuff@madisonymca.org.

First World Mind Sports Games

Xiang qi - Chinese chess - variously translated as "elephant game," something akin to "ambassador game" and "star" or "celestial" game." It has a lot of similarities to western chess, but has enough differences to require learning a whole different set of pattern-recognition and, of course, basic piece moves and rules. The pieces are different from western ches pieces, too. The modern game of xiang qi is played with flat pieces (like checkers) that have their symbols painted or printed on them. The xiang qi board is not checkered like a western chess board; the pieces are placed on the intersections of the squares and not within the squares, and there is a "river" that divides the xiang qi board in half - so a xiang qi board has 72 squares, but the number of playing pieces is 16 to each side because of their placement. Pieces are distingished entirely by color and by subtle variations in the names of the pieces. I'm no expert, that's for sure! The extent of my knowledge is very limited, basically gleaned from a few articles read when I researched the meaning of the name of xiang qi in English ("qi" basically can mean "man" - as in a "playing piece" - but it can also, more intriguingly, refer to the "qi" that is, to put it into popular venacular, rather like "The Force," that invisible yet palpable "something" that forms the very essence of the universe, from "Star Wars." Thre are several different siang qi events taking place side by side with western chess events. Here is news about one of the women's events. Unfortunately, the photograph of the chessboard and pieces in the article is a western chess set with a checkered board! Lan Huong brings home xiangqi bronze 14:06' 10/10/2008 (GMT+7) VietNamNet Bridge – Ngo Lan Huong yesterday secured a bronze medal in the women's individual xiangqi (Chinese chess) event at the first-ever World Mind Sports Games, held in Beijing, China. Huong beat Tan Min Fang Fiona from Singapore in the last round to grab a spot in the top three. The 2007 Asian Indoor Games title-holder pocketed 10 points after seven matches, finishing behind China's Wang Linna and Zhao Guanfang. In a near tie-break for gold, Wang and her compatriot Zhao both accumulated 13 points. Wang was finally awarded the medal because of better rival points, suggesting she encountered stronger opponents during the tournament. "I am so excited with the results," said 28-year-old Wang. "After all, this is the World Mind Sports Games, and in some sense it is just like the Olympic Games for the mind. So being the champion means a lot to me." Ranked as one of the best female xiangqi players in China, Wang earned six victories during, the competition. A native of Heilongjiang Province in northeast China, Wang is a veteran in the sport, having started learning xiangqi at the age of eight. She bagged her first national title in 1997. But facing Zhao was a close call, Wang said. "I did not play well in that match. I left too many chances for my opponent. I think Zhao was too nervous to beat me at that time, or I could not have earned one point from that match." The champion said she hoped her gold medal will be a good start for Chinese female xiangqi players, adding: "Hopefully, my teammates will win another gold for China in the women's team event." The competition was also a hard-won battle for silver medallist Zhao: "Foreign female xiangqi players have made great progress in recent years. Competitors from Viet Nam, the Netherlands and Britain have posed a huge challenge for us during the matches." On the men's side, Vietnamese Nguyen Thanh Bao and Nguyen Hoang Lam are both in the top ten. The duo finished round five with six points. The competition for men has nine rounds and will conclude tomorrow. In the chess event's mixed pair blitz, Ecuador secured gold after tense games against India. In the play-off for third place the Ukraine proved too strong for Iran, winning 3-1 to take the bronze. Vietnamese duo Le Quang Liem and Hoang Thi Nhu Y did not play well, earning only 13 points after 11 rounds, which was not enough to qualify for the semi-final. In the mixed pair rapid event which kicked off yesterday, Dao Thien Hai and Le Kieu Thien Kim of Viet Nam took two points from two first matches and were in the middle of the ranking table. The first World Mind Sports Games attracted more than 3,000 players from 143 countries and regions. Masters compete for 35 medal sets divided into five events: bridge, chess, go, draughts and xiangqi. (Source: VNS/XINHUA)

Maoists Approve New Kumari

Nepalese girl begins life as 'living goddess' 2 days ago KATHMANDU (AFP) — The three-year-old daughter of a Nepalese watch repairer became a "living goddess" on Tuesday after being approved by the country's new atheist government. Despite Nepal being a Maoist republic after the monarchy was unseated in May, the centuries-old tradition of worshipping a young virgin as the living embodiment of a powerful Hindu goddess has survived. "Matina Shakya was chosen after consultation with Buddhist priests, community leaders and officials who will look after her," said Achyut Pokharel, a member of the government-run trust that maintains the tradition. "She became Royal Kumari after a series of pujas (religious ceremonies) on Tuesday at the auspicious time of 11:39 am," Pokharel said, referring to the moment chosen by astrologers as the luckiest for the Kumari succession. Dozens of people in Kathmandu's medieval quarter joined in the procession as the young girl was carried by family members from her home to the ornate palace where she will be confined for several years. "It was very hard to make the decision to allow her to become the Kumari," her father Pratap Man Shrestha told AFP. "I am going to miss her terribly but it is a great privilege to have a Kumari for a daughter and we are helping maintain a unique, age-old part of our culture." Tradition dictates that the Kumari must only leave her new home for festivals a few times per year. Earlier this year, Nepal's Supreme Court ruled that Kumaris had the right to attend school but her family accepts that she will stay in the ancient palace in central Kathmandu. "She will be home schooled in the palace but we can go and meet her any time," said her father. Three-year-old Matina remained silent throughout the ten-minute procession to begin her life as a goddess and seemed unperturbed by the commotion, posing happily for pictures. Preeti Shakya, 12, the previous Royal Kumari, was in floods of tears as she was led out of the palace and back to her family by a band playing curved horns and banging drums. Her term ended because she was approaching menstruation, after which she would be ritually unclean. As she watched the new Kumari being taken to the palace, Aaste Shakya, a Norwegian married to a Nepalese man, said she respected the tradition but felt sorry for the girl. "She can't have a normal childhood. She won't have the same freedom, schooling and social activities as everyone else her age," said Shakya. "She is too young to really understand what is happening to her." The Kumari, which means virgin, must meet 32 strict criteria -- including having a "chest like a lion" and "thighs like a deer" -- as well as pass tests that include being in a room with dead sacrificed buffalo and not crying. Three towns in the Kathmandu valley follow the custom, but the Royal Kumari in the capital is considered the most powerful, and has the closest links to Nepal's deposed monarch. Former monarch Gyanenendra and his ancestors would seek annual blessings -- and tacit spiritual approval of their reign -- from the girl selected from the Buddhist Shakya caste. Today, Gyanenendra is a commoner living as a virtual recluse on the outskirts of Kathmandu, and the Nepalese president now receives blessings from the girl. Nepal became the world's newest republic after former rebel Maoists ended their civil war in 2006, and won landmark polls in April.

Stonehenge Back in the News

Perhaps a month (?) ago, a lot of press was given to a new theory about Stonehenge: that it was a "Lourdes-like" center of healing, dated to about 2300 BCE, therefore making it some 300 years younger than the oldest of the "great" pyramids at Giza. I saw new press tonight, that challenges the "healing center" theory and also pushes the date of Stonehenge back to 3000 BCE. First up, a story from the Telegraph.co.uk: Stonehenge 'was a cremation cemetry, not healing centre' By Louise Gray Environment Correspondent Last Updated: 12:01am BST 09/10/2008 Stonehenge was used as a cremation cemetry throughout its history, according to new evidence that divides archaeologists over whether England's most famous ancient monument was about celebrating life or death. The origins and purposes of Stonehenge have eluded academics and historians for centuries and been the subject of much debate.The circle of standing stones was originally through to have been erected in 2,600 BC, to replace an earlier wood and earth structure where cremation was carried out. Recently a BBC documentary suggested that the standing stones were not erected until 2,300BC, when the site became a centre of healing. Now a team behind the latest dig suggest the standing stones were erected much earlier than previously thought, in 3,000 BC, and used for cremation burial throughout their history and not for healing. The latest evidence is from a team of archaeologists from a number of British universities who have been carrying out excavations over the past five summers. The Stonehenge Riverside Project looked at remains found in an "Aubrey Hole", one of the pits where it was originally throught the wooden posts that predated the standing stones stood. Crushed chalk was discovered leading the team to conclude that in fact standing stones had been erected in the holes much earlier than previously thought. The report said: "We propose that very early in Stonehenge's history, 56 Welsh bluestones stood in a ring 285 feet 6 inches across. This has sweeping implications for our understanding of Stonehenge." The second significant finding was from radiocarbon dating of human remains found on the site from between 2,300 and 3,000 BC. Researchers concluded that this meant cremation burial was going on long after the standing stones had been erected. The report said: "Contrary to claims made in the recent BBC Timewatch film, which promoted a theory of Stonehenge as a healing centre built after the practice of cremation burial had ceased, standing stones and burial may have been prominent aspects of Stonehenge's meaning and purpose for a millenium." Mike Pitts, one of the authors of the study and editor of British Archaelogy, said that the study overturned previous theory over Stonehenge. "This means there were earlier connections with Wales, where the standing stones came from, than previously thought and that Stonehenge was always about death and ancestors and burial and not healing," he said. Geoffrey Wainwright, one of the archaelogists behind the BBC film, maintained that healing was one of the uses of the site. "We do not claim Stonehenge was a single use monument," he said. "We think it was a multifunctional monument and part of its purpose was for healing." Second story from BBC News: Stonehenge 'older than believed' Page last updated at 12:50 GMT, Thursday, 9 October 2008 13:50 UK New findings at Stonehenge suggest its stones were erected much earlier than thought, challenging the site's conventional history. A new excavation puts the stones' arrival at 3000 BC - almost 500 years earlier than originally thought - and suggests it was mainly a burial site. The latest results are from a dig by the Stonehenge Riverside Project. It is in conflict with recent research dating construction to 2300 BC and suggesting it was a healing centre. The 2300 BC date was arrived at by carbon dating and was the major finding from an excavation inside the henge by professors Tim Darvill and Geoff Wainwright. That dig was the subject of a BBC Timewatch documentary. The latest theories, putting construction much earlier, result from an excavation at Aubrey Hole 7 - one of a circle of pits surrounding the stones - in August 2008. The researchers believe the pit probably held a standing stone. The team suggests the 2300 BC date relates to the time when the stones were moved from the outer pits to the centre of the site. The dig was directed by archaeologists Mike Parker-Pearson, Mike Pitts and Julian Richards for the Stonehenge Riverside Project. The Aubrey Hole has already been excavated twice. The first time, when discovered in 1920, and again in 1935. 'Very exciting' Mike Parker-Pearson, professor of archaeology at Sheffield University, revived an earlier theory that the holes had held bluestones as the evidence of crushed and compacted chalk had been recorded in 1920 in three of the pits. Professor Parker-Pearson said: "It's very exciting that we have evidence for stones right from its beginnings around 3000 BC. "That's almost 500 years earlier than anyone had thought. "These stones were very closely associated with the remains of the dead. There were cremation burials from inside the holes holding the stones and also the areas around them." The archaeologists suggest that very early in Stonehenge's history there were 56 Welsh bluestones standing in a ring - 87m (285ft) across. The Stonehenge Riverside Project has been responsible for major excavation within the Stonehenge world heritage site over the past five years.

Feeling Out of Control Sparks "Magical Thinking"

October 02, 2008 Feeling out of control sparks magical thinking: Psychology Today journalist Matthew Hutson covers some fascinating experiments just published in this week's Science that found that reducing participants' control increase the tendency for magical thinking and the perception of illusory meaning in random or patternless visual scenes. Hutson covers all six experiments, but here's a sample from his article which should give you the general idea: In the fourth study, people who recalled a situation where they lacked control were more likely to see nonexistent images in snowy pictures and were also more likely to suspect conspiracies in ambiguous vignettes. (In one story, three local construction companies raise their prices after their owners all spend the same weekend at one bed and breakfast. In another, the protagonist was denied a promotion right after his boss and a workmate exchanged a flurry of emails.) The fifth experiment showed that describing the stock market as volatile (versus stable) renders people more likely to spot false correlations in reports on company financials—and then make stock investments based on their unfounded conclusions. Finally, the sixth study showed that feeling good about yourself reduces the frantic grasping for straws. There were three groups. One group recalled not having control, another recalled not having control and then performed a self-affirmation task, and a third group did neither. The first group saw more figures in snowy pictures and perceived more conspiracies than the other groups did. Apparently, increasing self-esteem fosters a sense of control over one's life and reduces the need to seek additional stability in random noise. Two of the 'snowy pictures' are shown on the right. The one on the top is completely random, the other has an embedded picture. This is particularly interesting to me, because one of my own studies I completed with some colleagues in Cardiff also involved getting participants to perceive images in random visual patterns. We did something a little different though, in that we didn't have any hidden images, so every time someone saw something we knew it was illusory. However, we also managed to alter how often people saw the images, but we used electromagnets (a technique called TMS) to alter the function of the temporal lobes which have been previously thought to be involved in the magical thinking spectrum - from everyday examples to diagnosable psychosis. This study was inspired by an earlier study by neuroscientist Peter Brugger, who found that people who professed a belief in ESP ('telepathy') were more likely to see meaningful patterns in visual noise than those that didn't. Both the new study and our study are interesting because they show how this type of magical thinking can be manipulated. However, this new study takes it to a whole new level because it involves a whole range of magical thinking tests (not just the 'snowy patterns') and shows how a number they are subject to the tides of emotion and feelings of being in control. Link to Hutson's excellent write-up.Link to study in Science.Link to DOI entry for same. —Vaughan. Posted at October 2, 2008 10:00 PM

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Bah, humbug! This is a very poor extrapolation of experiments covered in much more detail a day or two ago in The Wall Street Journal! The point is not "magical thinking" at all - but I think, personally, that the results show it does have a lot to do with "imagination." Do the two equate? Guess that depends upon your definations for "Magic" and "Imagination." The root for both words is "magus" which, in its basic sense, means "wise man " i.e., one steeped in the knowledge of the wisdom of the ages. Some people say this means occult knowledge. While it may include some knowledge of the occult (as opposed to being an practitioner of occult arts) it is much more than that. I also have some serious bones to pick with the premise of these experiments. Show ANYONE, maybe even some intelligent dogs or that elephant who can paint watercolors, an image of "random snow" and ask them to find an image or images in it and I'll bet you $10 that 99 out of 100 (including the intelligent dogs and the elephant) will find one or more images. I'm no expert, not even a psychology major, but I've read about experiments that report on the well-known phenomenon of subjects wanting to please their testers and so they will go out of their way to "see" or "do" whatever it is that they perceive their testers want them to see or do. Seeing one or more images amidst random chaos does not indicate, to me, a per se relationship to wanting to be in control or seeking to impose a sense of order on perceived disorder. What a bunch of dildo-heads for spouting such nonsense! They evidently have no imaginations whatsoever, and unfortunately, imagination is precisely what "No Child Left Behind" is now busy attempting to stomp out in our latest generation of youth for the sake of "scoring" on dummied-down standardized tests. Lose imagination, become citizens of "1984." Several females in my family have the ability to "see" things that other people can't see. Doesn't mean what we see isn't actually there, it's just that other people don't have the extra something or other to see these things. This ability extends to seeing patterns in so-called randomly generated "snow" pictures and seeing "omens" in patterns of seemingly unconnected occurrences and events that others don't see. How well I still remember as a 7 year old the look on the face of the "tester" who was flashing Rorschach cards before me in the school principal's office as I told him what I saw. What does a child know about "control" or stock market crashes (which is what The Wall Street Journal article related the study to, how people try to make "order" out of the chaos of a stock market crash when fear rules all, by supposedly seeing patterns and significances in totally unrelated bits of information and occurrences that aren't really there). We were born with these abilities or whatever you want to call them, we were raised with them, and to us we're all perfectly normal except perhaps our IQs are about 20 to 30 points higher than "normal." We talk amongst ourselves about what we see and what our aunts saw and what our grandmothers saw - sometimes prescient, sometimes not. You just live with it, it's no big deal. There are a lot of people out there who have these abilities, they just don't talk about them much (usually for very good reasons). According to these experts, this is where "conspiracy theories" come from, and the implication is that such beliefs are, at their core, irrational. Let me tell you darlings, I'm not a conspiracy theory fan, but I've seen enough extra-normal stuff in my 57 years to know there's much more to the reality surrounding us than - to paraphrase badly - ever dreamed of in Heaven and Earth, Horatio. Is this "magical?" I don't think so. I think we're just so out of touch with some of our natural abilities and have so suppressed others in the cause of "rationality" that we've forgotten what it's like to be truly human.

Copper Age Shocker

The archaeological site at Plocnik is back in the news, this time with a stunning discovery that could very well change a fundamental archaeological paradigm. Copper Age began earlier than believed, scientists say Europe News Oct 7, 2008, 14:47 GMT Belgrade - Serbian archaeologists say a 7,500-year-old copper axe found at a Balkan site shows the metal was used in the Balkans hundreds of years earlier than previously thought. The find near the Serbian town of Prokuplje shifts the timeline of the Copper Age and the Stone Age's neolithic period, archaeologist Julka Kuzmanovic-Cvetkovic told the independent Beta news agency. 'Until now, experts said that only stone was used in the Stone Age and that the Copper Age came a bit later. Our finds, however, confirm that metal was used some 500 to 800 years earlier,' she said. The Copper Age marks the first stage of humans' use of metal. It is thought to have started in about the 4th millennium BC in southeastern Europe and earlier in the Middle East. Archaeologists at the Plocnik site also found furnace and melting pots with traces of copper, suggesting the site may have been an important metal age center of the Balkans. 'All this undeniably proves that human civilization in this area produced metal in the 5th millennium BC,' archaeologist Dusan Sljivar told Beta. The Plocnik site was discovered in 1927 and first excavations began a year later when first neolithic items were found. It is part of the Vinca culture, Europe's biggest prehistoric civilization. Vinca culture flourished from 6th to 3rd millennium BC in present-day Serbia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria and Macedonia. Its name came from the village Vinca on the Danube river, some 14 kilometers downstream from Belgrade. (c) Deutch Press-Agentur

Chess Player Wins the Women's World Open II Poker

Many professional chessplayers and former pro chessplayers are now making a living playing professional poker. Here'e another former chessplayer who's now making a good living playing pro poker! Live pokerPartyPoker.com Women's World Open result Soraya Homam wins the Women's World Open II By PokerPlayer October 2008 PartyPoker.com Women's World Open II, London, $3,000 No Limit Hold'em, October 7th - 8th 2008 Entrants: 36 Buyin: $3,000 Prizepool: $108,000 1. Soraya Homam, Germany, $50,000 2. Stefanie Bergener, Germany, $22,000 3. May Maceiras, Spain, $14,000 4. Eliza Burnett, UK, $10,000 5. Michelle Orpe, UK, $7,000 6. Kyla Kalmar, UK, $5,000 46-year-old German poker professional Soraya Homam is the winner of the PartyPoker.com Women’s World Open II! Homam, a veteran on the circuit from Frankfurt danced a jig with delight after she beat fellow German Stefanie Bergener in an epic heads-up match to scoop $50,000 and the title. After a number of swings that saw the balance of power switch a number times, Homam’s AK suited held-up all-in against Bergener’s A6 off-suit. “I’m truly delighted to have won,” said Homam, who is a German citizen of Iranian descent. “ My luggage got lost on the flight over to London and I was down about that. When it was located and arrived I felt I had a new lease of life. It sounds strange but it gave me more confidence and made me feel much more comfortable at the table.” Homam has been playing poker for 20 years and has been there and seen it all on the live circuit. She narrowly missed out on a place on the final table at the PartyPoker.com Women’s World Open I at the expense of Jen Mason. Big domestic wins in 2000 and 2001 had previously been the highlight of her career. She is also a chess player and insists that the skills she picked up in that game have helped her on the felt. “I have been playing tournaments and cash games for many years now and I see all the debate in the poker world about all women’s tournaments. The future is all about us ladies!” she exclaimed. Runner-up Bergener, a 41-year-old pro from Ollenbach, Germany was also pleased with her finish in the tournament. “ I’m so happy with the result, I have had most of my success online and this is great. I promised my son one percent of my winnings to buy him a new BMX bike, so I have no problems there!” Bergener went home with $22,000 and also bust US star Erica Schoenberg after only three hands of her heat when she sat with the better full house. May Maceiras, a 28 year-old from Vigo, Spain, finished in third place for $14,000 and was heavily tipped to win after running over the final table with great flair. Commentary on her use of position and exploiting the format could not have been more complimentary and nobody doubts she has a huge future ahead of her. That said, she has already achieved so much after exploding on the scene in the last couple of years with victories at the Spanish Poker Championships and on the Spanish Poker Tour. “Poker in Spain is still in its infancy,” said May, “there is still such a long way to go but I am proud of what I achieved here and I hope it encourages others to follow in my path,” she said. First out on the final table was Kyla Kalmar, wife of 2007 WSOP* Main Event final tablist Jon ‘Skalie’ Kalmar. Out in fifth was television presenter Michelle Orpe, followed in fourth by journalist Eliza Burnett. The PartyPoker.com Women’s World Open II saw 36 players from all over the world battle it out for a share of a $108,000 prize-fund. The buy-in for the tournament was set at $3,000. Among those who took part included Erica Schoenberg, PartyPoker.com Women’s World Open I champion Bev Pace, Jen Mason, Late Night Poker finalist Maria Demetriou, Xuyen “Bad Girl” Pham, former PartyPoker.com World Open winner Pippa Flanders, former European Ladies champion Jackie Meecham, Katharine Hartree, Mel Lofthouse, comedienne Lucy Porter, Michelle Orpe, Bucks Fizz star Cheryl Baker, Bronwyn Campbell, Shelley Rubenstein, Dutch pop star Maud Mulder, Polish television presenter Agnieszka Rylik and Christine Klecz. Eddie Hearn, Head of Online Gaming at Matchroom Sport said: “The international flavour of the PartyPoker.com Women’s World Open II final table just goes to show that this tournament is stronger than ever. It is one of the most popular events in the eyes of international broadcasters.” A PartyPoker.com spokesman said: “Last year, UK players dominated the final table so we have seen a complete turnaround. Beverley Pace won last year but there is no doubt that the ladies from Germany and Spain are now the pacesetters. It could also be true that the Spanish poker scene has found itself a Fernando Torres in the form of May Maceiras.” Coverage of the event will be shown on Five in the UK next year and then distributed worldwide. Commentary for coverage of the final will be provided by Jesse May and Robert Williamson III.