The China Institute Presents a New Gallery Show/Program: Dreams of the Kings

WOW! I would love to see this.  Hmmm....

Discover China Through Art (DCTA)
Program in conjunction with the exhibition
Dreams of the Kings: A Jade Suit for Eternity, Treasures of the Han Dynasty from Xuzhou

May 30 – November 12, 2017

Discover China Through Art (DCTA), China Institute Gallery’s innovative art education program for groups, will introduce participants to our new exhibition Dreams of the Kings: A Jade Suit for Eternity, Treasures of the Han Dynasty from Xuzhou. Each group visit consists of a three-part program featuring an introductory video presentation, a docent-led gallery tour, and a hands-on art workshop, all of which can be adapted for different age groups and interests.

By exploring great collections from the Xuzhou museum at close range in the Gallery, participants will see a rare jade burial suit, terracotta performers, and carved stone animal sculptures. These objects are extraordinary testimony to customs and beliefs surrounding life and death during the Western Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 8 CE).
Two workshops are offered:
I. Color and Decorating Workshop (K – 3rd grade)
II. Pattern Making Workshop (3rd grade – adult)

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Schedule: Available for booking weekday
Mornings 10:30 AM-12:00 PM & Afternoons 1:30 PM-3:00 PM
Please reserve a tour at least two weeks in advance of the requested date.
Please contact us for evenings and weekends programs.

Speaker Name
Gallery Docents

Fee: Weekdays: $120 per group
Evenings & weekends: $160 per group
Up to 30 participants per group; we can accommodate 2 groups at one time

Contact: Yue Ma 212-744-8181 x 147 or by email at yma@chinainstitute.org

About Discover China Through Art (DCTA)

Discover China Through Art (DCTA) is an innovative art education program that China Institute Gallery offers to schools and the general public. Created in 1992, DCTA introduces audiences to Chinese art and culture through a three-part interactive program that complements the Gallery’s exhibitions. The participants experiment with Chinese art through an introductory video presentation, a docent-led gallery discussion, and a hands-on art workshop. It is in these popular workshops that our participants experience Chinese art up close and have the opportunity to learn and apply fundamental techniques.

The program also offers special Chinese art and culture workshops in between of exhibitions, which consist of an interactive video presentation and an experimental hands-on workshop.

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Discover China Through Art is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Hales Corners Chess Challenge XXV! It's Tomorrow, Darlings!

Update April 22, 2017:

Hi darlings!  Great news!  Got the final count of chess femmes from the wonderful folks at Southwest Chess Club who run the Hales Corners Challenges, and there are FIVE chess femmes in the Open Section and EIGHT chess femmes in the Reserve Section, out of 73 players, for a total participation rate  of 17.8%!!!!!!!! (Notice I'm using Trumpian punctuation here - he actually stole the idea from me, I've been doing THAT for years, as you all know, darlings :))  Other than scholastic events, I cannot think of any other event in which female players make up such a large percentage of players.  WHOOP WHOOP!  I'm proud of you, ladies!
_________________________________________________________________

Hola everyone!  Happy spring, which in Milwaukee is always celebrated by the Hales Corners Chess Challenge, at least in my little corner of the world :)

Goddesschess first began providing prize money to the HCCC way back in Challenge VIII, and we've consistently improved our prizes and increased the amounts since that time.  We have also been successful in achieving our goal, with the eager cooperation of the people of the Southwest Chess Club, of increasing the participation of female chessplayers in the tournaments, and we now can brag of some of the highest percentages of female participation in open mixed tournaments in the US.  That's something to be proud of, and our female players have made it possible!

This year, Challenge XXV is TOMORROW!!!!!!  You can find all of the details here.

Goddesschess prizes are awarded in addition to any other prize that a female participant may qualify for, they are not mutually exclusive.  (In October HCCC, Goddesschess also provides two special prizes for male players in honor or our late webmaster and partner, Don McLean).  For Challenge XXV, we offer the following incentives to participating female chessplayers:

Open:

$50 per win; $25 per draw; $80 prize for a perfect score of 4.0
Entry fee paid if top scorer participates in next HCCC

Reserve:

$20 per win; $10 per draw; $40 prize for a perfect score of 4.0
Entry fee paid if top scorer participates in next HCCC

I haven't played at the Olympia Resort but I understand it is a great playing venue and provides very nice accommodations for those staying overnight.  So -- please come out and join us, and help us once again make good on increasing our female chessplayer rate of participation in Goddesschess sponsored events!

Fingers crossed we have the best participation rates of ALL players ever!  Good luck to all.  I'll be following along on the SWCC blog.

Mary Magdalene: Not a Prostitute, But Deliberately Maligned As One

In honor of Marys everywhere, and mindful of the Goddess Eostre holiday coming soon, this, from The Washington Post!

On Easter, Mary Magdalene will be maligned as a prostitute. Except she wasn’t

Petula Dvorak, Columnist April 13 at 6:02 PM

Here’s who Mary Magdalene was: one of Jesus Christ’s original followers, the last to stay with him while he was nailed to the cross and, Christians believe, the first to see his empty tomb and his resurrection.

Here’s who she wasn’t: a reformed or forgiven prostitute. Yet on Easter Sunday, Christianity’s holiest day, that’s exactly how she will be described in some sermons and how she continues to be portrayed in much of popular culture. The woman dubbed in the Bible the “Apostle of the Apostles” has spent two millennia being reduced to a seductress.

In some ways, Mary Magdalene’s story is the story of modern women everywhere.

From the relentless focus on the looks of female leaders to the nude photos being circulated of female Marines, women who dare to work among men as equals get sexualized and marginalized.

In Mary Magdalene’s case, it’s a 2,000-year-old slut-shaming that a group of Christian women is trying to stop. The Junia Project, a California group preaching egalitarian theology, is using social media to spread its public service announcement: “As you preach this Sunday, please note: Mary Magdalene was NOT a prostitute. Thank you.”

They have to be proactive. Even a popular Easter sermon on the Sermon Central website repeats the myth. “Mary Magdalene was a forgiven prostitute,” reads the second line of the sermon reminding people what to remember about the first Easter.

Hollywood loves casting Mary Magdalene as a sex worker. She was a hooker in “Jesus Christ Superstar” in 1973, in “The Last Temptation of Christ” in 1988, in “The Passion of the Christ” in 2004 and even in last year’s “Risen.” It’s a delicious story, Jesus being so cool that he even forgives a prostitute. It’s “Pretty Woman” in the tunics-and-sandals age.

Gail Wallace, one of the co-founders of the Junia Project, hates the way Mary Magdalene gets maligned. "For me, the bottom line is that we are fed up with the way women’s stories in the Bible have been retold in a way that sexualizes them unnecessarily and in ways that aren’t supported by the biblical texts,” she said.

Biblical scholars and historians have been trying to make the same point for decades. The Catholic Church acknowledged and tried to correct the widespread misperception in 1969 [after having spent only 1,500 years or so lying about Mary to their ignorant parishioners]. But somewhere along the telephone game that is Christian history, the prostitute label stuck.

“Women looking to the Bible for inspiration already have limited choices of female role models,” wrote Chicago nun and professor Barbara Bowe, before her death in 2010. “When we suddenly cut Mary Magdalene off at the knees and turn her into some kind of evil sex pervert, we deprive men and women, but especially women, of a figure with whom they can identify.” Kate Wallace Nunneley, another of the Junia Project’s co-founders, said she saw the Mary Magdalene myth repeated in modern seminary texts, too.

That’s okay, though. Because now Team Mary’s got the Internet. And every year, after the Junio Project runs their PSA about Mary Magdalene on social media, they hear from people about what was said in church. “Around Easter is really one of the only times in general evangelicalism that women get preached about,” Nunneley said. “After we first ran that PSA . . . we heard from so many women who said they still heard [the myth]. One woman told me, ‘I sent this to my pastor and he still preached about her being a prostitute.’ ” This is, of course, part of a larger debate about the way women are treated in other arenas.

Take those women in the Marines who have been serving their country in the most macho branch of the military. How did the guys who couldn’t handle their success deal with it? They circulated nude pictures of them. Even after they were busted, they kept at it.

Nunneley considers that the modern parallel to Mary Magdalene. “As we see with the story about the women in the Marines, their personhood gets overlooked and the men want to only focus on their sexuality,” she said.

It’s an old story. A tired story. And it’s time for it to end.

If You Could Improve Your Chess Winning Performance by Up to 15%, Would You Take a Drug to Do So?

This just scares me no end:

On Cognitive Doping in Chess (and Life)
The Atlantic Magazine (online)
James Hamblin
March 21, 2017

Have you ever wanted to play better chess? To think and work more effectively, seeing moves 10 steps ahead? Vanquishing opponents with mental energy to spare? Well now you can, with cognitive-enhancement drugs.

That’s how the first half of the pharmaceutical commercial might go. The small-print, fast-talking second half would say that limitations apply. Some of the drugs are addictive and likely to alter one’s sleep habits and heart rate and general sense of self. The drugs don’t work if you don’t know how to play chess.

For professional chess players, though, medicinal “neuro-enhancement” (as it’s sometimes dubiously known) could bring in somewhere between 6 and 15 percent more wins. That’s according to the first large study of “highly skilled tournament chess players” comparing their performance in states of medication and sobriety—a study that the World Chess Championship’s publication World Chess has called “landmark” and “groundbreaking.”

A collaborative experiment from researchers throughout Germany and Sweden led by psychiatrist Klaus Lieb at the University of Mainz found that two prescription medications improved chess-winning rates: modafinil (sold most commonly as Provigil) and methylphenidate (sold as Ritalin).

2017 U.S. Women's Chess Championship

It's that time of year and once again the Scholastic Center and Chess Club of St. Louis is hosting the 2017 U.S. Women's Chess Championship.

This year, a field of twelve of the U.S. top female chessplayers will compete over 11 rounds.  Rounds: March 28 - April 9, 2017.  The women will be competing for total prizes of $100,000.  Nice, but not the $194,000 the male players will be competing for in their separate championship (SEXIST, as always).

This year I'll be monitoring the progress of Carissa Yip.

By the way, Gata Kamsky really needs a haircut.  Geez, dude - too scraggly by half.

Prizes:

Place	Prize	Place	Prize
1st	$25,000	7th	$5,000
2nd	$18,000	8th	$4,000
3rd	$13,000	9th	$3,500
4th	$10,000	10th	$3,000
5th	$8,000	11th	$2,500
6th	$6,000	12th	$2,000
Total Prize Fund		$100,000

In addition, the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis will sponsor the “$64,000 Fischer Bonus Prize”. Any player that finishes the U.S. Championships field with a perfect 11-0 score shall be awarded an additional $64,000.

The players list.

You'll be able to follow the action live on U.S. Chess Champs.  The link isn't working yet so I didn't include it.

Last Night Lady Liberty Went - Dark...

Twitterland went nuts, of course.  Had she been deliberately switched off as a "message of solidarity" in support of today's nation-wide "A Day Without a Woman?"  Was it just an electrical glitch, as the National Park Service later said it was?  Was it symbolic of the Fascist darkness that has taken control of our White House and our Congress -- Lady Liberty protesting this horror now being inflicted upon her free people of the United States?  I know what I think.



From The Washington Post, March 8, 2017.

Board Games Studies: UPDATES

Hola darlings!

March is roaring in like a lion here in Milwaukee - literally!  Since yesterday the winds have been non-stop with gusts up to 45 mph.  My poor humble abode has been battered by endless branches and all those leaves from last autumn I thought my neighbors had disposed of properly have magically reappeared in my backyard, sideyard on the north and driveway on the south.  Yikes!

Tiny Maison Newton is creaking and groaning like the old lady I've become, alas!  Well, I still color my hair and I still have the complexion of a 15 year old (without the acne) and will be eternally beautiful in my own mind (don't look at me unless you don't have your glasses on or can't see straight, that helps, too), but the rest of me - OY - what a mess!

Be that as it may, I am still on numerous mailing lists and although my paper writing days and deep research into board games and what not are now gone, mostly expired with the death of beloved Mr. Don, a few days ago I received a notification from the Board Games Studies folks -- a new Colloquium!!!

FIRST OF ALL, I have some listed links to Board Games Studies websites, but have been lazy and have not checked to see if they are current and working.  Probably won't either, I'll be honest.  I'm frying other fish these days.

So, I'm taking the lazy woman's way out and simply present you with what may be a new (I think) Board Games Studies website.  Is is THE Board Games Studies? - don't know, but it does appear to have the right stuff on/in it.  So, make a note, if you like.

I also don't remember - and again, am too lazy to check, if I ever put up a link to these -- some back issues of the Board Games Studies Journal.

SECOND OF ALL, let's get to that announcement of Board Games Studies Colloquium XX, shall we, whoop whoop!

It is a veritable "Who's Who" of board games researchers and historians. Lots and lots of female presenters -- GLAD TO SEE THAT!  A great mix of scholars from all around the world.

A long-time friend of Goddesschess, whom we affectionately call Stooping Wolf (okay, Isis named him, not me, I would have called him something like Sexy-Eyed Fox), Dr. Ulrich Schadler, is giving a presentation on May 18th on Goddesschess' old enemy, H.J.R. Murray!  Ugh, Stooping Wolf, how could you:  Murray's Classification of Board Games.

Equally impressive, but not so handsome as Sexy-Eyed Fox, er, Dr. Schadler, is the opening presentation on May 17th by Dr. Irving Finkel, an Assistant Curator at the British Museum: Princes on the Floor of the Playroom.  Did something get lost in translation -- I have NO idea what that could possibly be about, maybe something to do with children playing war games on a nursery floor with toy soldiers???  Who knows - only those in attendance and those who will be able to (hopefully) eventually buy (if ever produced) the bound volume of programs presented (if they can afford it).

Isis suggested we both bankrupt ourselves and go to the Colloquium first, and then take a leisurely on-and-off train trip through Europe before heading to our Cathars Country tour in France in mid-June.  But one must be practical.  By the time this windstorm here is over (sometime on Thursday, so the current forecast says), I may very well need to replace my roof.  Sigh.

And knowing Isis, she might very well end up spending the entire Colloquium at the hotel suite, ensconced in splendor on the feather bed, watching romantic movies and eating chocolates all day, and out dancing and partying with the PhDs all night, while I trudged dutifully from presentation to presentation only to collapse in brain exhaustion at the end of the day on the sofa in the suite, shooting Zzzzz's at the ceiling.  And, maybe, would recover from my jet-lag on day five!  Nah...ain't gonna happen, Isis.

One interesting side note:

The first meeting place - a sort of "meet and greet and let's get friendly, heh heh heh" time for presenters and attendees will be held at the - get ready for it ---

I'm not joking, darlings:

Tue 16 May

17.00: Pre-Colloquium Boardgame Café Meet-Up

Bastard Café
Huset, Rådhusstræde 13, Ground Floor, 1466 Copenhagen K

BASTARD CAFE!

OMGODDESS, laughing my butt off -- great exercise, by the way.  Helps keep one young :)  Ha ha ha ha ha HA!  Ouch!

Explorers Emerge from the Honduran Jungle Triumphant in Finding "The White City" - and Infected with a "Flesh-Eating" Disease

There are adventures a-plenty still to be had, folks, if you want to take some hikes through Mother Nature.  Note to self:  HELL NO!

From The Washington Post
Lia Kvatum
March 5, 2017

This adventurer found the trip worth it - despite the flesh-eating disease

As great adventure stories go, this one ticks all the boxes: a legendary “lost” city, in an impenetrable jungle, and even a curse.

Douglas Preston’s latest book, “The Lost City of the Monkey God,” chronicles the feats of a team of explorers as they harness cutting-edge technology and old-fashioned daring to find a city rumored to have been built more than 1,000 years ago in a remote region of Honduras by an unknown culture.

The book also describes the parting gift the jungle bestowed on Preston and several of his colleagues: mucosal leishmaniasis, a parasitic “flesh-eating” disease common to the tropics.

Preston, a prolific author and journalist, was part of the 2015 expedition that located the ruins of an ancient city. Rumors of La Ciudad Blanca (the White City), also known as the City of the Monkey God, had swirled for decades; many people went in search of it, but all, save one party, returned disappointed.

In 1940, a debonair gent by the name of Theodore Morde was sent out in search of the fabled city by George Gustav Heye, an obsessive artifact collector. Traveling with Morde was geologist Laurence Brown, a university classmate of his. Four months later, they emerged from the jungle seemingly triumphant and replete with artifacts.

As it turns out, they were lying. They never discovered a city; the artifacts had been found elsewhere or purchased. Nevertheless, the story spurred on other explorers. One was Steve Elkins, a documentary filmmaker. Preston learned of his obsession with finding the city in 1996. Elkins had explored the area previously and had come up empty-handed. Preston was intrigued, and asked to write about Elkins’s quest.

In 2010, Elkins began putting together an expedition to sweep the area from the air using LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), a remote sensing method that uses lasers. This technology allowed Elkins to view the ground beneath its dense canopy of rain forest. The project came together in 2012, and much to everyone’s surprise, the images revealed evidence of a widespread but largely unknown culture.

"We knew, based on the LiDAR images, that we’d found a lost city,” Preston said during a recent telephone interview. “What I didn’t realize was just how difficult it would be on the ground."

With the support of the Honduran government, an on-the-ground expedition was launched in February of 2015. The exact destination remains a secret, but it’s located within La Mosquitia, a vast region of rain forests in the midst of jagged mountains. There are no roads. The team was flown in by helicopter and had to hack a path through the jungle using machetes.

Preston said it was unlike anything he had experienced. “It was like being underwater, the foliage was so dense."

The jungle was home to large, venomous snakes and a bevy of insect species small in size but mighty in power. “It’s a real hot zone of diseases,” Preston said.

A seasoned traveler, Preston thought he had prepared himself. “I got a bunch of shots,” he said, “and a whole laundry list of precautions to take and things to avoid.” Team members wore head-to-toe protective clothing and doused themselves in DEET. “Even with all of the precautions, it can be hard to protect yourself,” said Michael Manyak, a urologist who specializes in expedition medicine. “With insects especially, you have to be very strict about repellent and clothing and netting."

Honduran Special Forces soldiers accompanying the expedition roast a deer over their campfire. (Douglas Preston).  Note:  Commonly called "macho men," this sub-species of human male
is also known as Homo Mentula Stultus.  Or, as we say in Milwaukee, dumb-ass dildoheads.

But “given the prevalence of disease-carrying insects, you’re still likely to get bit,” said Manyak, who prepares travelers for treks around the world. “We were massacred by insects,” Preston said. “I’d get into my tent at night, and I was just crawling with them. By the time we left, I was covered in bites."

Preston spent eight days in the jungle. An incredible adventure, to be sure, especially because the team found what they were looking for: a long-abandoned city as well as dozens of artifacts. But — enter the curse! — something found them: mucosal leishmaniasis. Left unchecked, this parasitic disease can spread, migrating to the soft tissues of the face.

Leishmaniasis is caused by about 20 species of protozoan parasites known collectively as leishmania. There are three main types: cutaneous, visceral and mucosal. What kind of leishmaniasis one gets depends on the species of parasite that infects you as well as the response of the body. The infection is spread mainly through the bite of a sand fly.

According to the World Health Organization, more than 90 species of sand fly transmit leishmaniasis. If a female sucks blood from an animal infected with the disease and then bites another, the disease can spread. There is no vaccine nor preventive medicine. And with the sand fly’s small size, large numbers and penchant for biting at night, camping out in the rain forest greatly increases one’s chances of an encounter.

About six weeks after leaving Honduras, Preston noticed a lesion that would not heal. Several of his fellow explorers reported the same. The National Institutes of Health confirmed what the travelers suspected: leish.

Worldwide, leishmaniasis affects millions of people. Most infections result only in skin lesions or ulcers, which go away on their own and are relatively harmless. These sores can last months or even years, and can cause scarring, but it won’t kill you. Another common form, visceral leishmaniasis, is almost always fatal if left untreated. It attacks and destroys the internal organs.

There are treatments, but the process is complicated. Depending on the strain of leishmania you contract, the most effective treatment will differ. Determining which strain is a puzzle, too. Doctors can narrow down which variety is most likely based on where you have recently traveled. They may be able to take a culture from the lesion or use a procedure known as polymerase chain reaction, which allows detection and identification of leishmania DNA.

With mucosal leishmaniasis, the type that Preston had, the parasites can migrate to the mucosal tissues of the mouth and nose. Although they are often referred to as flesh-eating, the parasites don’t consume tissue. Rather, the body has a profound immune response, eventually deforming and destroying the nose and mouth.

Preston’s doctors determined that the best option for him was amphotericin B, used originally to treat systemic fungal infections. It’s also effective against mucosal leishmaniasis, but the treatment is not pleasant. [Note:  Oh for pete's sake, is there ANY treatment for an illness that can actually be called "pleasant?"]

"Oh, it’s bad,” Preston said. “You know that old saying ‘the cure is worse than the disease’? Well, this isn’t even a cure, it’s just a beat-back.” This means that Preston and his fellow sufferers won’t be cured of the disease, but the medicine will kill enough of the infection that the ulcer heals and the body’s defenses can keep the disease at bay. Preston said he received the medicine intravenously in daily treatments that lasted from four to five hours.

"Doctors sometimes call it ‘amphoterrible,’ ” Preston said, “because of what it does to the body. It can really screw up your kidneys, so they’ll only give it to you as long as your kidney function stays above 40 percent."

Preston said he endured it for six days.

"Well, the first thing,” he said drily when asked about the treatment, “is that you feel like your body is on fire.” He continued, “then you feel like you’re suffocating, and for some people, you get this psychological reaction where you’re sure you’re going to die.” He paused. “I didn’t get any of those, though. I was lucky."

Nevertheless, he will always have the infection.

"The very general answer,” says David Sacks, an expert on leishmaniasis, “is that these are chronic infections. We are good at finding vaccines that work better than the body does on acute infections, like measles or polio. But with these long-lived infections, like leishmaniasis, we have yet to find a vaccination that works any better than the body’s own natural responses."

It also costs a lot to develop and manufacture treatments. Because most people who need them are poor, there is very little financial incentive for drug companies to devise them.

Preston considers himself extremely lucky — both for the trip he took and for the treatment he received for leishmaniasis. “I’ve been to many jungle areas in my life,” he said, “but I’ve never seen anything so stunningly untouched.” Besides, he says, “I feel great. And I would have much rather have gotten leish than be bitten by one of those big snakes."

In addition, the trip resulted in a successful book: “The Lost City of the Monkey God” made it to the top five on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list after it was published in January.

Sad News - IM Cristina Adela Foisor of Romania Passed Away at Age 49

IM Foișor won the Romanian Chess Championship five times, three of which were consecutive: 2011, 2012, and 2013. She represented Romania numerous times at the Women’s Chess Olympiad. She competed in the Women's World Chess Championship in 2001, 2006, 2010 and 2012. 

May she rest in eternal peace in the hands of the Great Mother.

From The Romania Journal online

International chess master Cristina Adela Foisor dies at 49

Posted by: Alina Grigoras Butu in SPORTS January 24, 2017

International chess master Cristina Adela Foisor died on Sunday aged 49, after a hard fight with a terminal disease.

She was expected to represent Romania at the Women’s World Chess Championship due in Tehran in February.

Cristina Foisor was born on June 7, 1967 in Petrosani and she will be buried in her home town on Thursday. She died on January 22 at the Timisoara County Hospital after several days of coma.

During her career, she won 5 national senior titles and more medals in team competitions. The great master chess player has  taken part in 14 Olympiads since 1988. Foisor represented the AEM Timisoara chess club, with which she won a gold medal and two silver medals at the European Champion Cup.

“She passed away after an unfair fight with a merciless disease, with her own shield and refuge being the CHESS until the last moment (…) Thank you, Cristina for everything you’ve given to chess and to life and we promise to keep you memory alive!,” reads the press release by the Romanian Chess Federation.

Cristina Adela Foisor, a graduate of the Mathematics Faculty of the Timisoara University and a teacher later on, fully dedicated to chess together with her husband, coach and international master Ovidiu Foisor, and with her two daughters, great chess master Sabina-Francesca Foisor (born in 1989, settled down in the USA) and FIDE master Mihaela-Veronica Foisor (born in 1994).

2017 FIDE Women's World Chess Championship - Final

Alas, GM Kosteniuk lost her match against GM Muzychuk 0 - 2, having seemed to have been working toward a win in Game 1.  She was therefore knocked out of the match and Muzychuk advanced to the final round.

Meanwhile, India's GM Harika Dronavalli battled and battled WGM Tan Zhongyi, only to lose 4 to 5, with Zhongyi advancing.

So we have a new women's world chess champion with whom I am not familiar, but then, I'm concentrating on local chess efforts these days, not so much on the FIDE stuff going on.  I wish her lots of luck, I hope the other women do wise things with their prize money (what they get to keep of it, that is, after FIDE takes its cut and miscellaneous "taxes" are paid, and - whatever)  and get the hell out of Iran ASAP.

Website.

The final round:

Round 6 - 

Round 6 - Game 1
SNo.	Name	Result	SNo.	Name
2	Muzychuk Anna	1/2-1/2	1	Tan Zhongyi
Round 6 - Game 2
SNo.	Name	Result	SNo.	Name
1	Tan Zhongyi	1-0	2	Muzychuk Anna
Round 6 - Game 3
SNo.	Name	Result	B	Name
2	Muzychuk Anna	1-0	1	Tan Zhongyi
Round 6 - Game 4
SNo.	Name	Result	SNo.	Name
1	Tan Zhongyi	1/2-1/2	2	Muzychuk Anna
Round 6 Tie-break
	Game 1 25'10
SNo.	Name	Result	SNo.	Name
2	Muzychuk Anna	1/2-1/2	1	Tan Zhongyi
	Game 2 25'10
SNo.	Name	Result	SNo.	Name
1	Tan Zhongyi	1-0	2	Muzychuk Anna

New Species of Human Discovered in China? Possibly...

From The Washington Post
Ben Guarino

March 3, 2017

Skulls found in China were part modern human, part Neanderthal; possibly new species

Modern humans outlasted the Neanderthals by about 40,000 years and counting. But don’t pat yourself on the back too firmly for outliving those troglodytes. Neanderthals crafted tools and tamed fire. They cared for their dead. Animal horns and blackened fire pits encircling the remains of a Neanderthal toddler suggest a 42,000-year-old funeral rite. If a Neanderthal indeed wore a talon necklace, as a collection of polished eagle claws indicate, they beat us to jewelry, too. Perhaps one of your ancient ancestors found the claw necklaces sexy: Some scientists theorize humans gave Neanderthals genital herpes and tapeworm parasites. Their proportions, however, remained distinctly Neanderthal. Neanderthal bodies were shorter and stockier, more Gimli son of Gloin than Gigi Hadid. Their skulls were built differently, too, with a few features — like heavy brow ridges — particularly unlike ours. Which makes a pair of newly described skulls something of a wonder. The partial skulls have features up to this time unseen in the hominid fossil record, sharing both human and Neanderthal characteristics. “It is a very exciting discovery,” as Katerina Harvati, an expert in Neanderthal evolution at the University of Tübingen in Germany, who was not involved with the research, told The Washington Post. “Especially because the human fossil record from East Asia has been not only fragmentary but also difficult to date.” Excavators dug up the skull cap fragments in 2007 and 2014, in Lingjing, located in China’s Henan province. The diggers discovered two partial skulls in a site thought to be inhabited 105,000 to 125,000 years ago, during an epoch called the Pleistocene. The owners of the skulls were good hunters, capable of fashioning stone blades from quartz. Ancient bones of horses and cattle, as well as extinct woolly rhinoceros and giant deer, were found strewn near the skull remains. Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and at Washington University in St. Louis described the skulls as having a “mosaic” of features. Writing Thursday in the journal Science, they noted similarities with three groups: The brow ridges of the skulls were modest and the skull bone mass was reduced, like features of early modern humans living in the Old World. The skulls had a broad and flat brainpan, like other eastern Eurasian humans from the mid-Pleistocene epoch. Their semicircular ear canals and the enlarged section at the back of the skull, however, were like a Neanderthal’s. “Eastern Asian late archaic humans have been interpreted to resemble their Neanderthal contemporaries to some degree,” Xiujie Wu, an author of the study at the Chinese Academy of Sciences‘ Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, said in a statement. “Yet it is only with the discovery of two human crania,” she said, “that the nature of these eastern Eurasian early Late Pleistocene archaic humans is becoming clear.” The large brains of these archaic humans ruled out Homo erectus and other known hominid species, the scientists wrote. The researchers were vague about what they thought the species might be, describing them only as archaic humans. But Wu told Science Magazine that the fossils could represent “a kind of unknown or new ar­chaic human that survived on in East Asia to 100,000 years ago.” Other experts speculated that these skull caps could represent a little-known human relative: the mysterious Denisovans, a species that currently exists only as sequenced DNA taken from finger bone and a tooth found in a Siberian cave. Thought to live some 100,000 to 50,000 years ago, the Denisovans shared genetic material with humans as well as Neanderthals. A 2015 analysis of the specimen scraps indicated that the Denisovans lived for some 60,000 years side-by-side with Neanderthals and humans in Asia. (That humans interbred with Neanderthals is, of course, old news. Many humans who have Eurasian ancestry carry bits of Neanderthal DNA, around 2 to 5 percent of it, within their genes. In the process of swapping DNA, Neanderthals lent us genes for bad skin while boosting our immune responses.) The cranial remains “show an intriguing combination of Neanderthal-like as well as archaic features,” Harvati said. “This would be the combination that one would expect based on the ancient DNA analysis of Denisovans, who were closely related to Neanderthals.” The paper did not mention Denisovans, the study authors said, because DNA extraction attempts failed to yield genetic material. But the lack of even a nod toward the Denisovans in the new report was a point that Philipp Gunz, an evolutionary anthropologist at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, found surprising. The fossils, which Gunz called “remarkable,” as he told The Post, “certainly look like what many paleoanthropologists (myself included) imagine the Denisovans to look like.” Time may tell — if scientists can pull off a successful laboratory analysis. “Unfortunately, however, it is not possible to infer skull morphology from ancient DNA directly,” Gunz said. “I therefore hope that future studies will be able to extract ancient DNA from these or similar specimens.”

GM Alexandra Kosteniuk in Final Four at 2017 Women's World Chess Championships

Unfortunately, the female players were forced to wear hajib in order to play in Iran.  PUKE.  Some players sat out, saying no thanks to this woman-hating "custom."

But I'm rooting for Alexandra, a long-time friend of Goddesschess, whoop whoop!  She chose to participate, as did many other highly ranked female chessplayers.

FIDE coverage link.

The Semifinal matches of the Women's World Chess Championship started in the Espinas Palace Hotel (Tehran) on February 23.

Four players continue competing for the chess crown: Tan Zhongyi (China) faces Harika Dronavalli (India), and Alexandra Kosteniuk (Russia) meets Anna Muzychuk (Ukraine). These matches consist of two games with the following time control: 90 minutes for 40 moves, then 30 minutes for the rest of the game, plus 30 bonus seconds after each move. If the match is tied 1-1, it is continued on the tie-break with quicker time controls.

The game Tan Zhongyi-Harika Dronavalli was level until move 21, when Harika decided to change the pawn structure, after which Tan Zhongyi got a pleasant King side initiative. It seems Black had enough resources to defend the position but probably Indian player underestimated the danger. White managed to bring all his pieces to organize killing attack on the opponent's King.

Anna Muzychuk tried to surprise Alexandra Kosteniuk by choosing French Defence, the rare guest in her games, but it didn’t work out as former world champion was perfectly ready. Inaccurate 10... Qc7 let White to gain a long-term initiative out of the opening and after 19.Na6 Alexandra Kosteniuk got a position with a pawn up.
After the first time trouble it turned out that White’s win is debatable.
It was not possible to find a non-human line 43.Kg1!! fe 44.Qe5!! with victory and after "normal" 43.Nd4 the character of the game has changed as Black started to create threats against White’s King.

Nevertheless, it looked like Alexandra is not risking to lose this game at any moment but the tables were turned after 56.Ne5? Anna immediately responded with 56...Ng5 and White cannot defend against two threats Re5 with Nf3 and Nh3. A few moves later former World Champion had to resign. In a post-game interview Anna Muzychuk called her victory “a miracle”.

The second game of semifinal will be played at 3 p.m. local time on 24th of February. Alexandra Kosteniuk and Harika Dronavalli will obviously try to equalize the score.

Iranian Chessplayer Barred from National Team for Refusing to Wear Headscarf

Teenage Iranian chess master banned from national team for refusing to wear a headscarf

Washington Post
Marissa Payne
February 21, 2017

To most observers, nothing stood out about Dorsa Derakhshani last month when she competed at the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival. The 18-year-old female grand master fared fine on the board, twice using the Four Knights defense, and looked like any other teenager you might see in the British territory that borders southern Spain.

But to the head of the Iranian Chess Federation, Derakhshani practically committed an act of treason.

Mehrdad Pahlevanzadeh didn’t have a problem with Derakhshani’s play, but her headwear. Derakhshani wore a simple headband in her long hair, instead of a hijab, Iran’s traditional headscarf, which became a compulsory accessory for women after the 1979 revolution. As a result, Pahlevanzadeh announced on Monday that Derakhshani would be kicked off the national team.

Derakhshani’s younger brother Borna, 15, who also entered the tournament, was also kicked off the team. His offense was agreeing to play an Israeli opponent, a strict no-no in the country that doesn’t recognize Israel as a state.

“Unfortunately, what shouldn’t have happened has happened,” Pahlevanzadeh told the semiofficial Fars News Agency on Monday (via Radio Free Europe). “Our national interests have priority over everything.”“As a first step, these two will be denied entry to all tournaments taking place in Iran,” he continued, “And, in the name of Iran, they will no longer be allowed the opportunity to be present on the national team.”

Neither sibling has commented publicly on the news.

That the two young chess masters received such a harsh punishment is not a surprise. Sports in Iran and other parts of the Middle East have long been affected by the region’s strict cultural norms and precarious political stance.

Last year, American chess master Nazi Paikidze did not compete in the chess world championships in Iran because of the country’s requirement that she don a hijab.“Some consider a hijab part of culture,” Paikidze said in an Instagram post announcing her decision. “But, I know that a lot of Iranian women are bravely protesting this forced law daily and risking a lot by doing so. That’s why I will NOT wear a hijab and support women’s oppression.”The hijab made different headlines earlier in the year, however, when U.S. fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad became the first American to win a medal wearing the traditional headscarf. Muhammad earned a bronze in the team saber event alongside hijab-less athletes Monica Aksamit, Dagmara Wozniak and Mariel Zagunis.“I have to challenge this idea that in some way we don’t belong because of our race or our religion,” Muhammad, whose parents converted to Islam before Muhammed was born, said last year.

She added: “Like within any religion, Muslims have conservatives, we have liberals, and we have everything in between. To paint all Muslims with one broad stroke can be frustrating.”

Special Trip for Goddesschess' 18th Anniversary!!!

Hola Darlings!

I wish Don had lived to come with us, he would have LOVED this!  But, alas. He departed this Earthly Coil in October 2012.  Miss him every single day.

Map of Aude Pays Cathar Region, France, Google Maps.

 
It will be Georgia a/k/a Isis, and myself, two of the founding members of Goddesschess - making a special, very special, journey.  We had hoped to lure Georgia's daughter Michelle (Goddess #3) to come along with us, and she may yet decide to do so, but she has been concentrating on establishing a new career in Entertainment Engineering since graduating last June with a double Major in Engineering (Civil and "Entertainment" Engineering, which encompasses everything from soup to nuts in the engineering world of putting live performances together).  The little girl I first met in 1999 when she was 9 years old is now all grown up, and an uber-smart, sophisticated and - of course - gorgeously beautiful young woman.  Michelle has accompanied us on our various adventures throughout the years, and embarked upon many of her own in the ensuing years.

Hey Girls!  Jan, Isis, Michelle at
Maison Newton II, August 2008.

This summer, Isis and I will be going to the Languedoc region of France for ten days, to visit an ancient homeland of the Great Mother Goddess, as well as pay tribute to the Cathars.

We will reminisce about the early days of the Goddesschess website, when it first came online on May 6, 1999, and how it all came about. And we will talk about what the future holds.  We aren't getting any younger on the chronological calendar but of course, in our hearts, we are eternally young and gorgeous, darlings -- you know, the original Bambi (me) and Candi (Isis), those Goddesses of Las Vegas, the two, the only, the absolutely irresistable, irreplaceable and irrepressible Las Vegas Showgirls!!!  WHOOP, WHOOP, WHOOP!  I certainly hope to be around for another 30 years or so, blogging to the bitter end, but you never know what the Great Mother Goddess has in store for you.  So, as my mother used to say, "MAKE HAY WHILE IT RAINS.  HA!"

Yeah, make sense of that and you'll be well on your way to understanding moi, darlings :)))

Stay tuned!  Just as the spring and summer brings the juices of life flowing back into Mother Earth to blossom forth, be fruitful and multiply, may the "sap" once again flow freely in these somewhat arthritic bones of my own, LOL!  Sciatica be damned!  I'll fly across the friggin' Atlantic Ocean strapped up standing all the way if I have to, down in the luggage compartment - the heated area with the pets (sometimes it hurts too much to sit for very long, OUCH!)

Happy 2017!

Hola darlings!

I am still among the living, just busy with domestic engineering projects.  Feathering my retirement nest, getting a lot of redecorating and some renovations out of the way now rather than waiting any longer.  I'm not getting any younger, you know.

HAPPY 2017!

Oh I know, the Clueless Orange Man who is NOT MY PRESIDENT is itching to start World War III while licking Vlady Baby Putin's butt crack and giving the middle finger to our European allies and NATO.  The man is a menace.  We'll see how long he lasts.  Already he is the least popular president among Americans in American history.  And he hasn't even been officially inaugurated yet.  HE IS A BIG FAT DOWNER, NO LIE.  Las Vegas has been running betting lines for months on (1) when he will be impeached and (2) when he will be assassinated.

I'm ignoring him as much as possible.

Goddesschess WILL be supporting the 2017 Grand Pacific Open again this year, held around Easter-time every year in beautiful Victoria, British Columbia.  We have increases the prizes for the chess femmes this year and also provide a small stipend to the organizers help fund the appearance of a WGM.

We will also be continuing our support of the yearly events sponsored by our adopted chess club, Southwest Chess Club.  The first this year is the Hales Corners Challenge XXV (we've been supporting the Challenges since Challenge VIII) on April 22, 2017.

A full flyer hasn't been posted yet, but here are the details for Challenge XXV:

USCF Grand Prix Points: 10. Chess Magnet School Junior Grand Prix. Wisconsin Tour Event. 4SS, G/60;d6.
2 Sections: Open & Reserve (under 1600). Olympia Resort Hotel, 1350 Royale Mile Rd., Oconomowoc, WI 53066; 1-800-558-9573 (mention Southwest Chess Club for $99 room rate).
EF: $40-Open, $30-Reserve, both $5 more after April 20. Comp EF for USCF 2200+.
$$GTD: Open: 1st-$325, 2nd-$175, A-$100, B & Below-$75; Reserve: 1st-$100, 2nd-$75, D- $50, E & Below-$40.
Goddesschess prizes for Females in addition to above prizes: Open: $50 per win/$25 per draw; Reserve: $20 per win/$10 per draw; Perfect Score Prize for Females: $80 in Open/$40 in Reserve.
Reg.: 8:30-9:30.
Rds.: 10-1-3:30-6.
Entries/Questions to: Robin Grochowski, 3835 E. Morris Avenue, Cudahy, WI 53110; rgrochowski@wi.rr.com; 414-861-2745.

Stay tuned!  We're not going anywhere, unless Herr Trump's brown shirts decide I am a major threat to the security of the United States and I disappear.  I doubt that will happen, but if it don't show up after a few months, you'll know what happened.

Oh Oh...

Happy Holidays to all!  For those of you who want to see this year's Christmas tree and skip all the blah blah blah, drop down to the end of the post.

It has been bitterly cold here -- we are under one of those nasty Polar Vortexes and we have had about 16" of snow over a span of 9 days.  Today blossomed less cold but extremely windy.  So windy that gigantic drifts are forming everywhere on the streets, in my driveway, on my sidewalk, and on everyone else's too, and there isn't a thing we can do about it until the winds die down.  That may be on Thursday. Windchills today were hovering around 10 below zero F to zero F, and it felt positively balmy outside compared to the past three days when windchills were 20 to 30 below zero F.  We are running about 29 degrees F below normal temperatures for this time of year.  I dread to think what January and February (always the worst two months of winter) will bring - weatherwise and otherwise.

Not to be outdone by Mother Nature, Father Time and History is throwing up all kinds of vomit (literally) all over the world the past several months, and 2017 promises to continue the unabated horrors.  St. Januarius's miracle blood refused to liquify on December 16th this year.  No bueno.  When this has happened in the past, BAD THINGS have happened.  Now this could not possibly be connected to the U.S. gone mad election of that man who is NOT my dictator, could it...

Or could it?

An ancient vial of 'miracle' blood failed to liquefy, and that's a bad omen for 2017

7:19 a.m. E 

One of the most famous recurring miracles — even if one not quite sanctioned by the Catholic Church — is the liquefaction of the dried blood of San Gennaro, or St. Januarius, a bishop of Naples martyred around 305 A.D. and the city's patron saint. Starting in 1389, the vial of San Gennaro's blood typically turns liquid three times a year: on the Saturday before the first Sunday of May; on his saint's feast day, Sept. 19; and on Dec. 16, the day Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 1631. The blood liquefied on Sept. 19 this year, but not on Dec. 16. "In local lore, the failure of the blood to liquefy signals war, famine, disease, or other disaster," Catholic News Agency reports.

The relic failed to liquefy in September 1939, when World War II broke out; during a cholera outbreak in Naples in 1973; and in 1980, the year of a deadly earthquake, Italy's La Stampa newspaper says. But Msgr. Vincenzo De Gregorio, the abbott of the Chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro, took a philosophical view. "We must not think of disasters and calamities," he counseled, according to the ANSA news agency. "We are men of faith and we must pray." Peter Weber

Well, I've been praying my butt off for months to the Great Mother Goddess for a miracle to get rid of Herr Hitler Donald Trump a/k/a the Antichrist before he manages to start WWIII and the Zombie Apocalypse by doing something - anything - to strike him down and, preferably, Mike Pence too, all in one fell swoop.  I keep hoping for reports of miracle lightning bolts appearing out of the sky to strike them down.  But nope - nothing yet.  So -- it looks like we are going to suffer through some dire visitation from Fate during 2017, unless the Great Mother intervenes.

Here is this year's Christmas tree.  Not my best effort, heart just is not in it this year.  Talk to y'all after the holidays - maybe.

Are You Investigating Moving to Canada? Forget It - They Don't Want Us Unless We're Billionaires...

My commentary on the election results in my home country.  I hope we survive four years of this.  In the meantime, pee your pants laughing as I just did and remember I did not vote for this when the missiles start flying, darlings:

Hales Corners Chess Challenge XXIV: Goddesschess Prizes Awarded

Hola darlings!

Another successful edition of the HCCC is in the books.

Here is the rundown on $835 in Goddesschess prize money paid out to our winners this event.

The prize structure is open-ended; for instance, if ten chess femmes entered and played in the Open, and they each won all of their games, the total prize payout from Goddesschess would be $2,000 ($50 x 4 rounds x 10 femmes).  In the Open, a win by a female player is worth $50 and a draw is worth $25; in the Reserve, a win by a female player is worth $20 and a draw is worth $10.  The top female player in each Section also receives paid entry into the next HCCC if she chooses to enter.  Beginning a Challenge or two ago, we also instituted a perfect score prize for the chess femmes, one for each Section: $80 in the Open, $40 in the Reserve.  All Goddesschess prizes are in addition to what a player qualifies for under the tournament's prize structure.

Each October beginning with the HCCC in October 2013, in memory of Don McLean, Goddesschess' late webmaster, researcher, writer and reporter, we also fund a Don McLean memorial prize of $100 for the top male scorer in the Open and $50 for the top male scorer in the Reserve.

Open Section:
Anupama Rajendra won $150 (also won free entry to HCC XXV, $40)
Ritika Pandey won $100
Susanna Ulrich won $50
Megan Chen won $25

Reserve Section:
Simran Bhatia won $60 (also won free entry to HCC XXV, $30)
Madeline Weber won $50
Miriam Luevano won $40
Ellen Wanek won $40
Aradh Kaur won $40
Radhika Gupta won $40
Kai Mills won $20
Nika Kwon had zero points and thus did not win anything

There was no perfect score by any of the chess femmes this Tournament.

Don McLean Award:

Open Section:
Erik Sanntarius won $100

Reserve Section:
Sidharth Rane won $25
David Mertz won $25

Congratulations to all of the Goddesschess prize winners, and hope to have you all return for the Hales Corners Chess Challenge XXV in April 2017!