Two Great Sphinxes?

Is this another Bosnian Pyramid?

The theory is based on a lot of interpretative readings of old inventories and suppositions about mythology. It's a nice theory, but from what i've read, there is not actual concrete evidence, just a desire for symmetry through duality.

Cairo, Aug 31 (ANI): Two Sphinxes existed on the Pyramids Plateau, according to a new study by Egyptologist Bassam El Shammaa.

El Shammaa said the famed half-lion, half man statute was an Egyptian deity erected next to another Sphinx, which has since vanished without a trace.

This theory, however, is in contradiction to the general belief that a single colossal statue functioned as a guard to the pyramids.

El Shammaa said the idea of two Sphinxes is more in line with ancient Egyptian beliefs, which were mainly based on duality.

"The pyramid texts recovered at Saqqara, especially from the Wanis Pyramid, contain descriptions of the ancient Egyptian conception of how the universe was created. Basically, this concept underlined the belief in duality," El Shammaa said.

"Whenever we have to deal with the solar cult, we should speak of one lion and one lioness facing each other, posing parallel to each other or sitting in a back-to-back position.

"The double avenue of the ram-headed Sphinxes fronting the first Karnak pylon and its counterpart of human-headed Sphinxes at the Temple of Luxor emphasize this duality, alongside other indications like the double crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt, Isis, Osiris, Habtoor and Horus," elaborated El Shammaa," he said.

He said ancient Egyptian records and mythology suggested that lightening destroyed part of the Sphinx, adding that this might be in reference to the second Sphinx, which was eliminated after a curse by the chief Egyptian deity.

"Utterance No. 600 says that Atum - the 'complete one' and creator god in ancient Egyptian mythology - created his son Shu and daughter Tefnut, shaping them as a lion and a lioness and placing each one on an extreme tip of the universe," he said.

"Shu was to take the solar disc between his jaws and hand it to his sister Tefnut who in turn would capture it between her jaws and by so doing they would achieve the full cycle of the sun," he added.

He said that cycle represented sunrise and sunset and the journey from life to death, and also accounted for the presence of two Sphinxes.

El Shammaa also pointed out the Dream Stela carved by Thutmosis IV, which he said, clearly depicted two Sphinxes.

"The inventory Stela exhibited at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo did the same. The display showed that King Cheops - builder of the Great Pyramid - had undertaken the task of restoring the damage to the Sphinx's neck caused by lightening," El Shammaa said.

"Examination of the Sphinx revealed that damage in its neck, matching the measurements mentioned in the inventory Stela, had been restored. But we also discover that, besides the Sphinx's neck, the lightening destroyed a sycamore tree as well as an object between the tree and the Sphinx whose remains have settled behind the Valley Temple.

"The Endeavor Satellite released by NASA over the Pyramids Plateau confirmed the finding. But it makes a lot of sense that lightening could have damaged the Sphinx because the statue was often depicted wearing a double metal crown that must have conducted the shock to the neck," he said.

He said the Pyramids of Giza predated the magical utterances recovered at Saqqara.

However, the lion deities were predynastic and mythological figures, which always appeared in duo inspired the building of the pyramids, he said.

"My own interpretation is that the miracle structures were dedicated to the lion deities that also ensured their protection. The demolished temple in front of the Sphinx's paws and the Valley Temple that stands next to the site of what we assume to be the second Sphinx are proof that those two statues were deities," he said.

"For some reason Tefnut has been cursed, as it is not uncommon in world mythology that the chief deity would curse one of the minor gods. The incident of the lightening that wiped out Tefnut must have been exploited by priests to justify her curse and the silence on her disappearance.

"Because they hunt from night to dawn, lionesses have been associated with moisture perceived by priests as destructive for temples and tombs and this is one reason they must have been banished.

"But I would also like to note that the monuments at the Pyramids Plateau are devoid of any hieroglyphic texts and they must have been a riddle for the Ancient Egyptians who lived after the era of the Old Kingdom," he added.

El Shammaa said the temples raised near the Sphinxes also came after the Giza Pyramids were built, further proof of the sacred status of these statues.

"At the end of the day our interpretation of mythology could be right or wrong. But we can't ignore the archaeological evidence existing at the site and the stelae. John Wilkinson (1797-1875), who depicted the Dream Stela in one famous painting, placed two hieroglyphic words under the second Sphinx, which meant 'shun,' or 'avoid'. This issue will always be shrouded in mystery," Daily News Egypt quoted him as saying. (ANI)

via Egyptology blog.

FAC 501

Catalog FAC 501 goes to Tony Wilson's coffin.

Was he in on this decision, because i sure hope he was. It makes me happy.

via Idolator.

Tell Brak

There are a couple of stories on the Tell Brak site in Syria, on BBC and New Scientist. New research suggests that the city did not arise from centrally directed, autocratic rule. There seems to have been 15,000 people living there 5,400 years ago. Nifty. More details at the stories obviously.

It's wrong of me to think of Space Ghost.

double standards for Republican senators

I just noticed that Senators Coleman and McCain are demanding that Senator Craig resign. Eh.

David Vitter has admitted to the same crime essentially, except he still seems to be hetero and the governor of Idaho is Republican. Butch Otter will appoint another Republican to replace Craig, but if Vitter resigned, Blanco would likely have picked a Democrat. It's a safe bet to throw Craig under the bus.

McCain says:

But my opinion is that when you plead guilty to a crime, then you shouldn’t serve. And that’s not a moral stand. That’s not a holier than thou. It’s just a factual situation. I don’t try to judge people. but in this case, it’s clear that it was disgraceful.

Again, Vitter admitted soliciting a prostitute. He confessed to a crime. That's guilt.

Yeah, they are so principled.

statistical evidence that bird flu transferred from human to human in Sumatra case

Note that it was not proven directly, but if it's verified independently, statistical evidence is good enough for me.

That's not a defect. That's a feature.

Apparently a creationist decided not to ignore the two creation accounts included in the the Book of Genesis, and built a new creationist theory out of it, declaring that there were two separate creations, in an attempt to work around geological evidence of the earth's extreme age and still stick with the recent arrival of humans.

Whoever has come up with this might have a decent career as a fantasist, but someone in the comments already blows it out of the water comparing the story to the Talmudic story.

I doubt if i could handle someone who actually believe that new, crazy theory, which actually sounds extremely familiar to me... it sounds like something out of the mouth of a certain zealot that i used to debate with at the university close to twenty years ago. Rationalizing the irrational can sometimes be a great spectator sport though.

cannot get much more pulpy than comics

I love that Ed Brubaker & Matt Fraction are drawing from pulp traditions, like referencing relatively larger-than-life historical figures to flesh out the story. Immortal Iron Fist #7, the Pirate Queen of Pinghai Bay obviously was inspired in part by the real pirate queen Cheng I Sao. Brubaker's Wu Ao-Shi is a very different character after all. She's an Iron Fist, not a ruthless, somewhat innovative businesswoman.

It kind of has the feel of a more noble version of entry from a book like A Universal History of Infamy. Most cool.

if they find non-euclidean architecture on them, we're really in trouble

Two asteroids have been found to contain basalt. Basalt is a mineral that forms a large portion of the Earth's crust. Vesta has been found in Vesta as well. The presence of basalt suggests that the asteroids were heated internally, like the Earth's core.

How I Became a Nun

Conversational Reading has a post pointing to some Roberto Bolano and Cesar Aira links.

César Aira's How I Became a Nun is the one of the books that Bill loaned to me last month. The Boston Review describe it better than i can, but i still must add, it's a very peculiar book. With each chapter, the story twists in way that seems that Aira is deliberately trying to write himself into a corner, and proceeds to escape it. As well as the narrator being unreliable, her voice changes slightly in each chapter, and it felt as if the reader was being led into a trap. As experimental and arch as it might seem, it's a breezy, playful read, extremely accessible. It's a shame only two of his books are in English translation right now.

(Wait, there are three in translation? What's the third?)

Pivar Versus PZ

I read that PZ Myers was being sued for reviewing a crap book, but i didn't realize the suit is really going to court, as the litigant actually had the money to go through with it.

Lots of bloggers think that Myers is essentially home-free, as topology doesn't have a damned thing to do with evolutionary biology. Pivar's suit should be dismissed, and probably slapped around for wasting the court's valuable time as well.

I worry... i doubt the wisdom and objectivity of the courts.

book report 8/25/07

A lot of books have been trickling in for weeks, but i've barely made any progress in any of them. However...

Adventures in Unhistory. Avram Davidson. Nice book. Well-printed, bound well, tastefully illustrated. The essays are connecting tales of the fantastic into history. Davidson is informal and well-read. However, i should have read this book years ago. It's a pleasant, relaxing read, but i've yet to run across any details that i have not run across before. I've been skipping about a lot, accidentally starting with the one on Aleister Crowley (connecting to a current synchronicity experience of a friend.) The Prester John stuff i've run across in many forms, but most recently in Eco's Baudolino. The mandrake root stuff is also too familiar. I want new territory, but it's a damned fine book otherwise. I'll definitely pick up more of his work.

Best American Fantasy. I zipped through the introductions and four stories this morning. This is really what i was hoping Interfictions would be, but it's sinking in that the comparison is unfair. Interfictions is a collection of emerging authors, more or less. Best American Fantasy are relatively experienced, ringers. However, it's still less fantasy and more interstitial (by the Interstitial Fiction Foundation's own stated definition) than the stories i have read so far in Interfictions. This is going to be a good primer to pick up some new authors to follow. I'll post again on it when i've read more.

Spaceman Blues. Brian Francis Slattery. Sweet Jesus! I'm only 45 pages in, but this guy seems to be on fire. He's writing his damned heart out, as if this one book is his chance for his mark in the literary world, and he might very well pull it off. It's not a so-called Great Work, but Slattery has mastered pop art splash. A lot of the blurbs pegs his voice as Pynchonian, but it reads just as much as Beat (which i mean in a positive, as too much Beat-derived stuff comes across as welcome as a prolapsed colon.) The man loves New York City in all its slurry of ethnic glory. He has thrown dozens off perversely unique characters in near-cameo appearances that lesser writers would trot out to the main stage, and pat themselves on the back smugly for the remainder of the book on just how eccentric this character is. Slattery plays fast and loose. This is fun, and i haven't a clue where this is going yet, if it's going anywhere at all.

a hole in the universe

"The cosmic blank spot has no stray stars, no galaxies, no sucking black holes, not even mysterious dark matter. It is 1 billion light years across of nothing."

Nature abhors a vacuum and all that... so why is it there? I likes me a mystery.

By Night in Chile

Just a quick confession on how inattentive a reader i can be. In diving into Roberto Bolano's By Night in Chile, i went thirty pages before i realized that the book is not divided into paragraphs of chapter.

30 pages... i'd like to believe this is because i was enthralled by Bolano's writing, but it's more likely that i'm just a space cadet. I'm kicking myself tonight, as i accidentally left it at Kat's place, and i want to read it more than the dozens of other books in progress, or the three that arrived in the mail today. All i can think about concerning books is Father Sebastian's quest with falconry, as it was on the verge of making a statement in that arc of thought. It's surprisingly different in tone than Last Evenings on Earth if only because it's not so transparently autobiographical.

old Egyptian footprint, perhaps 2 million years old, perhaps of Homo

It would be incredibly interesting if that footprint in Egypt really did turn out to be two million years old and from the Homo genus, but it seems highly unlikely. The story says that the footprint has yet to be independently verified, and now matter how dogmatic i can be about humans being a hell of a lot older than they are conventionally accepted to be, Egypt can be a bit nationalist in its archaeology.

Who is John Galt?

...some asshole.

Naming anything the John Galt Corporation raises my hackles. Ayn Rand and objectivism disgusts me. It's always disturbed me that a few very decent, compassionate friends of mine swear that they enjoyed Atlas Shrugged. It's too overt and arrogant of a name to be that of a real front for a conspiracy, but then again, some of these bastards are so hubristic that they might believe that no one is clever enough to discern any significance to the name or that it would be a great double fake-out.

Why bother? The whole nation is being stolen out from under our noses.

Bldblg has a post on the inherent silliness of a conspiracy. The real conspiracy is that to some people who respect objectivism probably believe that 9/11 means quick profit.

The New York Times has the John Galt Corporation connected to the Gambino crime family. I wouldn't be surprised if the firm has closer ties to Bernard Kerik and Rudolph Giuliani. Kerik already has been inferred to have taken bribes from New Jersey construction firms.

Martian soil "may" contain life

yeah, yeah, yeah... i made up my mind on this years ago. This is based from 30 year old data gathered by the Viking probes as well. Not only will it be revealed that there is microbial life, but there will be higher level organisms, akin to plants or fungi, on the surface of Mars.

Someday i'll stop sounding like a fringe lunatic, but it won't be until they 'fess up about life on Mars. All of this pussyfooting around about fossils on meteorites, terran microbes that can live in more adverse conditions than what exist on Mars, gradually admitting that water is on Mars, and possible in liquid forms, plus those peculiar photos that even Arthur C. Clarke thinks look like trees... i'm waiting.

Casanova

Casanova is pretty damned awesome. This morning, whilst the server at work was down, leaving me with nothing to do except twiddle my thumbs, i chose to read digitalized comic books instead. I've been reading some comic blogs lately, and lurking on ILC... Casanova gets a lot of love out there. I'm already sympathetic to Matt Fraction's work as the bastard actually has me reading a damned Punisher comic. I've always loathed Marvel's Punisher, but the new incarnation of War Journal piqued my interest... the series knows that the character is silly in his brutishness, and uses it to good effect, without getting anywhere near the kind of pathetic machismo that Ennis bathes in. With Fraction involved with The Immortal Iron Fist as well, i'm now all-too-earnestly following any work of his i can get my hands on.

The first reference point for me is Elektra: Assassin, which was my first memorable introduction to S.H.I.E.L.D. (I still have not gotten around to Steranko's Fury stuff.) Even though Frank Miller makes me feel icky nowdays, there's still a certain fondness for this series, as it had a cult-like following in my high school. Unlike the canon Marvel universe, S.H.I.E.L.D. had a decadent and weird feeling to it, as a super spy agency should have, lab assistants grown in vats, rogue cybernetic chopshops, and saturated with completely amoral characters. Yep. Casanova makes some obvious S.H.I.E.L.D. homages, and they feel more like the Elektra: Assassin than the ones in the jumpsuits mucking about with Captain America and the Avengers. Bah... it openly tips its hat when asking what the opposite of an Oedipus complex is, then dismissing the Elektra complex, as despite the homages, it's a very different comic.

One influence I sensed without actually ever having read the books was Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius. The bastard who turned me onto Elric way back when never did loan me his Jerry Cornelius books, as he preferred to recite them to me, (because he was a masturbatory hoarder who hated to share much with anyone, as his exclusive access to certain books, music, movies, ect. meant that he was in some sense cooler, despite his abysmal hygiene and failure to move beyond rote recital of the material.) I'm afraid to read that stuff now, as i tried to re-read Elric a few years ago, and that didn't turned out too well. Aw, fuck it... if i can still stomach Lovecraft, i can finally experience Jerry Cornelius firsthand.

Gabriel Ba's art is mindblowing though. As much as i can rave about the impeccable influences, the breezy humor, and lean pace, it's Ba's art that makes it work. As much as i love the Invisibles, sometimes the art doesn't quite click with the tone of the plot, which is an unfair criticism in that it was a long-running comic. Ba is style. Comic books are good fun, but i have this odd tendency to follow the work of a writer over that of an artist. Looking at his lines was kind of a thrill unto itself. This has to change, as i will be tracking down his work with his brother Fabio Moon in the coming weeks.

And i confess... i haven't bought a single issue of Casanova yet. I'm one of those downloading scum, except i actually buy the collected books if the book means more to me than an instant discard. I'm getting all twitchy thinking about reading this again without squinting.

Bartleby blogging

Awhile back, even before Orbis Quintus crashed, i'd noticed that the smaller text box kept the posts more concise than it did when the blog was written in pure HTML, slapped up on Geocities. At the time, this seemed like a plus, as Fighting Against Making the Pie Higher was very fucking verbose. The posts were a wreck, better suited for a soapbox than the personal research tool the blog needs to be now, but it had its high points on rare occasion. Because i'm hitting dry spell after dry spell in posting, self-editing to the point of near silence, it's time to try the old method for awhile, frenzied typing into a massive whitespace. It might spark something in my head eventually. I don't want to become another Bartleby blogger.

Life-Line

Life-Line must have been a story i read in my teens, but it slipped out of my memory nearly completely. Robert A. Heinlein had the problems with insurance scam nailed ages ago.

"Before we leave this matter I wish to comment on the theory implied by you, Mr Weems, when you claimed damage to your client. There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is supported neither by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back, for their private benefit. That is all."

He's also anticipated most of the problems with copyright and patent. I need to give the authors that i read in my youth more of a voice in my collection. Although it might wind up clunky if i read it again, that's a pretty damned good for his first salvo.

(Someone posted that paragraph in a Metafilter thread about Firefox support AdBlock, and certain websites blocking Firefox users in response.)

passports for national parks & domestic flights?

Apparently any state that refuses to comply with the Real ID Act will have its citizens forced to provide passports if they want to board a domestic flight or enter a national park. I have the suspicion that this is going to prove unenforceable, but it reeks of totalitarianism.

The Real ID Act has nothing to do with immigration or terrorism. It's about monitoring and regulating the movements of citizens. It's part of the New Serfdom.

about that Spanish pigment on the Egyptian mummy

That headline about Spanish pigment being used on an Egyptian mummy seemed to be a fun bit of news when it first appeared. However, it was just the headline that seized my imagination. The mummy dates to 2,000 years ago... of course there were elaborate trade networks across the Mediterranean at that time. Why wouldn't Spanish pigment not be used in Egypt?

It was a cool little discovery, but in my childish glee, i imagined that it was from a much earlier period, and would help validate my silly belief that civilization arose earlier than is conmventionally accepted. Wishing doesn't make it so though.

The House of Silence

This story about Pamuk's The House of Silence being translated into Russian popped up. It is Pamuk's first book. It's described at length in this review of The White Castle from 1991. So now it's in translation in Russian, French, and Spanish.

Is it any great demand to ask for it in English?

barrier of speed of light broken?

Some physics were investigating a phenomenon called "quantum tunnelling," and believe that they have found a way to break the barrier of the speed of light. They are having microwaves photos travel "instantaneously" between prisms as much as three feet apart.

I don't know. This all sounds very familiar. There have been a bunch of stories about teleportation in recent years, and this seem to be a similiar principle. My science is very rusty though. It just sounds like old news. Information seeming to travel faster than light via quantum entanglement that is...

Miracles every day

This newish George Saunders piece didn't do anything for me. It seems slight, fluffy, like a trite humor piece slapped into one of those middlebrow magazines like the New Yorker. That's exactly what it is though, isn't it? His first two short story collections had moments that were genuinely unsettling, but some of the same tics that helped create that tone now seem silly. Saunders riffs a lot on the banality of American culture, but this is almost indistinguishable from real letters that i read in my local paper, with just some smug winking to set it apart.

Shriek: The Movie?

Apparently everyone has known for the past year or so that VanderMeer has been working on a low-budget, indie movie of Shriek: An Afterword. I haven't had a chance to see it yet, and cannot afford to look at it now, as there's a bunch of video files being crunched for work on this computer. The book is pretty damned fun though, darkly ambiguous, psychedelic, byzantine... even... um... grandly Borgesian.

Jiroft

It's times like this that i curse the real Orbis Quintus blog only exists as a series of zip files. Metafilter had a roundup of links on Jiroft. Most of these links are obviously old news. It seemed barely worth even mentioning the conference about the area between Mesopotamia and Indus River Valley being inhabited by a relatively advanced civilization because at this point, it seems self-evident.

Three Tons of Tunguska

Thieves stole from the yard of something calling itself the "Tunguska Space Event Foundation" a large rock allegedly from the Tunguska site. The "foundation" is located in Krasnoyarsk in Siberia and the rock weighed three tons. Ahem. I'm amused.

the milkbaby is to resign August 31st

Everyone is posting about how Karl Rove is resigning on August 31st, but almost no one knows what to make of it. Frankly, it makes me extremely nervous, because it seems like good news... which means that it probably is not. There's something fishy about this. I worry that Cheney has something to do with it, and as much as i loathe Rove, i fear Cheney even more.

The Next Hurrah offers some theories. She doesn't mention Cheney though. It doesn't feel like these investigations by Congress would rattle Rove though, and Rove being ejected because he's too hungry for votes to pander to the nativist vote doesn't ring true either. This is probably an internal power struggle in the White House. The Democrats have proven too ineffective time after time for anything else to be credible. Cheney must be the root cause.

Tony Wilson

The first obituary that i've seen for him is over on Idolator. Honestly, i didn't really understand who he was properly until after 24 Hour Party People, as Manchester was never center of my universe, even though now some of the bands on Factory play key roles in my music collection. (Lou was very patient with my ignorance of certain periods of British music, but i deserved to have had my ass kicked.)

Quite depressing... he'd been fighting this cancer for awhile.

Rimbaud In New York

David Wojnarowicz might have made a blip on my consciousness before, and i know that i've seen Rimbaud In New York before somewhere, but it's a hell of a lot funnier to me now that i've read Vila-Matas' Bartleby & Co.

13,000 year old spearpoint found near Alexandria, VA

The spearpoint has been identified as being around 13,000 years old, and the previous artifact oldest artifact found in the area was 9,000 years old. The site is Freedmen's Cemetery.

Juan José Arreola

After reading a few articles on Roberto Bolano yesterday that apparently i didn't read as thoroughly as i though i had last spring, i was trying to follow up on his infrarealism movement. It didn't take me to where i wanted to go (as i have yet to find a complete copy of his early manifesto, "Leave It All Again") but i found something else...

One of the articles, in explaining how Mexico was when Bolano spent time there, mentioned something about Juan Rulfo and his friend Juan Jose Arreola...

The short stories in Varia invención and Confabulario have been compared to the writings of Kafka, Camus, and Jorge Luis Borges because of their thematic similarities. The critical commentary on the second volume was sparse; while they drew praise for their imagination and humor, many commentators did not understand or appreciate Arreola's nonrealistic literary technique. His use of fantasy also again raised the charge that conditions in Mexico demanded a more realistic appraisal of Mexican life and social inequalities. Punta de plata, the collection of allegorical stories based on the physical characteristics of animals at the zoo, was warmly received for its descriptive, lyrical prose.

Juan José Arreola is a new author for me. I ordered Confabulario and Other Inventions yesterday. Oddly, all of his work in English translation seems to be out of print in the U.S. The edition that i bought was printed by the University of Texas back in the '70s.

Magical realism... heh. The more it gets disparaged by critics who say that it's lazy, indulgent writing, the more i find reasons why not to read American literature.

Squandered Heritage: factchecking New Orleans' Imminent Danger Demolition List

I should have thrown a link up to the Squandered Heritage blog a few weeks ago. They have been putting up photos of houses slated for demolition by the city of New Orleans, as there are some peculiar shenanigans going on. The city claims that it's only going after houses that are a blight on the neighborhood, mostly ones damaged in Katrina and left abandoned.

If one spends any time going through the photos of the properties that the city has listed on their Imminent Danger List, one can see that this is unadulterated bullshit. Some of the houses have been repaired and are in good condition. A few were never damaged at all, and are inhabited. There are some absolutely necessary demolitions slated, but there is a land grab being cloaked under this work. New Orleans is selling out its citizens for some greedy developers it seems.

The most recent post on Squandered Heritage links to the Flickr photosets of the houses, and links how to appeal one getting one's house off of that Imminent Danger List.

Homo erectus and Homo habilis coexisted

So it seems that Homo habilis might not be the direct ancestor of Homo erectus, but instead a slightly earlier cousin that did manage to survive to living contemporaneously. This is being based off a Homo habilis skull that is dated relatively recently for that species, 1.44 million years ago, and dwelled in the same territory of Africa as Homo erectus.

I'm kinda excited, as i'm sympathetic to this theory. I'm also hoping for dates pushing backthe first appearance of Homo erectus.

levitation now feasible as well

Casimir force is not something that i'm overly familiar with, but apparently scientists at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland have managed to find a way to get it to repel instead of attract. Apparently they can use this to levitate small objects to an extent.

Yeah. Levitation.

More please. The article points out that these are the same researchers who show that invisibility cloaks are possible.

microbes from eight million-year-old ice revived

Most of the DNA of the oldest specimens had degraded so much from being frozen for so long that scientists were not able to identify the bacteria accurately, but.... damn it... eight million-year-old bacteria!

However, note this:

The team suggests that because DNA in the old ice samples had degraded so much in response to exposure to cosmic radiation, life on Earth is unlikely to have hitched a ride on a comet or on debris from outside the Solar System - as some scientists have suggested.

Eh, not convinced yet.

the joy of New Skrullicism

This post over on Crooked Timber on New Skrullism is batshit brilliant. I cannot decided whether it reads better as mockery of the lunacy of reading too much into the insane plot machinations of comic books, a dig at the sf/fantasy community for jumping down Anthony Lane's throat, a Borgesian joke thrust upon comics instead of occult and detective novels...

It doesn't make any fucking sense. I love it.

nodding to sleep at the obligatory Man Booker post

The 2007 Man Booker longlist does not contain a single book that i have read. I'd lay money that i won't be reading any of these either.

Should i be embarrassed that the last one that i actually enjoyed was Cloud Atlas? Probably not.

A Sunday spent reading

Nothing much is going on here. I'm having some coffee as i package a job to be shipped out.

Yesterday was a lot of aimless reading. I re-read some Borges stories, mostly from his earliest collection. I went on a tangent finally realizing that he lifted Lazarus Morrell from John Murrell when i was reading the Wikipedia entry on the book. Even though i had recently re-read Twain's Life on the Mississippi, and knew the story by heart at that point, i neglected to make the connection consciously. It was nice to make a Twain-Borges connection.

After i got proprly riled up by that Slidell Jesus political money scam, i went hunting for H.L. Mencken quotes to throw in an email to that candidate, but in truth, i have nothing to say to the man. He probably duly be elected and have a long career fleecing the electorate. After all, some of these people are the same ones who keep voting for that shyster Jindal.

So to hell with my neighbors and my native territory... and i ordered some H.L. Mencken colections.

For no apparent reason, i picked up Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and re-read it straight through. It's been a few years. (Not Through the Looking Glass though. Not yet anyway.) Now i'm on an annotation fit with that, as i don't know all of the people these characters are based upon.

Then i read a bit of of Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year. It's new to me, and the old, idiosyncratic style of capitalization threw me off.

The evening ended with me picking up Heym's The Wandering Jew, as i had misplaced it for the past couple of months, but only clunked through 50 more pages.

A steadfast reader, i am not.

local politician Ackel is a crass opportunist

Over in Slidell, someone many years ago snuck a picture of Jesus (of the Eastern Orthodox varity) into a courthouse. At first, i misunderstood what the painting was, as i thought it was part of a larger display, barely noticeable. I wished that the ACLU would focus on something more relevant and forgot about it. I don't want religion preached in my courthouses, but we have bigger fish to fry these days.

Yesterday, i received a mailout from a jackass by the name of Adam Ackel, titled In God We Trust:

Dear Friends,

Most of us in Louisiana were blessed with strong traditional values. Recently, the liberal ACLU filed a lawsuit to remove the image of Jesus Christ from the Slidell Courthouse. Now, we are finding more and more liberal groups are trying to remove symbols of our faith that we grew up with and are trying to pass down to our children.

It is important government officials work to guarantee our rights as citizens to support our faith. I don't believe that we should be forced to separate our faith from our daily lives because of government interference.

Blah, blah, blah. It goes on with crap about his family. Then this ignorant thug has to audacity to ask for money for his campaign to run for state representative! He doesn't even ask for money for the suit against the ACLU. It's all about Adam Ackel pumping gullible bastards for cash!

I've now seen a photo of the painting of Jesus in question, and it's nothing like it was described to me. It has no business whatsoever in a government building. The ACLU has better things to do than to worry about that damned painting, but it galls me that this little twerp is trying to cash in on this controversy.

I don't intend to get into any arguments with Christian zealots over this, but it should be pointed out that some branches of Christianity itself find representations of Jesus to be a form of idolatry. This is why the maliciously stupid Ackel needs to shut up, as he needs to keep whatever corrupted values he has to himself, teaching them his unfortunate family in his home and church of his choice. My values are not his, and i don't want the image of Jesus hanging in the courtrooms that we are obliged to share as citizens. We might obey the same laws, but we don't have the same religious beliefs. Don't make assumptions, Ackel, and don't presume that your traditions are somehow older. Again, i assert that my family has been in the Florida Parishes over 200 hundred years. I don't give a good goddamn about what you think is traditional around here. I know better.

Oh yeah. He's a Republican. Typical.

Thanks, ACLU, for giving this scheming baboon a drum to bang on.

beginning Interfictions

Interfictions gave me high hopes, because Small Beer Press had yet to disappoint me, but i'm annoyed. A couple of the stories so far are quite solid, making me curious about the other work of certain authors, but some of them... some of them are true clunkers. One of them actually enraged me with its inept rehash of stringing together New Age cliches. The original intent of this post was to launch into a lengthy diatribe on how much i loathe this person's writing, but once i found the person online, the venom left me.

The story is still awful though.

In the future, i'll probably steer far, far away from anything with this "interstitial art" label. The Wikipedia entry is craptastic, as it has the same insecure preening that flavors some of Interfictions. Books like Magic for Beginners, Cold Skin, Shriek, When They Came... these escape the fantasy ghetto for me, and demand some consideration other than the pulp that they are lumped in with. Writers who are looking for a boost to cross-market their books, to become the next Laurell K. Hamilton are hacks who are looking for new ways to market themselves into different areas of the bookstore. Interfictions is giving me this impression.

Ach. Some of these people in Interfictions are exactly why i loathed anything connected to fairy tales for decades. Fairy tales are simply not interesting when they are mere wish fulfillment. Italo Calvino's Italian Folk Tales captures this far better, demonstrating how weird and capricious the stories people tell their children. I tricked myself into believing that more people grasped how creepy the human subconscious is revealed to be in these stories. Nope.

I'll still finish the remainder.

excavation of 8,000 year old underwater British site

Waiting to see what happens with this site:

Excavations of an underwater Stone Age archaeological settlement dating back 8000 years are taking place at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton this week (30 July - 3 August 2007).

Maritime archaeologists from the Hampshire and Wight Trust for Maritime Archaeology (HWTMA) have been working at the site just off the Isle of Wight coast. Divers working at depths of 11 metres have raised sections of the seabed, which have been brought to the NOCS laboratories for excavation.

Garry Momber, Director of HWTMA said: 'This is a site of international importance as it reveals a time before the English Channel existed when Europe and Britain were linked. Earlier excavations have produced flint tools, pristine 8,000-year-old organic material such as acorns, charcoal and worked pieces of wood showing evidence of extensive human activity. This is the only site of its kind in Britain and is extremely important to our understanding of our Stone Age ancestors from the lesser-known Mesolithic period.

'At first we had no idea of the size of this site, but now we are finding evidence of hearths and ovens so it appears to be an extensive settlement. We are hoping that this excavation will reveal more artefacts and clues to life in the Stone Age.'

The team of archaeologists will take the sections to the NOCS laboratories where they will painstakingly excavate through the layers of sediment revealing materials that have lain unseen beneath the seabed for over 8000 years. Garry Momber has recruited University of Southampton students to help with the work.

Curses

The last chapter that i had to read in Douglas Wolk's Reading Comics was the one on Kevin Huizenga. I held off on it, as i wanted to read Curses in its entirety before i got Wolk's view on his work. A piece had turned up here and there, so i was interested. "28th Street" had me enthralled.

It kinda turned out that i had read everything in this collection already... damn... It's hard to tell how that happened, as i don't get the chance to read these kind of comics unless i order them as books.

Huizenga makes me feel weird, in a good way. His work fits well with other authors that i use as pillars for my reading. I'm catching the Calvino and Borges reference that i missed before, and am now trying to connect what other authors his thinking has been influenced by.

I read Wolk's piece on him as well last night. I'm still digesting.

Crooked Little Vein

So it's Warren Ellis' first novel. It's a hell of a lot smaller than i anticipated, in page count, size of the print, and the actual dimensions of the book. It's not that expensive so i cannot complain that the bastard ripped me off with a quickie. I'm about two-thirds of the way through it after a couple of hours of reading last night.

How is it? It's Warren Ellis. What does one expect? It's a fast-paced hard-boiled detective novel with a big dose of Hunter Thompson and a tiny splash of Robert Anton Wilson. The first couple of paragraphs didn't grab me. I shrugged off the implausible plot, which probably wouldn't even work in a comic book, and reveled in his characteristic vomits of bile. I enjoy his comics and his blog. I'm not expecting that much from him really. Crooked Little Vein has the funny misanthropy angle sewed up tight. The romantic entanglement is more preposterous and unbelievable than the secret second constitution of the United States, and if i had the choice, i'd want them earmarked so that i can skip them conveniently.

Great literature it certainly is not, but i'd gladly buy and read more of these if he starts shitting them out regularly... just more absurdist grotesque and less sopping, geek-styled pseudo-romance/ sexual entanglements.

one of Vitter's prostitutes seems to be a Congressional staffer

Your Right Hand Thief has a couple of links that say that one of the prostitutes that Palfrey secured for David Vitter was also a congressional staffer... for a committee that Vitter belongs to no less.

That's an odd wrinkle. So which committee was it?

(Originally i screwed up, putting his current committee assignments as a senator. I don't feel like looking for his old assignments in the House, as i have better things to do.)

It would tickle me to death if she turned out to be a staffer for Small Business though.