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July 2009

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July 26, 2009

Galloping Globalization and Other Never-ending Stories

July 22, 2009—See what you probably couldn't view, unless you were in Asia: The longest total solar eclipse of the entire 21st century. Other eclipses may be longer, but none will see the sun totally eclipsed for so long. Video.

China’s Pioneers of Management Theory By Karl Moore and David C. Lewis - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 While most of Chinese commerce was in the hands of the state during ancient times, some capitalism did emerge in the Zhou Dynasty before 500 BCE.

Chinese Promotional Game While games of spiritual progress, similar to the Indian snakes and ladders, existed in China, by far the most popular race games were those whose aim was not spiritual development but material success.

Business Models in Antiquity By Karl Moore and David C. Lewis - Tuesday, July 21, 2009 Karl Moore, a business professor at McGill University, and David Lewis, a historian, look at ancient international business in “The Origins of Globalization.” In the first of a two-part series, they describe the economies of Assyria, the Phoenicians, Greece and Rome — and how much they valued merchants

Shrine to a Mysterious God This 1.5-ton, four-foot high carved stone relic shows a god-like figure standing on the back of a bull, with a thunderbolt in one hand and a battle axe in the other. It is a representation of the Anatolian god Juppiter of Doliche, which was believed to be a favorite deity among Roman soldiers, although there is no literary reference of the god.

DNA confirms coastal trek to Australia Friday, 24 July 2009 By Nicky Phillips - DNA evidence linking Indian tribes to Australian Aboriginal people supports the theory humans arrived in Australia from Africa via a southern coastal route through India, say researchers. The research, lead by Dr. Raghavendra Rao from the Anthropological Survey of India, is published in the current edition of BMC Evolutionary Biology

Anthropological Survey of India is an unique organization. Nowhere in the world do we have an organization entirely dealing with Anthropological research, either in public or private sector.

Welcome to BMC Evolutionary Biology published by BioMed Central - BMC Evolutionary Biology is an open access journal publishing original peer-reviewed research articles in all aspects of molecular and non-molecular evolution of all organisms, as well as phylogenetics and palaeontology.

Can Computers Decipher a 5,000-Year-Old Language? A computer scientist is helping to uncover the secrets of the inscribed symbols of the Indus - By David Zax - Smithsonian.com, July 20, 2009 - The Indus civilization, which flourished throughout much of the third millennium B.C., was the most extensive society of its time. At its height, it encompassed an area of more than half a million square miles centered on what is today the India-Pakistan border. This article is followed up with critical comments by Steve Farmer, Ph.D. questioning the validity of Rao's work on Indus script...

Ethiopian skulls could be modern humans' immediate ancestors Ethiopian skulls could be modern humans' immediate ancestors By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD New York Times - In the 160,000-year-old fossilized skulls of three Ethiopians -- two adults and a child -- scientists think they see for the first time the faces of the immediate ancestors of modern humans.

Festival-goers enjoy mud bath at 34th Paleo music festival

Special "Millstone Park" in China

Ancient Theater Masks Rediscovered in Pompeii Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News - July 21, 2009 -- A set of 15 mysterious life-size masks, reminiscent of ancient Roman drama, have been rediscovered in Pompeii after being forgotten for more than two centuries, according to Italian archaeologists who have shown them for the first time at an exhibition in Naples, Italy

The Grand Egyptian Museum is being built with mass tourism in mind. Henighan Peng, the Dublin-based architects, have designed the terraced building to accommodate up to 15,000 visitors a day. The aim is to attract three million visitors a year, equivalent to about 25 per cent of the tourists who visited Egypt last year.

China finds new terracotta warriors: state media (AFP) – Jul 17, 2009 BEIJING — Archaeologists in China's northern Xi'an city have excavated another 100 terracotta warriors, including a much-prized army officer, near the tomb of the nation's first emperor, state media said on Friday.

Thighbones Were Scepters for Ancient Zapotec Men? By Charles Q. Choi for National Geographic News - July 15, 2009 For men of the ancient Zapotec civilization, ancestral thighbones may have been carried as status symbols.

Pirate Watch!

Real Pirates tells the true story of the Whydah—a slave ship turned pirate ship that sank in a storm off the coast of Cape Cod nearly 300 years ago. When underwater explorer Barry Clifford discovered the Whydah's remains in 1984, it became the first fully authenticated pirate ship to be found in American waters.

Pointe-à-Callière, the Montréal Museum of Archaeology and History, will be presenting Pirates, Privateers and Freebooters from May 20, 2009 to January 3, 2010. Visitors to the exhibition will learn about the 16th- to 19th-century seafaring adventurers who prowled the eastern seaboard of North America and the Caribbean.

July 16 by Jessica E. Saraceni - The conviction of Italian art dealer Giacomo Medici for conspiracy to traffic in antiquities has been upheld by an appeals court in Rome. Evidence from his 2004 trial was used to compel American museums to return artifacts to Italy. Among them was the J. Paul Getty Museum, which is now opening a show featuring “The Chimaera of Arezzo,” an Etruscan bronze sculpture loaned by Florence’s Museo Archeologico Nazionale as part of the deal. The Cleveland Museum of Art has also returned antiquities that had been stolen from Italy.

July 24 by Jessica E. Saraceni - The Telegraph reports that in a taped bedroom conversation between Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and a prostitute, Berlusconi revealed that he had found 30 Phoenician tombs on his estate on Sardinia.

“If the presence of these 30 previously unknown tombs on Berlusconi’s estate is confirmed it represents a very significant discovery,” said Giuseppina Manca di Mores, a member of Italy’s National Association of Archaeologists

"For years historians have debated whether the nearby town of Olbia was founded by the Greeks or the Phoenicians and these tombs could be the breakthrough needed to provide the answer."

July 19, 2009

Twins - and the Unpredictable Womb-i-verse of
Placental Dice Chess ??!!

Cheesy Chess Song lives up to it's billing ... Video Guaranteed to charm chessbabies from 3 to 103 years old...

The Chess Artist is its own lullaby, a beautifully told story with the game of chess playing the role of train, cradling author Hallman and cohort Glenn in its ample belly as it propels them from the break room of an Atlantic City casino to the surreal backdrop of the Kalmykian steppe...

Alisa and Mirjana Maric Alisa was introduced to chess at the age of four, together with her 21 minutes younger twin sister Mirjana Maric. Alisa and Mirjana are the only twins with grandmaster titles in the history.

Twins hope to be kings of chess board Thursday, May 18, 2006 Opponents call them the "Dynamic Duo." Soon, opponents might be calling Mark and Alex Heimann, both 13, of McCandless, masters. Champs already has been added to the list of monikers for the twins.

Twins don't slow for a minute By Ricardo Gándara Thursday, August 07, 2008 The nearly inseparable twins (Katherine and Cole Baker) are having a whirlwind of a summer. All-Star games. Chess tournaments. Hall of Fame professional basketball player and former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley interviewed them by phone for his weekly "American Voices" Sirius satellite radio show.

Vanishing Twin Syndrome - It’s true! WHOA! So apparently, this Vanishing Twin Syndrome thing is totally for real. Since they’ve started doing more ultrasound early in pregnancies, they have begun to realize that statistically, something like 1 out of every 8 (some say 6) pregnancies starts out as a twin. But only like 1 out of 70 births are actually twins.

Embracing Non-Contemporary Twin Pieces in Proofgames By Roberto A. Osorio - A very peculiar case occurred recently in Argentina. Two twin human embryos (conceived in vitro) were managed in the following way: one of them was selected and he was born while the other one was frozen; ten years after that the second embryo was implanted and he was born normally.

Top 10 Toys That Twins/Multiples Can Share Toys with multiple appeal. By Pamela Prindle Fierro - Check out #3 "PlayHut Ultimate Playland" - It's a tent, a hideout, a playhouse, a fortess. This extra large structure is big on imaginative potential, but quick and easy to set up and put away." (hmmm sounds like....naaah!)

The Encyclopedia of Creativity Edited By Steven Pritzker, Luminescent Creativity, Greenbrae, California, U.S.A.and Mark Runco, California State University, Fullerton, U.S.A. - 1999 - Psychology - 1663 pages. The nation's obsession with creativity has led to the birth to this first-ever encyclopedia of creativity. It is two volumes, 1,300 pages, and at $350 retail, very expensive. Ideal for business leaders, teachers, scientists, artists and anyone in need of a new idea. See p.697 for a commentary on chess and twins...

Personality And The Nature Vs Nurture Debate Psychology is a scientific analysis of state of mind and behaviour. These studies have been taking place for over the last hundred years, the "nature versus nurture" debate is something that many psychologists have been unable to agree on for quite some time

Chess twins dominate competition By Anthony Bottan April 23, 2009 - Known in the national chess circuits as the Bryant twins, Nigel and Jehron have competed in more than 100 tournaments nationwide and are ranked among the top 50 chess players in the country... Jehron, left, and Nigel Bryant, talk about their success in chess tournaments. The twins attend Memorial Junior High School.

The Singh Twins by Amrit & Rabindra Kaur Singh The Singh Twins were recently rated the top contenders, out of forty-four artists, in a public poll conducted worldwide over the internet to nominate a Liverpool-based artist for the "Liverpool Turner Prize".

From Edward Winter's awesome chess site... An unusual chess picture (C.N. 3434) shows the conjoined twins Eng and Chang Bunker (1811-1874), who used the game of chess in their exhibitions and stage shows. “They play at chess and draughts remarkably well, but never in opposition to each other; having been asked to do it, they replied that no more pleasure would be derived from it, than by playing with the right hand against the left.” Primary material available at the library of the University of North Carolina.

Checkmate As the war on terrorism rages, Peter Hartcher declares "checkmate" and provides a metaphor for this black and white op-ed piece.

Human Development: The First Trimester & Developmental Malformations by Kathy Holohan includes a game... Materials & Equipment Needs: All materials with the exception of the game pieces and dice are supplied by information in the module.

Against all odds... Video "This interacial couple has given birth to its second set of twins, whereby one child is black and the other white. This story takes interacial relations to a whole new level and proves that anything can happen when you enter the jungle."

Mother gives birth to identical triplets at odds of 150,000 to one A woman has given birth to naturally conceived identical triplet boys at odds of more than 150,000 to one.

Re-Discovered Sites: Ice age 'twins' found in ancient burial ground Neugebauer-Maresch told New Scientist that more than 31 ivory beads were also found at the burial site. "They had been buried with much ritual - it is really very interesting," she says.

Twins in Yoruba Society In traditional African societies, twins were considered of preternatural origin and raised emotional reactions oscillating from fear and repugnance to hope and joy (Leroy, 1995). In ancient times, the Yoruba used to reject and even sacrifice newborn twins (Leroy, 1995).

Videos of the 2009 Montreal
"Just for Laughs" Twins Parade

I thing - therefore we am?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFgJ9chdlXY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zvdhpp2y6Eo

WW Twins!

July 12, 2009

Chimney chess, sweeps, hot poker, dancers, deadly dames - a sizzling summer pot pourri!

The Paper Polis An origami artist from Japan, Wataru Ito, has spent four years crafting an incredible model city from paper - but now plans to burn it down. (Of course! That makes perfect sense!)

Chess in Concert: Video PBS - Jun 09, 2009 Interview with Josh Groban, star of the Tim Rice musical "Chess in Concert," speaks candidly to WNET/THIRTEEN about this passion project... Premiering in HD on THIRTEEN on July 17th at 8 p.m. EST (check local listings), Great Performances is proud to present "Chess in Concert," taped at the Royal Albert Hall in London in May 2008.

Chess in the Grass? Mayan 'apocalypse' crop circle appears at Silbury Hill - A 350ft crop circle of an ancient Mayan symbol, said to be a sign of an impending apocalypse, has appeared next to Silbury Hill in Wiltshire. Impending apocalypsye? Well, isn't it always...?

How flowers conquered the world Matt Walker, Editor, Earth News: The great explosion in flowering plants during the Cretaceous Period is one of the great enigmas of evolution. Charles Darwin had no explanation, calling it an "abominable mystery". But now scientists think they have solved the riddle of how flowers came to dominate the conifers and ferns that preceded them.

Lotus Carved Chess Set in Bud Rosewood With a design based on Lotus flower leaves, the King and Queens look little flowers about to bud while the Rook's leaves form an open flower. If you feel a bit 'zen' when you sit down to a game of chess, then this set may be right for you.

Virgin Mary in Tree Stump? (Is this like having Prince Albert in the can?) The supposed vision surprised locals who have come in their hundreds to pray and light candles in the grounds of Holy Mary Parish church.

Stonerware Pot Leaf Chess Set The Ultimate Marijuana Chess Set. Dude, who’s move is it again? The centuries old game of Kings and Queens enters the “stoner” age. The "ultimate"? There are others?!

The Rear End Game Video Very, very strange takeoff on "the monkey's bum" - but - "Rules are rules"...

Chimney Pot Chess Set - Video A terracotta chess set and - Behold !! - auto-assembly of chess automatons made easy! If only I could train my chessmen to do what these seem capable of doing.

Chess in Poker? Many poker players started with backgrounds in other areas of gaming, such as chess, backgammon, and the card game called Magic. Those who study multiple games acquire skills in theory and strategy that apply across the board (no pun intended).

Video Treat

Bobby Fischer in a 1971 interview with Dick Cavett PLUS a rare tape BBC interview with another former chess champion, Alexander Alekhine.

More Chess and Chimney Pots

Chimney Pots were traditionally unglazed terracotta pots with a tapered shape, designed to increase the draft of a chimney while providing an ornamental cap to a building... Among the shapes available are chimney pots that imitate chess pieces, octagonal columns, and those shaped like gun or cannon barrels. Custom pots from at least one US manufacturer sport ornamental dragons.

Waymaked chimney pots

Unique Chimneys and Chimney Pots

A chimney cap - I understand that. But a chimney pot, well, that sounds like some sort of medieval cauldron for boiling the squirrels that try to sneak down your stack. Don't get me wrong; I love those twitchy-tailed critters. It's just that the name "chimney pot" does little to explain what the device actually does or how it looks.

Rochester Sweeps Festival. Medway’s annual Sweeps Festival recreates the joy and laughter enjoyed by the chimney sweeps at their traditional holiday…a procession through the streets of Rochester… Jack-in-the-Green ceremony, a seven-foot character that they used to waken at dawn on Blue Bell Hill… Morris teams from around the UK (and from as far as Alaska)… folk groups…

A fools guide to England 1 - Morris Dancing Video: Dry wit and the threat of incarceration for failing to join! ... also an interesting note from the "comments" list...

For those interested, the last Canadian prosecution for failing to Morris Dance was I believe May 27, 1931. The 1931 Statute of Westminster absolved citizens of Commonwealth countries, the Dominion of Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, the? Irish Free State and the Dominion of Newfoundland, of compulsory Morris dancing. There was a move to make Failure to Morris a crime in the name of the Governor-General but this was narrowly defeated.

Dancing Sweeps Hollywood! Video: Mary Poppins "Step in Time"

Chess Femmes Fatales

Queen of the Chimney Pots and her trusty palace guard...

The Queen Copper Chimney Pot by European Copper: The Queen is a slightly smaller version of the King in weight and height. Same octagonal shape and vent design.

Lethal Ladies: 26 Best Big-Screen Bad Girls By Marc Bernardin | Jun 29, 2008 - As Angelina Jolie blasts her way back into theaters as an assassin in ''Wanted,'' we take a look at the most memorable lady killers ... EEEK!

July 5, 2009

Independence Day - 2009

Statue of Liberty's Independence Day July 5, 2009 Coinciding with the July 4th holiday, a limited number of tourists - just 30 an hour - were allowed to climb the narrow spiral staircase to the top of the 151ft high landmark. Once at the top, visitors were able to look out on the iconic Manhattan skyline from the statue's crown.

Is this what promoted pawns see from atop the magical 8th square? I'd say it might be something like daytime Manhattan - but perhaps even more cosmic - with countless windows glowing like the stars at night -

Ellis Island - at one time Ellis Island was considered a kind of promotional square for newcomers getting ready for the next leg of their New World adventure. A medical exam was part of the layover.

Rare copy of Declaration of Independence found by Gregory Katz – London (AP) - British researchers have announced the discovery of a rare original copy of America's Declaration of Independence - just in time for the Fourth of July.

Queen to Play -- Film Review By Frank Scheck, April 27 - Chess as metaphor for life is the theme of Caroline Bottaro's French drama starring Sandrine Bonnaire as a maid who rediscovers herself thanks to her newfound love for the game and Kevin Kline as the misanthropic recluse who teaches her.

The Changing Face of Freedom We look upon the queen as well within the boundaries of balance, but 500 years ago its power must have seemed unbridled.

Alice and other liberating quotes from "gaia" "It's a great huge game of chess that's being played - all over the world - if this is the world at all, you know. Oh, what fun it is! How I wish I was one of them! I wouldn't mind being a Pawn, if only I might join -- though of course I should like to be a Queen, best."

A Declaration of Health Independence July 05, 2009 by Donald W. Kemper - "When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for individuals to dissolve their professional bands of medical dependency and to assume among their obligations the primary responsibility for their own health to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of humankind require that they should declare the causes which impel them to seek Health Independence."

Good heath and the pursuit of a good game Despite its outward appearance as a purely mental exercise, a tournament chess match is a physically demanding experience. All tournament players know that a chess match significantly drains the body of both mental and physical energy.

Tour de force - The Science Museum's History of Medicine website, the ultimate resource for educators and students. With thousands of interesting and intriguing objects you're bound to find something to excite, entertain and educate. C.J. Gadd's Famous Babylonian Chess is the opening marker for a timeline of medicine that disappears into the mists of prehistory...

Tongue depressors galore...

Toy boat
Cheap ship trip
Are our oars oak?
Tragedy strategy

Ships that sail in dark, uncertain directions...

The famous Egyptian "paddle dolls" have proven to be not dolls at all, but representations of concubines for the dead in the afterlife, as indicated by the inscriptions on the "dolls" themselves. The Harappan string-operated figures may also have had a ritual use. But in light of the fact that ancient Egyptian and Harappan archaeological finds show abundant evidence of children's games, the doll and the toy could not have been long in arriving. More here:

Modern Slavery: Human bondage in Africa, Asia, and the Dominican Republic by Ricco Villanueva Siasoco April 18, 2001 - When a ship carrying hundreds of people was recently turned away from Benin, Africa, officials suspected that the children on board were human slaves. The incident once again brought attention to the problem of slavery.

Our Own Backyard In 1800 the population of the United States included 893,602 slaves, of which only 36,505 were in the northern states. Vermont, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey provided for the emancipation of their slaves before 1804, most of them by gradual measures. The 3,953,760 slaves at the census of 1860 were in the southern states.

Video: Blackbirding in the Pacific

One bird - two faces of captivity? The Rekhyt bird of Ancient Egypt - The rekhyt bird is the term for the lapwing (Vanellus vanellus), a species of plover with a distinctive crested head. It was often used as a symbol for subject peoples or foreign captives...

Antislavery.org Combatting the perennial problems of slavery...

Eastern Europe Today The numbers of enslaved Eastern European women are unknown, but 400,000 women have left the Ukraine alone in the last ten years.

A Blight on the Nation: Slavery in Today's America By Ron Soodalter - April 27, 2009 The American humorist Will Rogers once said, "It ain't that we're so dumb; it's just that what we know ain't so."

Slavery Today Kevin Bales & Becky Cornell. All of us support and profit from slavery in some way, even if we don’t mean to or don’t realize it. The phenomenon of globalization means that the goods we buy are increasingly assembled in different parts of the world, using components from all over the world...

King Solomon ben David and the Players at the Chess by Sebastian Evans - Longman's Magazine - March 15, 1885 "King Solomon ben David, the Wise, on whom be peace, was a mighty player at the chess before the Lord." However, in this 19th Century tale, Admatha, the slave girl proves to be his great undoing.

Toasting Inner Freedom...

I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams." Hamlet, 2.2. 241

The Universe in a Nutshell By Stephen Hawking. “Hamlet may have meant,” comments Hawking, “that although we human beings are very limited physically, our minds are free to explore the whole universe, and to boldly go where even Star Trek fears to tred – bad dreams permitting.”

The Myth of Freedom “The warrior without a sword, Riding on a rainbow, Hears the limitless laughter of transcendental joy. The poisonous snake becomes amrita.”

Yogananda's Healing Drink for the Nerves Praecepta Lessons, Volume 4, by Swami Yogananda, 1938 - "Take one glassful of cool water. Add to it 1/4 of a fresh lime and about 2 teaspoonfuls of sugar or ground rock candy. Mix it in such a way that the sugar and the lime are evenly balanced, so that when you taste the lime you will also taste the sweetness, and when you taste the sugar you will also taste the lime. This is one of the great drinks of the yogis. It has cured thousands of persons of nervousness. It also has a spiritual vibration. It must not be too sweet nor have too much lime. Always add to it a little crushed ice."