Scribal Terror

The door is open . . .

Come on in and talk.  Or drop off one of your random bursts of verbal energy -- poem, limerick, story, top ten list, clerihew, essay, alliterative poem, rant, Surrealist or Dadaist poem, parody, cento, dirty joke, amusing syllepsis, dirty syllepsis, haiku, dirty haiku . . . to share.

The color photography of Prokudin-Gorskii

The US Library of Congress has produced prints for an exhibition of Prokudin-Gorskii's work using a process called digichromatography, which allows the pictures to be viewed as Prokudin-Gorskii intended.

Archaeologists Uncover a Village of Plucky Little Gauls

My all-time favorite comics, in both French and English, are the Asterix books by Goscinny and Uderzo. The intro is always the same:

We are in the year 50 before Jesus Christ. All Gaul is occupied by the Romans . . . All? No! One village inhabited by indomitable Gauls still resists the invaders. And life is not easy for the garrisons of Roman legionnaries camped in Babaorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Petitbonum . . .

Now a team of French archaeologists may have unearthed evidence of a Gallic "holdout" culture that lasted well into the 3rd century AD:

A macabre 1,700-year-old mass grave of people and horses, discovered in Normandy, poses perplexing new questions about the Roman conquest of France. Was there a small part of ancient Gaul which refused, Asterix-like, to surrender for 300 years?

The grave site, from the 3rd century, which was discovered by French state archaeologists at Evreux, appears to contain ritual arrangements of human and horse remains. In one, a human skull is clasped between two horse's skulls, like the two halves of a giant shell.

In Gaullish times, 300 years earlier, graves containing both horses and people were common. No such grave has ever been found from the Roman period, and even in the previous era, the remains were kept carefully apart.

In the recently discovered grave, about 50 miles west of Paris, the bones appear to have been intentionally mixed. The skeletons of 40 people and 100 horses have been found so far.

Was this a local - or maybe more widespread - survival of the Gaullish cult of Epona, the goddess of horses and warriors?

Maybe, maybe not, but I believe the site map looks a little like this:

                                        

Looney Tunes in Tennessee

Dateline Chattanooga:

Six girls at a rural high school were charged with homicide conspiracy after their principal found a list of 300 names and officials discovered online postings suggesting they kill people, authorities said Thursday.

School officials said the list, discovered in a classroom trash can, mostly named students and faculty members but also included Tom Cruise, Oprah Winfrey and the Energizer bunny.

Q and A

Tom Friedman is confused:

I can’t understand how the mass slaughter of 70 Baghdad college students last week by Sunni suicide bombers or the blowing up of a Shiite mosque on the first day of Ramadan in 2005 evoke so little response.

Big Pharaoh isn't:

The killer was not an American nor an Israeli. Instead the killer was a fellow Muslim. And once the mass murderer is a fellow Muslim, Al Jazeera and the Arab/Muslim world do not give a rat's ass. Once the Arab/Muslim world gives a rat's ass about their own dead regardless of the killer, I'll say that the Arab/Muslim world have stepped the first step towards modernity.

Oh no! Not the comfy chair!

The US State Department has issued a stern warning to Iran:

"If they think they can get away with 3,000 centrifuges without another Security Council resolution and additional international pressure, then they are very badly mistaken."

I for one would find it pretty hard to sleep at night if I felt the UN was about to issue me a resolution. Then I'd probably take the pea out from under my mattress and doze right off again. Via Ace

PS: I wonder what sort of response this will merit.

The door is open . . .

Come on in and talk.  Or drop off one of your random bursts of verbal energy -- poem, limerick, story, top ten list, clerihew, essay, alliterative poem, rant, Surrealist or Dadaist poem, parody, cento, dirty joke, amusing syllepsis, dirty syllepsis, haiku, dirty haiku . . . to share.

You talk like a Dutchman

My dog Sami has a broad range of vocalizations -- it sounds almost as if she has a private language that she expects us to understand. She was at it just now, begging for oatmeal, and it occurred to me that my mother would have said to her, "You talk like a Dutchman," meaning "You're clearly trying to communicate something to me, but I have no idea what you're saying." She said it to dogs, cats, parakeets, and babies, and I've never heard anyone else use the expression. Does anybody recognize it?

It's for later

From Just Elite

Killer Sheep

The Violence of the Lambs

--Via In4mador