Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Rules

From Yahoo...

Gladiators may have fought and died to entertain others in the brutality of the Roman arena but they appear to have abided by a strict code of conduct which avoided savage violence, forensic scientists say.

Tests on the remains of 67 gladiators found in tombs at Ephesus in Turkey, center of power for ancient Rome's eastern empire, show they stuck to well defined rules of combat and avoided gory free-for-alls.

Injuries to the front of each skull suggested that each opponent used just one type of weapon per bout of face-to-face contact, two Austrian researchers report in a paper to be published in Forensic Science International.

Savage violence and mutilation, typical of battlefields 2,000 years ago, were out of order.

And the losers appear to have died quickly.

Despite the fact that most gladiators wore helmets, 10 of the remains showed the fighters had died of squarish hammer-like blows to the side of the head, possibly the work of a backstage executioner who finished off wounded losers after the fight.

The report confirms the picture given of battles in the arena by Roman artwork, which suggests gladiators were well matched and followed rules enforced by two referees.

Our Daily Dead indeed.


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Monday, February 27, 2006

Irish Eyes

From the book "1,000 Places To See Before You Die":

"In yesterday's gastronomically challenged Ireland of corned beef and cabbage, seaside Kinsale's role as the country's culinary capital may have been take as a comical oxymoron. But since the so-called Irish cooking revolution, this beautiful yachting and fishing town on the Irish Sea and its impressive (and still growing) profusion of excellent restaurants large and small has drawn pampered palates from near and far. The increasingly popular Kinsale International Gourmet Food Festival might include everything from a cooking demonstration by the Housewife of the Year to oyster husking."

Get there. An excellent town, beautiful setting, wonderful people, great pubs, and of course tons of history including the magnificent and vast star shaped Charles Fort, which was built in 1677.


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Friday, February 24, 2006

Fried-Day

Something to consider - Nikola Tesla was beyond a genius, had abnormally long thumbs, a peculiar love of pigeons, and a horror of women's pearls. Strange Brains and Genius indeed.

Oh, and if perchance you are a budding numeroligist, you'll want to read Infospigot's Trivial By Nature.

Forbes reports that Tinky Winky strikes fear again: China Bans 'Teletubbies,' 'Mary Poppins'--Not Spielberg. Although Forbes does say that China's ban is not for the same reasons that Jerry Falwell trembles at the sight of ol' TW. The Color Purple indeed, eh what?

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Thursday, February 23, 2006

1776

"Here we are at loggerheads," wrote the youthful brigadier general from Rhode Island, appraising the scene at Boston in the last days of October 1775.

I wish we had a large stock of [gun]powder that we might annoy the enemy wherever they make their appearance...but for want thereof we are obliged to remain idle spectators, for we cannot get at them and they are determined not to come to us.

At age thirty-three, Nathanael Green was the youngest general officer in what constituted the American army, and by conventional criterion, an improbable choice for such responsibility. He had been a full-time soldier for all of six months. Unlike any of the other American generals, he had never served in a campaign, never set foot on a battlefield. He was a foundryman by trade. What he knew of warfare and military command came almost entirely from books.

~~ "1776", by David McCullough

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Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Untitled

Who have I left to please?
Take what you've yet to seize.
No more questioning
'Cause love is what love should be.
Unveil to me all that you want me to do.
But why should I stop bearing allegiance to you?

See, I don't believe in the sorcerers or the preachers.
I just believe in you.
And I don't believe in the scholars or the wise men.
I just believe in you.

What have I left to prove?
I speak all the words you choose.
Confine me in walls of truth
'Cause love does what love should do.
No more sentence.
All of my pain has been freed.
Why should this end when your mercy's all I need?

See, I don't believe in
The sorcerers or the preachers.
I just believe in you.
And I don't believe in the scholars or the wise men.
I just believe in you.


~~ "Untitled", Collective Soul

Our Daily Dead reports on the death of Sid Fellor - not that he was related in any way to Collective Soul. But he was very instrumental in Ray Charles' "Georgia On My Mind" - rather a pleasant tune that. And if you're still in a music mode go read Infospigot's writeup on Bill Cowsill.

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Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Into The Darkness

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave

Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;

Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.

I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

~~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

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Monday, February 20, 2006

Voices

I read the news today oh boy...Curt Gowdy passed away today. See the details over at Our Daily Dead.

And while your surfing sashay over to Rodger Jacobs blog 8763 Wonderland site for a great piece on the notorious Mr. James Frey.

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The Goshawk

All the time there was a single commandment to be observed. Patience. There was no other weapon. In the face of all set-backs, of all stupidities, of all failures and scenes and expasperating blows across the face with his wings as he struggled, there was only one thing one could seek to do. Patience ceased to be negative, became a positive action. For it had to be active benevolence. One could torture the bird, merely by giving it a hard and bitter look.
~~ "The Goshawk", T.H.White



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Sunday, February 19, 2006

The Death of Ivan Ilyich

"Its all over," said someone standing beside him.

He heard these words and repeated them in his soul.

"Death is over," he said to himself. "There is no more death."

He drew in a breath, broke off in the middle of it, stretched himself out, and died.

"The Death of Ivan Ilyich", Leo Tolstoy


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Saturday, February 18, 2006

Burns

I know...we are a couple days late...

Is there a whim-inspired fool,
Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule,
Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool,
Let him draw near;
And owre this grassy heap sing dool,
And drap a tear.

Is there a bard of rustic song,
Who, noteless, steals the crowds among,
That weekly this area throng,
O, pass not by!
But, with a frater-feeling strong,
Here, heave a sigh.

Is there a man, whose judgment clear
Can others teach the course to steer,
Yet runs, himself, life's mad career,
Wild as the wave,
Here pause-and, thro' the starting tear,
Survey this grave.

The poor inhabitant below
Was quick to learn the wise to know,
And keenly felt the friendly glow,
And softer flame;
But thoughtless follies laid him low,
And stain'd his name!

Reader, attend! whether thy soul
Soars fancy's flights beyond the pole,
Or darkling grubs this earthly hole,
In low pursuit:
Know, prudent, cautious, self-control
Is wisdom's root.
~~ "1786", Robert Burns


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Friday, February 17, 2006

Whale Dreck

The Nome Nugget, Alaska's oldest newspaper, reports that mangtak (whale blubber with skin) found in Gambell has been dated to A.D. 936.

The Nome Nugget web site also displays a tag line of Illegitimus non carborundum. You know of course that this is not really Latin, but a psuedo-Latin joke perhaps started by British Intelligence in WWII. The phrase was popularized by one U.S. General Joseph W. "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell (1883-1946)who made the phrase his motto.

Don't Let The Bastards Grind You Down, eh?


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Thursday, February 16, 2006

The Pelican

"A wonderful bird is a pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican.
He can take in his beak
Food enough for a week;
But I'm damned if I see how the helican.
"
~~ "The Pelican", Dixon Lanire Merrith (1910)

Note that this Mr. Merrith's limerick above is often atributed incorrectly to Ogden Nash.)


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10,000 Things

The Tao abides in non-action,
Yet nothing is left undone.
If kings and lords observed this,
The ten thousand things would develop naturally.
If they still desired to act,
They would return to the simplicity of formless substance.
Without form there is no desire.
Without desire there is tranquillity.
In this way all things would be at peace.
~~ "Tao Te Ching", Lao Tzu


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Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Winter

The summer of 1906 was very wet. It seemed to rain for weeks and the coulees ran knee deep and the Frenchman River was as high as a spring flood. The dirt roofs of the log houses of that day became so sodden that water dripped from them whether it rained or not. It stayed so wet that we had difficulty getting the hay in. The winter started early with a light snow on the 5th of November, followed by a terrific three-day blizzard that started on the 11th. From then till Christmas was a succession of bad storms. The range cattle were dying in December. ~~ Corky Jones as an old man.

From "Wolf Willow" by Wallace Stegner


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Tuesday, February 14, 2006

The World In My Eyes

Let me take you on a trip
Around the world and back
And you won't have to move
You just sit still

Now let your mind do the walking
And let my body do the talking
Let me show you the world in my eyes

I'll take you to the highest mountain
To the depths of the deepest sea
***And*** we won't need a map, believe me
~~ "World In My Eyes", Depeche Mode


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From The West

I come from the West
where the illimitable mountains
lift up their heads
to the very silence of God,
where the vast wilderness
sits in silent brooding
on the truth.

I come from the West,
where, in a civilization
founded on the mine and the camp,
we believe that the saloon
and the theater has as good
a right to be open on Sunday,
as the church and the school.

I come from where we think that
it is the right of every American
to go to hell and be damned
if he wants to.

That’s not humor…that’s the truth.
~~C.E.S. Woods, 1852 - 1944


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Monday, February 13, 2006

The Real Me

"I went back to the doctor
To get another shrink.
I sit and tell him about my weekend,
But he never betrays what he thinks.
Can you see the real me, doctor?
I went back to my mother
I said, "I'm crazy ma, help me."
She said, "I know how it feels son,
'Cause it runs in the family."
Can you see the real me, mother?
The cracks between the paving stones
Look like rivers of flowing veins.
Strange people who know me
Peeping from behind every window pane.
The girl I used to love
Lives in this yellow house.
Yesterday she passed me by,
She doesn't want to know me now.
Can you see the real me, can you?
I ended up with the preacher,
Full of lies and hate,
I seemed to scare him a little
So he showed me to the golden gate.
Can you see the real me preacher?
Can you see the real me doctor?
Can you see the real me mother?
Can you see the real me?
" ~~ 'The Real Me', The Who


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