Donkey Eggs

Tax Dollars at Work

2011-11-22T06:59:00.001+02:00

Sitting is killing you!

2011-11-05T14:52:00.003+02:00

Good article and graphic!

The OWSers

2011-10-04T17:40:00.002+03:00

This is a nice post on the Occupy Wall Street protests. Also check out George Washington's blog.

Sheehan on the Endless Wars of Empire

2011-07-08T23:00:00.000+03:00

Cindy Sheehan recently penned a nice article: I have become comfortably numb.

Brain-reading Device

2011-06-17T23:05:00.000+03:00

Scientists have now created a device that can translate thoughts into words. It's hoped that an improved version will eventually help paralyzed people with locked-in syndrome.

Tora Bora Alpine Boots: Total Junk!

2011-06-07T01:35:00.000+03:00

If you're thinking about buying a pair of Tora Bora Alpine Boots, think again. They are complete junk. The boots pretty much disintegrate the second you take them out of the box. I've never seen anything like it.

Dong Yi

2011-05-26T17:24:00.001+03:00

I've been watching Dong Yi these days, the teledrama about King Sukjong. This is fun stuff--no great piece of art, by any means, but fun nevertheless.

Gliese 581d

2011-05-19T03:40:00.000+03:00

We live in exciting times. It'll be interesting to see if Gliese 581d turns out to be the first habitable planet discovered outside our solar system.

99% Atheist

2011-04-26T19:09:00.002+03:00

Sun and Wind

2011-04-07T05:51:00.001+03:00

A new paper claims that the entire Earth can be run on solar and wind power--using existing technology. If only there were leaders who thought of something besides further empowering of the wealthy...

A Full-Body Scan for the US Empire

2010-12-13T19:27:00.000+02:00

Turnaround is fair play, because, until now, in the U.S., the powerless masses are subject to arbitrary pat downs and body scans, while the powerful and connected are massaged by privilege and ensconced in immunity. (Many are spared the indignities of the security line.)

In hindsight, one realizes, when the Obama administration promised transparency and accountability in government, National Security State enabler that Barack Obama has proven himself to be, that his administration's definition of transparency would entail the countenancing of said body scans at the nation's airports, revealing the private bits of the hoi polloi, as, all the while, his administration was engaged in stonewalling the hidden agendas and felonies of the corporate and governing elite.

Recent events should remove any doubt regarding who stands exposed and who will remain cloaked by official aegis.

Unlike Julian Assange at WikiLeaks, when the Democratic Congress had the opportunity to create an atmosphere of openness and transparency, they demurred. Once granted positions of authority, the Democrats didn't exercise their constitutionally granted powers to initiate investigations, hold hearings, nor issue subpoenas regarding actions of George W. Bush’s administration.

This failure of will and integrity amounts to complicity by omission. Withal, Democrats gave their tacit support and approval to the last administration's (as well as to the present one's continuation of more of the same) constitution-shredding, morally repugnant policies.

On most occasions, existing within the tacit repression and the benumbing, virtual reality carnival of the corporate/National Security State leaves an individual with a sense of being stranded in anonymity … cast into circumstances wherein one feels the necessity to follow the unspoken dictates of a nebulous form of authority that remains hidden, both by physical distance and organizational insularity.

In contrast, when one is introduced to the apparatus of the National Security State, by means of a full body search, this unnerving intrusion upon the body can bring clarity to the mind as to how the elite and apparatchik of the U.S. government regard that mass annoyance known as its citizenry and any quaint notions those wretches clutch pertaining to their constitutional granted rights and liberties.

These present outrages will flare up and spiral through the news cycle. Yet, the practices will remain in place, and, after a time, become normalized.

This has proven to be the case with other previously revealed excesses of the so-call “war on terror” and the attendant assaults against civil liberties and breaches of international law incurred in the name of this ongoing, seemingly endless, national psychotic episode e.g., the existence of the "detention camp" at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the illegal invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and those operations concomitant litany of war crimes and affronts to human dignity, such as the acts of torture committed at Abu Ghraib prison -- as well as -- the whole blood-sodden laundry list of outrages and excesses of present-day U.S. imperium.

If there is any hope for the U.S. to ever function as a democratic republic, the revelations, unearthed by WikiLeaks, should constitute the beginning of a long, painful process of grim discovery.

First, one must ask: Why is it the corporate media is so deeply invested in promulgating distracting and miss-the-point narratives, hyper-adrenaline arguments of narrowed context and little consequence -- and, in general, trafficking in piffle packaged as news and public debate -- rather than showing even a passing interest, much less an avidity, for the pursuit of stories that confront power and might present a challenge to the present order?

As with any criminal enterprise, the essential question to ask is: who benefits from the crime (and the subsequent cover-up) and who gets the payoff?

Although most of human existence is constituted by ambiguity, this situation is not. The evidence of war crimes and fiscal malfeasance committed by the nation's political and financial elite are so pervasive that it cannot be missed, and that is precisely the reason the corporate media, as well as a large percentage of the general public, works so hard to ignore the situation.

Lord Northcliffe's aphorism provides a clue:

"News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising." ~ Lord Northcliffe, British publisher 1865-1922

Accordingly, at present, there arrives a paucity of news, but, hour after hour, comes a drowning deluge of advertising. Enveloped in this commercially dominated hologram, on a cultural basis, it has proven difficult to arrive at a common lexicon to tell the tale of truths buried and freedoms imperiled.

The weightless, insubstantial quality of the consumer age engenders a state of mind wherein consequences cannot be grasped then processed. As a result, a sense of drift prevails. Yet below the surface churns a nebulous dread -- a feeling of being propelled towards a time of unbearable reckoning.

But such enervating thoughts must be banished from the mind; hence, amnesia, as a way of life, becomes the prevailing mindset of psyches minted in the media age hologram i.e., a manner of perceiving the world in which official accountability becomes as evanescent as last season's advertising campaign roll-out.

Voting for "change" becomes as meaningless and inconsequential as the introduction of Coke "Classic" and "Be all you can be." The U.S. might as well have election campaigns in which the Michelin Man runs against the Energizer Bunny.

By means of its inherently self-narrowing context, the lingua franca of the media hologram reduces complex and conflicted human aspirations into consumer choices -- and the vastness of life to retail experience, as, simultaneously, its proliferate narratives envelop, saturate and bind to the architecture of our psyches becoming the quanta of our thoughts and the shared lexicon of our utterances.

Living in this milieu, that is as manic as it is mind-grinding, decisions must be made rapidly, with little time allowed for reflection (decision-making carrying no more depth and lasting meaning than a text message vote by cell phone involving some contrived Reality TV competition) because the proliferation of empty, non-choices just keeps being proffered and the rate of arrival keeps accelerating.

Tragically, in this environment, the recent WikiLeaks revelations will be marginalized in the electronic image-crowded air and quickly dissipate like any other media-age phantom.

Yet the U.S. consumer state's infantilized inhabitants will never transfigure the raging Furies of truth-deferred into cooing Teletubbies of endless, imagined innocence (albeit, as terrifying as those homunculi of hell-bound cuteness are). The childishness of U.S. Uber-culture seems the voice of Orwellian Newspeak as it might have been composed by Dr. Seuss, in a fever delirium, dreaming he is Glenn Beck.

Often, it is not the content of what a cartoonish demagogue, such as Beck, is saying; rather, it is the way they say it -- the emotional tonality of the line reading that resonates with their audience.

Apropos, the U.S. is a depressing place nowadays. Viewed in the context of emotional catharsis, Glenn Beck's crying jags and feigned emotional disclosures resonate with his audience because there is much reason to weep regarding the degraded state of their lives.

In an era where policies of official secrecy and corporatist predation meet little resistance, dread and feelings of dislocation will be present just below the surface. If one listens to the subliminal criteria playing out beneath Beck's bathos, one can hear inadvertent arias intimating the end of empire -- a cheese-bag death-swoon -- operatic in scale.

What is lamentable is -- the emotional and intellectually dishonest, demagogic displacements he attributes to the cause of his audience's discontent and the sleight of hand employed to create the illusion of truths revealed.

"Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life."
--Eric Hoffer

This is the price paid when one affords scant deference to self-awareness, but, in contrast, possesses an unflagging fealty to the pursuit of shallow diversions and self-limiting delusion … All maintained by the crackpot casuistry, elevated to an art form, if not holy writ, in the U.S., that willful ignorance is a form of freedom of choice, that normalcy is maintained by official cover-ups and personal denial.

The system is rigged, from top to bottom; it is only through an astonishing (almost credulity-defying) degree of self-deception on the part of the general public of the U.S., in collaboration with the mendacity of its political and economic elite, this dim, brutal, unwieldy and wounded system continues to stagger onward.

Lamentably, the U.S. Empire, as was the case with any imperium throughout history, has grown into a bloated abomination kept provisionally alive by self-deluded apparatchik and ignorant killers. What can one do about the situation, other than try to get out of the way of this wounded giant and stand clear upon its inevitable collapse? Unfortunately, damn little.

The structure of the revolving door dynamic of the governmental/corporate exploiter class has allowed the elite therein to escape any sense of accountability.

In addition, their vastly inflated salaries, with attendant perks and privileges, have separated them even further from the general population; hence, providing them with immunity from consequences, as well as, insularity from commonplace experience; thus, allowing them to embrace the most airless of aspirations -- that greed, grotesquely out of proportion privilege, and unchecked power run riot constitutes a viable means to move in the world and establish a social order.

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made […]" F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Among the political elite of both major parties come few calls for the kind of disclosure and official accountability that could stem the decline of the nation.
Facing the fact that, in the U.S., there is not a true opposition party causes many people in the general population to become understandably angry, anxious, and depressed, thereby primed for pronouncements of demagogues and the diversions of commercial media palliatives.

"What WikiLeaks is doing is to short-circuit this entire democratic process — claiming for itself the exclusive, unilateral, and unchecked power to decide what should and shouldn’t be made public. This is therefore not only an attack on our national security, but an offense against our democracy and the principle of transparency.”
--Senator Joseph Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee

If one could cut through the thicket of false premises, logical fallacies, false dichotomies, arrays of strawmen, general flutter-headed palaver, and out-and-out paranoid fantasy marshaled by the caretakers and apologists of the present system, I would ask this question -- why is it you are driven with such vehemence to defend and attempt to preserve the current order?

As it is, it seems the nation is being held together with hydrogenated fat, wheat gluten, payday loans, Tyvek®, particleboard, and the provisional binding of homespun bigotry and official duplicity.

And what remains? How does one rise to meet the day confronted by such diminished prospects and prevailing degradations? Is there solace to be found in the following?

"It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men." -- Samuel Adams

Sadly, in the provinces beyond the Washington/New York government/corporate state nexus, it may well be impossible to start an authentic populist brushfire when the political landscape is covered in flame-retardant, corporate-laid Astroturf.

Still: It would be entertaining, in the very least, to rock the foundation of the U.S. House of Empire with the repeated force of numerous WikiLeaks-type revelations, until its closet doors are flung open wide, causing the skeletons within to dance.

by Phil Rockstroh

Boycott PayPal

2010-12-04T18:14:00.002+02:00

The PayPal boycott is picking up speed with numerous people on the PayPal help forum calling for a boycott. The facebook page can be found here.

2010-11-29T20:09:00.000+02:00

To the question of who will stand up to the super-rich, the answer is a clear and resounding:

NO ONE.

Thanksgiving American style

2010-11-28T17:32:00.000+02:00

Jodi, at I Cite, describes her Thanksgiving conversation:

"Conquer and divide"--those were the last words said by a senior executive from Bank of America before she left last night.

We were among the guests at a Thanksgiving dinner. At first she seemed just like any mommy from her class--Tory Burch vest, long blong hair, chic glasses, thin, three beautiful blond kids with high spirits and charming manners. Well into the event, after much champagne and wine, the truth came out. She wasn't just a capitalist apologist and beneficiary, the top 1 percent (or better), she was one of the bad guys.

She blamed the irresponsible poor for the financial crisis. Someone else at the table accused Obama of being a socialist; she agreed. She lamented Bank of America's purchase of Wachovia, the worst decision they ever made; they basically had no choice (and odd claim given the way she blamed for the crisis the free choices of the poor--now reconceived as devious scammers, somehow lazy despite their inventiveness at gaming the innocent banks as they took out mortgages they couldn't afford). I made the crying gesture (index fingers moving from corner of the eye down the cheeks): "this is me weeping for the banks."

At one point, after over half the guests had left the table and the yelling had died down a bit, I asked her, "You can't really believe what you are saying. You aren't a total idiot. Admit it, you guys are the ones who fucked up."

She wouldn't.

Which could mean it was deliberate--after all, they got bailed out. Too big to fail and all that. The ones left standing as the others went down. The senior vice presidents getting their bonuses and keeping their benefits. It's not personal. It's business. Strategy.

Conquer and divide . . .

the spoils.

Lendman

2010-08-29T20:32:00.000+03:00

Stephen Lendman discusses the state of the U.S. economy.

Henry Giroux on the Disappearing Intellectual

2010-07-24T18:52:00.000+03:00

Giroux has a good article on the disappearance of the intellectual. An excerpt:

Economic Darwinism shapes more than economies; it also produces ideas, values, power, morality and regimes of truth. Most importantly, regardless of its arrogance, it has to legitimate its power and theater of cruelty. Challenging its modes of legitimation and misrepresentations at the point of production is precisely an important task and mode of politics that should be addressed by critical intellectuals. Central ideological issues pushed by the advocates of neoliberalism extending from the myth of free markets, free trade, the limitless power of individual responsibility, the evils of the welfare state, the necessity of low taxes, the economic benefits of a permanent war economy, deregulation, privatization and commodification, along with the danger of giving the government any sense of public responsibility should be challenged head on in numerous venues by critical intellectuals.

2010-07-19T01:07:00.001+03:00

Who said the following?

2010-06-02T04:05:00.000+03:00

The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower the wages of labour. It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorizes, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work; but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, a merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment. In the long run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate.We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate. To violate this combination is everywhere a most unpopular action, and a sort of reproach to a master among his neighbours and equals. We seldom, indeed, hear of this combination, because it is the usual, and one may say, the natural state of things, which nobody ever hears of. Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate. These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy, till the moment of execution, and when the workmen yield, as they sometimes do, without resistance, though severely felt by them, they are never heard of by other people. Such combinations, however, are frequently resisted by a contrary defensive combination of the workmen; who sometimes too, without any provocation of this kind, combine of their own accord to raise the price of their labour. Their usual pretences are, sometimes the high price of provisions; sometimes the great profit which their masters make by their work. But whether their combinations be offensive or defensive, they are always abundantly heard of. In order to bring the point to a speedy decision, they have always recourse to the loudest clamour, and sometimes to the most shocking violence and outrage. They are desperate, and act with the folly and extravagance of desperate men, who must either starve, or frighten their masters into an immediate compliance with their demands. The masters upon these occasions are just as clamorous upon the other side, and never cease to call aloud for the assistance of the civil magistrate, and the rigorous execution of those laws which have been enacted with so much severity against the combinations of servants, labourers, and journeymen.
-------
They are the only one of the three orders whose revenue costs them neither labour nor care, but comes to them, as it were, of its own accord, and independent of any plan or project of their own. That indolence, which is the natural effect of the ease and security of their situation, renders them too often, not only ignorant, but incapable of that application of mind which is necessary in order to foresee and understand the consequences of any public regulation.The interest of the second order, that of those who live by wages, is as strictly connected with the interest of the society as that of the first. (…). But though the interest of the labourer is strictly connected with that of the society, he is incapable either of comprehending that interest or of understanding its connection with his own. His condition leaves him no time to receive the necessary information, and his education and habits are commonly such as to render him unfit to judge even though he was fully informed. In the public deliberations, therefore, his voice is little heard and less regarded, except upon some particular occasions, when his clamour is animated, set on and supported by his employers, not for his, but their own particular purposes.His employers constitute the third order, that of those who live by profit. It is the stock that is employed for the sake of profit which puts into motion the greater part of the useful labour of every society. The plans and projects of the employers of stock regulate and direct all the most important operations of labour, and profit is the end proposed by all those plans and projects. (…). Merchants and master manufacturers are, in this order, the two classes of people who commonly employ the largest capitals, and who by their wealth draw to themselves the greatest share of the public consideration. As during their whole lives they are engaged in plans and projects, they have frequently more acuteness of understanding than the greater part of country gentlemen. (…).The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens. The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.
-----
Our merchants frequently complain of the high wages of British labour as the cause of their manufactures being undersold in foreign markets, but they are silent about the high profits of stock. They complain of the extravagant gain of other people, but they say nothing of their own. The high profits of British stock, however, may contribute towards raising the price of British manufactures in many cases as much, and in some perhaps more, than the high wages of British labour.

What grammar's for.

2010-01-03T20:27:00.003+02:00

On his 73rd birthday, a man in Arizona received a gift certificate from his wife that paid for a visit to a medicine man living on a nearby reservation. The medicine man was rumored to have a wonderful cure for erectile dysfunction.

After being persuaded, he drove to the reservation, handed his ticket to the medicine man, all the time wondering what was to come.

The old medicine man slowly and methodically produced a potion, which he handed to the 74 year-old. Gripping his shoulder, the medicine man warned, "This is powerful medicine and it must be respected. You take only a teaspoonful and then say '1-2-3'. When you do that, you will become manlier than you have ever been in your life and you will be able to perform as long as you want."

"0kay." The old man was encouraged. As he walked away, he turned and asked, "How do I stop the medicine from working?"

"Your partner must say '1-2-3-4,'" the medicine man responded.

"When she does that, the medicine will not work again until the next full moon."

The old man was very eager to see if the potion worked, so he went home, showered, shaved, took a spoonful of the medicine, and then invited his wife to join him in the bedroom.

When she came in, he took off his clothes and said, "1-2-3!" Immediately, he was the manliest of men.

His wife was excited and began throwing off her clothes. And then she asked, "What was the 1-2-3 for?"

And that, boys and girls, is why we should never end our sentences with a preposition – or one will end up with a dangling participle!

Green Carriage

2009-10-24T04:34:00.002+03:00

This folk song from Russia, called Green Carriage, recently featured in a Korean TV series. It's a catchy tune!

Beck as Art Critic

2009-09-17T18:20:00.000+03:00

This babbling nonsense is now considered "news"! Freekin' amazing.

Taxes on whom?

2008-10-24T23:18:00.000+03:00

Howard Zinn has a good interview about taxes.

McCain and racism

2008-10-05T03:26:00.000+03:00

McCain seems to have some racism issues.

Syria bombs Israel

2007-09-20T20:56:00.000+03:00

Have I been out of the loop or was this really in the news?

Two weeks ago, by many accounts, Israeli aircraft penetrated deep into Syrian airspace to bomb a target that some speculate might have been a joint Syrian-North Korean nuclear weapons facility. What's surprising is the calm that has followed. Damascus announced that Syrian air defenses shot at Israeli intruders. It briefed Western diplomats and lodged a formal and perfunctory complaint with the United Nation Security Council. But that's all. With no subsequent show of military force, it seems as if Syria is dismissing the strike as ho-hum.

Patridiot Act

2005-07-22T06:29:00.000+03:00

Brad Blog has an important post about abuses related to the Patriot Act. Every American should be up in arms about how the Act's vague wording provides the government with the ability to monitor anything whenever they want.

Strongbad News

2005-07-14T07:47:00.000+03:00

Those who really yearn to know what's going on in the world right now, should take a look at Strongbad News.

Origins of Chinese culture

2005-07-11T22:17:00.000+03:00

I thought the following article was interesting. Were the Chinese tiger worshippers somehow related to the Koreans who worshipped a mountain spirit riding on a tiger?

JINSHA, China (AFP) - Day after sweltering day on the banks of the Modi stream, archeologists are dealing shattering blows to traditional views of Chinese history as they work their way through the parched, yellow earth.

One of the world's great cities once flourished here at Jinsha village in China's southwest, the 1000 B.C. equivalent of New York or Paris, and then inexplicably vanished, leaving no trace behind in the historical records.
Until recently, locals had no idea they were living on top of a great lost bronze-age civilization.
"Of course, people get excited when they hear that their home area has such a long history, such an advanced culture, and such refined art," says Jiang Zhanghua, deputy head of the Institute of Archeology in nearby Chengdu city.
The discovery of the site was entirely fortuitous, reflecting how much of the patchy record of the pre-historic past has come together merely by chance.
On a winter day in early 2001, excavation teams sent to the site by a property developer unearthed large numbers of ivory and jade artifacts that clearly suggested a major find.
If the company had decided to just carry on its work, covering the site in concrete as is believed by archeologists to be quite common, the Jinsha civilization might have been forgotten forever. But they called in authorities.
In and by themselves, the artifacts are striking in their weirdness -- masks with strangely protruding eyes, cult statues frozen in poses of unknown, but likely religious, significance.
More importantly, the spectacular discovery in Jinsha has added to the mass of evidence forcing historians to rethink Chinese history as a whole.
It is now clear that Chinese culture had multiple origins and did not, as previous generations of historians confidently believed, follow a simple path from just one single source.
It is a popular idea that the cradle of Chinese civilization is in the Yellow River valley about 1,000 kilometers (625 miles) northeast of Chengdu, and matured there before gradually spreading southward.
If nothing else, this traditional concept of history is supported by ancient myths about the Yellow Emperor and other early rulers, held dear by many Chinese.
But historians have long suspected this cannot be right. Ever since, that is, the discovery of the Sanxingdui civilization, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the Jinsha excavation site.
Here archeologists have been unearthing artifacts for most of the 20th century, discovering what now is confirmed as one of the world's major pre-historic civilizations.
The Sanxingdui culture, which blossomed from 5000 to 3000 B.C., is characterized by the same radical strangeness as that unearthed at Jinsha.
Masks with oversized eyes and eyebrows, some of them covered with gold leaf, are among its hallmarks.
But even as they display unique features, both Sanxingdui and Jinsha also show remarkable parallels with other ancient cultures.
"Sun worship was practiced here at the same time as it formed a central part of ancient Egyptian cults," says Zhu Yarong, a young historian at the large museum erected at Sanxingdui.
"People here appear to have worshipped sacred trees, just like in Mesopotamia, in modern-day
Iraq' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> Iraq," she says.
-- Mysteries of the past --
As the archeologists analyze the finds, they try to solve important questions, such as why the Sanxingdui site had a city wall while Jinsha did not.
The absence of a city wall in Jinsha is particularly strange, because cities in ancient China emerged as concentrations of political power, not trading centers as was mostly the case in the west.
Researchers also know little about the ties the Sanxingdui and Jinsha people had with other cultures, even if they can determine that exchanges must have been frequent.
The archeological teams have uncovered large numbers of ivory tusks originating from China's current border with mainland Southeast Asia. The question is, how did they get here, and why?
Other questions remain. Where did the Sanxingdui and Jinsha people come from? Where did they go? And what exactly characterized their religion?
These are questions that may never be answered, for the Sanxingdui people left no written record.
It is odd that people at their stage of development did not invent some type of writing system, but it is not unheard of.
Other civilizations, most notably in pre-Columbian America, were also illiterate, even as they were highly advanced in other fields such as architecture or astronomy.
For Zhu, the museum historian, the discovery of written records would be a dream come true, unlocking hidden knowledge about how the mystical ancient inhabitants of the area lived and what their thoughts and feelings were.
"We don't know if they actually did invent writing. Maybe they did, but they used a material that has not survived to this day. It would be major, major step forward if we found written records," she says.
It adds to the mystery surrounding the Sanxingdui culture that it suddenly disappeared about 3,000 years ago, handing the torch of civilization to Jinsha.
"A large devastating flood is one of the hypotheses set up to try and explain why the civilization disappeared," says Zhu. "Another is that they simply devoted too many resources to religious activities."
This is an intriguing explanation, as it would almost put Sanxingdui on a par with the extinguished culture of Easter Island, a society believed to have steered slowly towards annihilation in a fatal wish to please the gods.
The Easter Islanders felled all their forests for logs to move their giant statues, destroying their own environment. Similar self-defeating behavior may have spelled doom at Sanxingdui.
Another explanation favored by some historians is more belligerent in nature. The Sanxingdui may have collapsed under the weight of massive immigration from further east.
The decline of the Sanxingdui culture coincides with evidence of the arrival in the Chengdu area of the Ba, a mysterious tiger-worshipping people, which may have had their original home in present-day Hubei province in central China.
"It's very likely that the two events are linked," says Jiang, the Chengdu archeologist. "We don't know if the arrival of the Ba people was generally peaceful, but surely there must have been some frictions."

Bush's Uranium Lies

2005-07-05T09:40:00.000+03:00

Just one more reason to demand Bush's impeachment.

DSM

2005-06-30T17:27:00.000+03:00

It felt good to watch Howard Dean recently bring up the Downing Street Memo on Hardball:

DEAN: Chris, I think the Downing Street Memos and other pieces of evidence, including the 9/11 Commission, have indicated that the administration was not truthful to the American people about how we got to Iraq. I think that's a fact. The administration would like it not to be a fact but it is a fact. It has been confirmed by many mainstream organizations, including a commission lead by a Republican and a Democrat. A well respected Republican and Democrat.

Ulsan

2005-06-01T20:47:00.000+03:00

Chrenkoff discusses the recent whale conference held in Ulsan.

Seuseungeuinal

2005-05-11T21:35:00.000+03:00

Have you filled out your blogger application yet?

2005-04-06T22:05:00.000+03:00

Problems with Wife 1.0

2005-02-09T16:25:00.000+02:00

Dear Tech Support:

Last year I upgraded from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0. I soon noticed that the new program began unexpected child processing that took up a lot of space and valuable resources. In addition, Wife 1.0 installed itself into all other programs and now monitors all other system activity. Applications such as Poker Night 10.3, Football 5.0, Hunting and Fishing 7.5, and Racing 3.6
I can't seem to keep Wife 1.0 in the background while attempting to run my favorite applications. I'm thinking about going back to Girlfriend 7.0, but the uninstall doesn't work on Wife 1.0. Please help!

Thanks,

A Troubled User.
______________________________________

REPLY:
Dear Troubled User:

This is a very common problem that men complain about.

Many people upgrade from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0, thinking that it is just a Utilities and Entertainment program. Wife 1.0 is an OPERATING SYSTEM and is designed by its Creator to run EVERYTHING!!! It is also impossible to delete Wife 1.0 and to return to Girlfriend 7.0. It is impossible to uninstall, or purge the program files from the system once installed.

You cannot go back to Girlfriend 7.0 because Wife 1.0 is designed to not allow this. Look in your Wife 1.0 manual under Warnings-Alimony-Child Support I recommend that you keep Wife1.0 and work on improving the situation. I suggest installing the background application "Yes Dear" to alleviate software augmentation.

The best course of action is to enter the command C:\APOLOGIZE because ultimately you will have to give the APOLOGIZE command before the system will return to normal anyway.

Wife 1.0 is a great program, but it tends to be very high maintenance. Wife 1.0 comes with several support programs, such as Clean and Sweep 3.0, Cook It 1.5 and Do Bills 4.2.

However, be very careful how you use these programs. Improper use will cause the system to launch the program Nag Nag 9.5. Once this happens, the only way to improve the performance of Wife 1.0 is to purchase additional software. I recommend Flowers 2.1 and Diamonds 5.0 !

WARNING!!! DO NOT, under any circumstances, install Secretary With Short Skirt 3.3 This application is not supported by Wife 1.0 and will cause irreversible damage to the operating system.

Best of luck,
Tech Support

Another delegation heads to NK

2005-01-05T16:43:00.000+02:00

Representative Curt Weldon (R-Pa) will be leading a bi-partisan delegation to Pyeongyang, the first official U.S. visit in about a year. Without a basket full of carrots (nixed by the Bush administration) or sticks (nixed by the Iraqi War), there's probably not much likelihood of the group scoring a major breakthrough. Yet with NK, one never knows. The North Korean leadership has occasionally lain down the script by making some off-the-wall proposal.

Amendments to NK constitution

2004-12-08T20:08:00.000+02:00

The Joongang Ilbo reports that NK has now amended its constitution. The new laws:

Allow for protections of copyrights.
Prevent internet related crimes such as hacking as well as distribution of pornographic CDs.
Raise penalties for attempting to defect to SK.

Meditation and Neuroscience

2004-11-17T20:30:00.000+02:00

The Science Journal has an interesting article titled Scans of Monks' Brains Show Meditation Alters Structure, Functioning.

Bears

2004-11-12T01:21:00.000+02:00

The NY Times has an article today about bears making a comeback in Japan and becoming a "problem." I'd figured that bears would have been extinct in Japan at this point. Haven't the Japanese whacked every bear around in order to get those tasty bear paws? Koreans assure me that Korea has bears--the little bandal gom--but it they do, it's as good at hiding as the Lochness monster.

Voting Fraud?

2004-11-11T19:23:00.000+02:00

The Washington Post has an article today questioning the claims of voting fraud throughout the U.S.

Jenkins (2)

2004-11-04T17:35:00.000+02:00

Jenkins, who defected to North Korea years back, has received a 30-day sentence. It seems that he'll be incarcerated at a U.S. base in Japan.

Peanuts, Pretzels and Terrorists

2004-10-25T23:47:00.000+03:00

The Fly Bottle has an interesting post about an article by Mueller stating that we have about as much chance of dying in a terrorist attack as we do of getting hit by lightning or dying from a peanut allergy (or for the clue-challenged, suffocating on a pretzel).

Writer's on the campaign

2004-10-13T22:21:00.000+03:00

Slate recently asked a couple dozen writers who they're voting for. Almost all said Kerry. The article includes a short write up by each author.

Living long

2004-10-01T03:42:00.000+03:00

According to new research done by Park Sang-chul, a medical professor at SNU, and professors from other schoools, the secret to living long (jangsu) is:

Eating regular meals
Having a positive attitude
Being industrious

From the research I've seen, a starvation diet is probably the most useful thing one can do. There's also research out on the Okinawa diet, since people from that island live so long.

Jenkins

2004-09-24T01:05:00.000+03:00

Far Outliers has a post on the Jenkin's case. He provides a link to KorAm Journal, which has an interesting article on the Army's language school called the Defense Language Institute

Korean troops in Iraq

2004-09-22T23:53:00.000+03:00

South Korea is now the third largest contingent in Iraq!

Shilla and ancient Japan

2004-09-06T19:13:00.000+03:00

There's a new Japanese book out on the connections between Shilla religious beliefs and ancient Japan.

The Poet

2004-08-31T20:35:00.000+03:00

I recently read Yi Munyol's book The Poet. It's a historical work of fiction that aims to stay as close as possible to the historical record. Yi does a good job of bringing out the feeling of the era and the periods of Kim Sakkat's life.

A very existentialist joke

2004-08-20T18:16:00.000+03:00

There are two cows eating grass in a large, green field in a rural section of New Jersey. Suddenly, from behind a bush, a rabbit leaps out and runs away. One cow looks round a bit, eats some grass, and then wanders off.

Adopted from a post on Putnawa's blog.

Why so many donkey eggs?

2004-08-20T06:07:00.000+03:00

I've run across several "donkey egg" stories. There is one, of course, from Korea. And in Eire and France, as well as in a Turkish(?) collection of stories. I even came across a Xhosa story? What are we to make of these odd parallels in the folk-tales from such far-away places? Is the Korean story an early import from the silk road? Did the story go the other way to the Middle East?

Breakfast

2004-08-20T04:43:00.000+03:00

This morning, as I sat down to my usual brekky of donkey eggs and kimchi, the thought occurred to me, "Wouldn't this be a downright clever moniker for mah new blog!" So I runs on over to mah ol' 486 and crank her up til I hear the hard-drive a purrin' and try to bang mah thoughts out before the inspiration stop coursin' through mah veins. Of course, them blokes over yonder at Blogger, they be tellin' me that some other clever fellah (or i guess it could a been a dame, don't mean to be short-sellin' ya lady folk) already done thought of the name. Helluva thing, that is. But then i google the url and what's i find out--there ain't no such thing. So i signs up and gets the clever name all fer me lonesome. Now i know whaccha thinkun. This blog, hell, it ain't got no purty pictures, no blinkin' lights, none of them things like them big city blogs got. But don't you be putting down us country bloggers. Cause if ye do, hell, we show ya up. So sit back, bate yo breath, and take out yer pipe fer a while. An' if ya want, grab ya a few a dem donkey eggs wit kimchi on'em. Cause dat be the way mah ol' Corean grammy used to make em, back in the day when men be men and tigers be running round with der mustashies.