Hampton Roads Publishing Company Blog

A friend sends this article from the New York Times that once again shows how simplistic are our “modern” ideas of the mental world and abilities of our predecessors. “After all, they weren’t the ones to invent the hydrogen bomb, and machine guns, and the ICBM, so how civilized could they have been?” The answer is — plenty, and we’re only little by little rediscovering how much so.

AN ANCIENT COMPUTER SURPRISES SCIENTISTS
By John Noble Wilford
New York Times
November 29, 2006

A computer in antiquity would seem to be an anachronism, like Athena
ordering takeout on her cellphone.

But a century ago, pieces of a strange mechanism with bronze gears and dials
were recovered from an ancient shipwreck off the coast of Greece. Historians
of science concluded that this was an instrument that calculated and
illustrated astronomical information, particularly phases of the Moon and
planetary motions, in the second century B.C.

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A friend sent me this story but the formatting was messed up, so I tracked it down to its original website, which is http://www.kcwallace.com/Article.aspx?id=7 and copied it here. I don’t know anything about football, and I care less than that, but even I have heard of Bear Bryant. This is a nice story, and sounds true.

A BEAR BRYANT STORY

At a TD Club meeting many years before his death, Coach Bryant told the following story…typical of the way he operated.

I had just been named the new head coach at Alabama and was off in my old car down in South Alabama recruiting a prospect who was supposed to have been a pretty good player and I was havin’ trouble finding the place. Getting hungry I spied an old cinder block building with a small sign out front that simply said “Restaurant.”

I pull up, go in and every head in the place turns to stare at me. Seems I’m the only white fella in the place. But the food smelled good so I skip a table and go up to a cement bar and sit. A big ole man in a tee shirt and cap comes over and says, “What do you need?” I told him I needed lunch and what did they have today? He says, “You probably won’t like it here, today we’re having chitlins, collard greens and black eyed peas with cornbread. I’ll bet you don’t even know what chitlins are, do you?”

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Is it possible that Virginia just elected itself a Senator who is for real?

We’re hearing a lot about Jim Webb’s “snub” of Bush at a White House reception. You know what it sounds like to me? It sounds like he finally have somebody in there who:

* Isn’t overawed by the individual because of the institution.

* Isn’t looking to ingratiate himself.

* Isn’t afraid of being accused of being “not a team player” — as if all those team players who voted for the Patriot Act have served us well!

* Didn’t feel any need to then go out and advertise his independence. (The incident apparently happened a couple of weeks ago.)

Now of course civility is desirable in government as in all human activities. But it is not hard to feel a sense of satisfaction, reading about Bush being snubbed, given that he has publically called his political adversaries witting or unwitting traitors, and has made plain his disdain for those who disagree with him.

One White House reception does not a Senate career make, but — good for Jim Webb!

Here is an important message. You may want to look at the associate website, http://www.kachina.net/~alunajoy/awake.html. (But don’t forget to come back!)

The Awakening
Inca Spiritual Messenger, Willaru Huayta

Today, after 2,000 years, the Sun is rising. Its rays bring health, purity and wisdom for the healing of all humanity. The ancient Andean people, the Incas, followed the laws of Mother Nature (Pachamama) and the Great Spirit Creator (Pachacamag). They knew the Sun to be the center of powerful magnetic energies whose life each living thing depended upon. Sun rays are the gift of the Great Spirit, giving life and radiance to all of nature.

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This report was included in the Schwartzreport for Tuesday Nov. 28. (Once again, Stephan Schwartz demonstrates his ability to find meaningful under-reported news.)

You may remember that I posted a similar item a little while ago, about regeneration of limbs in mammals. The importance of that item, and this one, is that it reinforces what dealers in “magic” know: Our potential control over our bodies, our minds, our spirits — our lives, in short — is vastly greater than society yet admits. Perhaps as science comes around, society’s opiinion will follow.

Teeth Regrown for the First Time

HAMISH CLARKE - Cosmos (Australia)

[Thanks to Damien Broderick.]

SYDNEY — For the first time researchers have been able to induce the growth of replacement teeth in mammals. Unlike other vertebrates, mammals normally lose the ability after they replace their milk teeth in infancy.

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Isn’t it obvious that this is the only way it’s going to end? Like it or not, at some point we are going to go home, and the Iraqis are going to take control of their own country. That doesn’t mean it will end well. It is more likely — thanks to our blundering efforts to turn the course of their history — that it will end badly. No matter what, though, the future of Iraq has less to do with us than them. Just as was the case with Vietnam, and Cuba, and every other place we’ve meddled in since the end of World War II.

If our brilliant leadership had half as much brains as it has arrogance, it would know this.

Iran’s supreme leader urges U.S.-led foreign troops to leave Iraq

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday urged U.S.-led foreign troops to leave Iraq as the first step toward restoring security in the violence-torn country, state television reported.

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Michael Ventura has been writing a column called “Letters at 3 AM” for more than 25 years. Currently appearing in the Austin (Texas) Chronicle, the column ranges widely, discussing all aspects of the human condition. Here is his column of November 24, 2006, with his thoughts on the congressional elections.

A POST-ELECTION NOTEBOOK

INCOMPETENCE: Though one may wonder and moan about how long it took, this November our republic behaved like a republic. The people overcame gerrymandering and a $100 million GOP spending advantage to repudiate incompetent Republican government.

Whether anti-GOP voters cited corruption, health care, Iraq or the economy, their basic beef was incompetence. In 2004 many of these voters proved willing to tolerate lies, torture, bribery, a crippling deficit and the betrayal of the Bill of Rights. But this November that old-timey American pragmatic streak asserted itself. A majority drew the line when folks could no longer refuse the conclusion that their rulers are incompetent.

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A British report on the threat that we all are becoming a “surveillance society.” Hard to argue that we aren’t.

Surveillance warning over ‘bigger brother’

MARTIN WILLIAMS

Regulators are struggling to keep up with the advances in technology used to track people’s lives as Britain is watched by “bigger brother”, a report warns today.

Telephones, e-mails and internet use can all be tapped and screened for key words and phrases by British and American intelligence services, the Report on the Surveillance Society says. Video cameras watch our every move, our buying habits are monitored covertly with the data sold to businesses and biometric ID cards and passports which contain data including fingerprints and iris scans on a computer chip are soon to be introduced in the UK.

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I noticed this article and thought — what a great idea! No doubt there is an upper limit to the places where it would work. Imagine the chaos in New York City, for instance. Even a city of 50,000 might have difficulty with it. For that matter, even a city much smaller might have trouble if its roads were too heavily travelled. But “too heavily travelled” is a matter of definition — and maybe could be determined only by experimentation.

I have long thought that traffic regulation is one of the major causes for the creeping advance of the police state, as people get more and more accustomed to following arbitrary rules automatically.

European Cities Do Away with Traffic Signs

MATTHIAS SCHULZ - Spiegel (Germany)

Are streets without traffic signs conceivable? Seven cities and regions in Europe are giving it a try — with good results.

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This surfaced earlier this month. Obviously, the chaos arrived in due time, as promised.

War simulation in 1999 pointed out Iraq invasion problems

WASHINGTON (AP) — A series of secret U.S. war games in 1999 showed that an invasion and post-war administration of Iraq would require 400,000 troops, nearly three times the number there now.

And even then, the games showed, the country still had a chance of dissolving into chaos.

In the simulation, called Desert Crossing, 70 military, diplomatic and intelligence participants concluded the high troop levels would be needed to keep order, seal borders and take care of other security needs.

The documents came to light Saturday through a Freedom of Information Act request by George Washington University’s National Security Archive, an independent research institute and library.

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