Cleaning Up Carthage

The city of Carthage, in modern-day Tunisia, has a bit of an image problem that some historians would like to attribute to ancient Roman propaganda: The ancient city of Carthage was accused of infanticide and at least one archaeologist is trying to prove the tradition to be bunk:

"An expert on ancient Carthage — a city obliterated by the Romans more than 2,000 years ago — Mr. [Mhamed Hassine] Fantar is campaigning to clear his forefathers of a nasty stigma: a reputation for infanticide.

"’We didn’t do it,’ says the 69-year-old archaeologist, rejecting accusations that the ancient citizens of this North African land sacrificed babies to appease their gods."

On the other side of the academic divide over the issue, another archaeologist says the revisionist version of Carthage’s history is a "whitewash":

"Lawrence Stager, a Harvard University archaeology professor and expert on the subject, calls the revisionism a whitewash. He’s now editing a book that will include the results of long forensic analysis of charred bones he helped dig up in Carthage in the 1970s. This, says Mr. Stager, will prove beyond reasonable doubt that Mr. Fantar and his followers are wrong. Still, he isn’t expecting to win them over. ‘No one really relishes having ancestors who committed such heinous acts,’ he says."

GET THE STORY.

Note to archaeologists two thousand years from now who may be arguing over whether Western societies of the twenty-first century committed infanticide to appease their "gods":

It’s true. We really did do it.

JIMMY ADDS: Carthago delenda est!

Having A Damaged Angular Gyrus Is Like Having A . . . Uh . . . Hm.

Angular_gyrusScientists here in S.D. have found an area of the brain–known as the angular gyrus–that if damaged impairs a person’s ability to understand figurative speech such as metaphors.

EXCERPT:

After being pressed by the interviewers to provide deeper meaning [for metaphorical phrases they encountered], "the patients often came up with elaborate, even ingenious interpretations, that were completely off the mark," Ramachandran remarks. For example, patient SJ expounded on "all that glitters is not gold" by noting that you should be careful when buying jewelry because the sellers could rob you of your money.

GET THE STORY.

Those with damaged angular gyruses presumably would make great "straight men" in comedy acts.

(P.S. Yes, I know the title of this blog post is an incomplete similie rather than a metaphor.)

AP Makes "Slight" Correction

TEXT OF CORRECTION:

ROME – In a May 26 story about Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to a Rome

basilica, The Associated Press erroneously reported that Catholics

believe the Eucharist represents the body and blood of Christ. Instead,

Catholics believe the Eucharist is the body and blood of Christ.

SOURCE.

Oops!

Guess they started hearing from folks.

(CHT to the reader who e-mailed.)

AP Makes “Slight” Correction

TEXT OF CORRECTION:

ROME – In a May 26 story about Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to a Rome
basilica, The Associated Press erroneously reported that Catholics
believe the Eucharist represents the body and blood of Christ. Instead,
Catholics believe the Eucharist is the body and blood of Christ.

SOURCE.

Oops!

Guess they started hearing from folks.

(CHT to the reader who e-mailed.)

The Age Of Google

I research things for a living. Knowing where and how to get information–at least within my chosen field–is the warp and woof of my trade.

This has an impact on how I read and watch fiction. F’rinstance: I like the movie All The President’s Men about the Woodward-Bernstein investigation of Watergate. Set in the early 1970s, I’m fascinated by the way the two reporters go about piecing together the story that’s in front of them. It’s fascinating because they have to go to great lengths to get certain pieces of information that you could get in five seconds today (e.g., by doing a search on Switchboard.Com). They also manage to get their mitts on certain info that would be incredibly hard or impossible to get today due to their being subject now to much greater privacy and confidentiality requirements.

If you wrote a story about a similar investigation today, you’d have to change the ways that the reporters go about putting the story together.

Technology has changed the flow of information in society dramatically, and it has and will continue to force changes in how the flow of information is depicted in drama.

Take the episode "Passing Through Gethsemane" of Babylon 5, which I was watching last night. This episode has a lot going for it:

  • It features the Dominican monks who were recurring characters on the series.
  • It lets one of the Domincans get in a really good poke at those who claim to be "openminded" as a cover for refusing to find a definite belief system.
  • It features the only on-screen (or off-screen) administration of the last rites I know of in any mainstream sci-fi TV show.
  • It has extensive discussion of religious belief including the strain Jesus was under in the Garden of Gethsemane.
  • It has ethical discussion of the death penalty and the sci-fi alternatives there might be for it.
  • It focuses heavily on themes of sin and guilt and atonement and forgiveness, including making the point that God can forgive your sins even if you don’t remember them.
  • Part of the soundtrack is Gregorian chant.
  • It shows monks living up to ideals that are harder than humanly imaginable, but clearly worthwhile.
  • And it features Capt. Sheridan and Garibaldi doing something flagrantly illegal that you’d never see Picard and Riker doing in a million years. (Sticking a bag over the head of an alien telepath so he can’t identify a human telepath as she rips a crucial, potentially life-saving piece of information out of his head against his will.)

And all this written by an atheist!

But despite all these great elements, it’s obvious that the episode was written before Google.

Why’s that?

Because one of the Dominicans in the episode–Brother Edward (played by Brad Dourif)–beguns to have a number of really weird and sinister things happen to him. Among them are the appearance of a black rose and the words "Death Walks Among You" apparently written in blood on a wall.

Br. Edward reports this to Security Chief Garibaldi, but despite this fact, the first thing Garibaldi doesn’t do is search Google (or the 23rd century equivalent of Google) for the words "black rose" and "Death Walks Among You."

Any kind of ritualistic clues like that immediately call out for a cyber-search to see if there are any parallels to them.

Had Garibaldi searched on these items sooner, he would have found out what was at the basis of the mystery much sooner, and possibly prevented a crime and saved a life.

Heck, if you search Google today for those items, you’ll find out what was at the bottom of all this.

TRY IT.

In the future, expect a lot more cyber-searches in detective stories.

Art imitates life. (At least to some degree.)

Still a great episode, tho.

Will On The European Constitution

I’ve said it before: EUROPE NEEDS TO REJECT THE CONSTITUTION IT’S NOW CONSIDERING.

GEORGE WILL ECHOES THE SAME, WITH PARTICULARS ABOUT SOME OF THE NUTTINESS THAT WOULD BE ENSHRINED IN THE CONSTITUTION.

UPDATE: My apologies for the lack of the link to the George Will piece! Didn’t realize it wasn’t there. Let’s hope the French vote totally derails this constitution. As Will makes clear, it’s got a lot of really nutty stuff in it.

A-Ha!

Y’all may remember that a piece back I was complaining about some really Evil web advertising by the ringtone company Jamster, which has been under investigation for its marketing practices.

The advertising featured what I described at the time as "a repulsive and depraved looking photo-art fishman (with a figleaf over
his genitals and a pair of aviators’ goggles) who zoomed jerkily and
frenetically back and forth across the ad space in a nauseating fashion."

I never visited Jamster’s page–even to complain–but I recently turned up information on what the evil fish character is all about. It turns out that the character was not created by Jamster but buy some Swedish guy, and it (the character, not the guy so far as I know) is named "The Annoying Thing." (Big surprise.)

It was inspired by a popular sound on the Internet by another Swede imitating the noise made by a particular kind of moped engine.

The evil Jamster then licensed The Annoying Thing as an advertising mascot and used the sound as the basis for a ringtone.

The ringtone is called Crazy Frog (warning: some crude content), and it has been extensively marketed in the UK, causing folks there excruciating anguish.

Now there is a music single out based on the ringtone called "Crazy Frog Axel F," which is set to go number 1 on the British charts.

People are acting all surprised about this–"How could a ringtone get to the top of the charts?" they are wondering–but it’s not much of a mystery when one listens to the thing and realizes that despite the presence of a sputtering Swede in it, "Crazy Frog Axel F" is really just a remix of "Axel F," the smash-hit themesong to the 1984 movie Beverly Hills Cop (about a guy named Axel Foley, you may recall).

LISTEN HERE IF YOU NEED A REFRESHER ON WHAT AXEL F SOUNDS LIKE: WMP | REAL

Since virtually none of the young people driving the British music charts today were alive in 1984 (and even fewer capable of remembering Beverly Hills Cop), it is hardly surprising that one of the biggest songs of the day could be brought back, introduced to the new audience, and do well on the radio.

What we really have here is the Crazy Frog sound hijacking an existing popular song. If you just played the engine-sputtering Swede on the radio, it wouldn’t do nearly as well. It’s because a well-written song has been infested with the Crazy Frog sound that it’s able to get that far.

And of course that’s even assuming the British charts are honest and the whole thing isn’t just a publicity stunt cooked up by evil executives at Jamster in league with evil chart cookers and the Easter Bunny (and the Annoying Thing).

The Fall Of Constantinople

ConstantinopleToday in 1453 Constantinople fell to attacking Muslim forces, ending the Byzantine Empire.

That this happened was a great tragedy and yet another instance of jihad being successfully waged against Christendom.

The tragedy could have been prevented had European Christians worked together, and both western and eastern Christians are responsible for the fact that they didn’t.

The fall of Constantinople also comes as a salutary warning for Europe today, whose demographic trends are dooming them to cultural extinction in the face of Muslim demographic jihad.

GET THE STORY.