Author: Jackson

But Will There Be Zeppelins?

~ Jackson ~ 1 Comment

The WSJ‘s Weekend Journal has a cover story on modern American secessionist movements. Unlike most press on the matter, writer Paul Starobin posits economics rather than politics or cultural differences may drive a hypothetical devolution of the Union:

[George F. Kennan’s] spirit, the spirit of an anti-federalist modernist, can be glimpsed in an intriguing “mega-region” initiative encompassing greater San Diego County, next-door Imperial County and, to the immediate south of the U.S. border, Northern Baja, Mexico. Elected officials representing all three participating areas recently unveiled “Cali Baja, a Bi-National Mega-Region,” as the “international marketing brand” for the project.

The idea is to create a global economic powerhouse by combining San Diego’s proven abilities in scientific research and development with Imperial County’s abundance of inexpensive land and availability of water rights and Northern Baja’s manufacturing base, low labor costs and ability to supply the San Diego area with electricity during peak-use terms.

Cali Baja has no intention of seceding; the point is, necessity is the mother of state-building.

Image courtesy of WizKids Games. And if you don’t understand it, then you haven’t been playing the right video games.

Eyes in the Sky Find Hidden Forest, Dope

~ Jackson ~ Leave a comment

A conservationist tinkering with Google Earth discovered a 27-square-mile forest chock full of new species:

The mountainous area of northern Mozambique in southern Africa had been overlooked by science due to inhospitable terrain and decades of civil war in the country.

However, while scrolling around on Google Earth, an internet map that allows the viewer to look at satellite images of anywhere on the globe, scientists discovered an unexpected patch of green.

A British-led expedition was sent to see what was on the ground and found 7,000 hectares of forest, rich in biodiversity, known as Mount Mabu.

Full story here. The best kind of Eye in the Sky here.

Meanwhile, police in Switzerland recently used Google Earth to harsh the mellow of a couple of local pot farmers. Dude! So not cool.

Hack Review: Don’t Know Much About History

~ Jackson ~ Leave a comment

Another blog I frequent has something called “Premature Book Reviews” wherein the author reviews books before he’s completely read them. In a similar vein, I hereby christen my own feature in which I review books so bad I can’t finish them.

The plugs on Kenneth C. Davis’s Don’t Know Much About History: Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned declare it a New York Times bestseller, 1.3 million copies sold, “the renowned classic completely updated” from its first printing in 1990. Inside Davis uses a question-and-answer style to sketch American chronology from 1492 to the 2000 presidential election. What’s not to like?

It can’t be his bias that bothers me because Davis isn’t biased. He says so in his introduction:

It is interesting to me that my work was sometimes described as “liberal.” … And if “liberal” means believing in the ideas of America as laid out in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution — ideas like “All men are created equal,” “We, the people,” “a more perfect union” (you get the idea) — then I plead guilty to the charge.

Why do Mr. Davis’s critics hate America? Are their ears deaf to the Boston Symphony Orchestra playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” as he pounds the keyboard? How dare they impugn this patriot, this lover of mom and apple pie! It would be easier to believe Davis if he didn’t quote three negative opinions (one conservative, two liberal) of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bush v. Gore while failing to provide any affirmative ones.

But it’s not this that demonstrates a colobus monkey is better qualified to write a book than Davis. In his entry “So if Columbus didn’t really discover America, who did?” Davis doesn’t discuss settlement of the Americas by Paleo-Indians, via Beringia or otherwise; and he only briefly mentions L’Anse Aux Meadows, adding “While archaeology has answered some questions, many others remain about the sojourn of the Norse in the Americas.” Thing is, archaeology has answered most of the questions about L’Anse Aux Meadows. Excavations in the ’60s and ’70s told us it was a Norse outpost used to harvest lumber, furs, nuts, fish, and more from around the Gulf of St. Lawrence for export back to Greenland and Iceland. All of this is well-documented, though you would never know it from Davis. Instead, he segues into the usual conspiracy theories of Irish monks and Chinese sailors discovering the New World, and then dives off-topic into Mark Kurlanksy’s Cod for two whole pages. I could write a separate Hack Review on the problems with Kurlansky’s book, but in this case Davis tries to use Kurlansky to fill the chasm of his own ignorance.

If you don’t know much about American history, you can do better than this book. If you already read history, then you already know better.

Ghost Town and Country

~ Jackson ~ Leave a comment

The weekend edition of the Journal ran a feature about Jonestown, site of the famous massacre which occurred 30 years ago last month. Author Eric Banks uses the story as a thumbnail for Guyana itself, in part by describing unsuccessful efforts to fashion Jonestown (which has no standing structures — only rusted fragments amongst grass and jungle) into a tourist destination:

Over time there have been intermittent schemes to clear and memorialize the site. Last year, the Guyanese minister of tourism, industry and commerce, Manniram Prashad, visited it to promote his vision of “dark tourism.” A reporter from the Guyana Chronicle cheekily commented that Mr. Prashad “remarked that Jonestown, if reconstructed, can be a major tourist attraction in Guyana.” Rather than getting involved in the “blame game,” Mr. Prashad stated, “we should work to educate our people and allow others who suffered as a result of the loss of loved ones and friends to visit the site if they so wish.”

No grislier an idea than opening Dachau or Auschwitz to tourists, though in those cases I would say they are representative of something greater than what occurred there. What does Jonestown stand for? A metaphor for the excess and naivete in the decade following the Summer of Love, perhaps; of those who, like Charles Manson’s disciples, wanted so badly to drop out they were willing to turn on and tune in to just about anything else.

Jonestown, like ghost towns everywhere, owes its existence to its remoteness, which is exactly what precludes it from being a big tourist draw now:

Large parts of the interior remain virtually inaccessible, particularly in the northern regions, where Jonestown is located. Though a Chinese timber company has begun operations around Port Kaituma, the tin-shack mining town located about 10 miles from the Jonestown site, the town itself shrank by nearly half with the closing of the Barama Logging Company a decade ago and comprises a more transient population of “pork knockers,” individuals panning for gold. The lack of infrastructure has at least been a boon to the small river port — it’s the only real source of basic supplies imported for the entire region.

Such is the nature of the beast. Attempts to repurpose some of the old iron towns of the New Jersey Pine Barrens failed because they were too far away from everywhere; water, wood, and bog iron midwifed them into wilderness, and there they died when iron and coal were discovered in Pennsylvania. The same isolation preserved them into the present. Developing Jonestown would demand overcoming the seclusion that has kept it, if not intact, then at least unpaved, and just aren’t worth it. Those compelled to visit a place, like Banks, will endure the hardship of getting there.

Story here. A wonderful thing about the WSJ‘s online edition are the slideshows.

New People of the Earth

~ Jackson ~ Leave a comment

Mexican archaeologist Carlos Hernández believes artifacts found 15 years ago are products of a previously unidentified culture that also constructed a nearby stepped pyramid:

Based on the artifacts’ discovery near the pyramid, “it is likely that the Huapalcalco pyramid has been built by people from this new culture,” Hernández said.

Thomas Charlton, an archaeologist at University of Iowa, has worked in the state of Hidalgo.

He said that ample evidence—including the new artifacts—links a new pre-Hispanic culture to the Huapalcalco pyramid.

“It’s a reasonable hypothesis [that] near the Valley of Tulancingo, there is a site that looks like it existed between the fall of the Teotihuacan and the beginning of the Tula [Toltec],” Charlton added.

“We know that there’s an occupation [from this time] near Tulancingo.

“After the Teotihuacan, there were all sorts of smaller states throughout Mexico. It’s part of the cycle after the fall of an empire.”

That can’t be right. Didn’t Brian Fagan, in People of the Earth (10th ed., 2001), summarize the discovery of the Assyrian, Sumerian, and other civilizations, then comment: “Today, there are no more unknown civilizations to be unearthed”?

Photo credit Carlos Hernández Reyes via National Geographic.