Babel: The multilingual, multicultural online journal and community of arts and ideas

“May represent one of the earliest examples of the over-exploitation of marine organisms by humans.”

A new species of giant clam has been discovered in the Red Sea.

Fossils suggest that, about 125,000 years ago, the species Tridacna costata accounted for more than 80% of the area’s giant clams.

The species may now be critically endangered, researchers report in Current Biology journal.

The scientists believe their findings may represent one of the earliest examples of the over-exploitation of marine organisms by humans.

… The research team uncovered well-preserved fossil evidence that suggested stocks of these giant clams plummeted some 125,000 years ago — during an interval between Ice Ages.

They believe this period coincides with the appearance of modern humans in the Red Sea area.

Giant clams were abundant, large in size and easily accessible — making them an attractive food source for hunter-gatherers.

In “pre-human times”, T. costata may have been up to 60cm long. Since then, shell size has also decreased dramatically.

“The overall decline in giant clam stocks — with the striking loss of large specimens — is a smoking gun indicating over-harvesting,” said Dr Richter.

- Elizabeth Mitchell @ BBC News.

See also:

• “New Giant Clam Found; May Have Fed Early Humans” @ National Geographic.
• “Giant clam was first victim of mankind’s overfishing” @ Green Central.

~ Karl Jones

by: James Schwartz

To my birthday boy on his twenty eighth

On August thirty first two thousand eight

I present to you my poetic faith

A man of your own ideals: gay or str8.

To my longtime muse I present a toast:

May your year be of wine, roses and song

May your year be another year to boast

Of after hour adventures all day long.

Your future writ in the palm of my hand

Your dreams and mine intertwine in my ink

Your past a confusion I understand

Our reality served with a chilled drink.

Ever in gaiety, Jazz Age rages

Literary love can stun the ages.

Rosetta Project

The Disk surface shown here, meant to be a guide to the contents, is etched with a central image of the earth and a message written in eight major world languages: “Languages of the World: This is an archive of over 1,000 human languages assembled in the year 02002 C.E. Magnify 1,000 times to find over 15,000 pages of language documentation.” The text begins at eye-readable scale and spirals down to nano-scale. This tapered ring of languages is intended to maximize the number of people that will be able to read something immediately upon picking up the Disk, as well as implying the directions for using it—‘get a magnifier and there is more.’

On the reverse side of the disk from the globe graphic are 15,000 microetched pages of language documentation. Since each page is a physical rather than digital image, there is no platform or format dependency. Reading the Disk requires only optical magnification. Each page is .019 inches, or half a millimeter, across. This is about equal in width to 5 human hairs, and can be read with a 500X microscope (individual pages are clearly visible with 100X magnification).

- rosettaproject.org.

“We hatched a plan to produce a 3-inch non-corroding disk which contained at least 1,000 translations of Genesis and other linguistic information about each language.”

How could a society think in terms of centuries unless there was a reliable way to transmit and store its knowledge over centuries? This puzzle was the focus of a conference hosted by Long Now in 1998, dedicated to technical solutions for Managing Digital Continuity. At this meeting Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive suggested a new technology developed by Los Alamos labs, and commercialized by the Norsam company, as a solution for long term digital storage. Norsam promised to micro-etch 350,000 pages of information onto a 3-inch nickel disk with an estimated lifespan of 2,000 -10,000 years.

Might it be possible to etch an entire library onto a set of disks? It might be worth trying. All we needed was a finite data set that a society might want to have backed up.

During a Long Now field trip to a southwest archaeological site, the idea of a modern Rosetta Stone came up — a backup of human languages that future generations might cherish. At a winter retreat in 1999, Long Now board member Doug Carlston suggested that for the parallel common text of this modern Rosetta Stone we should use the book of Genesis, since it was most likely already translated into all languages already. We hatched a plan to produce a 3-inch non-corroding disk which contained at least 1,000 translations of Genesis and other linguistic information about each language.

Following the archiving principle of LOCKS (Lots of Copies Keep ‘em Safe) we would replicate the disk promiscuously and distribute them around the world with built in magnifiers. This project in long term thinking would do two things: it would showcase this new long-term storage technology, and it would give the world a minimal backup of human languages.

This business side of the disk is pure nickel. Picking it up you would not be aware there were 13,500 pages of linguistic gold hiding on it. The nickel is deposited on an etched silicon disk. In effect the Rosetta disk is a nickel cast of a micro-etch silicon mold. When the disk is held at the right angle the grid array of the pages form a slight diffraction rainbow. You need a 750-power optical microscope to read the pages.

… The Rosetta disk is not digital. The pages are analog “human-readable” scans of scripts, text, and diagrams. Among the 13,500 scanned pages are 1,500 different language versions of Genesis 1-3, a universal list of the words common for each language, pronunciation guides and so on. Some of the key indexing meta-data for each language section (such as the standard linguistic code number for that language) are displayed in a machine-readable font (OCRb) so that a smart microscope could guide you through this analog trove.

- Kevin Kelly @ kk.org: Link.

Via Slashdot.

The Long Now Foundation:

The Long Now Foundation was established in 01996* to develop the Clock and Library projects, as well as to become the seed of a very long term cultural institution. The Long Now Foundation hopes to provide counterpoint to today’s “faster/cheaper” mind set and promote “slower/better” thinking. We hope to creatively foster responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years.

~ Karl Jones

By Rossitza Ohridska-Olson
From Saturday till September 10th, the Bulgarian and foreign artists will gather for the 24th issue of Apollonia Art Festival. The most charming part of it are the jazz concerts and the surroundings of the ancient city of Sozopol (Apollonia – the city of Apollo, the patron of arts). During the communist times this festival was a fresh breath of democratic art since it  “allowed” participation from “enemy” countries, such as France, Germany and the USA.
Now is becoming bigger and bigger. There are artists even from Burkina Faso, and of course Bulgaria, Russia, USA with a 12 days program divided between classical and modern music, literature, theater, movies and visual arts.
For those who want to visit it, the program is here. If you need travel arrangement, please write me and I will find you an agency to take care of your request.

Earth and Sky
Gennadiy Vasilyevich Pavlov
Link

• From 16-21 September 2008, St Petersburg State Academic Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture will host an international calligraphy exhibition.
• Press release.
• Participants’ gallery page (there is more to see around the site)
• via Gil Claudio’s trilingual La Grafía blog.

Via BibiOdyssey.

~ Karl Jones

“By and large … comics are long-lived.”
- Dick Cavett

From the blog of Dick Cavett, some thoughts on the profession of comedy:

“Few comedians kill themselves. (Maybe because audiences so readily do it for them.) Young Freddie Prinze comes to mind. At least two in recent years have indulged themselves to death (in different ways) — John Candy and Chris Farley — but I think the legendary funny folk outlive the general population as a rule. And I guess you could say Lenny Bruce — whose alleged genius largely escaped me — did himself in. And of course John Belushi, for whom I had great affection. But by and large (will anyone ever explain that phrase?) comics are long-lived. (See Hope, Burns, et al.) Quite a few hundreders.

- Dick Cavett:  Link.

~ Karl Jones

Being a fan of classic rock but not being too into placing too much effort into searching out good headlines, obituaries or what have you, I decided to subscribe to the RockofAges Yahoo! Mailing List.  It’s a very active mailing list, so be prepared to be bombarded with news daily, but it makes for a wonderful read (especially for me, as most of the other mailing lists I’m on relate to politics, always a depressing subject).

- Rudy Carrera.

by: James Schwartz

4.2.07 marked the 6th month anniversary of the Nickle Mines, PA. school shootings. On 10.2.06 Charles Carl Roberts IV, shot ten little girls (age 7-13), killing five in the rural schoolhouse. The tragedy made international headlines including the Old Order Amish community reaching out to the killer’s family, bringing food and uniting in their shared grief. 50,000 voters via Beliefnet.com named the Amish community “the most inspiring person of 2006″ for their “incredible Christian forgiveness, charity and love” USA Today reported 12.14.06. What the OOA cannot forgive: homosexuality.

There are no “gay Amish / Mennonite” on record…except me, as least as far as I can Google.  Even after every United State offers full marriage equality they will never condone homosexuality as anything other than sinful. Biblical Scriptures are not open for debate or questioning. I was a mincing contradiction since birth although my flame would burn out in ten years.  When I was nine, my beloved mother Wilma Schwartz passed away after a battle with cancer. I was traumatized with grief, overnight becoming a robotic shell that operated to only get through the day, night and year. I was not encouraged to discuss her death or my feelings in any way. The Amish way of life is not an affectionate one. Cue a repressed, isolated childhood. I saw a therapist wrapping up my teenage years, giving my pain and sorrow an outlet. I could move on…and come out as accepting of my sexual orientation.

When an Amish youth reaches sixteen or so (s)he will begin “rumspringa” [rough translation: run around], attending parties and given freedoms. The parties take place in barns or garages with beer, country-western music and hetero socialzing. That all changed when I made the scene– DJing techno, luring jocks in the cornfields for hook ups and generally behaving as if from another planet. Planet Gay!

I laughed through the docu Devil’s Playground, which depicts rumspringa in LaGrange, IN. about twenty miles from where I was raised…I even spotted ex trade in the big party scene!

A gay Amish teen coming out will lose their faith community (all they know), their family and friends. If they would have joined the church they would be ex-communicated and shunned.  I formally came out in my 20s although I was never “in”– just repressed. Had any of the slain Amish girls been a family member I would not be welcomed to mourn with them, publicly or otherwise.

I had an Amish friend in the 8th grade I’ll call Melvin (not his real name).  I was allowed to stay the night at his house which, like mine, was scrubbed clean, plain and boasted a library of old National Geographic magazines and German hymnals. Alone in Melvin’s room we fell into the throes of twink passion and were overheard. My in-laws-not-to-be forbid him from even speaking to me. Weeks later I cornered Melvin and he confessed he was afraid of “hell fire” and that “what we did was wrong”. These days Melvin has the farm, wife (rather frumpy thing) and litters of children whom will be taught homosexuality is a sin. Scriptures will be quoted. This too is a tragedy.

“Wordle is a toy for generating ‘word clouds’ from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.”

Link to Wordle.

Via Design Observer.

~ Karl Jones

by: James Schwartz

Among his most favored night-time toys
Absinthe, liquor and phosphoresce hair frost
Of all my dream lovers and phantom boys
In reality I’m easily lost
Laughing, intoxicated he will baste
Brown bottles of luminous fire-fly
Anointing his head with celestial paste
Of stars liquidated into hair dye
He is always reckless in his passion
Blithely flinging raver clothes on my bed
As if he’s going out of fashion
A passing diversion until he’s dead
Taking, embracing me until we glow
The colorless mornings drift by so slow.

I came across Lara Shepitko, a Soviet director who died in an auto accident at the age of 39 in 1979, due to finding her work being released on The Criterion Collection. Slant Magazine has a tribute to Shepitko and her husband and fellow director Elem Klimov.

- Rudy Carrera.

To be perfectly honest, I’m really (pleasantly) surprised the Internet did not crash.  It seems that, even with all the streaming video from the Olympics, the Internet was in no danger of imploding.  ZDNet has more here.

- Rudy Carrera

After traveling in Europe for two months, I was worried that I might come home to San Francisco and find it rather sad and small, and unlovely. I wondered how my homely little town–my village, really–could compare to Rome, London, Paris, or even Brussels.

And I arrived back at the end of summer, our season of fog and grey–the time of year when tourists, expecting California sunshine, wander around shivering in shorts and loud-print shirts. I feared being depressed by the grime, the relative lack of linguistic diversity–especially compared to polyglot Brussels, the lower quality food (still dreaming of Italy’s summer tomatoes and those Belgian speculoos cookies), and a dearth of fine leather goods.

And all these things are true–but San Francisco is a city with which I can’t help being in love. Like a truly multi-dimensional lover, San Francisco knows how to remind you what it was that made you fall in love in the first place: the views from Nob Hill (this morning, through a shroud of fog, I peaked down the hill and saw light shining off the Bay water, and hazed by fog the majestic rise of the Bay Bridge), the cool crisp sunlight, the lowing moan of fog horns in the night, and the people everywhere all mixed together–mixed couples, queer folks, gender-indeterminate people–different cultures and races and religions, all basically accepting one another, perhaps even delighting in each other’s difference.

I love my city full of Chinese grandmothers, Russian princesses, Italian politicians (Joe Alioto, Jr.–grandson of a former mayor, is running for City Supervisor), 4th and 5th generation San Franciscans, living in their little neighborhoods–just over the hill from one another.

And I am finding new reasons to love and be loved by my city, my village. Every day for four days I have gone out and run into at least two people I know. Today I had lunch with a 32 year old I first met when he was 11. My city is a village that grows as I grow, that lives and breathes with me.

~Wei Ming Dariotis

“Putting a banjo tuning on the guitar was a very easy, good thing to do. Another tremendously good idea was playing against the tuning key — if you’re in open G, play in the key of D. You get these inverted chords. And rhythm mandolin was a pretty good idea — if there’s three guitar players on a session, why would you want to be the fourth?”

- Ry Cooder, via Rolling Stone: Link.

I love Cooder’s work. He’s an awesome musician with a range of talents — sensitive and gutsy at the same time.

Those three good ideas belong to an earlier stage of his career (he’s now 61). Of his more recent work his says:

“Since the Cuban experience, I am at least a hundred percent better. Before, I knew some moves, and I thought of three good ideas. But now everything is more fluid with the rhythms.”

~ Karl Jones

After nearly two decades of devastating conflict, of violence made more horrific by the achingly lovely natural surroundings, times are better now in Kashmir, the Himalayan region fought over by India and Pakistan. The two countries are engaged in a peace process, and the arts here are slowly coming back to life.

Over the last two or three years, Kashmiri painters, sculptors, filmmakers, poets and playwrights have again started plowing ground that had lain fallow for so long. Their cautious reemergence comes at a time when civil society as a whole is beginning to reclaim the space formerly monopolized by the Indian army and Pakistani-backed militants, whose confrontations have left more than 60,000 people dead since 1989.

- Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times: Link.

Image: “Masood Hussain, a sculptor and teacher, brought an arts conference back to Srinigar after it had gone years without such gatherings.” [Photo by Zackary Canepari]

Update, see also:
“Violent protests in Kashmir threaten India-Pakistan peace process. Riots sparked by a controversial land-transfer deal have widened to become pro-independence rallies.”
- Link.

~ Karl Jones

[lang_en]

My mother recently passed away unexpectedly, and going through this has left me with a few tips to give to friends of the bereaved.

First of all, most importantly, is to do something. Call, visit, write, text: it doesn’t so much matter what you do, just so much that you do something. Everything is appreciated.

Second, give the person all the grace you can muster. They are damaged, weak, afraid and overwhelmed. Don’t be offended if they don’t call back, or if they seem like they don’t appreciate you because they do. All the phone calls I could never answer or return still mean a lot to me.

Third, after the initial onslaught of support (which is amazingly important) keep in touch. A strange thing happens. Everyone calls and brings food right away, but then a week or two goes by, and all of the food goes bad, and the phone calls stop coming. It becomes a very strange and lonely time.

I thought I understood death and grieving until my mother passed. Now I know that I’m just another clueless soul in the face of one of life’s great mysteries. To reiterate the sentiments of my contribution to her eulogy, “I feel lucky and blessed to have been her son. And I feel lucky and blessed to be surrounded with such an amazing group of people.” That ever-growing group of people continues to support me, and there isn’t a day that I don’t appreciate that as one of the greatest gifts of my lifetime. A million thanks to them and to my mother.

-David Rodich

[/lang_en]

[lang_en]

My mother recently passed away unexpectedly, and going through this has left me with a few tips to give to friends of the bereaved.

First of all, most importantly, is to do something. Call, visit, write, text: it doesn’t so much matter what you do, just so much that you do something. Everything is appreciated.

Second, give the person all the grace you can muster. They are damaged, weak, afraid and overwhelmed. Don’t be offended if they don’t call back, or if they seem like they don’t appreciate you because they do. All the phone calls I could never answer or return still mean a lot to me.

Third, after the initial onslaught of support (which is amazingly important) keep in touch. A strange thing happens. Everyone calls and brings food right away, but then a week or two goes by, and all of the food goes bad, and the phone calls stop coming. It becomes a very strange and lonely time.

I thought I understood death and grieving until my mother passed. Now I know that I’m just another clueless soul in the face of one of life’s great mysteries. To reiterate the sentiments of my contribution to her eulogy, “I feel lucky and blessed to have been her son. And I feel lucky and blessed to be surrounded with such an amazing group of people.” That ever-growing group of people continues to support me, and there isn’t a day that I don’t appreciate that as one of the greatest gifts of my lifetime. A million thanks to them and to my mother.

-David Rodich

[/lang_en]

[lang_en]What if there were no men anymore? It could happen. The Y-chromosome has been shrinking for millenia. A few years ago, the media was abuzz with stories of the “Incredible Shrinking Y.” Most said that the Y was in no danger of completely withering away, but some argued the other side.

Y So Lonely?

The fact that it doesn’t have a matching pair poses a bit of a problem for the Y chromosome.

All the other chromosomes come in two copies. Every time a cell divides, mistakes in genes can creep in. In paired chromosomes, that means that if there is a mistake on one chromosome, a cell can always get the correct gene sequence from the other chromosome.

Over time, mistakes have crept into the Y chromosome, too. But every time a gene on the Y chromosome went bad, it basically disappeared. Scientists theorize that the X and Y chromosome started out with about the same amount of genes — about 1,000. Today, the Y chromosome has less than 80 genes.

Hope for Y’s Future

Some geneticists think the Y chromosome is now little more than a genetic wasteland that will eventually just disappear. If that were to happen, it would certainly spell the end of sexual reproduction.

But David Page of MIT’s Whitehead Institute vigorously disagrees. “At the same time that it is continuing to lose genes, it’s found some new ways of replenishing itself,” Page says.

-Joe Palca

So imagine that the “some geneticists” are right, and the chromosome is a disappearing wasteland. Then what? Look no further than the Whiptail lizard.

Whiptail lizards are long slender lizards with pointed snouts and long tails. They are generally tan, brown or olive in color and may have lighter stripes or spots of yellow or white.

Whiptails are found throughout the Sonoran Desert region from sea level up to 8000 ft. They inhabit low desert scrub, as well as grasslands, woodlands and pine forests. They are often found under rocks or in leaf litter. Whiptails eat a variety of insects and occasionally smaller lizards.

Most species reproduce sexually and lay 1 or more clutches of 1-6 eggs in late spring or early summer. In Arizona, however, approximately 60% of of whiptail species reproduce asexually. These species consist entirely of genetically identical females that lay unfertilized eggs. Eggs typically take 60-75 days to hatch.

This is a species where we are literally watching as male lizards are phased out, one subspecies at a time. Future of humanity? I’m not going to bet on it, but I’m certainly not going to rule it out, either.

-Chelsea Leroux[/lang_en]

[lang_en]

Silk Road in Caucasus

Nabucco Pipelines

Ingushetia Castle Tower - Caucasus Mountains

by Rossitza Ohridska-Olson

The recent conflict between Georgia, South Ossetia and Russia is leaving behind a horror of human tragedies. Ethnic cleansing (such a horrible term) is garnished lavishly with humanitarian crises. And the rest of us watch without being able to do anything, except to send bottles of water, food and clothing.

What nobody seems to care is about what is left behind in terms of cultural heritage on this stretch of the ancient Silk Road, or the current Petroleum Road, as I call it. In the previous wars in this zone, as well as in other parts of the world (Kosovo, Croatia, Iraq, Iran, Syria) buildings and artifacts, which have survived millennia, were destroyed sometimes only with a push of button from a plane.

And now I was thinking: on the Silk Road the nations constructed pieces of art in the shape of watchtowers, castles, and gigantic walls to protect themselves and mostly the trade, from robberies and invasions. The cities along this famous road often changed allegiance to different kings and rulers. Maps were redrawn every other 50 years or more. But the watchtowers, castles, and precious artifacts survived to the 20th century when we started to build more and more sophisticated machines to destroy people and objects. The problem is that the now-a-day weaponry is able to annihilate an entire city in less than 24 hours. The other problem is that people don’t care about cultural heritage of other nations – see the US bombing on Dresden and Berlin in WWII or the looting of the Baghdad Museums only 5 years ago.

Plus, now the stakes are much bigger then during the Silk Road times. Now is about surviving or dying – the petroleum is more vital than spices and precious fabrics. And the kings of this industry more powerful of Genghis Khan and Attila put together and multiplied by thousand.

Would these powerful CEOs stop the destruction of cultural heritage when the pipelines are on stake? I don’t believe so. In the fights for Chechnya and Ingushetia, the incredible tower-castles of Ingushetia were not spared. Only few remain in a country that was called “The land of Towers”. Why now the invaders would be different? Specially when Georgian believes themselves as the first Europeans? (see my blog about this claim)

I only hope that the bombings will cease because they might destroy some pipeline – obviously much bigger concern in the mind of the current “emperors” of the petroleum than the human life. And while we cannot influence the Georgian President, the Ossetian military or the Russian generals, we might want to speak with these engineers who build the pipelines and ask them to place them near to cultural heritage sites and big cities. This way we will protect the people and the ancient artifacts.[/lang_en]

[lang_en]by Rossitza Ohridska-Olson (more about me in the end of the article)

In less than a day, two news affecting the Bulgarian cultural heritage hit the world wires: a sensational discovery of a completely preserved Thracian chariot by Dr. Daniala Agre, and almost complete loss of an ancient ship, thanks to the criminal indifference of the Bulgarian government to preserve the underwater cultural heritage left by the great civilizations inhabiting our territory - What is the moral of both stories? That Bulgaria has incredible cultural heritage, hidden under earth and water (third in Europe after Italy and Greece by number of cultural heritage sites and artifacts in museums and galleries) and little is done to preserve it or to promote it as part of the cultural tourism. Another example are the Thracian gold treasures hidden in the National Museum of History, and other regional museums, which, in spite of the huge article in National Geographic, are not serving as a magnet for attracting people with cultural interests.

Why? Because from the 40,000 cultural monuments in Bulgaria, only a handful dozens are known to the public and adapted for visiting and none of them is marketed on a worldwide level, even these which are part of the UNESCO list of cultural heritage. As Mr. Roumen Draganov says: “the Bulgarian cultural heritage is one of the best-kept secrets” from tourists and visitors. In spite of big words, a legislation and good intention, the marketing of culture is still non-existing.

The country doesn’t brand itself properly, the uniqueness is not visible to the visitors and year after year the Bulgarian businesses (developers, local governments, and hotel owners) does everything possible to destroy nature, traditions and authenticity of the culture. Infrastructure and other technical problems prevent easy access to the tourism product – lack of real time direct reservations, ticket buying, information obscurity regarding some of the most beautiful micro-destinations, and inexistent Internet advertising in foreign languages.

And most of all, thanks to the non-professional approach by touroperators and travel agencies on both sides of the deal – Bulgarian and foreign ones – the product of the cultural tourism, in spite the marvelous possibilities of the living and past cultures of the country, becomes a distorted and incomplete McDonalds version of a real cultural experience.

Many other surrounding countries – Macedonia, Serbia, Georgia, Armenia, Kosovo, Albania and even Romania, are going the same way – trying to kill the proverbial hen with the golden eggs.

About me and my blog on Tour of Babel

My name is Rossitza Ohridska-Olson. As a consultant, I provide a unique blend of tourism marketing, communications design and social computing expertise. Culture discovery is the passion of my life. Over the last 20 years I discovered and immersed myself in the cultures of Bulgaria, Spain, Portugal, and the United States. A global nomad, I live in Florida (USA) and Bulgaria (EU), dedicating my entire time to the fast-evolving business of cultural tourism. I consult tour operators, cultural institutions, government agencies, regional development centers, NGOs and private companies in Europe and the USA. I also find time to work on my Ph.D. thesis, a history triller and a book, Imaginary Reality, for the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture

My blog will deal with the vastly unknown cultural destinations of South and Eastern Europe, the cultural discoveries and the business of tourism related to the past and living cultures. As a macro-strategist in that field, and a professional writer on cultural issues, I will do everything possible to use the Internet as a platform to deliver my view on how we all can benefit of knowing more about this region.

My perspective comes from both sides of the Atlantic – from the USA, where I live, and from Europe, where I pass months researching, photographing and “testing” destinations. This way in I help my US and Western Europe clients to better design, market and profit from cultural tourism.

With this blog I will try to share my experience – cultural and business one – of how to market this part of the world as an exiting cultural destination. I am welcoming all comments and questions from the members of Tour of Babel and from everyone interested in multicultural exchanges and promotion of unknown cultures. You can communicate with me in English, Bulgarian, Russian, French or Spanish. I also can read in Italian, Serbian, Portuguese and Macedonian, but please don’t expect from me to respond in these languages – I am still in the dog phase of learning them – I understand, but I cannot speak.

For more in-depth analyses and specialized themes, such as tourism branding, museums and galleries as element of the cultural tourism product creation and marketing, and many others, as well as for my bio and ways to contact me, you can also visit my personal blog at http://culturalrealms.typepad.com.[/lang_en]

“The Codex Sinaiticus Project is an international collaboration to reunite the entire manuscript in digital form and make it accessible to a global audience for the first time.”

Codex Sinaiticus is one of the most important books in the world. Handwritten well over 1600 years ago, the manuscript contains the Christian Bible in Greek, including the oldest complete copy of the New Testament. Its heavily corrected text is of outstanding importance for the history of the Bible and the manuscript -– the oldest substantial book to survive Antiquity –- is of supreme importance for the history of the book.

… Drawing on the expertise of leading scholars, conservators and curators, the Project gives everyone the opportunity to connect directly with this famous manuscript.

- codex-sinaiticus.net

Via Slashdot: Link.

~ Karl Jones

The Telegraph has an article on literary tattoos.

Via Fade Theory.

“Exuberance is Beauty” — William Blake.

~ Karl Jones

[lang_en][kml_flashembed movie="http://de.youtube.com/v/c-GN2t_UYss" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent"/]

Song Zuying performs this wonderful Chinese folk tune with the Master Chorale of Washington and the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Tang Muhai. It’s a gorgeous piece of music and a fine collaboration.

- Rudy Carrera.[/lang_en]