More Summer Noticings…

— Prehistoric Dildo, as reported by LiveScience where Clara Moskowitz writes: “The carved bone was unearthed at a Mesolithic site in Motala, Sweden, that is rich with ancient artifacts from between 4,000 to 6,000 B.C. The area’s unique features may have allowed bone artifacts, which usually get destroyed over the millennia, to survive. ‘It’s an organic object, that’s why it’s special,’ Gruber told LiveScience. ‘Normally when we excavate early Mesolithic sites we never get the organic material. But this site where we’re excavating now is along the shoreline. The preservation is very good here – it’s been lying in the bottom sediments and clay layers of the river, and it’s been well preserved there.’ The dildo-like object is about 4 inches (10.5 cm) long and 0.8 inches (2 cm) in diameter.”

— In a long article on one of the current Yoga Moguls in The New York Times, Mimi Swartz writes: “Like many other small-stakes subcultures — the world of poetry, or academia, say — yoga has become embroiled in head-of-a-pin type arguments. In yoga’s case it centers on authenticity.” Wonder what she thinks it is in the world of poetry or academia. Interesting to bring those three together as “small-stakes subcultures” — there must be many other such mini-worlds. Any suggestions?

— From last Friday’s signandsight resume, this tidbit re an article published in the German paper Die Welt on 07.20.2010:

The city of Weimar is seeking to twin itself with the Iranian city of Shiraz, the home town of Goethe‘s idol the Sufi poet Hafiz – on the condition that the Iranian side recognises the Holocaust. The Iranian delegation has since been to Weimar but refused outright to visit Buchenwald. Weimar, however, is reluctant to sever ties with its new friends, as Matthias Küntzel reports. “At the beginning of the week Fritz von Klinggräff, the Weimar press officer, confirmed the change of course. They had abandoned the bit about Buchenwald being an essential component of the friendship from the outset, in favour of the metaphor of ‘the long road‘. What was needed was an extended period of travelling in one another’s company in order to ‘see, as in an intellectual exchange, how compatibility can be created’.” (In other words: one lot is saying there was a Holocaust, the other lot says there was no Holocaust and the truth lies somewhere in between!)

— While wondering how to clean up the hydrocarbon mess of the oilspill, and gloomily thinking on the whole bad eco-disaster scenario of the coming years, I came across a tidbit of scientific info — obviously still in an experimental stage — that could deal with some aspects at least of the problem of our polluted atmosphere. Via the Solar Thermal Electrochemical Photo (STEP) carbon capture process, the sun’s visible light and heat would be used to capture large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it to solid carbon for storage or carbon monoxide for fuel generation. This was reported on Physorg.com (a worthwhile site to check out, btw) in an article entitled Solar-powered process could decrease carbon dioxide to pre-industrial levels in 10 years. You can read the details here.

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