At least part of the mystery of Stonehenge may have now been solved: It was from the beginning a monument to the dead. New radiocarbon dates from human cremation burials among and around the brooding stones on Salisbury Plain in England indicate that the site was used as a cemetery from 3000 B.C. until after the monuments were erected around 2500 B.C., British archaeologists reported Thursday. What appeared to be the head of a stone mace, a symbol of authority, was found in one grave, the archaeologists said, indicating that this was probably a cemetery for the ruling dynasty responsible for erecting Stonehenge. ‘It’s now clear that burials were a major component of Stonehenge in all its main stages,’ said Mike Parker Pearson, an archaeologist at the University of Sheffield in England. Some scholars have contended that the enigmatic stones, surrounded by a ditch and earthen banks in concentric circles, more than likely marked a sacred place of healing. The idea is at least as old as medieval literature, which also includes stories of Stonehenge as a memorial to the dead. So there could be an element of truth to both hypotheses, experts say. In […]
CHICAGO — Global warming will likely drain more water from the Great Lakes and pose added pollution threats to the region’s vulnerable ecosystem, environmental groups said in a report issued on Wednesday. Climate change could further reduce scant ice cover observed in recent winters, increasing evaporation rates and dropping water levels in the five lakes that collectively make up 20 percent of the world’s surface fresh water. Last year, Lake Superior water levels receded to their lowest in 77 years before rebounding, and the report by the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition predicted global warming could lower lake levels by up to 3 feet (1 meter) over the next century. The lower levels will hamper lake shipping, expose polluted sediments, and further damage water quality. ‘Climate change is threatening the health of the Great Lakes and jeopardizing efforts to restore them,’ the coalition’s Jeff Skelding said in a teleconference. The coalition represents groups including zoos, fishing and hunting interests, business organizations and environmental groups. The report said global warming added to the urgent need for the U.S. Congress to act on more pieces of a $20 billion Great Lakes restoration plan, proposed back in […]
If you want a good glimpse of the multiracial experience in America, get inside Louie Gong’s skin. ‘I’m Nooksack, I’m Chinese, I’m French and I’m Scottish,’ Gong tells viewers of a multimedia piece he placed on YouTube to help spark discussion of multiracial issues. ‘… When I was a kid, I drank my Ovaltine with real milk, and my cousins and I liked our fried rice with salmon.’ At the same time that the nation’s growing diversity and changing social attitudes are helping to swell the ranks of multiracial Americans at 10 times the rate of the white population, the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama, son of a black man and a white woman, has brought new attention, curiosity and discussion to their experiences. Obama has faced an endless barrage of questions anchored to issues of race and class, from his ties to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to whether, in his own words, he is ‘too black’ or ‘not black enough.’ As Gut Check America engaged msnbc.com readers in this re-emerging national conversation on race, it became clear that multiracial Americans offered unique perspectives on the topic and that the nation is far from entering a ‘post-race’ […]
The quality of children’s health care in America varies widely from state to state, as does their access to insurance and care and the likelihood of living long and healthy lives. That’s the conclusion of a new scorecard produced by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that seeks to promote better health care for all Americans. According to the scorecard, if all states performed as well as the top few states: an additional 4.6 million children nationwide would have health insurance; 11.8 million more children would get their recommended yearly medical and dental check-ups; 10.9 million more children would have a ‘medical home’ — a regular source of care; 1.6 million fewer children would be at risk for developmental delays;and nearly 800,000 more children would be up-to-date on their vaccines. Iowa, Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire are the top performing states, according to the report, while Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, Nevada and Texas are at the bottom. ‘States and the federal government have a very high stake in ensuring that children are healthy,’ Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis said during a teleconference Tuesday. ‘In fact, more than one-third of children in the […]
WASHINGTON — The presidential election, lawyers and scholars agree, will offer voters a choice between two sharply different visions for the ideological shape of the nation’s federal courts. Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee, has already asserted that if elected he would reinforce the conservative judicial counterrevolution that began with President Ronald Reagan by naming candidates for the bench with a reliable conservative outlook. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has been less explicit about how he would use the authority to nominate judicial candidates, but he would be able to - and fellow Democrats certainly expect him to - reverse or even undo the current conservative dominance of the courts. Both have been resolute soldiers in their parties’ political wars over judicial nominations during the last several years. While Mr. McCain has supported President Bush’s judicial nominees, including John G. Roberts Jr. as chief justice of the United States and Samuel A. Alito Jr. as an associate Supreme Court justice, Mr. Obama opposed those nominations and favored Democratic filibusters to block many Republican nominees deemed too conservative. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who remains in the Democratic race, has similarly opposed […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
