The Monteverdi choir sings Rudolf Mauersberger's setting of the song of Jeremiah, which he composed after the bombing of Dresden on February 13-15, 1945. The Dresden boys' choir premiered this August 4, 1945 in the ruin of the Kreuzkirche, but it is still rarely performed or heard outside of east Germany.

8 Random Facts About Me...

Ishtar tagged me for this back on July 28. I made my list of facts right away, but got sidetracked in the posting by my recent move down here to Valdosta from Athens, Georgia. In any case, here are -

THE RULES:

1. Post these rules before you give you the facts
2. List eight (8) random facts about yourself.
3. At the end of your post, choose (tag) eight people and list their names (linking to them).
4. Leave them a comment on their blog letting them know they've been tagged!

Now for my eight random facts, about which I will be adding more information and links in coming days.

1. I am an Eagle Scout and member of the Order of the Arrow. As far as the Eagle rank goes, I just stuck around long enough. I loved camping and getting all the merit badges for outdoor stuff. I recall being a bit embarassed about scouting in front of my longhair school friends, but my dad was the scoutmaster and I really could not get out. The Order of the Arrow was a bunch of hooey from what I recall, although we were sworn to secrecy about all of it.
2. At the end of my family's stay in Nigeria, I contracted the tropical parasite schistosomiasis. I was cured by a series of treatments with antimony at Walter Reed hospital. There had been relatively few children treated prior to that, and I was very fortunate to be living in Washington, D.C. where the Walter Reed staff was actively researching the parasite because it was endemic in South Vietnam. There are less debilitating treatments available now. One of the leading researchers on schistosomiasis, Dan Colley, now teaches at the University of Georgia.
3. I was an art major for my first two years at New College in Sarasota, Florida. My paternal grandmother and aunt, Tabea and Melita Hofmann, were both published illustrators. The John Kieran and Ethel Hinckley Hausman books on wildflowers illustrated by grandmother frequently show up on internet bookstore sites as also does my aunt's book, A Trip to the Pond.
4. In 1982, I worked in the last year of a long-term archaeological research project on Black Mesa in northeastern Arizona. If you have seen the Chevy Chase movie "Vacation," then you may recall Black Mesa as the black cliff in the background when his station wagon breaks down in the middle of a hot, dry wasteland. The money for the archaeology on Black Mesa came from the Peabody Coal Company, and at the time Peabody seemed to be trying to do the right thing in terms of both environmental protection and negotiating with the local Dine (Navajo) and Hopi owners of the land that contained the coal they have been mining. Curently, there are bad feelings between the Dine and Hopi, and between both tribes and Peabody Coal.
5. I have always secretly liked Elvis Presley records, particularly "I Can't Help Falling in Love" and "Hunka Hunka Burning Love" when my testosterone kicks in.
6. I lived in Nashville as a teenager during the same time frame that Robert Altman was filming his movie there. Although I hated the movie at the time, I have to admit that it captures much of the variety of the Nashville scene at the time.
7. My last name is very common in Saxony, the southern part of east Germany. My father and I traveled there together several years ago but were not able to find any direct relatives. We did visit the Volkerschlachtdenkmal, however, designed by the architect Clemens Thieme and found a charming bookstore in Leipzig, Antiquariat Thieme
8. I have been singing in amateur choral groups since I moved to Athens in 1994. I am looking forward to a church choir rehearsal tonight here in Valdosta, as a matter of fact.

I now tag the following eight bloggers with this same meme:

1. Imnakoya
2. Akin
3. Pamelastitch
4. Shinade
5. Sabine
6. Carol
7. Heidi
8. Decrepit Old Fool

I will be emailing all of you and adding links. This is a very busy time for me.

Mikva discovered in Germany

Archaeologists working in the city of Erfurt in the state of Thuringen have discovered a Jewish ritual bath or "Mikva." Historical documents indicate that the mikwa at the Kramerbrucke, or Merchant's Bridge, was already in existence by 1250 CE. Relying upon these documents, however, archaeologists had previously searched and failed to locate the mikwa. Mikwas must make use of a natural water source and are used for ritual immersion to prepare the heart and mind for prayer.

Barge Container Accident in Rhine River

A barge transporting containers down the Rhine river failed to navigate a riverbend near Cologne (Köln) on Sunday. Some 31 containers slid into the river, closing it to shipping until Friday at the earliest. At least three of the containers were full of hazardous waste, although there is no sign as yet that the contents have leaked into the river.

I tip my hat to Sabine for first alerting me to this story. The photograph is taken from the website of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Climate change contributed to building's collapse

Tore Kvandesuggest of the Norwegian research agency SINTEF Byggforsk is suggesting that climate change may have contributed to Sunday's collapse of the apartment house at Trondheimsveien 6 in Oslo. Built in the late 1880s, the old brick structure crashed down suddenly, killing visiting aid worker Linda Henriksen. Kvandesuggest, who specializes in brick construction, observed that more precipitation and sudden temperature swings can loosen roofing, weaken a building's structure and cause a facade to crack. Hat tip to Melanie Kintz (aufbauost) for the link.

Linkage Between Global Warming and Hurricanes

J. Marshall Shephard of the Department of Geography at the University of Georgia reviews recent studies, generally supporting some degree of linkage but also indicating a need for further research and examination of meteorological data. Shephard's coauthor, Thomas Knutson, has developed a coupled ocean-atmosphere model which is run for 80 years with a buildup of atmospheric carbon dioxide at 1 percent per year. The model results in a one-half category increase in potential hurricane intensity on the Saffir-Simpson scale and about a 20 percent increase in precipitation near the hurricane core.

Hat tip to Roger Pielke, Jr. at Prometheus who has also linked to the Shephard and Knutson paper.

So Hot that it must be Global Warming or just El Nino or. . .?

Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University writes and comments in detail on his blog, Real Climate, about this very warm winter and how it might or might not relate to both El Nino and Global Warming. Dr. Mann was also interviewed tonight on All Things Considered.

Stolen Iraqi treasure sold at auction in Munich

Two stolen ancient Sumerian artefacts exhibited in a Munich art auction house and on the internet were sold on Tuesday, according to a Deutsche Presse-Agentur release. Although the legality of the auction was challenged by Iraqi authorities, German customs officials said the Munich sale had already taken place and could not be stopped. One item sold was a 227-millimetre-tall, headless limestone statue of a Sumerian man that dates back to 2500 BC. The other was an 117mm-long nail made of clay which bears Sumerian inscriptions dating back to King Shulagi of the Ur dynasty in 2097 - 2095 BC.

There is a "red list" posted here of artifacts that may be finding their way onto the antiquities market from Iraq, either stolen out of the Iraqi National Museum or looted from unprotected archaeological sites. There is also a partial list of artifacts stolen from the Iraqi National Museum on the webpage of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.