I finished Moby-Dick days ago

The white whale weighs on my mind.

The Impossibility of Knowledge

"A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally both in mind and body as irresistibly attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured as being a citizen of the best-organized state in the world and therefore, as an Englishman, always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known."

--Leo Tolstoy

The Whaleships of *Moby-Dick*

Eliza, presumably of Nantucket - Chapter 7 The Chapel
Devil-Dam, presumably of Nantucket - Chapter 16 The Ship
Tit-bit, presumably of Nantucket - Chapter 16 The Ship
Pequod, of Nantucket - Chapter 16 The Ship
Goney (Albatross), of Nantucket - Chapter 52 The Albatross
Town-Ho, of Nantucket - Chapter 54 The Town-Ho's Story
Jeroboam, of Nantucket - Chapter 71 The Jeroboam's Story
Jungfrau (Virgin), of Bremen - Chapter 81 The Pequod Meets the Virgin
Bouton de Rose (Rose-button, or Rose-bud), of France - Chapter 91 The Pequod Meets the Rose-Bud
Samuel Enderby, of London - Chapter 100 Leg and Arm. The Pequod, of Nantucket, Meets the Samuel Enderby, of London
Bachelor, of Nantucket - Chapter 115 The Pequod Meets the Bachelor
Rachel, presumably of Nantucket - Chapter 128 The Pequod Meets the Rachel
Delight, presumably of Nantucket - Chapter 131 The Pequod Meets the Delight

historical whaleships:
Jonas-in-the-Whale - Extracts; Chapter 55 Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales
Essex, of Nantucket - Extracts; Chapter 45 The Affidavit
Globe, of Nantucket - Extracts
Commodore Preble - Extracts
Hobomack - Extracts
Glacier - Chapter 35 The Mast-Head
Union, of Nantucket - Chapter 45 The Affidavit
Pusie Hall, of England - Chapter 45 The Affidavit
Amelia, of England - Chapter 101 The Decanter
Rattler, of England - Chapter 101 The Decanter
Syren, of England - Chapter 101 The Decanter

Adventuria

Posted a big lot of old photos at the Adventuria blog. Here're some...

U.K., Bermuda
nautical archaeology field school
Radigan Neuhalfen


Russia, Kamchatka, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky


Sea of Japan, Far Eastern coast of Russia


Mongolia
Radigan Neuhalfen, self-portrait


Russia, Ural
archaeology dig


Turkey, Istanbul


Ukraine, Crimea, Black Sea


Russia, Siberia, Novosibirsk


Russia, Siberia, Novosibirsk


U.S.A., Illinois
archaeology survey
Radigan Neuhalfen


U.S.A., Minnesota, Minneapolis
archaeology van


Mexico, Yucatan
archaeology course


U.S.A., Texas, San Antonio
Radigan Neuhalfen


U.S.A., North Dakota


U.S.A., North Dakota

Move Over, Batman

"#1. The Black Condor

"Do please sit down, because this one is a doozy. Little Richard Grey was born in Mongolia during a scientific expedition his parents were members of. The expedition was attacked by bandits and everyone died except for baby Richard, who was later found and raised by condors. If huge carrion eating birds don't know how to raise a baby, then who does?

"Not bad for a bird that doesn't even live in Mongolia, or anywhere near Asia for that matter.

"By the way, did we mention that the condors taught him how to fly? Yes, apparently being raised by birds means you can slap aerodynamics in the face.


"Richard only has the power to fly and possibly also the power to eat rotten dead things."


--Juan Arteaga, "The 7 Crappiest 'Super Heroes' in Comic Book History," Cracked.com

Lenin

"Lenin Bagsh"

Ulaanbaatar Hotel

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

MongolUls.net

Non-News - Democratic/Republican National Conventions

"Over time, the heavily scripted four-day affairs have been drained of controversy and spontaneity, offering little news for the media and scarce drama for those watching on TV.

"'The conventions are as dull as dishwater,' said Larry Sabato, a political-science professor at the University of Virginia. 'It amazes me that anybody watches them anymore....'

"In 1996, veteran journalist Ted Koppel famously yanked his Nightline crew out of the Republican convention, saying there was no news."

--http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2008/08/17/20080817convention0817.html

2008 Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota

"Calling itself the RNC Flight Crew, it aims to organize a mass exodus from the metro area the week of the national convention.

"'We’re hoping to get a minimum of 30,000 residents to simulate an emergency evacuation of the city the first four days of September,' explains Eric Stoner, one of the co-founders of the RNC Flight Crew. 'We’d like to have 15,000 refugees escaping north along Highway 61 and another 15,000 heading southwest along 169....'

"'Our objective is to recreate scenes reminiscent of the evacuation of Paris or Warsaw in advance of the German Army’s approach,' Stoner says.

"Stoner says the idea for the Convention Exodus came after he and other organizers of the RNC Flight Crew studied The Society of the Spectacle during a community education class offered at Macalester College last year. Penned by Guy Debord, a French intellectual credited with co-founding the anarcho-artistic movement, the Situationist International, The Society of the Spectacle is credited with helping incite the 1968 uprisings in Paris.

"'Essentially, the Republican National Convention – like the Democratic National Convention – is nothing more than an empty spectacle, a perfect reflection of the empty spectacle of a consumer culture that has commodified every aspect of life, including politics,' Stoner claims. 'Nothing of note, or even of minor news value, is going to occur at the Xcel Center during that time.'

"But despite that, he says, 'The RNC is going to attract a swarm of 15,000 media people and tens of thousands of demonstrators, all of them drawn like moths to the flame by the chance to be part of the spectacle – and hence make themselves feel as if they are "real." As far as we are concerned, everyone involved in the debacle is part of, rather than a solution to, the stupidity of the society in which we live.'

"'What,' he asks, 'can any sane person do except run away from this kind of craziness?'"

--http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/blog-entry/2008/08/01/what-s-best-way-respond-rnc-how-about-running-away.html

Jorge Luis Borges

"From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"In his essay 'El escritor argentino y la tradición' Borges notes that the very absence of camels in the Koran was proof enough that it was an Arabian work, inferring that only someone trying to write an 'Arab' work would purposefully include a camel. He uses this example to illustrate how his dialoguing with universal existential concerns was just as Argentine as writing about gauchos and tangos (both of which he also did)."

Grelling–Nelson paradox

An example of Russell's paradox.

“From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“Suppose one interprets the adjectives 'autological' and 'heterological' as follows:

“An adjective is autological if and only if it describes itself. For example 'short' is autological, since the word 'short' is short. 'English,' 'unhyphenated' and 'pentasyllabic' are also autological.

“An adjective is heterological if and only if it does not describe itself. Hence 'long' is a heterological word, as are 'abbreviated' and 'monosyllabic.'

“All adjectives, it would seem, must be either autological or heterological, for each adjective either describes itself, or it doesn't. The Grelling–Nelson paradox arises when we consider the adjective 'heterological'....

“Is 'heterological' a heterological word? If the answer is 'yes', 'heterological' is autological (leading to a contradiction). If the answer is 'no', 'heterological' is heterological (again leading to a contradiction).”

Dead Horse

http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Mongolia/blog-216788.html

The Conqueror

"When you think of Genghis Khan (Mongolian, conqueror of half the known world, shrewd military tactician, Mongolian, mass murderer, Mongolian, vengeful, Mongolian) who do you picture? John Wayne, right? Exactly. And that's why he was an inspired casting choice for Howard Hughes' 1956 epic The Conqueror. Speaking before the film was made, Wayne said 'the way the screenplay reads it's a cowboy picture, and that's how I'm going to play Genghis Khan. I see him as a gunfighter.'"

--Danny Harkins, Cracked.com

1908 and 1912 Pattern British Army Cavalry Swords

"From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The 1908 Pattern Cavalry Trooper's Sword (and the 1912 Pattern, the equivalent for officers) was the last service sword issued to the cavalry of the British Army. It is widely considered the most effective cavalry sword ever designed, although ironically its introduction occurred as swords finally became obsolete as military weapons....

"King Edward VII described the sword as 'hideous' when the pattern was submitted to him for formal approval, and had to be persuaded of its utility before eventually conceding the point."

Ice Storage

"From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"In 400 BC Persian engineers had already mastered the technique of storing ice in the middle of summer in the desert. The ice was brought in during the winters from nearby mountains in large quantities, and stored in specially designed, naturally cooled refrigerators called yakhchal (meaning ice pits). A large underground space with thick insulated walls was connected to a qanat, and a system of windcatchers was used to draw cool subterranean air up from the qanat to maintain temperatures inside the space at low levels, even during hot summer days. As a result, the ice melted slowly and ice was available year-round."

Golden Gate Bridge

Syrple

They say roses are red
And violets are purple
Sugar is sweet
And so is maple syrple

--Roger Miller, "Dang Me"

The Last Ten Years

On 1998 August 5, I began recording where I spend each night. Of the 3,655 nights from 1998 August 5 to 2008 August 5, the top twenty locales account for 3,475 nights:

1. Mongolia ... 1,184
2. U.S.A., California ... 675
3. U.S.A., North Dakota ... 467
4. U.S.A., Minnesota ... 325
5. Russia ... 182
6. U.S.A., Louisiana ... 112
7. U.S.A., Colorado ... 104
8. U.S.A., Arizona ... 75
9. Canada ... 53
10. Costa Rica ... 43
11. Mexico ... 38
12. U.S.A., Wisconsin ... 36
13. U.S.A., Washington ... 31
14. France ... 29
15. U.K., Bermuda ... 28
16. Australia ... 22
17. Panama ... 20
18. Israel ... 19
19. Pacific Ocean ... 17
20. Guatemala ... 15

The Gorge in the Mountains

The sun hides not the ocean, which is the dark side of this earth, and which is two thirds of this earth. So, therefore, that mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true--not true, or undeveloped. With books the same. The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon's, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe. "All is vanity." ALL. This wilful world hath not got hold of unchristian Solomon's wisdom yet. But he who dodges hospitals and jails, and walks fast crossing graveyards, and would rather talk of operas than hell; calls Cowper, Young, Pascal, Rousseau, poor devils all of sick men; and throughout a care-free lifetime swears by Rabelais as passing wise, and therefore jolly;--not that man is fitted to sit down on tomb-stones, and break the green damp mould with unfathomably wondrous Solomon....

And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.


--Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale

The Yeasty Ferment

From regarding me curiously, he turned his head and glanced out over the leaden sea to windward. A bleakness came into his eyes, and the lines of his mouth grew severe and harsh.

“Then to what end?” he demanded abruptly, turning back to me. “If I am immortal—why?”

I halted. How could I explain my idealism to this man?

“What do you believe, then?” I countered.

“I believe that life is a mess,” he answered promptly. “It is like yeast, a ferment, a thing that moves and may move for a minute, an hour, a year, or a hundred years, but that in the end will cease to move.”

“But the hopelessness of it,” I protested.

“I agree with you,” he answered. “Then why move at all, since moving is living? Without moving and being part of the yeast there would be no hopelessness. But—and there it is—we want to live and move, though we have no reason to, because it happens that it is the nature of life to live and move. It is because of this life that is in you that you dream of your immortality. The life that is in you wants to go on being alive for ever. Bah!”


--Jack London, The Sea-Wolf

Courrier des steppes

"Le Courrier des steppes est une association franco-mongole dont l’objectif est de mener des actions sociales en Mongolie."

http://www.courrierdessteppes.com/

Joseph Dwyer Has Killed Himself

Ali Sattar and Joseph Dwyer
Iraq, Mishkab
2003 March 25
photo by Warren Zinn

"I don't know that the photograph of Joseph was the best one I ever took, or my favorite, but I think it represented something important. At the time, it represented hope. Hope that what we were doing as a nation in Iraq was the right thing. Hope that our soldiers were helping people. Hope that soldiers such as Joseph cared more about human life than anything else.

"But now when I look at the picture, it doesn't feel hopeful. It makes me realize that so many soldiers are physically torn and in such mental anguish that for some of them, hope has turned to hopelessness."

--Warren Zinn in the Washington Post

Alliteration lifts learning

"Studies have shown that alliteration can act as a better tool for memory than both imagery and meaning...

"Alliteration's affect on memory is not lessened by either the type of work it is used in or whether or not the literature is read silently or aloud."

http://www.physorg.com/news136632182.html

Obliterating People’s Identities

"We steal their hemisphere, kill twenty or so million of them, destroy five hundred separate cultures, herd the survivors onto the worst land we can find, and now we want to name them after ourselves? It’s appalling. Haven’t we done enough damage? Do we have to further degrade them by tagging them with the repulsive name of their conquerors?

"And as far as these classroom liberals who insist on saying 'Native American' are concerned, here’s something they should be told: It’s not up to you to name people and tell them what they ought to be called. If you’d leave the classroom once in a while, you’d find that most Indians are insulted by the term Native American. The American Indian Movement will tell you that if you ask them.

"The phrase 'Native American' was invented by the U.S. government Department of the Interior in 1970. It is an inventory term used to keep track of people. It includes Hawaiians, Eskimos, Samoans, Micronesians, Polynesians, and Aleuts. Anyone who uses the phrase Native American is assisting the U.S. government in its effort to obliterate people’s true identities.

"Do you want to know what the Indians would like to be called? Their real names: Adirondack, Delaware, Massachuset, Narraganset, Potomac, Illinois, Miami, Alabama, Ottawa, Waco, Wichita, Mohave, Shasta, Yuma, Erie, Huron, Susquehanna, Natchez, Mobile, Yakima, Wallawalla, Muskogee, Spokan, Iowa, Missouri, Omaha, Kansa, Biloxi, Dakota, Hatteras, Klamath, Caddo, Tillamook, Washoe, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, Laguna, Santa Ana, Winnebago, Pecos, Cheyenne, Menominee, Yankton, Apalachee, Chinook, Catawba, Santa Clara, Taos, Arapaho, Blackfoot, Blackfeet, Chippewa, Cree, Mohawk, Tuscarora, Cherokee, Seminole, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Comanche, Shoshone, Two Kettle, Sans Arc, Chiricahua, Kiowa, Mescalero, Navajo, Nez Perce, Potawatomi, Shawnee, Pawnee, Chickahominy, Flathead, Santee, Assiniboin, Oglala, Miniconjou, Osage, Crow, Brule, Hunkpapa, Pima, Zuni, Hopi, Paiute, Creek, Kickapoo, Ojibwa, Shinnicock."


--George Carlin, Brain Droppings, 1997

Pasquali Photography

Danilo Pasquali

Russia

"Russia has never once in a thousand years transferred power between rival political factions by means of an election. Russia is still singing the music of the anthem of the USSR, a totally failed state that caused the deaths of far more Russians than all the country's foreign enemies combined."

--La Russophobe

You Are Capable of Atrocity

"There are people who insist that they could never kill anyone, but they invariably add a telling caveat: 'Unless, of course, a person tried to harm someone I love.' So the resource of violence is in everyone; all that changes is our view of the justification....

"We use the word inhuman to describe these murderers, but I know them both, and they are not inhuman--they are precisely human....

"When a bank robber shoots a security guard, we all understand why, but with aberrant killers, people resist the concept of a shared humanness. That's because US and THEM is far more comfortable....

"Judgment results in a label, like calling Robert Bardo a monster and leaving it at that. Such labels allow people to comfortably think it's all figured out. The labels also draw a bold line between that 'wacko' and us, but perception carries you much further.

"Scientists, after all, do not observe a bird that destroys its own eggs and say, 'Well, that never happens; this is just a monster.' Rather, they correctly conclude that if this bird did it, others might, and that there must be some purpose in nature, some cause, some predictability."


--Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear, 1997

Moby-Dick and Ahab

Moby-Dick and Ahab
Claus Hoie
1911- Norwegian/American

Proof

"In the fourth part of the Discourse, Descartes returns to the main thrust of his development of a philosophy. He starts with his methodical doubt: I doubt, or negate, everything that cannot be proven in a mathematical way, he says. So what can Descartes prove? Everything is taken to be false. But Descartes, the person, is doing this doubting. So one thing can be deduced as true: Descartes exists. Otherwise, he could not doubt. Thus, from the negation of everything, a proof is derived of the existence of the person doing the doubting. This is the most brilliant deduction in the history of Western thought."

--Amir D. Aczel, Descartes' Secret Notebook: A True Tale of Mathematics, Mysticism, and the Quest to Understand the Universe, 2005

Absinthe Drinker

Piják absintu
Viktor Oliva
1861-1928 Czech

"I can imagine you as a She-Hulk, naked and entreating and sitting on the damn table."

The Forer Effect

"The Forer effect refers to the tendency of people to rate sets of statements as highly accurate for them personally even though the statements could apply to many people.

"Psychologist Bertram R. Forer found that people tend to accept vague and general personality descriptions as uniquely applicable to themselves without realizing that the same description could be applied to just about anyone. Consider the following as if it were given to you as an evaluation of your personality.

"You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.

"Forer gave a personality test to his students, ignored their answers, and gave each student the above evaluation. He asked them to evaluate the evaluation from 0 to 5, with '5' meaning the recipient felt the evaluation was an 'excellent' assessment and '4' meaning the assessment was 'good.' The class average evaluation was 4.26. That was in 1948. The test has been repeated hundreds of time with psychology students and the average is still around 4.2 out of 5, or 84% accurate."


--The Skeptic's Dictionary

from the Mongolian Red Cross Society

"Let’s help people affected by earthquake in China.

"The 8.0 magnitude earthquake on 12 May devastated eight provinces; Sichuan, (the most severely affected), Gansu, Shaanxi, Chongqing, Yunnan, Shanxi, Guizhou and Hubei. In Sichuan, the total affected area measures 65,000 square kilometres, including Aba, Mianyang, Deyang, Chengdu, Guangyuan, Ya’an municipalities and prefectures. According to the State Council, the most severely damaged areas include 44 counties covering 1,061 townships. Over 10 million people are directly affected in Sichuan.

"The Mongolian Red Cross Society launched internal appeal, taking actions to help for people affected by the earthquake together with warm-hearted people in Mongolia, and the campaign to collect contribution for people in China will be finished on 15 June 2008.

"If you want to contribute for the appeal, you can contact our staff in Mongolian Red Cross Society main office.

"May his future efforts for humanity rise as a flame of hope in the shadowed lives of needy people the world over.

"Best Regards,
Suki

"Mr. Sukhragchaa Mijidsuren
International Relations Officer
Mongolian Red Cross Society
Tel/Fax: 976-11-320934
Mobile: 976-99234132

Email: redcross@magicnet.mn
Website: www.redcross.mn"

Ulemj's blog

http://ulemj.blog.gogo.mn/

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

"It can only be the thought of verdure to come, which prompts us in the autumn to buy these dormant white lumps of vegetable matter covered by a brown papery skin, and lovingly to plant them and care for them. It is a marvel to me that under this cover they are labouring unseen at such a rate within to give us the sudden awesome beauty of spring flowering bulbs. While winter reigns the earth reposes but these colourless green ideas sleep furiously."

--C.M. Street

Anak Ranch

www.AnakRanch.com

The Gates of Hell

The Gates of Hell
Auguste Rodin
1840-1917 French

“Dante is the figure sitting at the top of the gate contemplating the horrors of hell. This figure was later isolated and became Rodin's The Thinker.”

Google is going to Mars

April 1 is celebrated in Mongolia just as it's celebrated in the West. I learned that yesterday. Why do Mongolians celebrate April Fools?

April Fools' Day on the Web

Twenty-six tenses in English

In the American Cultural Center a couple weeks ago, picked up a copy of an “English Tenses Timeline Chart.” The chart lists 26 verb tenses.

“Past Perfect Simple Passive: The painting had been sold twice before it was destroyed.

“Future Perfect Continuous Active: She will have been working here for two years by the end of next month.”

reality for what it is

“Lautréamont forces his readers to stop taking their world for granted. He shatters the complacent acceptance of the reality proposed by their cultural traditions and makes them see that reality for what it is: an unreal nightmare all the more hair-raising because the sleeper believes he is awake.”

--Alex De Jonge

one word, two opposing usages

limn

1. to represent in drawing or painting.
2. to portray in words; describe.

-Dictionary.com

Confessional State

“From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“A confessional state is the concept that a particular government would adhere to a specific creed. Prior to the 20th century, many nations were confessional states and enshrined in their respective constitutions or by decree of the monarch, that the state acknowledged one official religion, even if other religions were permitted to freely practice. In Europe, especially in the time of monarchs, confessional states were common. In the American colonies, prior to the Revolutionary War, most colonies were confessional states in that each colony had an official religion. Subsequently, even after the American Revolution, most of the newly-formed American states had official, tax-funded, state churches the last of which lingered until the 1840s. The confessional state is largely gone in the Western World, although in the Middle East, the confessional state, particularly in Islamic nations, is still quite common.”