South Of Heaven

Correcting history

Ever hear of a phonautograph?

The 10-second clip of a woman singing "Au Clair de la Lune," taken from a so-called phonautogram, was recently discovered by audio historian David Giovannoni. The recording predates Thomas Edison's "Mary had a little lamb" — previously credited as the oldest recorded voice — by 17 years.

The tune was captured using a phonautograph, a device created by Parisian inventor Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville that created visual recordings of sound waves.

Using a needle that moved in response to sound, the phonautograph etched sound waves into paper coated with soot from an oil lamp.

Giovannoni and his research partner, Patrick Feaster, began looking for phonautograms last year and in December discovered two of Scott's — from 1857 and 1859 — in France's patent office. Using high-resolution optical scanning equipment, Giovannoni collected images of the phonautograms that he brought back to the United States.

"What Scott was trying to do in 1861 was establish that he was the first to arrive at this idea," Giovannoni said. "He was depositing with the French Academy examples of his work."

About all of us

There is an interesting study going around about the genetics of people in Latin America. When the Europeans arrived there, and over the next several centuries, they killed the men and mated with the women. Generally.

"There is a clear genetic signature," explained lead author Andres Luiz-Linares from University College London.

"The initial mixing occurred predominately between immigrant and European men and native and African women."

He said that the study showed that it was a pattern that was uniform across Latin America.

"We see it in all the populations we examined, so it is clearly a historical fact that the ancestors of these populations can be traced to matings between immigrant men and native and African women."

The researchers found that within the genetic landscape of Latin America, there were variations.

"The Mestizo with the highest native ancestry are in areas which historically have had relatively large native populations," they reported.

This included Andean regions and cities such as Mexico City, where major civilisations were already established by the time Europeans reached the continent in the late 15th Century.

"By contrast, the Mestizo with the highest European ancestry are from areas with relatively low pre-Columbian native population density and where the current native population is sparse," they added.

Explaining the fate of native males when the Europeans arrived, Professor Luiz-Linares said: "It is a very sad and terrible historical fact, they were basically annihilated.

"Not only did the European settlers take away land and property, they also took away the women and, as much as possible, they exterminated the men."

He said the findings could help people change their perception of Latin American history.

This is not so much different than the patterns of tribes invading the British Isles early in the Christian era. Killing off the men and taking the women and the land seems to be, er, part of the territory.

We are brutal, we human beings. Ultimately we are driven by our genes, and our genes' desires to reproduce, and that has translated in the past to men with the cultural or military advantage using that advantage to reproduce. We see the male animals in nature shows killing off the offspring of other males. When we are better than that we show the better part of being human. But, on average, we don't.

After the kitchen sink

Robert Parry analyzes what happened when H. Clinton tried to win the Democratic nomination by smearing Obama: she became more unpopular.

In a Journal/NBC poll just two weeks ago, Clinton was in positive numbers with voters overall, 45 percent to 43 percent. However, in the new poll, Clinton’s overall negatives rose to 48 percent and her positives sank to 37 percent.

Even more stunning, Clinton is now drawing a net-negative rating among women, with 44 percent of women having a negative impression of Clinton versus 42 percent with a positive view. Two weeks ago, 51 percent of women had a positive opinion of Clinton.

Clinton also is sinking among white voters, who view her negatively by 51 to 34 percent. Obama has slipped, too, with white voters, down five points, but he still gets a net positive rating of 42 to 37 percent.

Among all voters, Obama is rated positively by 49 to 32 percent, roughly parallel to Republican John McCain, who registered a 45 to 25 percent positive rating.

The bottom line for Sen. Clinton may be that in throwing the “kitchen sink” at Obama, she didn’t realize that it was tied to her ankle.

Flooding

Here is a science article that states the obvious: that there will be a lot of flooding this Spring because there's lots of rain and melting snow.

“We expect rains and melting snow to bring more flooding this spring,” said Vickie Nadolski, deputy director of NOAA’s National Weather Service.

I like reading about science and scientific discoveries but I find some things that pass for science writing to be pretty pathetic. I defy anyone to read the linked article and come away with much more than the where the map predicts flooding will happen.

That is, the article doesn't say much. I think that part of this can be attributed to the politicalization of NOAA by the Bush Administration. They've been leaning on NASA for years to cool it with the global warming stuff. But there must have been something that the author could have added. For example, how about the paving over of land where water used to drain into the ground? I know that that's been in a problem in Northern New Jersey for years, and since Northern New Jersey was built up before most of the country, wouldn't that help explain why other areas now are at a greater risk for flooding? Maybe that would lead to a discussion of flood planning be local, state, and federal officials.

I don't know. The article is missing information. Maybe a suggestion for where to buy your rowboat.

Rev. Moon, King of America

Orcinus has an interesting story about a religious figure who has a lot of influence on Washington politicians. No, not Reverend Wright (although the Clintons invited him among many other religious figures for a "forgiveness photo-op" ten years ago when Monicagate was in full bloom).

Guess who was present at his coronation?

How bad will the Giants suck?

I've pretty much separated myself from the sports world lately. I occasionally lean an ear when there is some free agent news coming out of Niner World. I wish the Warriors and the Sharks are having good seasons, but I don't have any real commitment to either sport.

The other night I was flipping channels on the radio when I came across the Giants' exhibition game, live from San Francisco (I forget which mega-corporation owns the ballpark's naming rights this year). Doing the play-by-play was Hank Greenwald, retired Giants broadcaster. He'd been around during some of the most miserable Giants seasons back in the mid-eighties, including the season where they lost a hundred games.

When I turned on the game I immediately noticed that there was no crowd noise. None. It was the third inning and the Giants were down 6-0. Greenwald, who'd been through this before, sounded emotionally separated from the game, which is what you have to be to face this kind of misery 162 times. I enjoyed Greenwald during his run with the Giants. He sounded like the wisecracking guy sitting next to you at a funeral.  John Miller, who's a great storyteller, will be around again for this season. A lot of times I like to have a baseball game on in the background. You can't get emotionally involved when your team keeps getting its ass kicked night after night.

Everyone's picking the Giants to finish last and at least during the Cactus League they did not disappoint. They've actually got some good young pitchers on their staff. But they also have no hitting, and so far, no fielding. They took down all the signs of Barry Bonds in the stadium. There'll be no home run records set this year.

In a few weeks the NFL draft comes up.

Boosting attendance at the temple

A praying dog.

Attendance at a Buddhist temple in Japan has increased since the temple's pet, a two-year-old dog, has joined in the daily prayers.

Conan, a Chihuahua, sits on his hind legs, raises his paws and puts them together at the tip of his nose.

"He may be showing his thanks for treats and walks," says a priest at Jigenin temple on Okinawa island.

Priest Joei Yoshikuni would like Conan to meditate, but "it's not like we can make him cross his legs", he says.

"Basically, I am just trying to get him to sit still while I meditate," he told Associated Press news agency.

Music Friday: Paved With Good Intentions

I am on the road today.

Download paved_with_good_intentions.mp3

Gatekeeper

Or maybe shill for the CIA. Or coverup artist. There are many, including Lee Hamilton.

When former Rep. Lee Hamilton gives the keynote address – entitled “Iraq: Today, Tomorrow, and Beyond” – at a Tufts University symposium on March 27, he may be thankful if he doesn’t have to discuss “yesterday.”

He probably would prefer not to revisit fateful decisions he made while chairing investigations into Republican dirty work, especially those that let George H.W. Bush off the hook and cleared George W. Bush's path to the White House.

As veteran journalist Robert Parry has persuasively argued at Consortiumnews.com, the Bush family name squeaked through the 80’s and early 90’s essentially mud-free, only because:

--On Christmas Eve 1992, lame-duck President George H.W. Bush pardoned six of his earlier co-conspirators in the Iran-Contra affair (the Reagan-Bush White House’s diversion of profits from illegal arms sales to Iran to bankroll Nicaragua’s contra terrorists in defiance of a congressional ban). Until he was pardoned that day, former Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger might have bought clemency by testifying against co-conspirator Bush.

-- After Bush left office on Jan. 20, 1993, President Bill Clinton (along with other senior Democrats, including Hamilton) cut short a congressional inquiry into Bush’s secret billion-dollar loans to Saddam Hussein and did nothing to help Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh penetrate the Iran-Contra cover-up.

--Hamilton also soft-pedaled two key congressional inquiries. The first investigated the Iran-Contra scandal in 1987 and the second examined allegations that the 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign team had struck a treasonous deal with the hostage-holding Iranian government while Jimmy Carter was still president.

You have to know who your enemies are. They are the enemies of truth. Read it and weep.

H. Clinton and Scaife

It makes you wonder.

Now obviously, Hillary's been in the political big leagues for a while. She knows how to deflect a question. But it's actually much richer than this. This afternoon Greg Sargent and I were talking this over and one of us realized that this wasn't just any Pittsburgh paper. It was the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the money-losing, vanity, fringe sheet of Richard Mellon Scaife, funder of the Arkansas Project, the American Spectator during its prime Clinton-hunting years and virtually every right-wing operation of note at one point or another over the last twenty years or more.

In fact, what I only discovered late this evening, when Eric Kleefeld sent me this link at National Review Online, is that not only was it Scaife's paper. Scaife himself was there sitting just to Clinton's right apparently taking part in the questioning.

So now Clinton is relying on the people who attacked her and her husband back in the nineties?

This alone has to amount to some sort cosmic encounter like something out of a Wagner opera. Remember, this is the guy who spent millions of dollars puffing up wingnut fantasies about Hillary's having Vince Foster whacked and lots of other curdled and ugly nonsense. Scaife was the nerve center of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. Those of us who spent years defending the Clintons from all that malarkey learned this point on day one.

But there's more.

Let's game this out. Hillary's saying this wasn't some planned thing. She just got hit with this question and she answered it. But here's my question. You think Richard Mellon Scaife might want to dig into the Jeremiah Wright story? This is sort of like, 'Hey, I go on Hannity and next thing you know he's asking me about Wright and Farrakhan. How was I supposed to see that coming?'

I don't know just how this went down. But the idea Sen. Clinton and her staff went into an editorial board meeting with Scaife and his lackey reporters without a clear sense that they were going to get at least one choice Jeremiah Wright question just somehow doesn't ring true to me.

Let's take a trip in the time machine back to 1998:

"For anybody willing to find it, and write about it, and explain it, is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for President. A few journalists have kind of caught on to it and explained it, but it has not yet been fully revealed to the American public. And actually, you know, in a bizarre sort of way, this may do it." -- Hillary Clinton on NBC's Today, Jan 27, 1998

Ten years ago Clinton railed against a "vast right-wing conspiracy." Now she's a part of it. And this is H. Clinton's solution... control.

In an otherwise low-key question-and-answer session, Hillary Clinton was at her most intense when asked whether she favored curbs on the Internet, on which news services have several times made headlines themselves with their coverage of the president's purported affair with a White House intern. "We are all going to have to rethink how we deal with this, because there are all these competing values.... Without any kind of editing function or gatekeeping function, what does it mean to have the right to defend your reputation?" she said. -- Reuters, Feb 11, 1998

But who controls the controller? And do you want Hillary Clinton to be the controller?