Links for a Holy Saturday. This one, in fact.
Cool conversation at my UVA from last year, on “Race in the decade since Obama’s inauguration”, still worth listening to, esp in another election year.
New translations of Stanislaw Lem are coming out! This article explains who he is, and why he’s hard to classify. They suggest he’s like Italo Calvino, which is true, but he’s also like a hybrid child of Jorge Luis Borges and Isaac Asimov. If you don't know him, check out his Solaris.
Epidemics as major factors in world history (the odds of this one being a major factor is pretty low, knock on wood; a significant factor, sure).
I like the language use here as much as I am interested in the content of the reporting, and I am very interested in the content of the reporting—including questions about whether the inhabitants of the site were Homo Sapiens or Neanderthal:
The common features of these cave sites are their high intensity of occupation. Archaeological horizons at cave sites each represent considerable time and document a large variety of tasks and activities. Cave site layers are also subject to complex post-depositional processes. They provide a wealth of information but have a relatively low resolution of observation. In contrast, the site of NMO yielded information at a uniquely high resolution, enabling us to explore questions that rarely can be asked for Late MP sites in the Levant. It is a snapshot of a short episode in the life of Middle Paleolithic hunters.
Around 300,000 years ago, our ancestors lived in small communities as hunters and gatherers. This lifestyle likely played a central role in humanity's success, as it enabled humans to start sharing and combining their individual knowledge with others and in this way come up with innovative solutions. This unique capacity is what distinguishes us from our closest relatives, the chimpanzees.
Cleveland, OH, was known as “Station Hope” on the Underground Railroad. Cleveland has always been a special city for me; this makes me love it more.