a fistful of linkage

Because I’m utterly stumped for a topic this week:

England’s new psychedelic renaissance: not a third Summer of Love (yes, there was a second [YouTube]), but less with the (pure) hedonism and more with the science.

Everyday Life and Fatal Hazard in Sixteenth-Century England is exactly what it sounds like: a painstaking examination of extant coroners’ reports reveal many, many dangers of everyday Elizabethan life. Maybe I’m morbid but I look forward to checking out their podcasts and bibliography.

The Racism Behind Alien Mummy Hoaxes: the whole “ancient aliens” thing doesn’t sit well for me and this article explains why better than I ever could. Insisting that aliens must have made [insert marvel of the world here] grossly discounts the tenacity and ingenuity of ancient and/or indigenous peoples. The possibility that hoaxers alter real mummies also runs into issues of desecration of indigenous burials and corruption of archaeological finds.

Photo of incredulous Agent Scully. Text: I'm not saying it was aliens...because it wasn't.
Courtesy Imgflip

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Allison Thurman

Raised on a diet of Star Wars, Monty Python, and In Search Of, Allison Thurman has always made stuff, lately out of words. She lives in a galaxy far, far away (well, the DC metro area) with too many books and not enough swords.

One thought on “a fistful of linkage”

  1. Amen to #3!!! I thought Von Däniken’s “Chariots of the Gods” was cover-to-cover bigotry when I read it in my teens (what I recall is a strong sense of disbelief that the guy was so ignorant of technologies and engineering that have been around for millennia upon millennia). Was also (and still am) baffled by the notion that our planet and species, which isn’t even a flyspeck on the galaxy, would be a magnet for anybody who did manage to somehow come up with practical interplanetary travel … on the universe scale we aren’t even a molecule in a flake of dandruff. (yep, I would likely survive the Total Perspective Vortex without having to have it rigged in my favour like that Beeblebrox guy needed) 😉

    Sort of related: Have been dipping into my copy of Basil Davidson’s “The Lost Cities of Africa” recently (I really want to re-read it cover to cover with Google maps open to see these places) and it’s full of the many battles by archaeologists to disprove the attitude that African civilizations had to have been kickstarted by other cultures … the evidence says definitely not (there are records in China of trading visits by East African merchant ships before Marco Polo showed up). Someday I need to track down a book that covers more recent work in this field.

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