Archive for we know nothing
Ancient Egyptian Civilization found in Grand Canyon?
Thanks to Lynn for sending these links about ancient Asian civilizations in the Grand Canyon. This truly would change the way we view the world…
The thing with a story like this is that even though we like to think that we really know what is going on, sometimes the improbable proves to be real. We truly never can know anything at all. We don’t even know where in the universe we are as our giant spaceship earth hurtles through space at unthinkable speeds. We’re in the milky way? Where is that? In the Universe? Where is that? Truly, we don’t and can’t know a thing and that is the first step towards spiritual insight.
http://www.spiritofmaat.com/archive/nov2/gazette.htm
http://www.xpeditionsmagazine.com/magazine/canyon/canyon.html
The latest news of the progress of the explorations or what is now regarded by scientists as not only the oldest archaeological discovery in the United States, but one of the most valuable in the world, which was mentioned some time ago in the Gazette (see photo at left), was brought to the city yesterday by G.E. Kincaid, the explorer who found the great underground citadel of the Grand Canyon during a trip from Green River, Wyoming, down the Colorado, in a wooden boat, to Yuma, several months ago.
According to the story related to the Gazette by Mr. Kincaid, the archaeologists of the Smithsonian Institute, which is financing the expeditions, have made discoveries which almost conclusively prove that the race which inhabited this mysterious cavern, hewn in solid rock by human hands, was of oriental origin, possibly from Egypt, tracing back to Ramses. If their theories are borne out by the translation of the tablets engraved with hieroglyphics, the mystery of the prehistoric peoples of North America, their ancient arts, who they were and whence they came will be solved.
Egypt and the Nile, and Arizona and the Colorado will be linked by a historical chain running back to ages, which staggers the wildest fancy of the fictionist. Under the direction of Professor S.A. Jordan, the Smithsonian Institute is now prosecuting the most thorough explorations, which will be continued until the last link in the chain is forged.
Nearly a mile underground, about 1480 feet below the surface, the long main passage has been delved into, to find another mammoth chamber from which radiates scores of passageways, like the spokes of a wheel. Several hundred rooms have been discovered, reached by passageways running from the main passage, one of them having been explored are 854 feet and another 634 feet. The recent finds include articles, which have never been known as native to this country and doubtless they had their origin in the orient.
War weapons, copper instruments, sharp – edged and hard as steel, indicate the high state of civilization reached by these strange people. So interested have the scientists become that preparations are being made to equip the camp for extensive studies, and the force will be increased to thirty or forty persons.
“Before going further into the cavern, better facilities for lighting will have to be installed, for the darkness is dense and quite impenetrable for the average flashlight. In order to avoid being lost, wires are being strung from the entrance to all passageways leading directly to large chambers. How far this cavern extends no one can guess, but it is now the belief of many that what has already been explored is merely the “barracks”, to use an American term, for the soldiers, and that far into the underworld will be found the main communal dwellings of the families. The perfect ventilation of the cavern, the steady draught that blows through, indicates that it has another outlet to the surface.”
Mr. Kincaid was the first white child born in Idaho and has been an explorer and hunter all his life, thirty years having been in the service of the Smithsonian Institute. Even briefly recounted, his history sounds fabulous, almost grotesque:
“First, I would impress that the cavern is nearly inaccessible. The entrance is 1,486 feet down the sheer canyon wall. It is located on government land and no visitor will be allowed there under penalty of trespass.”
The scientist’s wish to work unmolested, without fear of the archaeological discoveries being disturbed by curio or relic hunters. A trip there would be fruitless, and the visitor would be sent on his way.
“The story of how I found the cavern has been related, but in a paragraph: I was journeying down the Colorado River in a boat, alone, looking for minerals. Some forty two miles up the river from the El Tovar Crystal canyon, I saw on the east wall, stains in the sedimentary formation about 2,000 feet above the river bed. There was no trail to this point, but I finally reached it with great difficulty. Above a shelf, which hid it from view from the river, was the mouth of the cave.”
“There are steps leading from this entrance some thirty yards to what was, at the time the cavern was inhabited, the level of the river. When I saw the chisel marks on the wall inside the entrance, I became interested, securing my gun and went in.”
“During that trip, I went back several hundred feet along the main passage till I came to the crypt in which I discovered the mummies. One of these I stood up and photographed by flashlight. I gathered a number of relics, which I carried down the Colorado to Yuma, from whence I shipped them to Washington with details of the discovery. Following this, the explorations were undertaken.”
“The main passageway is about 12 feet wide, narrowing to nine feet toward the farther end. About 57 feet from the entrance, the first side-passages branch off to the right and left, along which, on both sides, are a number of rooms about the size of ordinary living rooms of today, though some are 30 by 40 feet square. These are entered by oval-shaped doors and are ventilated by round air spaces through the walls into the passages. The walls are about three feet six inches in thickness. The passages are chiseled or hewn as straight as could be laid out by an engineer. The ceilings of many of the rooms converge to a center.”
“The side-passages near the entrance run at a sharp angle from the main hall, but toward the rear, they gradually reach a right angle in direction.”
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Let light be there.
There has been some terrible confusion. Someone mixed up the words of the Almighty.
He didn’t say Let there be light, it wasn’t the creation. It was a command. Let light be there. Allow the light. This is all we have to do. Allow the light.
I read an interesting essay today that pointed out that darkness is actually not anything at all. It is simply the absence of light. In actuality, it is nearly impossible to have a complete absence of light. So darkness is no thing at all. An imaginary construct in our minds. No thing. Nothing. Nothing is real. Everything is allowed. The words of Hassan i Sabbah.
Allow there to be light. Let light be there.
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Uighurs, Communists, Muslims, Americans, and Starbucks Incognito
At the risk of stepping on the Scary Arab’s nose for news, I want to point out a few exceptional things I’ve been reading on the web. First of all, this article from Eric Walberg at Dissident Voice sheds a little light on the Uighurs, China’s ethnic Muslim population. Kashgar, doesn’t that sound like the most exotic place on earth?
Like the Kurds, they have no official state, only a hollow autonomous region, along with large diaspora communities in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and the West. They number 8-10 million worldwide. There are Uighur neighbourhoods in Beijing and Shanghai. Their history is the story of an obscure nomadic tribe from the Altai Mountains rising to challenge the Chinese empire, founding their own in the 8th century, which stretched from the Caspian Sea to Manchuria. Because of their strategic location on the Silk Road, they thrived on trade. They came under Han sovereignty only in the 17th century, but after numerous revolts expelled Qing officials in 1864 and founded an independent Kashgaria kingdom, recognised by the Ottoman Empire, Russia and Great Britain, which even had a mission in the capital, Kashgar. As usual British support depended on its imperial schemes and when the Chinese attacked in 1876, fearing Tsarist expansion, Great Britain supported the Manchu invasion forces. The Brits (excuse me, the Manchus) “won” and East Turkestan became Xinjiang.
Walberg’s article not only sheds light on a people that are currently being repressed and assimilated by the Chinese, but also offers some interesting insights into another Muslim area that is being colonialized, Afghanistan.
Walberg is an interesting guy with a lot to say, to check out more, I recommend a visit to his website at http://www.geocities.com/walberg2002/
Another favorite site for me is We Make Money Not Art
, a site that always has something fascinating to offer, for example this photjournal exhibition:
In 2007 and 2008, Belgian freelance photographer Nick Hannes traveled across the former Soviet Union by bus and train in search of remnants of the region’s Communist past and signs of recent social transition and evolutions. He visited Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Moldavia, the Ukraine, Byelorussia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia and brought back images that bear a lot of nostalgia for the past, a capitalism that might have spread a bit too fast in some cases, a few vodka and blondes clichés we’ll never get tired of, some amazingly beautiful landscapes and a time that seems to pass at varying speeds.
Looking at the news this morning, I’m incredibly saddened to see that 8 people were killed in a pair of bombs in Jakarta, Indonesia. I have friends there and pray they are alright.
Bombs ripped through two luxury hotels in the heart of Indonesia’s capital on Friday, killing eight people and wounding dozens in an attack the president said would damage confidence in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy.
Suicide bombers struck the JW Marriott hotel and close-by Ritz-Carlton, both popular with visiting international businessmen and boasting some of the tightest security in Jakarta, as guests sat down for breakfast power meetings.
Islam is such a beautiful religion and then you get insane fundamentalist assholes like the guys who did this and they twist it and pervert it into something that is ugly and abhorrent. Terrorists are not Muslims, no matter what they call themselves. Muslims take care of orphans and widows, feed the poor, and house the homeless. Many of you are Muslims and don’t even know it. If you believe in one inexplicable God, accept that you must submit to that God’s will, and are a human with compassion, then you are a Muslim. These guys, the bombers I mean, they think they understand God completely, they have no compassion, they are insane, not Muslim.
I can’t stop thinking about working with orphans in Morocco or elsewhere. Ideology will certainly be an issue. I wish I were more connected with people who share my faith, this Islam that isn’t practiced by people who claim to be Islamic. I know there is plenty of work to be done in the United States as well as other countries, this country is a mess and it’s citizens are in denial.
By the end of 2009, more than a million U.S children will be homeless because of the recession, foreclosure crisis and skyrocketing unemployment rate.
Denial though, is a great American pass time, check out this astounding survey:
About three out of five Americans believe there will be widespread swine flu cases this fall or winter, but most are not worried it will strike them or their family, according to a survey released Thursday.
Swine flu is definitely something to get worried about. The 1918 flu pandemic sat for the summer and caused little damage and then when the winter came, it woke up and wiped out those who thought it was no big deal.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday that the H1N1 flu pandemic was the fastest-moving pandemic ever and that it was now pointless to count every case.
The United Nations agency, which declared an influenza pandemic on June 11, revised its requirements so that national health authorities need only report clusters of severe cases or deaths caused by the new virus or unusual clinical patterns.
“The 2009 influenza pandemic has spread internationally with unprecedented speed. In past pandemics, influenza viruses have needed more than six months to spread as widely as the new H1N1 virus has spread in less than six weeks,” it said in a statement on the new strain, commonly known as swine flu.
Finally, a story that disturbs me quite a bit. Now that Starbucks has all but wiped out the independent neighborhood coffee shop, they are going to start setting up fake independent neighborhood coffee shops. Think you are supporting a local mom and pop shop? Think again…
The Seattle-based gourmet coffee chain said it is changing the name of one of its existing stores in its hometown to a name that reflects the neighborhood location. The store will be called 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea. It will open next week and will serve coffee and tea as well as wine and beer.
The company said it will then open two more Seattle-area stores without the Starbucks name in locations that aren’t currently Starbucks stores.
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Learn Farsi, the language of Iran
In light of recent events, I have heard many say that we are all Iranian (Persian, really) and so I think we should learn the language.
(For clear full high resolution images of the pages please click the links below!)
Perhaps you would like to learn Farsi. I’m willing to share the course I just picked up at the thrift store.
Here it is, 3 mp3’s from the tapes and the pages of the book scanned.
Intro
Page 1
Pages 2-3
Pages 4-5
Pages 6-7
Pages 8-9
Pages 10-11
Pages 12-13
Pages 14-15
Pages 16-17
Pages 18-19
Pages 20-21
Pages 22-23
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The Obama Emergency, Got Guru?, Feces throwing primates, and Galileo was a crook.
I’ve hijacked a wifi connection at the Chelsea Int’l Hostel and so I’m going to use it for all it’s worth. Here are a few of the stories I find interesting today.
Apparently, Bush considers the Obama Inauguration an emergency Altruism? Maybe yes, maybe no. I won’t be here to find out.
Bush said that an emergency exists and ordered federal aid to supplement the $15 million in federal funds already appropriated for the event.
Boing Boing today has a list of ‘folk theories’ that allow people to be roped into guru cults:
• The folk theory of everything being connected
• The folk theory of ancient wisdom
• The folk theory of holiness
• The folk theory of sex being a loss to the spirit
• The folk theory of harmful technology
• The folk theory that only the heart knows what is true
They lifted it from Guruphilic
And a feces throwing primate is causing havoc in Florida, i’m in NYC, so you know it isn’t me.
And finally, it turns out that Galileo was not the first to look through a telescope. That wasn’t me either.
Englishman Thomas Harriot made the first drawing of the moon after looking through a telescope several months before Galileo, in July 1609.
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