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The Blogmanac: "On This Day" ... and much more
Think universally. Act terrestrially.
For in a hard-working society, it is rare and even subversive to celebrate too much, to revel and keep on reveling: to stop whatever you're doing and rave, pray, throw things, go into trances, jump over bonfires, drape yourself in flowers, stay up all night, and scoop the froth from the sea.
Anneli Rufus*
From a scathing assessment of Ashcroft and the US Administration:
"Ashcroft is, not to mince words, a lunatic. This would have been universally recognized at almost any other moment in American history. In the looking-glass world of 'the war on terror,' however, Ashcroft's religious manias haven't excited even mild censure from anyone in government. By all reports, Ashcroft runs the Department of Justice like a Pentecostal revival meeting, enjoining his staff to raise their voices in righteous hymns of his own composition ...
"What should have been a disaster for G.W. Bush's presidency, then, has instead served as a pretext for conducting it like a dictatorship, with John Ashcroft's Justice Department as its secret police." Source: Village Voice
Bush's 'justice': three years solitary, no charge, no lawyer
"ELEANOR HALL: While David Hicks has been able to see his family, however briefly, the other Australian inmate in the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay is yet to enjoy similar privileges.
"After being in detention for almost three years, Sydney man, Mamdouh Habib, still has no idea when he might be brought to trial before the military commission system.
"And despite a US court ordering that Mr Habib should be allowed access to a lawyer, his Australian solicitor has again been refused permission by US authorities to visit his client." Source: The World Today
This kinda throws some interesting questions at Senator Bob Graham and Rep. Porter Goss, chairmen of the Senate and House Committees on Intelligence and the investigation into 9/11.
"The chairmen of the Joint Inquiry have dubious links to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) which is known to have actively supported Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
"Moreover, according to intelligence sources, including the FBI, Pakistan's ISI played a role in financing the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
"The two Joint Inquiry chairmen Sen Bob Graham and Rep Porter Goss were fully cognizant of the "Pakistani ISI connection" and the role played by its former head, General Mahmoud Ahmad.
"Why then did they choose to exclude an examination of the role of the ISI from the Joint Inquiry's 858 page Report? ...
"In late August 2001, barely a couple of weeks before September 11, Senator Bob Graham, Representative Porter Goss and Senator Jon Kyl were on a top level mission in Islamabad, which was barely mentioned by the US media.
"Meetings were held with President Pervez Musharraf and with Pakistan's military and intelligence brass including the head of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) General Mahmoud Ahmad. Amply documented, the ISI is known to support a number of Islamic terrorist organizations. (See Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) here)
"According to the FBI, Indian Intelligence and several press reports, the ISI Head was instrumental in providing financial support to the 9/11 terrorists. General Mahmoud Ahmad had allegedly ordered the transfer of $100.000 to the presumed 9/11 ring-leader Mohamed Atta." Source: Sydney Indymedia More on this And more What Really Happened
For years, I have been stalked by a bad reputation. Actually, I have been pursued by people who have regarded me as the Death and Dying Lady. They believe that having spent more than three decades in research into death and life after death qualifies me as an expert on the subject. I think they miss the point. The only incontrovertible fact of my work is the importance of life. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross; The Wheel of Life: A Memoir of Living and Dying (her autobiography), 1997
I can't let Tuesday's passing of the remarkable Dr Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (b. July 8, 1926) go unmentioned here. I've placed a brief obit at August 24 in the Book of Days.
[Whenever you see the image above, you can click for updates on Australians being denied natural justice by the Bush Administration.]
"ELEANOR HALL: Today, after three years of detention at Guantanamo Bay, where he has been held by the United States as an enemy combatant, Australian David Hicks finally faced the military commission which will try him on charges including conspiracy and attempted murder.
"Having spent the majority of the last three years in solitary confinement, Hicks was put in the now unfamiliar position of confronting a large group of people when he appeared unshackled and wearing civilian clothes to plead not guilty to all charges.
"David Hicks was also allowed to see his father, Terry, for the first time in five years.
"The ABC's North America Correspondent, Leigh Sales, was in the courtroom at Guantanamo Bay for today's hearing.
"LEIGH SALES: Many of the observers made two comments after today's court hearing. The first was how totally composed and inscrutable David Hicks was. The Adelaide man showed no reaction at all to proceedings, nor did he attempt to make eye contact with his family, except for one occasion when he first walked in.
"The second observation was how impressive the lead defence counsel, Josh Dratel, was. Mr Dratel is a New York based civilian lawyer who works alongside Steve Kenny and Major Michael Mori on the Hicks case ...
"Outside, Major Mori repeated his assertion that the military commission process will not deliver a fair trial.
"MICHAEL MORI: The process, I don't think, myself, Josh, Steve or any of us, have ever hidden from David that he is facing an unfair system that has been resurrected from the 1940s and he's been thrust into it and his life and freedom is being put in jeopardy.
"It's being placed in a system that the United States would not tolerate for its citizens, that Britain will not tolerate for its citizens. And I can't understand why David Hicks' life has to be placed in this position. I think we've never hidden that from him and he knows it ...
"LEX LASRY: My main concern, or my main area of surprise is this combination of judge and jury in the panel, the way that process… how that process will practically work seems to me to be a bit of a mystery. But I haven't seen it functioning so it's perhaps a bit early to tell.
"LEIGH SALES: David Hicks is back in his orange jumpsuit in solitary confinement in Camp Echo tonight, his flash charcoal suit in mothballs until his next appearance before the Commission in November. His full trial will start on the 10th of January next year.
"This is Leigh Sales in Guantanamo Bay for The World Today." Source
On the Indonesian island of Rakata, the volcano Krakatoa (real name, Krakatau) erupted with one of the biggest volcanic explosions ever in human history (some say Santorini’s eruption in 1628 BCE was three times as forceful. Krakatoa was heard over 7.5 per cent of the earth’s surface).
The sound of the eruption was heard as far as 3,540 km away, in Australia. By way of comparison, an equivalent phenomenon in Australia would be an explosion in Perth being heard in Sydney, or in the USA, a New York explosion being heard in San Francisco. Tidal waves caused by the great blast killed 36,000 people in Java and Sumatra.
‘Modern’ communications helped the world know about Krakatoa in a short time and helped changed the world view of the day. Whereas news of Abraham Lincoln’s 1865 assassination did not reach London for 12 days, Europeans and Americans knew about the explosion of Krakatoa in four hours. The difference: in the years between 1865 and 1883 there had been three great developments: the invention of Morse Code; the global spread of the telegraph, and the establishment of Reuter’s news agency. No longer could the world be seen as vast and unknowable.
The eruption is also the subject of a 1969 Hollywood film entitled Krakatoa, East of Java starring Maximilian Schell – which is notable chiefly for getting the volcano’s location embarrassingly wrong; Krakatoa is in fact west of Java.
It has been discovered that Edvard Munch painted The Scream when Norway was experiencing brilliant sunsets following the great explosion, no doubt influencing his depiction of the sky in the famous painting ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with many more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date (or your birthday) when you're there.
The last pagan sacrifice of a bull to be conducted publicly in the Celtic world, was performed on the island of Eilean Maree (Maelrubha, formerly Eilean a Mhor Righ – Island of the Great King), in Loch Maree, a lake in the Ross and Cromarty region of the Scottish Highlands. The sacrifice was to ensure the healing of mental disorders.
Libations of milk were also poured out on the hills, ruined chapels were perambulated, wells and stones worshipped, and divination practised each year on this date, the alternative feast day of St Malrubius, known locally as St Mourie.
It's likely that Maol Rubha (pronounced mull-roo-ah) supplanted Mourie, a pagan Moon god of earlier times. The crescent moon is shaped like a bull’s horn, and this might be why the bull was associated with the ancient rites and festivities – at Eilean Maree and elsewhere.
The island was formerly known as and its festival is closely connected to the Irish Lughnasad, which also featured animal sacrifice. On the island there is a spring known as St Maelrubha’s Well, long considered to have healing properties, especially for the mentally ill. A visitor who witnessed these rites in 1772 told how a sufferer was forced to kneel before an ancient altar and then drink water from the well before being dipped three times in the loch.
And whoso bathes therein his brow With care or madness burning, Feels once again his healthful thought And sense of peace returning. John Greenleaf Whittier
In 1656, the Scottish Presbytery had condemned the “abominable and heathenish” practices that took place on this day – practices that included ceremonial well dressing. As late as 1911 in Ireland, the peasantry still killed a sheep or heifer for St Martin on his festival, and ill-luck was thought to follow the non-observance of the rite ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with many more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date (or your birthday) when you're there.
Mindful of the fact that, just as a crazy rich man is eccentric but a crazy poor man is a nutter, a rich man has PR and a poor man has shameless self-promotion, your almanackist is pleased to report we have passed the mark of three quarters of the Book of Days.
That is, 276 days out of the 366 days are done online – more than 2,130,000 words of folklore, calendar customs, alternative history and oddities.
With your support, which is very welcome, we'll continue to go round the whole Wheel of the Year. I invite readers to see how our system of support operates.
I'm always delighted when members write, and I enjoy replying. Susan, an Almaniac from California who formerly unsubscribed to Wilson's Almanac ezine but has now returned, wrote this week:
"Pip, I enjoy your ezine very much. It is so much fun and educational!! I quit you for a while – 9/11 and your anti-Bush opinions – but I have changed my mind about the whole thing now – a lot of Americans have."
That was such a nice email to receive and it warmed my heart.
Way back on August 2, 2002 in the Almanac, were the words:
"The government of my country, Australia, and several others apparently, are planning an invasion of Iraq ... Wilson's Almanac will oppose this war ..."
You can read the whole statement in the Yahoo! Groups archives, message number 650.
At that time there was almost no discussion of an invasion, and certainly little opposition. Many people at the time thought my words were crazy, and on that day began a mass exit from the Almanac ezine's subscriber base that now seems to be reversing. We have continued with what we believed then to be right and honourable.
To those who stayed, or left and returned, and to all who have just surfed in, a big thanks. There would be no Almy without you. :)
*Ø* Former Oz Libs president's anti-Howard campaign
"A former federal president of the Liberals thinks the party would be better off without John Howard.
"John Valder today helped launch the 'Not Happy John' campaign, designed unseat Mr Howard in his Sydney seat of Bennelong." Source: ABC Oz
Note: The Liberal Party is the governing party in Australia. Despite its name, it is a conservative party akin to the Republicans in the US and the Tories in the UK.
Reporter: Eleanor Hall, Radio National, ABC (Australia's taxpayer-funded national broadcaster)
"ELEANOR HALL: As we've been hearing the Australian Government says it’s confident the special military tribunal set up to try David Hicks will be fair.
"But a New York lawyer who represented Guantanamo detainees in the Supreme Court earlier this year is scathing of the military tribunal system.
"Attorney, Michael Ratner, is President of the Centre for Constitutional Rights in New York and earlier today I asked him about the pending military tribunals.
"MICHAEL RATNER: It's my view now that these are completely illegal, both under our domestic law as well as under international law. So unusual would be an understatement. They're not just unusual but as many of us have said – they're unfair as well.
"ELEANOR HALL: The Australian Government though says it's been assured that the trial procedures being used for David Hicks are based on fundamental principals of justice like the presumption of innocence and proof beyond reasonable doubt?
"MICHAEL RATNER: Yeah, I find their position really remarkable and completely unjustified. I mean, we have to start with the idea that first the President designates who is going to be tried. The President then appoints the military prosecutors. He then appoints the military judges. There's no appeal from these tribunals and they allow all kinds of evidence in. Even coerced evidence. So there's nothing fair about this. There's nothing that resembles justice. It's really inexcusable to me that any government that would call itself civilised at this point would support these kind of tribunals.
"ELEANOR HALL: Now, you mentioned that there are questions about whether evidence obtained under coercion will be admissible. How does this compare to rules of evidence in say a murder trial?
"MICHAEL RATNER: Well, in murder trials, coerced evidence cannot be used. If the government hasn't given you an attorney, it's assumed that the statement is coerced. If they've obviously been kept in detention for two and a half years and not only subject to very, wildly coercive tactics including possibly torture – whether in David's case or in the people who might be used as witnesses against him. And when I say people as witnesses against him, another real problem with these tribunals is that they can be trials by affidavit. So if there's a witness that says David did something, they can put in his statement, and you can't cross-examine the person, and they then come in and say national security – you can't cross-examine him. So the Bush administration here is not going to even allow David Hicks' lawyers to examine, as far as I know, a number of the witnesses here.
"ELEANOR HALL: So these witnesses will be testifying anonymously will they?
"MICHAEL RATNER: Well, testifying would be an exaggerated word I'm afraid. It may be that a lot of these people come in simply by an affidavit or a paper and there's nothing much you can do. So not only could there be anonymous witnesses – there could be no witnesses at all other than the statements given to army investigators again, without knowing the circumstances that those statements were given – could very well have been coercive, in fact in the case of Guantanamo where the coercion has been rampant.
"ELEANOR HALL: So how will David Hicks' lawyers mount a defence?
"MICHAEL RATNER: Well, for starters, just two things about David Hicks' lawyers. Apart from the overall rules that have made these tribunals very unfair, the actual treatment right now of the lawyers and others who are trying to defend David Hicks and the others, has been completely unfair. They're not getting access to the discovery they need. They're not getting enough money to go travel to Afghanistan and actually interview witnesses. So there's a whole series of motions that have to be decided over the next couple of months of arguments that the lawyers are going to make – that they haven't been provided with the information that they need. So that's one real downer. The second thing is, the US Government doesn't pay anything for the civilian lawyers. His military lawyer, Colonel Michael Mori, is an excellent lawyer – has been objecting to these, and people should understand, this is a colonel – major actually, Major Michael Mori – a major in the US military and he himself has said that these are unfair tribunals, that they have no place in the justice system and that these people should be tried – if at all – by courts martials.
"ELEANOR HALL: Now you also said that there's no appeal process. To what extent is that a concern?
"MICHAEL RATNER: Well it's illegal under the Geneva Convention as well as under our domestic law. The idea that – I mean, they would say, the government might argue, the Bush administration, that there's an appeal process. But it's only an appeal essentially within the military system to a panel, and then to the Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld or his designee. There's no court appeal. So what we've done in these cases and what the lawyers have done, is they've immediately tried to take these cases into out federal courts in the United States, much like we took the original habeas corpus or petitions in the early days into US federal courts, to try and challenge these illegal procedures. My prediction is in the end, that none of this will hold up, that these will be thrown out, these will be seen for what they are – an utter and complete sham.
"ELEANOR HALL: What about the argument that special rules are needed in special circumstances like terrorist enemy combatants?
"MICHAEL RATNER: My view is that fundamental human rights and civil rights don't depend on circumstances. In fact, they're made for very difficult situations. They're made for situations like this, and we haven't really insisted – and that was interesting in the Supreme Court opinion – that since 1215, since the Magna Carta which was signed in 1215 and the court sited that in the Supreme Court decision, that you're required to have fair procedures and fair hearings and the rule of law. You're not supposed to set up special ad hoc tribunals that are geared to prosecution, geared to conviction to suit the circumstances. That's very, very unfortunate here. These are just flatly, something I never would have expected to see in my 30 years of law practice.
"ELEANOR HALL: Michael Ratner is President of the Centre for Constitutional Rights in New York, and he was speaking to me from there earlier today. Source: The World Today
"The real debate is neither Bush nor Kerry, but the system they exemplify; it is the decline of true democracy and the rise of the American 'national security state' in Britain and other countries claiming to be democracies, in which people are sent to prison and the key thrown away and whose leaders commit capital crimes in faraway places, unhindered, and then, like the ruthless Blair, invite the thug they install to address the Labour Party conference. The real debate is the subjugation of national economies to a system which divides humanity as never before and sustains the deaths, every day, of 24,000 hungry people. The real debate is the subversion of political language and of debate itself and perhaps, in the end, our self-respect."
The Saddam-al Qaeda connection has fizzled and no nuclear, biological or chemical weapons have been unearthed in post-invasion Iraq. So the Bush administration’s fallback, ex post facto rationale for invading Iraq is that the country is better off without Saddam. But the U.S.-backed Iraqi government seems to be ruling more like Saddam everyday. [Emphasis added. -v]
Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi has recently ordered the arrest of political opponents, closed a prominent media outlet reporting stories that were embarrassing to the Iraqi government, and taken up aggressive tactics vis-a-vis the opposition guerrillas, including reinstating the death penalty against them.
After the cosmetic changeover of power from the U.S. occupation to a hand-picked Iraqi Prime Minister, Allawi’s behavior is predictable. With an Iraqi glove now on the fist of U.S. power, Iraqis can get away with much harsher policies toward other Iraqis than could a foreign occupier—especially the leader of the free world, which has billed its invasion as bringing democracy to an autocratic country. Thus, the U.S. government, as it has done so many times during the Cold War and after, is masking with high flying democratic rhetoric the substitution of an unfriendly dictator with a friendly one.
The Iraqi government has ordered the arrest of political opponents Ahmed Chalabi and his nephew Salem, who is leading the prosecution of Saddam. They were originally darlings of the Pentagon and American neo-conservatives but have since fallen out of favor with the Bush administration. The Chalabis did too much consorting with the theocrats in Iran for U.S. authorities to stomach.
In another Saddam-like move, Allawi has closed the Iraq office of Al Jazeera, the pan-Arabic television network, for broadcasting images that embarrassed the Iraqi government. Apparently, the network’s coverage was placing too much emphasis on the rampant kidnappings that have recently paralyzed Iraq.
A work of origami, or paper folding, is shown on display during the origami convention in Tokyo, Friday, Aug. 20, 2004. Showcasing a renaissance in the ancient Japanese art of origami, some of the best paper-folders in the world descended on Tokyo on Friday for a three-day competition and convention to celebrate the artistic possibilities of origami, which is believed to have been used to create sacred ornaments at the Grand Shrines of Ise, the center of Japan's native shinto religion. (AP Photo/Junji Kurokawa) Source
I'm not sure if I've sold one yet, but I've had on sale Dan Brown's best-seller, The Da Vinci Code, in our store, Cafe Diem, for a few months, so I thought it was about time I actually read it myself. Now that I'm about halfway through this "intellectual thriller" full of twists, turns and intriguing ancient riddles, two burning questions have arisen:
Firstly, was ever such a badly written book such a page-turner? And secondly, was ever a page-turner so badly written?
Dan Brown has written a book of genius, as we are reliably informed by a reviewer (on the back cover of the book). The author of The Da Vinci Code has the distinction of being the first writer to craft an entire best selling novel – nay, to craft an entire career, as his career and continuing celebrity are now assured – out of a deep understanding of the dumbed-down status of his readership.
One must congratulate Mr Brown on identifying the marketing possibilities created for all of us by the failed education systems of the West over the past two or three decades. Formerly, these opportunities were exploited to their maximum potential by media owners and a number of other corporate go-getters, and although certain novelists had made valiant attempts to mimic their success, it took a writer with the heretofore mentioned genius of Dan Brown to "crack the code", as it were. We are all the richer for it. Mr Brown and a great many people at Bantam Press are as well.
The sequel to The Da Vinci Code
So impressed was I with Mr Brown's genius, I shot off an email to him last week and asked him what his next book was going to be about. He replied immediately, thanking me for his free daily Wilson's Almanac ezine, for he is a subscriber and huge fan – as a matter of fact, he said he owes much of his success to "the captivating esoteric information that arrives each day in [my] email in-tray". Dan, you're the man!
Danny, as I fondly call him, told me that the sequel would be set in Australia, and he gave me permission to print a few paragraphs from his manuscript here for the readers. Oh – and he asked me to send his warm greetings to all.
Here for the first time is a snippet from Dan's forthcoming novel ...
The Dundee Code: Exclusive to Wilson's Almanac Langdon and Sophie peered over the low brick wall toward the famous Sydney Opera House and into the foyer, as 'lobby' is called in Australia – a country in the Southern Hemisphere that many people know from Crocdile Dundee and Crocodile Hunter.
"Can you see into the lobby, Sophie?" asked Robert Langdon.
"The earth is divided into hemispheres, Robert," Sophie Neveu explained. "There is a Northern Hemisphere and a Southern, an Eastern and a Western Hemisphere, like you have an East and West Coast in America, east being on the right and west on the left of the 'map' (a kind of street directory only world-sized). You might have seen maps on Discovery Channel. Unlike people in the USA, Australians live in the Southern, and Eastern Hemispheres. And rather than using the word 'lobby', they use the French-sounding word, 'foy ––'"
"There he is!" interrupted Langdon. "It's the evil Silas, the albino. I can tell, because of his very white skin and hair, as white as Disney's Snow White's hair is black. And I think his eyes might be pink, but from this distance ..."
"Ah yes, monsieur Robert," said Sophie, who often tended to use the famous French word for 'mister' (monsieur) even down there Down Under in Australia, an English-speaking democracy of about 20 million population, and one-time convict colony of the UK, or United Kingdom. Where they drive on the left-hand side of the road.
Sophie continued, "Yes. Albinism: a genetic condition resulting in a lack of pigmentation in the eyes, skin and hair ... an inherited condition arising from the combination of recessive genes passed from both parents of an individual."
Langdon looked concerned. "He seems to be asking the 'bloke behind the desk' – as they call a 'desk clerk' over here, Down Under – something. Sophie, do you still have that long-range hearing device in your handbag, the one that Inspecteur – or 'Inspector' in English – Fache accidentally dropped back in Paris (Paris, France, about 3,500 miles from Ohio) and you picked up so adroitly?"
That word 'adroit'! The French word 'droit', meaning 'right', certainly finds its way into many nooks and crannies of the English language. It even makes me think of the motto on the British coat of arms, DIEU ET MON DROIT. It took Sophie to see her grandfather's clever anagram here: I'M DUNDEE. ROOT IT. Root! The Australian slang term for sexual intercourse. How could I have missed it?
"Oui, monsieur. Yes, sir," Sophie ventured.
"Sophie, you can call me 'mate'. We're now in Australia (a country located south of Indonesia, which is about 12,000 miles from Oregon). People call each other 'mate' here," Langdon said, "as they are very friendly, and have national characteristics such as anti-authoritarianism, tough individualism and a touch of idleness, just as Asians are just one big lookalike monoculture, and bad people have German accents, and you French are arrogant and smell like garlic. But Aussies are achievers and hosted the famous Olympic Games right here in Sydney in 2000 – you might have seen it on le télévision in your native France, Europe, way east of New York. Australians are a bit like Americans, only with bad accents."
Sophie was obviously impressed. As a university-trained professional, there was so much she already knew, but so much she could learn, and Robert Langdon was the one to teach her. "Here is the dévice d'acouter – listening device in your language – what will you use it for?" she asked, occasionally slipping into the language, French, of her native homeland of origin, which can easily happen when you have some language other than English, as almost all the 60 million or so French people do. French is the language spoken by Pepe le Pew in the old Warner Brothers cartoons.
Langdon was lost in thought. France: A country whose metropolitan territory is located in western Europe, and which is further made up of a collection of overseas islands and territories located in North America, the Caribbean, South America, the western Indian Ocean, the northern and southern Pacific Ocean, and the ocean surrounding Antarctica (sovereignty over Antarctica proper is suspended since the signing of the Antarctic Treaty). Langdon was still lost in thought.
"Robert? Robert? You're thinking again. Italics mean thinking, or French. What will you use it for?" Sophie asked.
"Use what? Oh! The listening device?" Langdon, a professor from one of the most famous universities of the East Coast in the USA ('Ivy League'), that two Presidents and a lot of famous people had gone to, hadn't noticed Sophie Neveu was speaking to him. A lot of professors have this absent-minded quality, like they have Father Knows Best leather sleeve patches on their tweed jackets, and polo-necked shirts, and flecks of gray in their hair, like poets, but not necessarily red setter dogs and cottages on wind-swept beaches as poets do – and Dr Robert Langdon, (Ph D, or Doctor of Philosophy, not a medical doctor) was no exception.
Although we might not have seen much evidence of it in Gilligan's Island (which was not completely based on fact), these charming professor characteristics are seen as irresistibly attractive to beautiful and savvy women of 32 or so. Hot young women just like the brave, university-educated redhead, Sophie Neveu, who had a kind of female Heinrich Schliemann feel about her.
Heinrich Schliemann was a famous archeologist (like Indiana Jones), from Germany, Europe. However, Sophie was not an archeologist, but a cryptographer, so a lot of her time had been spent working out what codes meant – the cryptographer's vocation. Yes, working out codes or 'cryptograms' as they're called, rather than digging in the ground to find lost civilizations – the vocation of archeologists.
Huh? Hey! HEINRICH SCHLEIMANN! My gosh, if you let an N be an H, that's an anagram of SHH A CLICHE IN MENHIR. Of course! 'Menhir' – a large, single upright standing stone (monolith or megalith), of prehistoric European origin ... like the Heelstone at Stonehenge, England, Europe! How could I have missed it? HEELSTONE .... ETHEL NOSE!
Now, if we can just find someone called Ethel.
"Oui – yes, Robert. Mais of course. The listening device Inspecteur Fache dropped when I disarmed him of his .44 Magnum by wrapping myself in the Mona Lisa canvas, knowing he wouldn't shootez moi."
"Well Sophie, it's like this ––"
"Robert. Before you continuez, and while Silas is breaking that 'desk bloke's' neck, there is something I must tell you half of."
"What is it, Sophie? You look harried. (Stressed.)"
Langdon took a long puff on his meerschaum pipe. He hadn't noticed before how the bright sun they have down there in Down Under could light up a woman's hair so, while at the same time illuminating those delicate facial hints of doubt, uncertainty, vulnerability, that made the well-built cryptographer seem somehow ... appealing. Appealing? She is becoming suddenly very attractive to me. Me! A middle-aged expert!
"Sophie, you have another surprise secret to reveal to me, don't you?"
"Oui – yes, Robert."
"First half now, and second half tomorrow?"
"Oui."
"Hey, I just guessed that! I have an agile mind but yours is so much sharper, like many women these days. Is it about the sacred feminine in the Delphic Oracle in Greece, Europe, and how that ties in with the famous Olympic Games? And the connection with Sydney, Australia (which successfully hosted the Olympics in 2000)?"
"Un peu. A bit. But more to do with the Knights Templar, the Illuminati and the mysteriously engraved golden lava lamp my grandfather found buried under the south pylon of the Sydney Harbour Bridge (the famous bridge on many Australian postcards)."
Her French accent is making the hairs on my arm stand on end! Golly, I could really fall for this 'babe' ...
"OK, Sophie. Shoot."
... if she'd only lay off the garlic, already.
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
Fact is, I really am enjoying The Da Vinci Code, every hyperreal, ignorant, made-for-TV, page of it. It really is hard to put down.
If you haven't done so already, grab a cheap copy at Cafe Diem. Better still, get it from your library for free, just be prepared to wait six weeks like I did, as it's still very much in demand.
Pages
of Days
Almanac
President
"ELEANOR HALL: While David Hicks has been able to see his family, however briefly, the other Australian inmate in the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay is yet to enjoy similar privileges.
"The UK could 'sleepwalk into a surveillance society' as a result of ID cards and other plans, UK information commissioner Richard Thomas has warned. 
August 26, 1883 
Mindful of the fact that, just as a crazy rich man is eccentric but a crazy poor man is a nutter, a rich man has PR and a poor man has shameless self-promotion, your almanackist is pleased to report we have passed the mark of three quarters of the 
"A former federal president of the Liberals thinks the party would be better off without John Howard.
A work of origami, or paper folding, is shown on display during the origami convention in Tokyo, Friday, Aug. 20, 2004. Showcasing a renaissance in the ancient Japanese art of origami, some of the best paper-folders in the world descended on Tokyo on Friday for a three-day competition and convention to celebrate the artistic possibilities of origami, which is believed to have been used to create sacred ornaments at the Grand Shrines of Ise, the center of Japan's native shinto religion. (AP Photo/Junji Kurokawa) 
