War Rhinos!

I'm sure everyone in the readership is aware that both the graphic novel and the film version of 300 are only very loosely based on the historical Battle of Thermopylae, but does the war rhino featured in the film have any basis in reality? Well, my favorite paleontologist/blogger has the answer. Check it out.

Sir Mix-a-Lot Would Approve

Women in the readership who like to describe themselves as "curvy" will be interested in this article describing recently uncovered paleolithic female figurines with more than generous hips and buttocks.

Movie Review: C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America

(This review contains no significant spoilers.)

Last weekend, Nick, Lisa, Greg, Alison and I watched C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America. The film, written and directed by an African American film professor from the University of Kansas in Lawrence, is a mockumentary; it takes a Ken-Burns-style look at American History since the Civil War, but it is set in a universe where the South won the "War of Northern Aggression." As a result, slavery, racism, and sexism have not only continued in the South, but spread across the country and beyond. The movie is sometimes funny, often thought-provoking, and always discomforting. What really made the flick one worth seeing were the mock advertisements for products and services available in that universe. The most horrifying part was learning, in the epilog, just how many of these advertised goods were extrapolations of real-world products and services.

Overall, I give it 7.5 out of 10.

Nast!

Today, NPR's Morning Edition had an interesting and revolting segment about disease being transmitted by insects in the American Civil War. The most disturbing part concerned the soldiers' meals. I urge you to listen to the piece, but not while eating, like I did.

Warning: This Post is a Downer

Last night, NPR broadcast an amazing story on Walter Freeman, the inventor and promoter of the neurosurgical procedure known as the transorbital lobotomy. The story is told by Howard Dully, whom Freeman lobotomized at the age of 12. Dully's step-mother requested the procedure because Dully was unruly and behaved, as far as I can tell, much like the typical 12-year-old boy.

In a transorbital lobotomy, an ice-pick-like instrument (The original instrument was actually an ice pick that Freeman had in the back of a drawer in his kitchen.) is inserted under the eye lid, over the eyeball, through the eye socket (or orbital) and into the frontal lobe of the brain. The instrument is then swished around, more-or-less at random, severing connections in the frontal lobe. This process is usually done through both eye sockets. Freeman sometimes performed the procedure through both eyes simultaneously. Since I can't imagine there being a good medical reason for the simultaneity, I can only believe Freeman was adding a bit of showmanship to the surgery. The NPR story's description of the procedure repeatedly made me say, aloud, things like "'uwah-lah" and "blwah-ah"---and not in a funny, Jerry Lewis kind of way. Here is a rather discomforting photo of Dully's lobotomy.

Some people experienced good outcomes from the procedure, but many suffered significant brain damage. How did anyone ever think this surgery was a good treatment for everything from delusions to chronic headaches?

Anyway, you should check out the NPR story.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Too

One of the very few nonfiction books that I've ever read cover to cover is Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynn Truss. Since I consider myself a punctuation stickler and was known as the "Grammar Nazi" in my research group in grad school, I'd like to think that this book was written exclusively for me and a small set of like-minded, self-important grammar snobs. Surely, only a small, exclusive group of people would be amused by punctuation humor! In reality, the thing was a best-seller in both the UK and the US, leading me to question just how erudite my sense of humor really is. I guess the audience for the author's brand of self-mockingly self-righteous humor includes more than just those of us who know the glee that comes from a really good semicolon deployment. Besides, anything written as a defense of the King's English is inherently amusing when done in an English accent. Oh, and the book's quite short, which may help explain not only why it was so successful, but also why I managed to stay interested long enough to finish it.

I'm sure you're asking, "Why bring this up? What do I care?" Well, just a couple of days ago, Lynn Truss' new book, Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door, was released. Where ES&L was a tirade on punctuation, this little book promises to be tirade on manners. I must admit I'm intrigued, though I'm not as punctilious about my manners as about my punctuation. Sadly, the New York times has described it as "a thin and crabby diatribe" and also said Ms. Truss "may have been good for only one book-length conniption." Hmm. Those comments have me worried (though I always enjoy reading the word "conniption"). Side note: At a svelte 216 pages, this book likely has one of the highest ever ratios of title length to total length. I'm not sure that fact is important or significant in any way; I just thought you should know.

By the way, I believe the only other nonfiction book I've ever completed is the much, much longer The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. In writing this entry, I discovered that TMotAB also has a sequel, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, which was published in the mid 1990s. Where have I been? How did this escape my notice? I blame you. Anyway, I'll be adding Dark Sun to my wish list soon.