Lewis Black on Broadway

Sky Disk of Debra Interpretion

OK, so a 3,700 year old ultra sophisticated clock/computer was discovered in Germany by archeologists sending shock waves through the scientific community.

"We have been dramatically underestimating the prehistoric peoples," said Harald Meller, chief archaeologist of Saxony-Anhalt, where the disc was found.

I'm always dumbfounded that we continue to be dumbfounded by the sophistication of early human intelligence. But I dare you to show me any aspect of our core psychology as having evolved into any sort of higher, more compassionate or insightful plain.

"The functioning of this clock was probably known to a very small group of people," Meller said.

Like maybe three people who knew when leap year—the intercalary month— was going to happen? I guess those three were out planting seeds before anyone else and considered magi. "Quick Omo, hide the plate!”

It is beautiful though, all 13" inches of it. Gold-leaf appliqués, the sun, the moon, the stars (they are thought to be the Pleiades as they appeared 3,600 years ago), the mind-blowing linking of solar and lunar calendars and the oldest star chart on record—all from the Bronze Age where we thought the only game into town was Hammer the Point and Throw the Rock in the Air and Run.

“According to astronomer Wolfhard Schlosser of the Rurh University at Bochum, the Bronze Age sky gazers already knew what the Babylonians would describe only a thousand years later.

"Whether this was a local discovery, or whether the knowledge came from afar, is still not clear," Schlosser said.

O oh. How far is "afar?"

Interestingly enough, archeologists believe that the use and understanding of the sky disk was lost over time and that eventually it became a cult object, which would be like someone 400 years from now praying over an Apple laptop I guess. Perhaps there were Bronze Age Teabaggers bitching about a good thing (manipulated by crop insurers methinks) and destroying its value for everyone. I can hear them now chanting slogans at the three astronomers (but spelling the slogans wrong in their heads)—"Lucky Guessers, Lucky Guessers!!!”

After that I guess we entered the era known as the Chaotic Planting Age....again.

Sky Disk of Nebra—3,700 Years Old

Gus Porter, American Legend with Thomas Haden Church

Gus Porter, American Legend with Thomas Haden Church

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Asphodel, That Greeny Flower

My heart rouses
thinking to bring you news
of something
that concerns you
and concerns many men. Look at
what passes for the new.
You will not find it there but in
despised poems.
It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.

~from Asphodel, That Greeny Flower
by William Carlos Williams

The Afghani Girl

When photographer Steve McCurry snapped this photograph of 12-year old Sharbat Gula for National Geographic in 1985 I doubt he realized it would brand our consciences worldwide.

McCurry found the girl in a refugee camp in Pakistan after she had trekked with her siblings and grandmother over the hazardous mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan—her parents had been killed during a Soviet helicopter gunship attack in the early 80s. Beauty, innocence, pathos, the suffering of refugees, all the elements of our crimes against ourselves were reduced to a single frame of Kodachrome color slide film.To this day, and especially this day on this planet, her gaze goes unanswered as we continue yet another meaningless war in countries whose valleys are named things like "The End of Empires.”

It took 17 years for the world to discover Sharbat's name. It's taken 8 years in Afghanistan in our so-called war against Al-Qaeda and the masterminds of 9/11 and the Taliban to assist in the deaths of tens of thousands of Afghani civilians by international military forces and insurgents. How many tens of thousands?

Her green eyes stare out at us. And to you Mr. President.

Steve McCurry continues to capture startling images:
http://www.stevemccurry.com