“His deeper tragedy was to perish in the madhouse that his Serbia became, a stricken nation where the poets and criminals cannot tell each other apart.”

I hear with shock that my very close friend, a great Serbian poet, died in a Belgrade clinic haunted by Dragan Dabic, whose “quantum human energy” obviously cannot cure lung cancer. My friend the poet never committed genocide, nor did he ever hide from justice by stealing the identity of an innocent man. He wrote his verse about his beloved city and he published books. He also smoked too much to survive, but his mortality was not his sorest problem, because his verse outlives him. His deeper tragedy was to perish in the madhouse that his Serbia became, a stricken nation where the poets and criminals cannot tell each other apart.

- Jasmina Tešanović @ Boing Boing: Link.

The amazing likeness has come to light as part of a sale of ancient antiques by the auction house Bonhams.

… The Roman Elvis is in fact a genuine marble acroterion — a kind of architectural ornament often found for decoration on the corners of a sarcophagus, a stone tomb or burial chamber.

It forms part of a collection owned by Melbourne-based Graham Geddes — one of the world’s most foremost collectors — which is estimated to sell for more than £1m when it goes on sale in October.

- Niall Firth @ MailOnline: Link.

Via Boing Boing, via Neatorama.

Over at Alpha Mummy, columnist Caitlin Moran has posted a thoughtful, wry essay about how raising children has improved her life:

“Have children? Yeah, but what am I going to get out of it?” … I reckon I have got a lot out of my becoming a mother … Indeed, I reckon I’ve got so much out of it, I could make a list … ”

3) Really getting a handle on the fact I’m going to die. I was never really that ambitious before I had children, because I thought I had approximately six million years left to sit around smoking marijuana, watching daytime TV and keeping a scrapbook of Richard Madeley’s best sayings. But now I’ve made a child who’s nearly four feet tall, I am very aware of the passing of time. I am going to die relatively soon. I need to get on with things. I’ve got my hustle on.

- Caitlin Moran @ Times Online: Link.

Ernest Gary Gygax (July 27, 1938 – March 4, 2008)

Saint Gygax of Dungeons & Dragons has passed from this world.

I was a D&D geek, back in my teens (late 70s, early 80s) ; and although I haven’t played in two decades, I’m still fond of the idea of D&D. I learned something about myself, and about other people, through Dungeons & Dragons. I learned that it’s okay to live a life rich in imagination.

Thank you, Gary Gygax: you did good. May your next adventures buckle as much swash; may your fireballs always do double damage; and may you always make your saving throws.

The New York Times reports:

Gary Gygax, a pioneer of the imagination who transported a fantasy realm of wizards, goblins and elves onto millions of kitchen tables around the world through the game he helped create, Dungeons & Dragons, died Tuesday at his home in Lake Geneva, Wis. He was 69.

- By Seth Schiesel @ New York Times: March 5, 2008: Link.

“Gygax’s accomplishment makes him … like the person who first conceived staged drama, or the guy who came up with the idea for books.”
- Darren Zenko

Eulogizing E. Gary Gygax, “the Father of Dungeons & Dragons,” is a lot different than coming up with postmortem praise for, say, a great playwright or a titan of literature – Gygax’s accomplishment makes him more like the person who first conceived staged drama, or the guy who came up with the idea for books. Before D&D there was nothing like D&D; its advent created nerddom as we know it, and changed culture forever.

The antecedents of D&D were heroic fantasy literature on the one hand and tabletop war-gaming on the other. Both were proto-nerdy pursuits, and had been around for centuries by the time Gygax and collaborator Dave Arneson published their first set of role-playing rules in 1974. The singular genius of D&D was in bringing the two together, creating a statistical framework for simulating the fantastic worlds of Tolkien, Malory, and Robert E. Howard.

Overnight, fantasies of knights, wizards and rogues went from products you consumed (or maybe even created) in the privacy of your own head, to something you played – unique experiences generated with other people according to ground rules everybody (usually) agreed on: role-playing games were born.

- Darren Zenko @ The Star: Link.

Geek Love

In “Geek Love”, a touching and insightful obituary, Adam Rogers nicely summarizes my own experience with D&D:

Geeks like algorithms. We like sets of rules that guide future behavior. But people, normal people, consistently act outside rule sets. People are messy and unpredictable, until you have something like the Dungeons & Dragons character sheet. Once you’ve broken down the elements of an invented personality into numbers generated from dice, paper and pencil, you can do the same for your real self.

For us, the character sheet and the rules for adventuring in an imaginary world became a manual for how people are put together. Life could be lived as a kind of vast, always-on role-playing campaign.

Don’t give me that look. I know I’m not a paladin, and I know I don’t live in the Matrix. But the realization that everyone else was engaged in role-playing all the time gave my universe rules and order.

- Adam Rogers @ New York Times: Link.

Sam Potts created the charming, sly, geeky flowchart: Link to full image.

Via Boing Boing.

The evolution of trickster stories among the dogs of North Park after the Change

Short fiction by Kij Johnson. Excerpt:

6. One Dog Invents Death.

This is the same dog. She lives in a nice house with people. They do not let her run outside a fence and they did things to her so that she can’t have puppies, but they feed her well and are kind, and they rub places on her back that she can’t reach.

At this time, there is no death for dogs, they live forever. After a while, One Dog becomes bored with her fence and her food and even the people’s pats. But she can’t convince the people to allow her outside the fence.

“There should be death,” she decides. “Then there will be no need for boredom.”

- Kij Johnson: Link.

Via Futurismic.

Interesting idea, nicely realized. The story is a finalist for the 2007 Nebula Award — best wishes Kij!

Reminiscent of The Author of the Acacia Seeds
And Other Extracts from the Journal of the Association of Therolinguistics by Ursula LeGuin, as well as Our Neural Chernobyl by Bruce Sterling.

Thought for today:

This is no time to make new enemies.

-Voltaire, (1694-1778)
When asked on his deathbed to forswear Satan.

“An explosive new book by David Talbot, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years … reveals that Robert Kennedy, who was Attorney General during his brother’s presidency, believed that JFK was killed by an insider conspiracy of powerful players who didn’t like some of the president’s actions. ”

DT: Well, you know, the assassination of JFK is a dark labyrinth. It’s possibly the darkest labyrinth in my lifetime, the biggest mystery. Many books have been written about it and I didn’t want to go down that same tunnel. But I wanted to follow Bobby’s footsteps, because Bobby Kennedy was the Attorney General of the United States and one of the most aggressive investigators in American public life in his day. And he was utterly devoted to his older brother, President Kennedy. So I wanted to know what he really thought.

I thought doing that would shed light on this case. And the truth is, starting from the afternoon of that terrible day in Dallas; Bobby Kennedy believed that his brother’s assassination was a conspiracy. He looked immediately at the CIA and its secret war on Castro as the source of the plot.
(more…)

“Defense Minister Guadalupe Larriva, a 50-year-old former teacher and senior official of a socialist political party supporting Correa, died in the crash in a Pacific coastal province east of Quito.” Link.

Ecuador’s defense minister dies in helicopter collision

Ecuador’s first female defense minister was killed in a mid-air collision of two helicopters [January 24, 2007] after only nine days in office, government and military officials said.

… Defense Minister Guadalupe Larriva, a 50-year-old former teacher and senior official of a socialist political party supporting Correa, died in the crash in a Pacific coastal province east of Quito, Correa told reporters.

Correa gave no specific details on the cause of the collision that killed Larriva, her teenage daughter and five military personnel aboard the Gazelle helicopters.

… Ecuadorean Vice President Lenin Moreno said he received a report from the military saying it was an unfortunate accident. Other Cabinet members dressed in black gathered inside Moreno’s home in Quito to mourn Larriva’s death.

Correa wanted Larriva, one of a few civilians to lead Ecuador’s 176-year-old military, to control an institution that has played a part in the ouster of three presidents in the last decade by publicly withdrawing its support when street protests erupted.

Larriva, one of the most popular members of the Cabinet, had promised to strengthen presidential control of military ranks, improve salaries for the armed forces and make the promotions system more transparent.

[CNN - January 25, 2007]

Ecuador army chief sacked over errors leading to defense minister’s death

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa sacked armed forces chief Gen. Pedro Machado on Friday [Feb. 2, 2007], citing security errors which led to a helicopter crash that killed the defense minister and six others in January.

“General Machado has been removed from his post, not so much due to the accident in itself, nor due to speculation over a possible murder, but because of the administrative and security decisions he made ahead of the flight,” said Ricardo Patino, acting defense minister.

Machado, who only took office on Jan. 14, will be replaced by Guillermo Vasconez, head of the joint chiefs of staff.

… Patino said that Ecuador will also launch an official investigation into Col. Rene Vazquez, who was in charge of the exercise.

“Vazquez will have to fulfill the official requirements relating to an investigation of his actions and decisions ahead of the accident,” said Patino.

Patino said President Rafael Correa had appointed Lorena Escudero as the country’s new defense minister. Escudero, a 41-year-old college professor, is to take charge late Friday. She will become the second woman defense minister in Ecuador’s history.

[Xinhua - February 3, 2007]

History of Ecuador - mid to late 20th century

Recession and popular unrest led to a return to populist politics and domestic military interventions in the 1960s, while foreign companies developed oil resources in the Ecuadorian Amazon. In 1972, the construction of the Andean pipeline, which brought oil from the east to the coast was completed, making Ecuador South America’s second largest oil exporter. That same year a “revolutionary and nationalist” military junta overthrew the government, remaining in power until 1979, when elections were held under a new Constitution. Jaime Roldós Aguilera was elected President, and he governed until May 24, 1981, when he died in a plane crash. By 1982, the government of Osvaldo Hurtado faced an economic crisis, characterized by high inflation, budget deficits, a falling currency, mounting debt service, and uncompetitive industries, leading to chronic government instability.

Many years of mismanagement, starting with the mishandling of the country’s debt during the 1970s military regime, had left the country essentially ungovernable. By the mid 1990s, the government of Ecuador has been characterized by a weak executive branch that struggles to appease the ruling classes, represented in the legislative and judiciary. The last three democratically elected presidents have failed to finish their terms during the period 1996-2006.

[Wikipedia]

Jaime Roldós Aguilera

Jaime Roldós Aguilera (b. November 5, 1940 in Guayaquil, Ecuador - d. May 24, 1981) was President of Ecuador from 10 August 1979 to 24 May 1981. He was a reformer, and was threatened more than once by personal enemies. Roldos and his wife founded the People, Change and Democracy Party or Partido Pueblo, Cambio y Democracia in Spanish. He was President during a brief military encounter with Peru in 1981. He died in an airplane crash later in 1981 when his Air Force plane (variously identified as either a Beechcraft King Air or an Avro turboprop) crashed in heavy rain near the Peruvian border. All eight other passengers and crew died as well.

Many Ecuadorians claimed that Roldós’ death was actually an assassination carried out by the United States. American businessman John Perkins alleges in his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man that Roldós was assassinated by a bomb located in a tape recorder in order to serve American interests in Ecuadorian oil prospects (Perkins originally claimed Roldós died in a helicopter crash; this has since been corrected). Roldós died just months before Panamanian head-of-state Omar Torrijos also died in a plane crash. Other Ecuadorians believed that Roldós had been killed by the Peruvian government.

[Wikipedia]

Press Release

Our dearest friend, our brother, the editor in chief of AGOS newspaper Hrant Dink has been assasinated ruthlessly.

There are no words to explain our pain.

Our deepest condolences for those who can still feel themselves as human beings.

[AGOS Members]

Three Arrested in Turkey for Murder of Outspoken Journalist Hrant Dink

Istanbul governor Muammer Guler said three people were arrested in connection with the murder of journalist Hrant Dink earlier on Friday, CNN-Turk television reported.

No further information was provided on the arrests. Earlier in the day, two people were arrested, only to be released when officials decided they had no connection to the crime. Dink was one of the most prominent voices of Turkey’s Armenian community, and a frequent target of nationalist anger.

[FoxNews.com]

Prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink murdered

Journalist Hrant Dink, one of the most prominent voices of Turkey’s Armenian community, was killed by a gunman Friday [January 16, 2007] at the entrance to his newspaper’s offices, police said.

Dink, a 53-year-old Turkish citizen of Armenian descent, had gone on trial numerous times for speaking out about the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the 20th century. He had received threats from ultra-nationalists, who viewed him as a traitor.

Dink was a public figure in Turkey, and as the editor of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos, one of its most prominent Armenian voices.

In his last column for Agos, Dink complained that he had become famous as an enemy of Turks and wrote of threats against him. He said he had received no protection from authorities despite his complaints.

… Turkey’s relationship with its Armenian community is fraught with tension, controversy and painful memories of a brutal past. Much of Turkey’s once-sizeable Armenian population was driven out beginning around 1915.

During World War I, as the Ottoman Turkish empire fought Russian forces, some of the Armenian minority in eastern Anatolia sided with the Russians.

In May 1915, the Armenian minority, one or two million strong, was forcefully deported and marched from the Anatolian borders towards Syria and Mesopotamia (now Iraq). Many died en route.

Armenia says 1.5 million Armenians were killed in this period, either through systematic massacres or through starvation.

It alleges that a deliberate genocide was carried out by the Ottoman Turkish empire.

Turkey acknowledges that many Armenians died, but says Turks died too, and that massacres were committed on both sides as a result of inter-ethnic violence and the wider World War.

Dink had been convicted of trying to influence the judiciary in 2005 after Agos ran stories criticizing a law making it a crime to insult Turkey, the Turkish government or the Turkish national character.

The conviction was rare even in a country where trials of journalists, academics and writers have become common. Most of the cases, including that of Nobel Prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk last year, were either dropped on a technicality or lead to acquittals.

… A colleague at Dink’s newspaper, Aydin Engin, said Dink had attributed the threats to elements in the “deep state,” a Turkish term used for alleged shadowy, fiercely ultra-nationalist and powerful elements embedded in the government and security establishment.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry released a statement quickly after the shooting Friday saying it was deeply saddened by the killing.

“The actor or actors will be caught in the shortest possible time and delivered to justice,” the statement vowed. The Foreign Ministry offered condolences to the people of Turkey, its press, and particularly to the Armenian community and Dink’s family.

[New Anatolian]

Hrant Dink Received Threatening Messages

“We are in deep sorrow due to the murder of Hrant Dink, editor of Agos newspaper. We strongly condemn this cruel act. Dink, a Turkish citizen of Armenian origin, wrote in his column on January 10th that he was receiving threatening messages,” says the press release of ARI MOVEMENT NGO received by PanARMENIAN.Net. In the words Director Rana Birden, he also wrote that he felt like a fearful dove but “knew that the people of this country would not hurt a dove”.

“Unfortunately, he was wrong. We call for restraint in social reactions at this sensitive time and relate our condolences to Dink’s family, his loved ones, and the staff of Agos Newspaper,’ the release says.

[/PanARMENIAN.Net/]

FACTBOX: Turkish journalist Hrant Dink

• Dink, born in Malatya, southeast Turkey in 1954, was a member of Turkey’s small ethnic Armenian community, and a Turkish citizen.
• He was editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish and Armenian weekly Agos (www.agos.com.tr).
• Dink had been convicted of insulting Turkishness — under the controversial article 301 of Turkey’s penal code — and handed a six-month suspended sentence in 2005. The case was prompted by an article he wrote in which he referred to an Armenian nationalist idea of ethnic purity. The European Union has repeatedly called on Ankara to change the law and the government has promised to revise it.
• Of his conviction, Dink told Reuters: “I may be paying the price for this, but Turkish democracy will gain from it, I hope.”

[Reuters.com]

See Also

• Hrant Dink @ Armenipedia

Aug. 22, 2002: reporter Allen Myerson falls to his death, an apparent suicide. No evidence of foul play; but the event is strange, and his investigative reporting (sewage sludge dumping, Enron, etc.) could have made any number of powerful enemies.

Texas Press reports –

Allen Myerson, 47, died Aug. 22, 2002 after falling from the 11th floor of The New York Times building and landing on the roof of a parking garage.

He was assistant business editor/weekends for the Times. Police said the death was an apparent suicide. Myerson joined the Times in 1989. Before that he was a reporter for several years at The Dallas Morning News.

[Link]

NewWatch India observes –

Allen Myerson, 47, was a staffer at the paper, an assistant business and financial editor, and he landed on the roof of a parking garage next door. That’s where police found him. Dead — an apparent suicide.

The next day’s obits ranged from a respectful one in the Times — declaring that Myerson “fell from a parapet above the 15th floor” and that the preliminary police finding was suicide — to the New York Post’s play-by-play of the moments before death and exposure of the editor’s marital and financial difficulties.

[Link]

Lisa DePaulo: Justice for Allen –

When Allen Myerson jumped from the fifteenth floor of the New York Times building, it wasn’t just the tragic end to a respected editor’s life. It was the beginning of a ferocious battle between his estranged wife and the sisters who accuse her of “murdering” him.

[New York Metro: Link]

Paul Kienitz: unnerved by Allen Myerson’s death –

Now this scares me a bit. A New York Times business editor, Allen Myerson, fell to his death four days ago. The police are treating it as a possible suicide — but nobody knows how he fell. He used to work for the Dallas Morning News. This scares me a bit because Myerson specialized in energy industry stories and Enron news, just as I am doing here…

[Enron & Friends: Link]

This is too strange and disturbing — and fascinating — to ignore:

Mellified Man was a manmade dish popular in ancient Arabia. According to Mary Roach, author of Stiff, men 70-80 years old, on death’s doorstep anyway, would cease to eat food, instead partaking solely of honey. Pretty soon, they would be mellified, that is, “he excretes honey (the urine and feces are entirely honey).” Soon he dies and is placed in a honey-filled coffin which is then sealed for 100 years. At the end of the 100 years, the goop is eaten up.
[Gridskipper: Link]

Via Boing Boing

Not funny, kind of sad. I’m only surprised that it hasn’t happened sooner. Expect more of the same, or worse ….
Posted at ShoutWire:

World of Warcraft … (WoW) is one of the most popular and successful computer games in history. It is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game that 6 million people pay $10 -15 per month to play. This type of popularity creates a sample size that is large enough to reflect the forces that control it. In Layman’s terms, with this many people playing this online game at any given time human nature tends to get a stronger representation.

… [a] group of Warcraft players otherwise known as a guild interrupted a memorial service. Apparently, some dude dies in real life who is a popular WoW player. The people in the game think it would be nice to have a memorial for the player so they log into his account, take the character to a lake, and set it up for everyone to come pay their respects.

A bunch of dudes decide this would be a great time to ambush everyone so they run over a hill, kill the dead guy’s character, and then wipe out everyone who was there to show their respects. They filmed the whole thing and put it on the net for everyone to see.

Via Fark

April 4, 1668: Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated.

“Martin Luther King, Jr., was “murdered by an intricate plot that included government agencies,” according to a December 1999 jury in Memphis Tennessee, ruling in a civil wrongful death suit. On March 15, 2000, The Christian Century Magazine (p. 308-313) published an article by James W. Douglass summarizing the evidence on which this startling verdict was made. The chronology which appears below is primarily based on the evidence presented in this article.” [Link]
(more…)