Here it is. An amazing and also very sad story from the BBC.  It’s sort of long so click below  if you’d like to read it.

The last speaker of an ancient language in India’s Andaman Islands has died at the age of about 85, a leading linguist has told the BBC.

Professor Anvita Abbi said that the death of Boa Sr was highly significant because one of the world’s oldest languages – Bo – had come to an end.

She said that India had lost an irreplaceable part of its heritage.

Languages in the Andamans are thought to originate from Africa. Some may be 70,000 years old.

The islands are often called an “anthropologist’s dream” and are one of the most linguistically diverse areas of the world.

‘Infectious’

Professor Abbi – who runs the Vanishing Voices of the Great Andamanese (Voga) website – explained: “After the death of her parents, Boa was the last Bo speaker for 30 to 40 years.

“She was often very lonely and had to learn an Adamanese version of Hindi in order to communicate with people.

“But throughout her life she had a very good sense of humour and her smile and full-throated laughter were infectious.”

She said that Boa Sr’s death was a loss for intellectuals wanting to study more about the origins of ancient languages, because they had lost “a vital piece of the jigsaw”.

FROM BBC WORLD SERVICE

“It is generally believed that all Andamanese languages might be the last representatives of those languages which go back to pre-Neolithic times,” Professor Abbi said.

“The Andamanese are believed to be among our earliest ancestors.”

Boa Sr’s case has also been highlighted by the Survival International (SI) campaign group.

“The extinction of the Bo language means that a unique part of human society is now just a memory,” SI Director Stephen Corry said.

‘Imported illnesses’

She said that two languages in the Andamans had now died out over the last three months and that this was a major cause for concern.

Professor Abbi and Boa Sr became firm friends

Academics have divided Andamanese tribes into four major groups, the Great Andamanese, the Jarawa, the Onge and the Sentinelese.

Professor Abbi says that all apart from the Sentinelese have come into contact with “mainlanders” from India and have suffered from “imported illnesses”.

She says that the Great Andamanese are about 50 in number – mostly children – and live in Strait Island, near the capital Port Blair.

Boa Sr was part of this community, which is made up of 10 “sub-tribes” speaking at least four different languages.

The Jarawa have about 250 members and live in the thick forests of the Middle Andaman. The Onge community is also believed to number only a few hundred.

“No human contact has been established with the Sentinelese and so far they resist all outside intervention,” Professor Abbi said.

It is the fate of the Great Andamanese which most worries academics, because they depend largely on the Indian government for food and shelter – and abuse of alcohol is rife.

(CNN) — A 37-year-old Pennsylvania woman died Sunday after being mauled by her pet black bear, authorities said.

Kelly Ann Walz was attacked when she entered the bear’s cage to feed the 350-pound animal and clean its cage, according to Pennsylvania State Police. The bear lived in a 15-by-15-foot steel and concrete enclosure on Walz’s property in Ross Township.

The bear wasn’t the only unusual animal living on the property, an official with the State Game Commission told CNN affiliate WFMZ-TV. The homeowner had a permit to keep a Bengal tiger and an African lion, and the property routinely passed inspection and had no violations, he said.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdnXYWSa56w

Thanks, Scott.

Everyone knows Anne Coulter, who, lucky for us, went so cuckoo off the righty side that no one listens to her anymore. And then there’s Fox News’ Michelle Malkin, the devil incarnate. Search her name on YouTube and you’ll get a video montage of some of her finest hate-spewing ignoramus rants.

Here’s a photo of Malkin along with her new book “Culture of corruption.” She’s grotesque, and that’s really the cover of her book. No joke.

Ok, so now on to the real impetus for this post: Michele McPhee. I had no idea who McPhee was until yesterday when I read her reductionist, stupid,  editorial on the Obama-Crowley-Gates beer summit in Metro, one of NYC’s finest free subway papers. (Let me say that I am as sick of hearing about this story as anyone else, pardon the untimeliness of this post.)

Basically, McPhee is as good as it gets when it comes to reactionary political commentary. She’s the right-wing version of the vagabond who nails spikes into trees to stop logging and thinks we should all be able to buy cars and goods using wampum. In other words, her pea brain is incapable of processing and making reasonable decisions given the place and time in which we live (see reality). McPhee sees hears and barks without any kind of nuanced thought process. Such doglike behavior, coupled with her Southie accent and inarticulate speech, make her sound like an especially big bozo. If you’d like to listen to her bombastic take on the issue re: Gates and Crowley you can do so here. I won’t put you through it involuntarily.

So here’s what McPhee wrote in her Metro editorial:

I think there should be a White House beer summit every week.

Why fly to Venezuela to hug it out with Hugo Chavez like President Barack Obama did in April when the notorious communist dictator could just sit at the White House patio set and have a butler carry him out a Red Stripe on a tray?

Why fly all the way to France — with the entire family in tow on the taxpayers’ dime no less — like Obama did and deride Americans as “arrogant, dismissive and even derisive.” He could just invite his buddy Nicholas Sarkozy — the French president with whom he checked out a teenager’s rear-end at an environmental conference in Italy — and serve some Sam Adams.

Who needs to embarrass the United States by bringing the Queen of England an iPod and the English Prime Minister a box of DVDs that don’t work in Europe like Obama did? Pour them a beer. It would be cheaper if Obama could kick back on the White House lawn and fix the world’s problems over some pulled drafts and beer nuts. Obama could horrify the Queen by serving her a Guiness. Sarkozy could wear his tight swimming trunks like the ones he wore in New Hampshire.

Certainly it would be a better expenditure of our time to conduct real “teachable moments”  at the White House than the farce that took place last week in a desperate public relations ploy orchestrated by Obama and company after the president disgustingly declared that the Cambridge PD acted “stupidly” by arresting his good friend Skip Gates.

The only people who acted “stupidly” were Gov. Deval Patrick, the mayor of Cambridge, E. Denise Simmons, and Obama for railing against a cop trying to prevent a burglary at a home that had been burglarized recently on a street that had nine break-ins this year. There was about race to be learned on the lawn that day because race was never a factor.

And a free Blue Moon — like the one Crowley drank — is not going to assuage the feelings of angry cops across the country.

There’s not much you can say about an utter piece of shit like this. I guess we’ll start by trying to guess what’s she even trying to say :

Obama spends too much on diplomatic travel? I bet he’s spending way less on just about everything than the last guy.  Any kind of meaningful comparison on such a level would have required research, though.

Cops are immune to criticism? (a dangerous tendency that’s taken hold in the US the past few years) “Angry cops”? Since when aren’t most of them angry?!

Tight swimming trunks are gay/ effeminate? Maybe. But who gives a shit. At least Sarkozy can wear a skimpy bathing suit, which is a lot more than she can say for herself.

And now for her zinger at the end, which is some kind of triple negative or something:

“There was about race to be learned on the lawn that day because race was never a factor.” [sic, the omitted "a lot"]

Michele McPhee pictured above.

Here’s the official el nino definition: El Niño, the periodic warming of central and eastern tropical Pacific waters, occurs on average every two to five years and typically lasts about 12 months.

See if you can spot the differences between El Nino and La Nina, the related, but opposite, oceanic temperature/trade wind phenomenon.

This morning I poked around and found out that yes, as was suspected, Clapton was the special guest and they covered one of my favorite Hendrix songs, shit, one of my favorite songs, period, “Little Wing.”

Check it out; I can’t do it justice with my scrawl.

PHOENIX (Reuters) – Authorities in Arizona are stepping up a program to put mosquito-gobbling minnows into the stagnant pools of foreclosed or abandoned homes to prevent an outbreak of West Nile virus. Read the whole article.

Anyhow, it reminded me an old Stephen Colbert, Daily Show favorite of mine about the explosion of Northern Snakeheads in the US, and how Stephen recommended we control them. It basically turns into a one-upping game of introducing an new predatory species to control the one that’s taken out the one below it. Just watch, it’s funny.

Anyhow. I didn’t plan on blogging today but I found this amazingly pitiful story on Cnn.com and I had to share it with you all.

A wretched woman in San Francisco has taken it upon herself to help her husband find a job by starting the site  myhusbandneedsajob.com. on his behalf. Ostensibly turning him into a charity case. I am not trying to marginalize what’s happening in the job market right now. I work in advertising, and a light breeze is all it would take to send the agency I work at toppling. People are unemployed and it’s not good. But, is resorting to panhandling to find employment really the answer? I think what this woman, Ms. Sterns and her husband (tacitly) have done is tactless and self-important.

Here (below) is the header image from the site of Ms. Sterns panhandling followed by the site’s manifesto authored by her.

This site was born out of frustration with the job market.  My husband graduated in 2008 with an MBA from Georgetown.  After Mike finished his MBA, we moved back to California to be closer to family.  We both had high expectations for his career and our life after business school.  However, those expectations quickly changed as we were faced with this horrible economy.  After almost ten months of watching my wonderful husband work tirelessly to find a job, I decided to take matters into my own hands and help him stand out in a sea of unemployed.

Take a look around my site and get to know Mike.  Learn more about him on the About Mike and Meet Mike pages.  If you have any questions or would like the opportunity to meet my husband, you can email me on the Contact Mike page.  Please pass this website along to friends, family, colleagues, and those who are hiring.  I know each visitor to this site will think my husband is as great as I do.  Someday soon one good company will become even better with him on their team.

Thanks for visiting!

Robin

Holy fuck that’s abhorrent.

This guy, for whom the wife-created site was created, is Michael Sterns.

“Michael Stearns, 30, earned his master’s in business administration from Georgetown University in Washington in May 2008. He says he is “basically looking to get into a corporate marketing environment” but is willing to try anything reasonable.”

First, Michael, maybe you shouldn’t have gone to Georgetown to get your MBA. And, if this, “looking to get into a corporate marketing environment,” is your goal in life, Michael, I have no sympathy for you. Take what you’ve learned and do something decent, man.

Undoubtedly, I am coming off as callous in this post, but it really chapped my ass for several reasons. I am not much of an MBA adherent. None of the most successful people I know have their MBAs. Getting an MBA has become this kind of imprimatur or rite of passage for making a lot of money and little else. What an MBA really is is 2 or 3 years for money hungry people to network and solidify a high paying job when they leave school with their degree. Will they have to work like dogs? Yes. But is that really admirable; an infinite tolerance for subjugating yourself to the man.

I would have been way more impressed if Michael Sterns and his wife had created a site soliciting good business ideas. “My husband can be a great administrator. He isn’t very good at coming up with original ideas. (That’s why he went to Georgetown to get his MBA. He he. Oops.) But if you have a good idea, he can help you raise capital to get it off the ground. And then,  you can both get rich and take credit for the idea.”

Michael, you and your wife are barking up the wrong tree. Check out this guy, he was laid off and started his own company building jelly fish tanks. That’s badass, man.