Some links for Friday:
The Myth of Easter Island's Ecocide
Few historical tales of ecological collapse have achieved the cultural resonance of that of Easter Island. In the conventional account, best popularised by Jared Diamond in his 2005 book ‘Collapse’, the islanders brought doom upon themselves by over-exploiting their limited environment, thereby providing a compelling analogy for modern times. Yet recent archaeological work suggests that the eco-collapse hypothesis is almost certainly wrong – and that the truth is far more shocking.
LA Times The Cold, Cold Case of Jack the Ripper
In a surreal tribunal hearing in May, which saw a senior officer give evidence from behind an opaque screen and cite Judas Iscariot to support his point, the agency argued that laying everything bare would violate its confidentiality pledge to informants, even those long dead, and undermine recruitment of collaborators in the present-day fight against terrorism and organized crime.
World Fantasy is coming up in October, and here's the list of award nominations for best novel, etc.
Sarah Rees Brennan: Gay in YA, and the Circle of Suck
But I think that 'let's think of a way to keep the gay storyline, because there are too few of those around' should be a thing to consciously keep in mind.
Edited at 2011-09-25 01:19 pm (UTC)
I do wonder how well his interpretation of what happened to the Greenland Vikings held up? It is a convincing narrative. The Inuit who also co-inhabited Greenland survived and there seems little evidence their cultures mingled or intermarried. I think it is the lesson of GV that is most important to us today. And rather than repeat what I've written on that I'll post a link to an LJ post I wrote last November: http://entp2007.livejournal.com/35084.html