Anyone who lives in New England can probably tell you what our most common native crop is-- rocks, of every shape and size. Just this morning, I was working with my dad to reopen our old vegetable garden, which has been empty for a few years when we were all too busy for it, and found at least fifty rocks in a 10' by 12' area. To put this in perspective, the garden was in use for at least ten to twelve years prior to the few years it's been lying fallow. Somehow, in all that time, we still failed to remove all the rocks. Every year, more appear.
Boyfriend attributes it to erosion, arguing that as the topsoil washes away, more rocks are revealed. This makes sense, but he's never lived here to get a perspective on how ridiculously many rocks can show up in a brief period of time. Thus, I prefer my own argument-- that New England rocks know how to migrate.
Either way, and despite all the rocks, I'm really excited to be reopening the garden. Unfortunately, the more I sank into school and work over the past few years, the less time I got to spend outdoors, and I miss that. Homegrown vegetables are also better than ones from the store, if only because you appreciate the work that went into them! This year, I'm attempting , zucchini, cucumbers, green beans, carrots, radishes, watermelon and a few varieties of tomato. We'll have to see how they turn out!
Farming in New England is overall an interesting phenomenon. When I was driving to Virginia a few weeks ago, I was listening to the very funny book A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson, where the author and a friend attempted to hike the Appalachian Trail. When discussing the New England segment of the trail, which spans almost all of the East Coast, Bryson wrote that colonial New England was (I believe) 30% forest and 70% farmland. At the time when he was writing his book, the late 1990s, these numbers had swapped entirely, a really unusual reversal of progress.
In large part, however, this didn't result from a lack of good soil for farming. Rather, it was a result of increasing economies of scale associated with mechanized farming. The hills and rocks of New England meant that farms simply weren't large enough for the huge machines that work so well in the Midwestern states. So farming moved there, and New England reverted to forest.
A recent article I found, however, argued that with rising gas prices, the worth of local farming might increase, bringing year-round production back to New England. I have to admit, it's a persuasive argument. The Farmer's Market near my house in Ann Arbor has great food of all types, fresher and cheaper than those at the grocery store. And when buying plants for my garden this morning, I got all seven varieties of vegetables and fruit for under $20. As long as I do it right, the amount of food they'll produce for me is well over that amount.
Regardless, it'll be a nice change to have something manual to do this summer in between my research and writing. And the results should be delicious!
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
History of Valentine's Day
Late again, I know, but on purpose this time. I held off from yesterday until today in honor of today's holiday. Although not my favorite, I find the history of the holiday to be interesting. Did you know that there are in fact at least fourteen different Saint Valentines? Or that the holiday is no longer a religious holiday in any way? It's true!
The collective Saints Valentine were a number of Christian martyrs put to death in ancient Rome. Whether the holiday was made to celebrate a certain one of the Valentines or if it was a collective holiday has never been determined, although it is certain that the holiday did not evolve until many years later.
Valentine's Day in its modern form, as a celebration of romantic love, originated in the Middle Ages, specifically in the works of Geoffrey Chaucer. His poem "Parlement of Foules" presented Valentine's Day as if it was a historical holiday, but no evidence exists to show that this is in fact the case. There is a great deal of evidence to show that recognition was paid to Saint Valentine(s), with the actual saint's day established by Pope Gelasius I in 496 AD, but no association with love occurs before Chaucer.
For those of you who like to complain that Valentine's Day is a Hallmark holiday, meant only for the greeting card and chocolate companies, you can now support your argument further with the fact that it is no longer a religious holiday at all. Pope Paul VI deleted it from the Roman calendar of saints in 1969.
For those of you who like this holiday, I would still encourage you to escape from Hallmark anyways-- traditional valentines were hand-made and often quite elaborate. A great gallery of some can be found here.
Regardless of which side you're on, enjoy the day. I'll definitely argue that more love in the world, even commercialized love, is never a bad thing.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Traveling!
I'm going home!
So there may not be anything major posted today. However, I will leave you with a piece of interesting news, that also fits in with the fact that I'm flying today-- researchers may have found Amelia Earhart! Or at least what's left of her. She did disappear quite awhile ago.
Researchers in Kiribati found a bone that they think may belong to Earhart and are hoping to run DNA tests that will prove it. You can check the article out here.
If you're also traveling today, have a safe trip!
So there may not be anything major posted today. However, I will leave you with a piece of interesting news, that also fits in with the fact that I'm flying today-- researchers may have found Amelia Earhart! Or at least what's left of her. She did disappear quite awhile ago.
Researchers in Kiribati found a bone that they think may belong to Earhart and are hoping to run DNA tests that will prove it. You can check the article out here.
If you're also traveling today, have a safe trip!
Sunday, December 05, 2010
Mayans and the End of the World
December already! Hard to believe. In honor of how fast the year's vanishing on me and how much this week totally escaped me, today we're going to discuss calendars. Specifically, the Mayan calendar.
Now the notes I'm using for this post come from Astronomy 341, Archeoastronomy, a class that unfortunately sounds far more interesting that it was. Therefore, my notes are not the best, but we should be able to get something good out of them. And it wasn't boring because of the material, just the way the class proceeded, so hopefully you'll enjoy this!
The Mayan calendar has been very popular lately, because everything thinks it says the world's going to end in 2012. I hate to burst your bubble if you were looking forward to this, but it's not really true. The only thing that will happen in 2012 is the end of the current Long Count, one tier of the Mayan system of calendars. As this has happened before and the world is still here, I think we're safe.
What we term the Mayan Calendar is actually three separate but related calendars. There is a religious one (the Tzolkin), a solar one (the Haab) and a third one, which is known as the Long Count.
The Long Count was the Mayan method for keeping track of dates with regards to one another over a long period of time. The other two calendars reset every fifty-two years (more on this later), so they are only able to track things that occur within a single generation or so. The Long Count, true to its name, provides a longer view of things, lasting for 5,126 years. The current Long Count, when matched up to our calendar system, began on or around August 11, 3114 BC-- there is some debate on this among academics and other interested parties. In a way, the Long Count is kind of like our centuries and millennia. We say that the current year is 2010 AD/CE (two thousand and ten years since the birth of Christ or the beginning of the Common Era, whichever you prefer), while the Mayans would say that it's a certain number of days since the Long Count began. Both situate the current moment in a historical context surrounding a past event.
The Long Count date consists of five parts- the kin, uinal, tun, katun and baktun. The kin is the smallest unit, equivalent to a day. A uinal is similar to a month, but consists of twenty kin. A tun is eighteen uinals or 360 kin, so about equal to a year. One katun is twenty tun (twenty years) and a baktun is twenty katun (about 394 years). A full Long Count cycle has thirteen baktun, to make up the 5,126 years. Dates in the Long Count were written in glyphs by the Mayans but can also be translated to numbers, with the largest component, the baktun, written on the left and the smallest component, the kin, written on the right. The day of this post has a Long Count date of 12.19.17.16.13. As you can see, these numbers are all relatively high (remember that there are a total of thirteen baktun and twenty tun in a full Long Count cycle), showing how close we are to the 2012 date when it will reset. Today's date in glyphs can be seen at this website. The textual content of the page is questionably accurate or just plain wrong (i.e. the author's claim that Mayans are extinct), but the date is correct and kind of cool to see. The glyphs represent the components of the dates, with baktun on the left and kin on the right. The bars and dots next to each represents its current number, with bars standing for five and dots standing for one.
The next section of the Mayan calendar, the Tzolkin, is arguably most important. It's a 260 day cycle created as a way to track and decide on dates for religious ceremonies and events. Like the Mayan calendar in general, the structure of it is rather confusing. The Tzolkin has twenty different "named days", and each of these has 13 different segments (what we would call a day). So, for instance, the first named day would be Imix', designated by the glyph below.
Say Imix' started on a Monday for us. This means that Monday would be 1 Imix', Tuesday would be 2 Imix', Wednesday would be 3 Imix' and so forth up to 13 Imix'. Then it would become Ik', and proceed from 1 Ik' through 13 Ik', then the named day would be Ak'b'al. For a full list of the named days and the Mayan glyphs associated with them (which are pretty cool looking), check out the Wikipedia page.
Each of these named days and their corresponding numbers has a different meaning. For instance, Imix', the day I was discussing above, is associated with the waterlily and crocodiles. While the way ancient Mayans used their calendars is often under speculation, modern Mayans use these meanings to choose good days for different actions and ceremonies. "For instance, a low-numbered Ak'ab'al or B'en would be a good day for a wedding, whereas K'an would be a good day for building or maintaining a house, " says Wikipedia.
Why a calendar of 260 days made sense to the Mayans when it has no association with astronomical movements, the key factors is our calendar, is unclear. Speculation is that it was created due to the ritual importance of the numbers twenty and thirteen (the Mayans counted and did math using a base twenty system, rather than our base ten. This was one of the hardest things for me to conceptualize during my archaeoastronomy
The last major component of the Mayan calendar system is the Haab, a 365 day cycle that was based on the solar year, similar to our calendar system. The Haab has eighteen months of twenty days each, and then fills in the end of the year with five "nameless days". Like the Tzolkin, days are numbered, although they start with zero (also known for some reason as "seating"). This means that the first day of the first month is Seating Pop, while the second day is 1 Pop, the third is 2 Pop and so forth. That month proceeds up to 19 Pop, then the next day is Seating Wo. The five nameless days, also known collectively as the Wayeb, are similar to our All Hallow's Eve, with the belief that they were a dangerous time with weakened barriers between the mortal world and the Underworld of death and gods. The days were filled with rituals to protect people, and Mayans would generally not leave their houses during this time.
The Haab and the Tzolkin together make up what is known as the Calendar Round, a system of two calendars that resets (the two sync up and have their first day together) every 52 years. Dates in the Calendar Round are listed by Tzolkin day, then Haab Day. For instance, according to calculations from this "Maya Links and Calculators" website, the date of this post is 11 B'en 6 Mak, or the eleventh day of the thirteenth named day on the Tzolkin calendar and the sixth day of thirteenth Haab month.. The day when the Calendar Round resets would be 1 Imix' Seating Pop.
If these three major components weren't confusing enough, there are a number of smaller, less significant calendars and ritual cycles, such as the Age of Moon (the current date within a cycle of six lunations or lunar periods) or the Nine Lords of the Night (a nine-day cycle similar to our week in which each night was associated with one of nine different gods). But I think I've thrown more than enough ancient calendrical information at you for now. The last thing I'll include is an image of what a full date in glyphs looks like and a cool chart I found online that shows what each glyph means.
Now the notes I'm using for this post come from Astronomy 341, Archeoastronomy, a class that unfortunately sounds far more interesting that it was. Therefore, my notes are not the best, but we should be able to get something good out of them. And it wasn't boring because of the material, just the way the class proceeded, so hopefully you'll enjoy this!
The Mayan calendar has been very popular lately, because everything thinks it says the world's going to end in 2012. I hate to burst your bubble if you were looking forward to this, but it's not really true. The only thing that will happen in 2012 is the end of the current Long Count, one tier of the Mayan system of calendars. As this has happened before and the world is still here, I think we're safe.
What we term the Mayan Calendar is actually three separate but related calendars. There is a religious one (the Tzolkin), a solar one (the Haab) and a third one, which is known as the Long Count.
The Long Count was the Mayan method for keeping track of dates with regards to one another over a long period of time. The other two calendars reset every fifty-two years (more on this later), so they are only able to track things that occur within a single generation or so. The Long Count, true to its name, provides a longer view of things, lasting for 5,126 years. The current Long Count, when matched up to our calendar system, began on or around August 11, 3114 BC-- there is some debate on this among academics and other interested parties. In a way, the Long Count is kind of like our centuries and millennia. We say that the current year is 2010 AD/CE (two thousand and ten years since the birth of Christ or the beginning of the Common Era, whichever you prefer), while the Mayans would say that it's a certain number of days since the Long Count began. Both situate the current moment in a historical context surrounding a past event.
The Long Count date consists of five parts- the kin, uinal, tun, katun and baktun. The kin is the smallest unit, equivalent to a day. A uinal is similar to a month, but consists of twenty kin. A tun is eighteen uinals or 360 kin, so about equal to a year. One katun is twenty tun (twenty years) and a baktun is twenty katun (about 394 years). A full Long Count cycle has thirteen baktun, to make up the 5,126 years. Dates in the Long Count were written in glyphs by the Mayans but can also be translated to numbers, with the largest component, the baktun, written on the left and the smallest component, the kin, written on the right. The day of this post has a Long Count date of 12.19.17.16.13. As you can see, these numbers are all relatively high (remember that there are a total of thirteen baktun and twenty tun in a full Long Count cycle), showing how close we are to the 2012 date when it will reset. Today's date in glyphs can be seen at this website. The textual content of the page is questionably accurate or just plain wrong (i.e. the author's claim that Mayans are extinct), but the date is correct and kind of cool to see. The glyphs represent the components of the dates, with baktun on the left and kin on the right. The bars and dots next to each represents its current number, with bars standing for five and dots standing for one.
The next section of the Mayan calendar, the Tzolkin, is arguably most important. It's a 260 day cycle created as a way to track and decide on dates for religious ceremonies and events. Like the Mayan calendar in general, the structure of it is rather confusing. The Tzolkin has twenty different "named days", and each of these has 13 different segments (what we would call a day). So, for instance, the first named day would be Imix', designated by the glyph below.
Each of these named days and their corresponding numbers has a different meaning. For instance, Imix', the day I was discussing above, is associated with the waterlily and crocodiles. While the way ancient Mayans used their calendars is often under speculation, modern Mayans use these meanings to choose good days for different actions and ceremonies. "For instance, a low-numbered Ak'ab'al or B'en would be a good day for a wedding, whereas K'an would be a good day for building or maintaining a house, " says Wikipedia.
Why a calendar of 260 days made sense to the Mayans when it has no association with astronomical movements, the key factors is our calendar, is unclear. Speculation is that it was created due to the ritual importance of the numbers twenty and thirteen (the Mayans counted and did math using a base twenty system, rather than our base ten. This was one of the hardest things for me to conceptualize during my archaeoastronomy
The last major component of the Mayan calendar system is the Haab, a 365 day cycle that was based on the solar year, similar to our calendar system. The Haab has eighteen months of twenty days each, and then fills in the end of the year with five "nameless days". Like the Tzolkin, days are numbered, although they start with zero (also known for some reason as "seating"). This means that the first day of the first month is Seating Pop, while the second day is 1 Pop, the third is 2 Pop and so forth. That month proceeds up to 19 Pop, then the next day is Seating Wo. The five nameless days, also known collectively as the Wayeb, are similar to our All Hallow's Eve, with the belief that they were a dangerous time with weakened barriers between the mortal world and the Underworld of death and gods. The days were filled with rituals to protect people, and Mayans would generally not leave their houses during this time.
The Haab and the Tzolkin together make up what is known as the Calendar Round, a system of two calendars that resets (the two sync up and have their first day together) every 52 years. Dates in the Calendar Round are listed by Tzolkin day, then Haab Day. For instance, according to calculations from this "Maya Links and Calculators" website, the date of this post is 11 B'en 6 Mak, or the eleventh day of the thirteenth named day on the Tzolkin calendar and the sixth day of thirteenth Haab month.. The day when the Calendar Round resets would be 1 Imix' Seating Pop.
If these three major components weren't confusing enough, there are a number of smaller, less significant calendars and ritual cycles, such as the Age of Moon (the current date within a cycle of six lunations or lunar periods) or the Nine Lords of the Night (a nine-day cycle similar to our week in which each night was associated with one of nine different gods). But I think I've thrown more than enough ancient calendrical information at you for now. The last thing I'll include is an image of what a full date in glyphs looks like and a cool chart I found online that shows what each glyph means.
ISIG just means Initial Series Introductory Glyph, a glyph meant to explain why the following glyph was important. Remember that the bars and dots next to glyphs mean numbers (i.e this image shows a Long Count date with a baktun of 10). This particular glyph image has a number of glyphs for the smaller calendrical components we didn't go over, but hopefully you get the idea. The Mayan calendar can be a remarkably confusing one!
Sunday, November 07, 2010
Why the US Sucks at Foreign Affairs
I’m sure that the title of this post seems inflammatory at first glance, and I suppose in some ways it is. However, I spent a lot of time in politics classes as an undergrad, and while this doesn’t make me an expert by any stretch of the imagination, I think one of my professors made a very good case as to why the US is, in fact, not very good at managing foreign affairs. The notes that prompted this post are actually the same as those that led to my earlier post on isolationism and come courtesy of Professor Allen Lynch and his class Domestic Politics and US Foreign Policy.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Halloween and the Jack O'Lantern
Happy Halloween!
I'm spending my holiday in the library catching up on work I couldn't do yesterday when I was at a ballroom dance competition, so I hope your plans are more exciting than mine.
For Halloween today, I decided to write about something I've always been kind of curious about but never took the time to look up-- What the heck are jack o'lanterns for, anyways?
I love carving pumpkins and make sure to do it every year, but I've never really taken a step back to look at the tradition itself. You have to admit, it's kind of an odd one. After some Googling, I managed to find a website called the Pumpkin Nook, which brands itself as the "Internet Shrine and Library for Pumpkins". Clearly, such a website was bound to explain jack o'lanterns to me.
According to the site, jack o'lanterns come from an Irish legend about a "miserable old drunk" known as Stingy Jack, who played a trick on the Devil by coaxing him into climbing a tree, then surrounding the trunk with crosses so the Devil couldn't get down. Jack only let him down once the Devil promised not to take his soul when he died. Unfortunately for Jack, this didn't work out quite as well as he wanted it to. When he died, St. Peter refused to let him into heaven (perhaps because of the "miserable old drunk" part?) but the Devil kept his promise and refused to let him into hell. This left Jack to wander the darkness between the two forever, lighting his way with an ember from hell that he carried in a hollowed out turnip (apparently something Jack kept with him regularly).
This legend turned into a tradition in Ireland, with people placing lights in hollowed out turnips and other vegetables outside their doors on Halloween to keep evil spirits away. Once the Irish started moving to the United States, they discovered pumpkins (native to North America) and started using them for lanterns instead, as they're a lot easier to carve and hollow out than a turnip.
So now you know exactly what you're doing when you carve your next jack o'lantern! I have to say, modern ones are definitely a lot cooler than a hollowed out turnip is likely to be. Check out this link for a small glimpse of how awesome jack o'lanterns can be!
I'm spending my holiday in the library catching up on work I couldn't do yesterday when I was at a ballroom dance competition, so I hope your plans are more exciting than mine.
For Halloween today, I decided to write about something I've always been kind of curious about but never took the time to look up-- What the heck are jack o'lanterns for, anyways?
I love carving pumpkins and make sure to do it every year, but I've never really taken a step back to look at the tradition itself. You have to admit, it's kind of an odd one. After some Googling, I managed to find a website called the Pumpkin Nook, which brands itself as the "Internet Shrine and Library for Pumpkins". Clearly, such a website was bound to explain jack o'lanterns to me.
According to the site, jack o'lanterns come from an Irish legend about a "miserable old drunk" known as Stingy Jack, who played a trick on the Devil by coaxing him into climbing a tree, then surrounding the trunk with crosses so the Devil couldn't get down. Jack only let him down once the Devil promised not to take his soul when he died. Unfortunately for Jack, this didn't work out quite as well as he wanted it to. When he died, St. Peter refused to let him into heaven (perhaps because of the "miserable old drunk" part?) but the Devil kept his promise and refused to let him into hell. This left Jack to wander the darkness between the two forever, lighting his way with an ember from hell that he carried in a hollowed out turnip (apparently something Jack kept with him regularly).
This legend turned into a tradition in Ireland, with people placing lights in hollowed out turnips and other vegetables outside their doors on Halloween to keep evil spirits away. Once the Irish started moving to the United States, they discovered pumpkins (native to North America) and started using them for lanterns instead, as they're a lot easier to carve and hollow out than a turnip.
So now you know exactly what you're doing when you carve your next jack o'lantern! I have to say, modern ones are definitely a lot cooler than a hollowed out turnip is likely to be. Check out this link for a small glimpse of how awesome jack o'lanterns can be!
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Washington's Farewell Address
As I was going through my information stockpiles recently, looking for something to post, I found a bunch of note cards I completely forgot I had.
In high school, I took AP US History my junior or senior year. My best friend had taken it the year before, and our brothers had taken it the year before that. This meant that, when I started the class, I inherited a huge stack of typewritten index cards covering almost everything one needs to know to pass both the class and the AP Exam. To be honest, I’m not even sure how old they are—I think the boys might have inherited them too. It seems like multiple people have made them, because some are terribly unhelpful while others provide really great summaries.
In high school, I took AP US History my junior or senior year. My best friend had taken it the year before, and our brothers had taken it the year before that. This meant that, when I started the class, I inherited a huge stack of typewritten index cards covering almost everything one needs to know to pass both the class and the AP Exam. To be honest, I’m not even sure how old they are—I think the boys might have inherited them too. It seems like multiple people have made them, because some are terribly unhelpful while others provide really great summaries.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Mr. Jefferson
It is currently my fall break, and I decided to make a trip from Michigan down to the University of Virginia, where I did my undergrad. Never would I have ever predicted the thought "Oh thank god, West Virginia" would cross my mind, but man, after driving through Ohio, it's a welcome relief! It's actually a really pretty state to drive through, and I do miss being around mountains. Also, I was out of Ohio. Not sure I can emphasize that point enough.
But given how long my last post was and in honor of being back in the lovely Charlottesville, VA, I figured today I would keep things short and talk about one of my favorite facts regarding the University and its founder, Thomas Jefferson.
I love Thomas Jefferson. I don't think you can go to UVA without loving Thomas Jefferson. We're kind of obsessed. The man was a genius. He was good at everything, from farming to creating a country. How many people can say that?
One thing he did toward the end of his life was design his own gravestone and epitaph, choosing to highlight just three of his many accomplishments. The stone, which is still in excellent condition in his family cemetery at Monticello, reads:
"Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and father of the University of Virginia."
Of everything he had done in his life, including being President and Vice-President of the United States, Governor of Virginia, and initiator of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, he felt these three things were most important. To me, this says a lot about where he placed his priorities.
Just a little something I've always found interesting, especially considering he insisted before his death that these three things and "not a word more" be inscribed on his tombstone.
But given how long my last post was and in honor of being back in the lovely Charlottesville, VA, I figured today I would keep things short and talk about one of my favorite facts regarding the University and its founder, Thomas Jefferson.
I love Thomas Jefferson. I don't think you can go to UVA without loving Thomas Jefferson. We're kind of obsessed. The man was a genius. He was good at everything, from farming to creating a country. How many people can say that?
One thing he did toward the end of his life was design his own gravestone and epitaph, choosing to highlight just three of his many accomplishments. The stone, which is still in excellent condition in his family cemetery at Monticello, reads:
"Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and father of the University of Virginia."
Of everything he had done in his life, including being President and Vice-President of the United States, Governor of Virginia, and initiator of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, he felt these three things were most important. To me, this says a lot about where he placed his priorities.
Just a little something I've always found interesting, especially considering he insisted before his death that these three things and "not a word more" be inscribed on his tombstone.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Isolationism
It’s always interesting to talk to people during a difficult economic time in the United States. At some point during most conversations, someone will make a reference to how the US might do better on its own, rather than worrying about the rest of the world’s issues. While these statements are usually presented as jokes, they speak to a very interesting and significant aspect of US history—isolationism. In case you’re worried you don’t know nearly enough about something this historically important, never fear! I learned a great deal about this topic in one of my favorite undergraduate classes, Domestic Politics and US Foreign Policy, and now will pass it along to you.
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