Grooved Sphere from South Africa (Precambrian)

Actually, it's a cricket ball.

Over the past several decades, South African miners have found hundreds of metallic spheres, at least one of which has three parallel grooves running around its equator. The spheres are of two types--"one of solid bluish metal with white flecks, and another which is a hollow ball filled with a white spongy center" (Jimison 1982). Roelf Marx, curator of the museum of Klerksdorp, South Africa, where some of the spheres are housed, said: "The spheres are a complete mystery. They look man-made, yet at the time in Earth's history when they came to rest in this rock no intelligent life existed. They're nothing like I have ever seen before" (Jimison 1982).

Vatican Radio Officials Convicted

A Roman Catholic cardinal and a priest in charge of Vatican Radio have been convicted of polluting the atmosphere with powerful electromagnetic waves.

..an I just know what you’re all saying to yourselves…

Astronomers See Birth of Black Hole

For an approximately 8th-grade explanation.

PEN ANNOUNCES 2005 LITERARY AWARD RECIPIENTS

Translators, Memoirists, Nonfiction Writers, Playwrights, Children's Book Writers, Editors to be Honored at Lincoln Center on May 23th

Salman Rushdie, President of PEN American Center, the national association of literary writers, and Benjamin Taylor, Chair of the PEN Awards Committee, have announced the recipients of the 2005 PEN Literary Awards, the most comprehensive literary awards program in the United States. The recipients of each award were determined by distinguished panels of judges all of whom are writers, editors, translators, poets, or playwrights themselves. The PEN awards will be presented in New York on the evening of Monday, May 23, at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center. The Master of Ceremonies will be Edward Hirsch. Members of the press are welcome to attend. Prior to the ceremony, the judges, finalists, and honorees will be available beginning at 5:30 PM. The ceremony will begin at 6:30 PM.

PEN American Center is the largest of the 141 centers of International PEN, which was founded in 1921 to advance the cause of literature and reading and to defend free expression around the world. PEN American Center has a membership of over 2,800 writers, editors, and translators. In addition to campaigning on behalf of writers threatened for exercising their expressive freedom, PEN sends writers to schools and community centers around the country to encourage the reading and writing of literature, administers literary prizes, sponsors public literary arts performances and forums on current issues, and offers grants and loans to writers facing financial emergencies and those suffering from AIDS.

For more information on the PEN Literary Awards, Judges' citations, or to arrange interviews with award recipients, contact: Peter G. Meyer – PEN American Center –ª212-334-1660 x 108 – e-mail: peter@pen.org

http://www.pen.org

2005 PEN LITERARY AWARD WINNERS


The PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Awards for Drama

Wallace Shawn

Dael Orleandersmith



The PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction

The End of Faith by Sam Harris (Winner)

A Chance Meeting by Rachel Cohen (Finalist)

Euclid in the Rain Forest by Joseph Mazur (Finalist)



The PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir

Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn (Winner)

Blue Blood by Edward Conlon (Finalist)

Blood Horses by John Jeremiah Sullivan (Finalist)


The PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize

Fatelessness by Imre Kertsz, translated by Tim Wilkinson (Winner)

Green Wheat by Colette, translated by Zack Rogow (Finalist)

The Cello Player by Michael Kurger, translated by Andrew Shields (Finalist)

The PEN Award for Poetry in Translation

Lightduress by Paul Celan, translated by Pierre Joris (Winner)

Butterfly Valley: A Requiem by Inger Christensen, translated by Susanna Nied (Finalist)

Writing Through: Translations and Variations by Various Authors, translated by Jerome Rothenberg (Finalist)



The PEN/Osterweil Award for Poetry

Forms of Gone by Yerra Sugarman (Winner)

The PEN/Nora Magid Award

Southwest Review, edited by Willard Spiegleman (Winner)



The PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship

Amanda Jenkins (Winner)



The PEN Jerard Fund Award

Stealing Buddha's Dinner by Bich Minh Nguyen (Winner)

Degrees of Evil

If it were not so absurd, I’d be weeping. If it were not so universally tragic, I’d be laughing.

Defining evil as that which reduces significantly the possibility of Mankind’s survival, I’ve been thinking on the spectrum of evil which is represented in our religions.

The Raving Atheist may object to religious devotion on the grounds that it “Trivialilizes American Law and Politics”, but personally I have a far greater fear:that faith may trivialize us all out of existence, and that right soon.

Yes, I have been re-reading Sam Harris-the book deserves more than one ingestion-by me, anyway, as I’m frequently slow in absorbing the point.

The thing is, we are looking at a rise in fundamentalism which directly threatens our lives. If this were a rise in fundamental Jainism I wouldn’t be worried. If fundamentalist Pagans were starting to be heard in the corridors of power, I’d be laughing. Even fundamentalist Buddhism would be more something to celebrate than fear.

Fundamental Islam, Christianityor Judaism is the problem which may wipe us off the face of the Earth before we’ve really entered the realms of the Solar system. When the basis of your faith is reverence for the Earth, or for all living beings, or even for ‘enlightenment’, whatever that may be, you’ll find yourself almost unable to conduct wholesale slaughter of men, women and children , as you will either have no very good reason for it, and survivalist hard-wiring will obstruct this, or your fundamentalist beliefs may explicitly prohibit such behaviour.

If , however, you believe such very strange things about the universe as:.

The Creator of it is worried about the length of women’s attire and flies into rages at the sight of a female ankle.

The Creator of it is ‘jealous’ to the point that the punishment for even looking at another god is death.

The Creator of it spends a good deal of his time ‘preparing’ places of eternal torment for those who choose not to believe his flamboyant claims..

The Creator of it will reward you with virgins (or white raisins, if you will), silken raiment and rivers of wine for eternity if you will unmake yourself and take as many ‘infidels’ as possible with you.

The Creator of it really made this whole shebang a mere 6000 years ago, but planted pre-aged dinosaur bones, and set light on its way to us, all so you would be tested in your faith, and if you fail this whacky test, why you will be burning in a place of torment for..etc etc etc

Then, my man, you are a danger to the rest of us, a danger to our race, and possibly to any other races out there, should they stumble upon us before you’ve managed to anihalate us.

You are also wasting the resources of Mankind in terms of time, money and compassion. Wasting it all on your notion of a psychopath in the sky.