"Princess" of Saudi Arabia

The book Princess by Jean P. Sasson is "an appalling indictment of the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia" and an "unforgettable ... fascinating book to move you to tears". The book is about one of over a hundred-plus princesses, the granddaughters of Abdul Asis ibn Sa'ud, who speaks out to Jean Sasson to write the conditions of women forced to hide behind the abaaya, the black veil. Women are not owners of their own bodies, their own destinies, or their even their own children. They are chattel to men, passed off after menses at early ages to become wives, sometimes second, third or fourth wives, and quite frequently these husbands are as old, if not older, than their own fathers. The women must obey their husbands implicitly, prepare their bodies to be used by their husbands upon demand, be ordered to appear or not appear, be escorted by men wherever they go. When their sons become older and the husbands cannot provide escort, then the sons are the escorts.

Sultana, the princess in the book, is fiery and wants the world to hear the conditions of the Saudi Arabian women to give the world understanding and not be afraid of the only visible parts of women - the blackness of their eyes and the blackness of their robes - and to judge that limited dark view of women. Sultana cannot escapes her gilded princess cage in Saudi Arabia. She remains the property of her husband, and sees her daughters grow up to become property themselves. Yet, to speak out even slightly would mean to denounce Saudi Arabia, the Koran, and/or her own husband, and any insult to any of them would mean her being sentenced to some punishment away from her children, and so she continued to silently exist in her gilded cage ... but with the knowledge that the book Princess would be published and begin to let the Western world have some understanding about the "freedom", or lack of it, of the Saudi Arabian women.

The Laws of Saudi Arabia

The criminal laws of Saudi Arabia adhere to strict Islamic precepts. The word Islam means "surrender to the will of God". The most important concept of Islam is the Shari'a, or the "path", which embraces the total way of life ordained by God. All peoples of the Islamic religion are expected to conduct their lives by the traditional values set by Muhammad, the Prophet of God, who was born in AD 570 and died in AD 632.

It is difficult for most Westerners to understand the complete and total submission of Muslims to the laws of the Korean in every aspect of their daily life. The Koran, along with traditions set by Muhammad, is the law of the land in Saudi Arabia.

While Jean Sasson was living in Saudi Arabia, she once asked a noted scholar of Islam who made his living as a lawyer, to describe the Saudi Arabian application of justice that stems from the teachings of the Prophet. His explanations helped dispel her misunderstandings of Saudi law.

1. There are four main sources of the Shari'a: the Koran, which is compiled from thousands of religious verses revealed by God through his Prophet, Muhammad; the Sunna, which are the traditions the Prophet addressed that are not recorded in the Koran; the Ijma, which are the perceptions of the Ulema, or religious scholars; and the Qiyas, which is a method whereby known jurists agree upon new legal principles.
2. The king of Saudi Arabia is not exempt from the regulations set forth by the Shari'a.
3. The court system itself is complicated, but if a judgement is taken to appeal it is reviewed by the court of appeals. This court, usually consisting of three members, increases to five members if the sentence imposes death or mutilation. The king is the final arbitrator who serves as a final court of appeal and as a source of pardon.
4. Crimes are classified into three divisions: Hudud, Tazir, and Qisas. Crimes of Hudud are crimes that are denounced by God; the punishment is made known in the Koran. Crimes of Tazir are given to the appropriate authority to determine punishment. Crimes of Qisas give the victim the right to retaliate.

CRIMES OF HUDUD

Crimes of Hudud included theft, drinking of alcohol, defamation of Islam, fornication and adultery.

Persons found guilty of theft are punished by payment of fines, imprisonment, or amputation of the right hand. (The left hand is amputated if the right hand has already been amputated.)

Persons found guilty of drinking, selling or buying alcohol, sniffing drugs, taking injections of drugs or stirring drugs into dough are punished by a sentence of eighty lashes.

Persons found guilty of defamation of Islam are sentences according to the circumstances. The harshness of the sentence varies depending on whether the person is a Muslim or a non-Muslim. Flogging is the general punishment for Muslims.

Persons found guilty of fornication are flogged. Men are flogged while standing and women while sitting. The faces, heads and vital organs of the guilty are protected. The usual number is forty lashes, but this number may vary according to the circumstances.

Adultery is the most serious of crimes. If the guilty party is married, her or she is sentenced to death by stoning, beheading or shooting. Stoning is the usual method of punishment. Proof of the crime must be established by confession or by four witnesses to the act.

CRIMES OF TAZIR

The crimes of Tazir are similar to misdemeanor crimes in America. There is not set punishment, but each person is judged on an individual basis, according to the seriousness of the crime and the sorrow shown by the criminal.

CRIMES OF QISAS

If a person is found guilty of crimes against an individual or a family, the aggrieved family has the right to retaliate. The sentence is decided in private by the family, and the actual punishment is carried out in private.

If murder has been committed, the family has the right to kill the murderer in the same method their loved one was murdered, or in any method they choose.

If a member of a family was accidentally killed (such as a road accident), the family of the deceased may collect "blood money". In the past, camels were used as pay for blood money; today the rate of exchange is in currency. There are set damaged according to the various circumstances: the payment can be anywhere from 120,000 to 300,000 Saudi riyals ($45,000 - $80,000). If a woman is killed, the payment is half that of a man.

If a person cuts off another person's body part, the family or the victim may commit the same act upon the guilty party.

Who may testify in criminal proceedings: 

The witness must be deemed sane, the age of an adult, and a Muslim. Non-Muslims may not testify in criminal court. Women may not testify unless it is a personal matter that did not occur in the sight of men. Actually, the testimony of a woman is not regarded  as fact but rather as presumption. The court may decide whether the testimony is valid according to the circumstances.  

Why women are forbidden to testify in criminal proceedings: 

There are four reasons given why women's testimony is not valid in a Saudi court.

1. Women are much more emotional than men and will, as a result of their emotions, distort their testimony.
2. Women do not participate in public life, so they will not be capable of understanding what they observe.
3. Women are dominated completely by men, who by the grace of God are deemed superior; therefore, women will give testimony according to what the last man told them.
4. Women are forgetful, and their testimony cannot be considered reliable.

Chronology of the book:

570         Prophet Muhammad is born in Makkah, Saudi Arabia

610         Prophet Muhammad sees a vision from God proclaiming him to be the messenger of God. Islam is born.

622         Prophet Muhammad flees an angry mob in Makkah and escapes to Madinah. This flight is forever after known as “the Hegira”, the great crisis of Muhammad’s mission on earth. The Muslim calendar begins on that date and is called Hegira in honor of the journey.

632         Prophet Muhammad died in Madinah

650         The sayings of Prophet Muhammad are collected and written down. Known as the Koran, this book, which recorded the word of God as told by Muhammad, became the holy book of Muslims.

1446       The first documented Al Sa’ud, ancestor of Sultana, leaves the nomadic life of the desert and settles in Dar’iyah (old Riyadh).

1744       Muhammad Al Sa’ud establishes a partnership with Muhammad Al Wahhab, a teacher who believes in the strictest interpretation of the Koran. Combined forces of a warrior and a teacher unleash a rigid system of punishment upon the people.

1802-6    Sons of Muhammad Al Sa’ud and Muhammad Al Wahhab, inspired by the teachings of the Koran, attack and capture Makkah and Madinah. They are ruthless, massacring the entire male population of Taif, a settlement above Makkah. With this victory, most of Arabia unites under one authority.

1846-65  The Sa’uds extend authority southwards to Oman.

1876       Sultana’s grandfather, Abdul Aziz ibn Sa’ud, founder of the kingdom, is born.

1887       The city of Riyadh is captured by the Rasheeds

1891       The Al Sa’ud clan flees Riyadh into the Empty Quarter.

1893-4    The Al Sa’ud clan marches across the desert to Kuwait.

1901       September. Abdul Aziz, now twenty-five years old, along with his warriors leaves Kuwait for Riyadh.

1902       January. Abdul Aziz and his men capture Riyadh. The new Al Sa’ud dynasty begins.

1915       Abdul Aziz Al Sa’ud enters into an agreement with the British government to receive £5,000 per month to fight the Turks.

1926       Sultana’s father is born.

1932       Unification of the dual kingdoms of Hijaz and Najd. Named the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, it becomes the twelfth-largest country in the world.

1933       Sultana’s mother, Fadeela, is born.

1934       Saudi Arabia goes to war against Yemen; peace is established one month later. 15 May. In revenge for the Yemen war, King Abdul Aziz is attacked at the holy mosque in Makkah by three knife-wielding Yemenis. His eldest son, Sa’ud, flings himself in front of his father and is wounded instead.

1938       20 March. Oil is discovered in Dammam, Saudi Arabia.

1939       War in Europe halts oil production.

1944       Oil production in the kingdom rises to 8 million barrels a year.

1945       14 February. President Roosevelt meets King Abdul Aziz aboard USS Quincy. 17 February. Britain’s prime minister, Winston Churchill, meets King Abdul Aziz aboard USS Quincy.

1946       Oil production soars to 60 million barrels a year. December. Sultana’s parents marry in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

1948       Radio Makkah, the first radio station in the kingdom, is opened despite fierce opposition from the Ulema (religious men). 14 May. The state of Israel is established. The first Arab-Israeli war begins.

1952       King Abdul Aziz bans alcohol imports for non-believers.

1953       9 November. King Abdul Aziz, Sultana’s grandfather, dies at the age of seventy-seven. His eldest son, fifty-one-year-old Sa’ud, becomes king. His half-brother Faisal becomes crown prince.

1956       Sultana is born into the family of Al Sa’ud, the tenth daughter of her parents.

1958       March. With the kingdom in financial turmoil, Crown Prince Faisal takes administrative control of the government.

1960       December. King Sa’ud dismisses his brother from administrative duties and assumes control of the government.

1962       Slavery is abolished in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Most slaves continue to live with the families that owned them.

1963       The first girls’ school opens; religious factions riot.

1964       3 November. King Sa’ud abdicates and leaves the kingdom for Beirut. Faisal is declared king, and his half-brother Khalid crown prince.

1965       Despite protests, the first television station is opened in Riyadh. September. Prince Khalid ibn Musa’id, nephew of King Faisal, is killed as he leads an armed protest against the opening of the television station.

1967       June. The Six-Day War begins between Israel and her Arab neighbors. Saudi Arabia sends forces.

1969       February. Deposed ex-king Sa’ud ibn Abdul Aziz dies in Athens after spending more than $15 million each year of his exile.

1973       6 October. The October 1973 war begins between Israel and her Arab neighbors. Saudi Arabia sends troops. 20 October. Furious at America’s military assistance to Israel, King Faisal announces a holy war and oil embargo against America.

1975       25 March. King Faisal is assassinated by his nephew Prince Faisal ibn Musa’id, brother of the prince who was shot and killed during a riot in 1965. Crown Prince Khalid is declared king. His half-brother Fahd is named new crown prince.

1977       King Khalid issues a government decree that forbids women from traveling outside their homes unless accompanied by a male family member. A second order follows that forbids women from traveling abroad to study. Both decrees resulted from an international incident involving Princess Misha’il, who was publicly after meeting and falling in love with another Saudi student in the American University in Lebanon. Her lover was beheaded.

1979       November. The Grand Mosque in Makkah is attacked. Protestors complain of women working outside the home in the kingdom. In the months to follow, women’s freedom is curtailed in response to government fear of increased fundamentalist unrest.

1982       June. King Khalid dies of a heart attack. Fahd, his half-brother, is declared king; his half-brother Abdullah is named new crown prince.

1990       5 August. Kuwait is invaded by Iraq. Western Allied forces gather in Saudi Arabia to join Arab armies in repelling Saddam’s army.

1991       Mutawas – the moral police of Islam – react with fear and hostility to the presence of the foreign female soldiers. Pressure increases to force the Saudi government to tighten restrictions on the female population of all nationalities as religious factions return to strict interpretation of the Koran.

Noah's Ark in Hong Kong

An incredible tourist attraction is in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, I didn’t take these pictures but received them along with the following information via email. Sad, but one day I will make a point of visiting the incredible modern-day version of Noah’s Ark.

The Noah's Ark Theme Park, complete with fiberglass animals exiting two-by-two, sits in front of the Tsing Ma Bridge in Hong Kong. The Ark in Hong Kong measures 450ft long and 75ft wide and is built according to Biblical specifications.

The Ark also boasts less authentic Biblical touches such as double-glazed windows and a fine dining restaurant.

The billionaire brothers who built the Ark in Hong Kong claim it is the only full-scale version in the world, and the imaginative trio even attempted to give the giant boat an air of authenticity by placing 67 pairs of animals at the entrance, just like the pairs of creatures saved from the Great Flood by Noah in the Bible tale. The creationist-inspired vessel forms part of a theme park near Hong Kong, which was inspired by a young girl's scrawled drawing of the mammoth boat. Architects appear to have used some artistic license in parts of the Ark—for instance, including double-glazed windows, a fine dining restaurant and luxurious bedrooms.
 Also inside, real-life exotic animals live—including a nautilus, a toucan and reams of fish—giving the Ark credibility and some life-like authenticity.

The Noah's Ark Theme Park is now run by Christian organizations, who use it to promote peace and unity. Matthew Pine, manager of Noah's Ark Theme Park, said: “They had a vision to do something remarkable, something outstanding. They came up with many ideas. Some of them were really outrageous. But then they came across this girl's drawing, and knew it would be something do-able that captured imaginations. So they hired architects and engineers to create the replica Noah's Ark.” 

The Ark also includes a sophisticated-looking restaurant as one of its on-board attractions. Guests on board Noah's Ark can also stay on the Biblical vessel in one of its luxurious hotel-style rooms.

The Hong Kong-based Noah's Ark theme park was completed in 2009, 17 years after plans were made for the enormous structure, and it is popular among tourists. “The reason that particular moment of the Flood story was chosen from the Bible's story is," says Matthew Pine, "because this is the message
 we want to bring to Hong Kong, to China, to the world. 'In our lives we always face floods, we will face trials, we will face difficulties.
 Hopefully Noah's Ark will inspire people to pass
 through those troubles as Noah did in his day.'” 

A Fictionalized Monograph of an Aztec

The dust cover of Azteca by Gary Jennings reads:

"Once in a great while appears a book that combines the drama and immediacy of fiction with a deep knowledge and understanding of an exotic place and time — a book that excites and expands the imagination. In the last three decades, readers have been enthralled by Mika Waltari's splendid The Egyptian, Mary Renault's The King Must Die and James Clavell's Shogun. Now comes Azteca!" 

I've read Clavell's Shogun trilogy and now Jennings' Azteca, both of which were phenomenally researched and crafted with creative ethnology, so now I must go for Waltari's The Egyptian and Renault's The King Must Die, neither of which I'd ever heard of until picking up this book. When great literature is compared with other literary pieces and called similarly brilliant, the reader must listen to the erudite muse of print and ... read on!

The monograph 

And so begins the narrative of a quarrier's son, Mixtli, who was granted an ironic education, became a courier, a renowned warrior, a nobleman, an outcast, a wanderer, and a tradesman, but who ultimately died ignominiously at the hands of the "Christian" invaders who denied Mixtli his own Aztec spirituality and his own authenticity as the last keeper of ancient Aztec records. The narrative begins with him as an old gnarled and twisted man captured by the Conquistadores who want to hear and record a history of the Aztec people they have conquered and are decimating ... and who deny that Mixtli could possibly be telling the truth as Aztecs have no honor, no morals, and are on a ethnic hierarchy far below they themselves who are bringing Christianity to this uncivilized nation ... albeit in a violent bloodbath of deceit, treachery, and mercenary zeal that allows for no spiritual clemency or humanitarian act.

Mixtli, born with the Mexicatl dark spot like a bruise in the small of his back, begins his narrative by relating his abrupt entrance into the world in the Conquistadore year 1466, whereupon he was immediately plunged into a welcoming cold jar of water after which his severed navel string was wrapped around a little wooden war shield and given to the first Mexicatl warrior passing and who

was commissioned to plant the object somewhere on the next battlefield to better the boy's fate, destiny, fortune.

As a babe, his mother daily bathed his face in scalding hot lime water, as was the custom, to discourage the emergence of a beard throughout his adult life.

Mixtli tells of growing up and that lying, "speaking spittle and phlegm," was a grievous sin and punished by lower lip piercing of a thorn to curb such untoward behavior. He told of flags and tapestries made of fine feathers minus their quills — egrets for white, macaws and cardinals and parakeets for various reds, jays and herons for blue, toucans and tanagers for yellows. The colors and iridescence fluttered lively even in the softest breezes. But Mixtli intoned that the know-how for weaving these glorious flags died in the tumultuous years following the arrival of the Conquistadores and the passing of their virulent diseases (which he later related was ultimately what massacred the nation and not really the Conquistadores themselves).

He recalls wars and the need for wars even in peace time to feed the gods and keep them content. In times of peace when pestilence or a drought struck, the gods were thought to be angry and a war between alliances was arranged — not to kill on the battlefield but to take prisoners for sacrifice on temple altars. Warriors who died on the battlefield or as a temple sacrifice had a Flowery Death, that is, a death honorable to one's self and satisfying to the gods. To most effectively please the gods, alliances during the peace-time "wars" would sacrifice their captives on the same day and same hour. The god-nourishing blood of thousands of captives being sacrifices on the same day was thought to gorge the gods and make them replete so they would release their starvation caused by many (perhaps even as many as 20 or 30) warless years.

Using the term "flowers" to describe highly evocative situations was a literary motif of the Aztec. For instance, to give someone a "flower garland" was to kill them in sacrifice to the gods, "to destroy with flowers" was to seek retribution which almost certainly involved death, to have a "war of flowers" was to have a war among alliances for the purpose of taking prisoner-sacrifices to offer to the gods, and more benignly from a male's perspective, "to caress someone with flowers" was to seduce a woman.

Mixtli related that virginity of unmarried girls was required, and girls who went "astraddle the road" (prostituting) were deplored. However, some Aztec girls knew ways of proving their "virginity" on their wedding night. Pigeons fed with dark red seed of some flowers lay red-yolked eggs, so young virgins-to-be would secret an egg inside of them and would "prove" their virginity by the undetectable egg. The egg was used in conjunction with an astringent of buckthorn that would pucker the orifice to adolescent tightness. The Christian Conquistadore scribes were repulsed, insulted yet fascinated by the telling of Mixtli's tales of sexuality and war. The stories were duly documented but, though a baptized Christian of many years and his tales were of his culture or before his days as a Christian, Mixtli was thought to be repulsive to even speak such tales of blood, war and sexual appetites of himself, his people or his culture.

He told of the 5, not 4, directions of the compass — east, north, west and south, represented by the colors red, black, white and blue respectively. But green was the color to mark the center of where a person was at as well as all the space above as far as the sky and all the space below as far as the Mictlan underworld. Green, therefore, was a very important color for the Aztec, as for instance, only a child of a noble lineage could have a name reflecting a name with green in it, e.g. Jadestone Doll.

Mixtli spoke of Aztec medicine taken to the battlefield — salted honey or a healing salve of beeswax mixed with egg yolks, the juice of both adder bark and barbasco root as infection fighters. Soldiers, allies and enemies, too seriously injured in battle were knifed to death and all soldiers, friend or foe, were burned communally but each with a chip of jadestone in hand or mouth to honor their blood shed in battle and as symbols for their acceptance in the afterworld.

Just a cultural aside, the Conquistadores were culturally confused by the crosses found in the Aztec empire. To them, the crosses referenced a Christian burial, but to the Aztec the cross was a wayfarer symbol not for "reverence" but for "gladness" as it marked the presence of clear fresh water nearby.

Azteca as narrated my Mixtli tells of a nation at the height of its culture but in the depths of sacrificial depravity. He tells of the comings of the Conquistadores in the middle of his life, the deaths of all his family and friends, even his second wife who is dying of the disease "Being Eaten by the Gods" (leprosy). Finally, he tells of the overthrow of the Reverend Speaker (king) Montecuzoma and how Cortes, Alvarado and Narvaez lost the entire treasure of the dead king when they fled an uprising of the angry Mexicatl. And thus was lost the treasure now referenced as "the lost treasure of the Aztecs".

So Mixtli "kisses the earth" (swears or pledges honor) that he, as the last Rememberer of the Aztecs, has told his life tale with care and honor so that his history may be known to the conquerors, and yet he knows that before they strike him the last Rememberer down in cold-blood that the great Aztec history will similarly be chopped apart ... as the history of the Mexicatl / Aztecs is now in the hands of those who have no memories but are the usurpers of the nation.

AR (Accelerated Reading) score:   74 points, a very high score

Zip-lining "The Gorge", North Carolina

Zip-lining "The Gorge" in Salina, North Carolina was quite the rush (although I have to say I was expecting a little more of an adrenaline charge, probably because during the whole experience we were surrounded by deep lush forest and felt cocooned and safe by the "soft" foliage. I think with all that luxurious greenness around, we didn't really get a chance to actually conceptualize just how high up among the treetops we were). Not scary at all, but the guides did say that every day there is probably at least one person who just can't do it, either at the beginning or along the way, and has to be carefully assisted down and escorted safely back to base. Not scary! It was enervating! 11 zip lines rapidly descending 1,100 feet in elevation over an expanse of 125 acres of old growth and protected forest. The 11 zip lines were rigged on fat cables that had been bore-holed through massive trees. A lot of oaks, maples, tulip trees, cucumber magnolias amongst others were in the forest. One guide to liven up the group asked people if they'd ever seen a cactus oak. Thought I was going to bust out laughing ... but have to say, he did have me guessing for a second! Our guides were quite the naturalists, so we were constantly entertained with outdoor lore while we waiting our turns to zip.

The night before my sister-in-law and I zipped, a violent thunder and lightning storm had crashed through the forest and toppled some massive trees. One of our guides had a tour in progress when the lightning started (zip-line tours last 3 1/2 - 4 hours, depending). Officially when that happens, the zip-lines are closed and everyone repels down and walks out of the forest. Our guide was walking his guests out when a tree came crashing down about 20 feet away from him. Everyone had taken off their helmets. Well, they put them right back on and scurried out of there quick! But to our advantage the next day, there was a huge gap in the foliage and we could see down into the valley - 14,000 acres of Green River Gamelands wilderness - as we zipped along to the next platform. Three of the eleven zip-lines have particularly awesome valley and undulating mountain views from the line, fantastic for getting a perspective of the immensity of the mountains, but the majority just offer flashing glimpses through the heavy leaf canopy. "The Gorge" isn't kidding when they advertise themselves as being a Zipline Canopy Adventure!

Amongst the 11 zip lines were three repels. I think the highest repel was 84 feet. This was my first time repelling too, if a person doesn't count top-lining a sheer cliff face and being lowered down. I had no control on how quickly I descended ... but then I didn't this time either since we were using a weighted pulley system which controlled the speed of descent.

Also a sky-bridge had recently been completed. It was a fun walk across, didn't sway that much, but was great for making a memorable photo of the whole zip lining-under-a-canopy experience.

In our group of eight, which is pretty much the maximum to expedite groups maintaining the zip lining schedule, three of our group were small 70-pound kids, the lowest weight a person can have in order to zip. Actually, because three of our members were of minimum weight, our group probably took a whole hour longer to go through the lines because light-weights zip at much lower velocity and stop well short of the next platform so have to work their little arms a lot to pull themselves along. The next group was constantly waiting for us to clear a platform so they could zip in. I sure hope their guides were as knowledgeable about the forest and nature as ours were, because we were certainly entertained the whole time we were waiting on our platforms.

A video clip of one of the spectacular lines was filmed. The clip absolutely does not do justice to the glory of the view, but the singing of the line on the clip sure is memorable! Found a better clip on YouTube of zipping in Saluda. Just one comment, the video only shows one (very limited) perspective of zipping through the canopy and always carefully holding on with both hands on impact. The potential is so much more ... just make sure when hitting the slowing device, to face forward or a whiplash or cable smack could result. Letting go before hitting is ... PERFECTLY SAFE!

Where Are the Honeybees?

Four of my students put together quite an interesting presentation concerning environmental concerns. Their topic of choice was "Where are the honeybees?" Given permission, I have shared their insightful work.

Honey Bee Haven is a free source of information; it is an organization that recommends bee-keeping and provides information to reach that goal. In the Hive is not a free resource, but rather 90% of the subscription fee is deposited in support of further protection of honeybee hives. 

Three of the most harmful substances to honeybees are in the neonicotinoid family.

Skeletons Yield Secrets of the Black Plague

Skeletons Yield Secrets of the Black Plague —— (Huffington Post)

LONDON (AP) — You can learn a lot from a tooth.

Molars taken from skeletons unearthed by work on a new London railway line are revealing secrets of the medieval Black Death — and of its victims.

This week, Don Walker, an osteologist with the Museum of London, outlined the biography of one man whose ancient bones were found by construction workers under London's Charterhouse Square: He was breast-fed as a baby, moved to London from another part of England, had bad tooth decay in childhood, grew up to work as a laborer, and died in early adulthood from the bubonic plague that ravaged Europe in the 14th century.

Source

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The poor man's life was nasty, brutish and short, but his afterlife is long and illuminating.

"It's fantastic we can look in such detail at an individual who died 600 years ago," Walker said. "It's incredible, really."

Source

The 25 skeletons were uncovered last year during work on Crossrail, a new rail line that's boring 13 miles (21 kilometers) of tunnels under the heart of the city. Archaeologists immediately suspected the bones came from a cemetery for plague victims. The location, outside the walls of the medieval city, chimes with historical accounts. The square, once home to a monastery, is one of the few spots in the city to stay undisturbed for centuries.

To test their theory, scientists took one tooth from each of 12 skeletons, then extracted DNA from the teeth. They announced Sunday that tests had found the presence of the plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis, in several of the teeth, meaning the individuals had been exposed to — and likely died from — the Black Death.

The findings didn't stop there. Archaeologists, historians, microbiologists and physicists worked together to apply techniques from several scientific disciplines to the discovery.

Radiocarbon dating and analysis of pottery shards helped determine when the burials took place. Forensic geophysics — more commonly used in murder and war-crimes investigations — helped locate more graves under the square. Studying oxygen and strontium isotopes in the bones revealed details of diet and health.

These were, by and large, poor people. Many of the skeletons showed signs of malnutrition consistent with the "Great Famine" that struck Europe 30 years before the Black Death. Many had back injuries suggesting lives of hard labor. One man became a vegetarian late in life, indicating he may have entered an order of monks.

Archaeologists were surprised to discover that the skeletons lay in layers and appeared to come from three different periods: the original Black Death epidemic in 1348-1350, and later outbreaks in 1361 and the early 15th century.

"It suggests that the burial ground was used again and again for the burial of plague victims," said Jay Carver, Crossrail's lead archaeologist.

The Black Death is thought to have killed at least 75 million people, including more than half of Britain's population, yet the burials suggest a surprisingly high degree of social order — at first. As the plague ravaged continental Europe — borne westward by fleas on rats — city fathers leased land for an emergency burial ground. The burials were simple but orderly, the bodies wrapped in shrouds and laid out in neat rows, sealed with a layer of clay.

The later skeletons, however, show more signs of upper-body injuries, consistent with a period of lawlessness and social breakdown.

Archaeologists are planning a new dig this summer to learn how many bodies lie under the square. Carver says the number appears to be in the "low thousands."

And the teeth may not have yielded all their secrets. Experts in ancient DNA at McMaster University in Canada are working to sequence the plague genome found in the teeth, in order to learn more about a disease that still infects several thousand people a year around the world. Most patients recover if treated early with antibiotics.

Scientists want to know if the 14th-century disease is the same as the modern version, or whether the disease has evolved. Study of DNA from the teeth of skeletons discovered in the 1980s at another London plague cemetery suggested the bug was largely unchanged, but the scientific jury is still out.

Brendan Wren, a professor of molecular biology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the new information could help scientists "understand how the plague bacillus — and other nasty bugs — become so virulent to humans."

"It is useful information that could warn and avert potential epidemics and pandemics," he said.

Jill Lawless can be reached at https://twitter.com/JillLawless

Are All Calories Created Equally?

The following is an eye-opening article by Mark Hyman, MD on calories consumed. Of particular interest is the listing of detrimental effects from insulin on the body, one of which is infertility, a very conceivable correlation considering that obesity is rising as is infertility. Here's the article.

The vast majority of conventional nutritionists and doctors have it mostly wrong when it comes to weight loss. Let's face it: If their advice were good and doable, we would all be thin and healthy by now. But as a general rule, it's not. And the mainstream media messages often confuse things even more. It is based on many "food lies."

And the biggest lie of them all is this: All calories are created equal.

Is this really true? Not really. Let us explore why.

Take a class of sixth graders. Show them a picture of 1,000 calories of broccoli and 1,000 calories of soda. Ask them if they have the same effect on our bodies. Their unanimous response will be "NO!" We all intuitively know that equal caloric amounts of soda and broccoli can't be the same nutritionally. But as Mark Twain said, "The problem with common sense is that it is not too common."

I guess that is why the medical profession, nutritionists, our government, the food industry, and the media are all still actively promoting the outdated, scientifically disproven idea that all calories are created equal. Yes, that well-worn notion—that as long as you burn more calories than you consume, you will lose weight—is simply dead wrong.

Newton's first law of thermodynamics states that the energy of an isolated system is constant. In other words, in a laboratory, or "isolated system," 1,000 calories of broccoli and 1,000 calories of soda are, in fact, the same. I'm not saying Newton was wrong about that. It's true that when burned in a laboratory setting, 1,000 calories of broccoli and 1,000 calories of soda would indeed release the same amount of energy.

But sorry, Mr. Newton, your law of thermodynamics doesn't apply in living, breathing, digesting systems. When you eat food, the "isolated system" part of the equation goes out the window. The food interacts with your biology, a complex adaptive system that instantly transforms every bite.

To illustrate how this works, let's follow 750 calories of soda and 750 calories of broccoli once they enter your body. First, soda: 750 calories is the amount in a Double Gulp from 7-Eleven, which is 100 percent sugar and contains 186 grams, or 46 teaspoons, of sugar. Many people actually do consume this amount of soda. They are considered the "heavy users."

[Double Gulp—750 calories, 46 teaspoons of sugar] Your gut quickly absorbs the fiber-free sugars in the soda, fructose, and glucose. The glucose spikes your blood sugar, starting a domino effect of high insulin and a cascade of hormonal responses that kicks bad biochemistry into gear. The high insulin increases storage of belly fat, increases inflammation, raises triglycerides and lowers HDL, raises blood pressure, lowers testosterone in men, and contributes to infertility in women.

Your appetite is increased because of insulin's effect on your brain chemistry. The insulin blocks your appetite-control hormone leptin. You become more leptin resistant, so the brain never gets the "I'm full" signal. Instead, it thinks you are starving. Your pleasure-based reward center is triggered, driving you to consume more sugar and fueling your addiction.

The fructose makes things worse. It goes right to your liver, where it starts manufacturing fat, which triggers more insulin resistance and causes chronically elevated blood insulin levels, driving your body to store everything you eat as dangerous belly fat. You also get a fatty liver, which generates more inflammation. Chronic inflammation causes more weight gain and diabesity. Anything that causes inflammation will worsen insulin resistance. Another problem with fructose is that it doesn't send informational feedback to the brain, signaling that a load of calories just hit the body. Nor does it reduce ghrelin, the appetite hormone that is usually reduced when you eat real food.

Now you can see just how easily 750 calories of soda can create biochemical chaos. In addition, the soda contains no fiber, vitamins, minerals, or phytonutrients to help you process the calories you are consuming. These are "empty" calories devoid of any nutritional value. But they are "full" of trouble. Your body doesn't register soda as food, so you eat more all day long. Plus, your taste buds get hijacked, so anything that is not super-sweet doesn't taste very good to you.

Think I'm exaggerating? Cut out all sugar for a week, then have a cup of blueberries. Super-sweet. But eat those same blueberries after binging on soda and they will taste bland and boring.

Now let's look at the 750 calories of broccoli. As with the soda, these calories are made up primarily (although not entirely) of carbohydrates—but let's clarify just what that means, because the varying characteristics of carbs will factor significantly into the contrast I'm about to illustrate.

Carbohydrates are plant-based compounds comprised of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. They come in many varieties, but they are all technically sugars or starches, which convert to sugar in the body. The important difference is in how they affect your blood sugar. High-fiber, low-sugar carbohydrates such as broccoli are slowly digested and don't lead to blood sugar and insulin spikes, while table sugar and bread are quickly digested carbs that spike your blood sugar. Therein lies the difference. Slow carbs like broccoli heal rather than harm.

Those 750 calories of broccoli make up 21 cups and contain 67 grams of fiber (the average American consumes 10 to 15 grams of fiber a day). Broccoli is 23 percent protein, 9 percent fat, and 68 percent carbohydrate, or 510 calories from carbs. The "sugar" in 21 cups of broccoli is the equivalent of only 1.5 teaspoons; the rest of the carbohydrates are the low-glycemic type found in all non-starchy vegetables, which are very slowly absorbed.

Still, are the 750 calories in broccoli really the same as the 750 calories in soda? Kindergarten class response: "No way!" So why do we all think that's true, and why has every major governmental and independent organization bought into this nonsense?

Let's take a closer look at just how different these two sets of calories really are.

First, you wouldn't be able to eat 21 cups of broccoli, because it wouldn't fit in your stomach. But assuming you could, what would happen? They contain so much fiber that very few of the calories would actually get absorbed. Those that did would get absorbed very slowly. There'd be no blood sugar or insulin spike, no fatty liver, no hormonal chaos. Your stomach would distend (which it doesn't with soda; bloat from carbonation doesn't count!), sending signals to your brain that you were full. There would be no triggering of the addiction reward center in the brain. You'd also get many extra benefits that optimize metabolism, lower cholesterol, reduce inflammation, and boost detoxification. The phytonutrients in broccoli (glucosinolates) boost your liver's ability to detoxify environmental chemicals, and the flavonoid kaempferol is a powerful anti-inflammatory. Broccoli also contains high levels of vitamin C and folate, which protect against cancer and heart disease. The glucosinolates and sulphorophanes in broccoli change the expression of your genes to help balance your sex hormones, reducing breast and other cancers.

What I'm trying to illustrate here (and this is probably the single most important idea in this book) is that all calories are NOT created equal. The same number of calories from different types of food can have very different biological effects.

If you still think a calorie is just a calorie, maybe this study will convince you otherwise. In a study of 154 countries that looked at the correlation of calories, sugar, and diabetes, scientists found that adding 150 calories a day to the diet barely raised the risk of diabetes in the population, but if those 150 calories came from soda, the risk of diabetes went up by 700 percent.

Some calories are addictive, others healing, some fattening, some metabolism-boosting. That's because food doesn't just contain calories, it contains information. Every bite of food you eat broadcasts a set of coded instructions to your body—instructions that can create either health or disease.

So what will it be, a Double Gulp or a big bunch of broccoli?