south africa

Odd Ancient South African Human "Ancestor" Is Young

gregladen — Tue, 09 May 2017 09:07:48 +0000

Odd Ancient South African Human "Ancestor" Is Young

You've heard of Homo naledi, the strange "human ancestor" (really, a cousin) found a while back in South Africa. There were many skeletal remains in a cave, in the kind of shape you'd expect if they had crawled into the cave and died there, not much disturbed. They look enough like other members of our genus, Homo, to be called Homo, but if we assume that increase in brain size is the hallmark of our species, they seem to be an early grade.

Over the last ten years, we have come to appreciate the fact that our genus may have differentiated into multiple species that did not have a large brain after all, and Homo naledi is one of the reasons we think that. And, just as the "Hobbit" of Indonesia (flores) has recently been re-dated to be a bit older than people thought, Homo naledi is now dated to be a bit later than people may have thought.

Schematic of the Rising Star cave system. Picture: Marina Elliott/Wits University

For me, this is an "I told you so" moment. First, I understand, as do most of my colleagues (but not all), that a regular change over time in a trait in one lineage does not magically cause a parallel change in another lineage (though the co-evolution of a single trait in a similar direction along parallel lineages is certainly possible.) So, there was no reason to require that all later period hominins be like all other later period hominins in those later-emerging traits. Also, since no one has ever adequately explained what the heck our big brains are for, I don't subscribe to the presumption that all evolution will always evolve the big brain just because our own big brains insist that they are really cool. So, a late small brained hominin in our genus but existing long after the split with us is actually somewhat expected.

Then, there is my sense of age based on the things I've seen in the area's caves.

Geologist Dr Hannah Hilbert-Wolf studying difficult to reach flowstones in a small side passage in the Dinaledi Chamber. Picture: Wits University

Some time ago, Lee Berger took me around some of the cave he had poking around in (long before this hominin was discovered) and showed me several animals that had crawled into the caves, probably looking for water during an arid period (this is already a fairly dry area). They had died in place and become mummified. In other caves, I've seen similar things, like a troop of baboons that somehow got into a cave with no known entrance and died, as well as bats that died in situ and mummified against the rock they died on.

On another occasion, Ron Clarke, another anthropologist working in the area, showed me the famous "Little Foot" which is a fossil that represents that mummy-to-stone transition, while mostly sitting on the surface of the floor(ish) of a very deep and inaccessible cave. Meanwhile, I'd been working with my friend and colleague Francis Thackeray, and he demonstrated to me how many of the diverse bits and pieces we find of australopithecines are actually probably part of individual skeletons, but discovered and excavated at very different times. These are creatures that got in the cave somehow, and were only somewhat disarticulated after death.

The whole "crawled into the cave" mode of entering the fossil record, and its presumed variant, "fell to one's death in the cave" is different from the previously presumed process of "leopard kills you, drags you onto a tree branch hanging over a cave entrance and your bones fall into the cave" means of becoming a fossil. It is of course possible, even likely, that both of these processes occurred at various times and places.

Homo naledi, according to Lee Berger, may represent a third way of getting into one of these famous caves. He suggests that the hominins themselves dragged the dead bodies of each other into the caves, as a form of treatment of the dead. That is a spectacularly controversial claim, of course, since with a small brain how can you have a god, and without a god, how can you have ritual or burial? Of course, elephants treat their dead specially sometimes, and their brain is right where it is supposed to be on the famous mouse-to-elephant curve of brain size. And, I'd bet a dozen donuts that even though Homo naledi has a small brain compared to, say, yours or mine, it is probably a good measure above that comparative curve. It was a primate, after all.

left to right: Marina Elliott, Maropeng Ramalepa and Mpume Hlophe. Picture: Wits University/Wayne Crichton

But I digress in several directions, lets get to the point. The site of Rising Star Cave, South Africa, where Homo naledi was discovered, is now dated. These things are always subject to revision and updating, but for now, it seems like we have a pretty good estimate of the age of this incredible site.

The site dates to some time between about 414,000 years ago and 236,000 years ago. That means that the site overlaps with the approximate age of the earliest, probably, modern humans. Here are the details from the abstract of the paper, published this morning:

New ages for flowstone, sediments and fossil bones from the Dinaledi Chamber are presented. We combined optically stimulated luminescence dating of sediments with U-Th and palaeomagnetic analyses of flowstones to establish that all sediments containing Homo naledi fossils can be allocated to a single stratigraphic entity (sub-unit 3b), interpreted to be deposited between 236 ka and 414 ka. This result has been confirmed independently by dating three H. naledi teeth with combined U-series and electron spin resonance (US-ESR) dating. Two dating scenarios for the fossils were tested by varying the assumed levels of 222Rn loss in the encasing sediments: a maximum age scenario provides an average age for the two least altered fossil teeth of 253 +82/–70 ka, whilst a minimum age scenario yields an average age of 200 +70/–61 ka. We consider the maximum age scenario to more closely reflect conditions in the cave, and therefore, the true age of the fossils. By combining the US-ESR maximum age estimate obtained from the teeth, with the U-Th age for the oldest flowstone overlying Homo naledi fossils, we have constrained the depositional age of Homo naledi to a period between 236 ka and 335 ka. These age results demonstrate that a morphologically primitive hominin, Homo naledi, survived into the later parts of the Pleistocene in Africa, and indicate a much younger age for the Homo naledi fossils than have previously been hypothesized based on their morphology.

"Neo" skull of Homo naledi from the Lesedi Chamber. Photo credit: Wits University/John Hawks

In addition to this date, it is reported that there are more fossil remains, from another cave called Lesedi Chamber. Here is the paper for that, which reports "... Further exploration led to the discovery of hominin material, now comprising 131 hominin specimens, within a second chamber, the Lesedi Chamber. The Lesedi Chamber is far separated from the Dinaledi Chamber within the Rising Star cave system, and represents a second depositional context for hominin remains. In each of three collection areas within the Lesedi Chamber, diagnostic skeletal material allows a clear attribution to H. naledi. Both adult and immature material is present. The hominin remains represent at least three individuals based upon duplication of elements, but more individuals are likely present based upon the spatial context. The most significant specimen is the near-complete cranium of a large individual, designated LES1, with an endocranial volume of approximately 610 ml and associated postcranial remains. The Lesedi Chamber skeletal sample extends our knowledge of the morphology and variation of H. naledi, and evidence of H. naledi from both recovery localities shows a consistent pattern of differentiation from other hominin species."

Since both articles are OpenAccess, you can see them for yourself. Kudos to the authors for publishing in an OpenAccess journal.

And now, back to my original digression. One gets a sense of how landscapes and land forms develop, and while this can be misleading, it is not entirely absurd to postulate rough comparative ages for things you can see based on other things you've seen. I had assumed from the way they were described originally that the Rising Star hominins would not be millions of years old. Even though Bigfoot (found by Clarke) was millions of years old and essentially on the surface (of a deeply buried unfilled chamber) I guessed that over a million-year time scale, the Rising Star material would either become diagenetically inviable as fossils or buried in sediment, or both. But over hundreds of thousands of years? That was plausible to me. In fact, I figured the remains to possibly have been even younger, and if a date half the age as suggested was calculated, I would not have been surprised.

The evolution of our thinking about human evolution went through a period when we threw out all of our old conceptions about a gradual ape to human process, replacing that with a linear evolutionary pattern with things happening in what was then a surprising order, with many human traits emerging one at a time long before brains got big. There was some diversity observed then, but the next phase of our thinking involved understanding a dramatic diverstiy of pre Homo (the genus) life forms followed by the essential erasure of variation with the rise of Homo erectus and the like. Over the last decade and a half, we are now realizing that while the later members of our genus probably did cause, or at least, were associated with, a general decrease in that early diversity, later diversity arose anyway, and there were more different kinds of hominids, very different in some cases, late into our history. Word on the street is that we can expect to learn about even more diversity in coming years.

_______________________________________________________________________
Paul HGM Dirks, Eric M Roberts, Hannah Hilbert-Wolf, Jan D Kramers, John Hawks, Anthony Dosseto, Mathieu Duval, Marina Elliott, Mary Evans, Rainer Grün, John Hellstrom, Andy IR Herries, Renaud Joannes-Boyau, Tebogo V Makhubela, Christa J Placzek, Jessie Robbins, Carl Spandler, Jelle Wiersma, Jon Woodhead, Lee R Berger. 2017. The age of Homo naledi and associated sediments in the Rising Star Cave, South Africa. May 2017. eLife.

Field Guide to the Cradle of Humankind: Sterkfontein, Swartkrans, Kromdraai & Environs World Heritage Site

From Apes to Angels: Essays in Anthropology in Honor of Phillip V. Tobias

gregladen Tue, 05/09/2017 - 05:07

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Anthropology

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Human Evolution

Naledi

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Anthropology

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The Tuluver, A New Species of Bird

gregladen — Sat, 05 Sep 2015 07:42:38 +0000

The Tuluver, A New Species of Bird

People were fascinated, excited, and some were enraged, by this awareness raising campaign of BirdLife South Africa.

I might have preferred this modification:

gregladen Sat, 09/05/2015 - 03:42

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Awesome news that this bird was .. (checks the intertoobs again) .. a hoax!?

http://www.earthtouchnews.com/conservation/conservation/were-you-tricke…

Dammnit! Okay, yes, I was tricked. Ya got me.

And my first fancy dress costume as a kid (well that i remember) was an African Lammergeier too, dangnabbit! Sigh.

Huh. Nowadays they don't even call it that? Arrrggh.

See :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearded_vulture

Oh and it isn't endangered quite now like I thought it was back then? Sheesh, is everything I thought I knew once wrong? Sigh.

Oh well, good to know it isn't actually as threatened as I once thought though.

Feh. I hate birds. Stupid therapods that shit all over the place. If it weren't for their vital roll in insect control .....

The Ghost of the McGregor Museum: A True Story

gregladen — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 11:50:04 +0000

The Ghost of the McGregor Museum: A True Story

A City of Death and Misery

Everything I’m about to tell you in this story is true.¹ You might not want to read this story while you are alone or while sitting in the dark.²

Kimberley South Africa is said to be the most haunted city in the world, and it certainly is a city with a remarkable and dark history. The culture of Kimberley is constructed from the usual colonial framework on which are draped the tragic lives of representatives from almost every native culture from thousands of kilometers around, as well as the seemingly ubiquitous Europeans with their greed, their unexamined privilege, and their wars.

The city’s very existence is highly questionable from legal, moral, and ethical standpoints, yet it is historically central to South Africa itself; the resulting trope is a rather quaint denialism. The most significant historical event here was a military siege of the town, but during that siege, it would appear that black and other non-white labor³ built the protections that saved all the white women and children and many of the white men from death from either bombardment or starvation. Then the laborers went home and were exposed to the worst conditions imaginable, and the death toll is to this day left off all of the brochures and plaques commemorating the glorious war. That is just one example of the problem that Kimberly has. All cities of prosperity and historical significance are linked to a darker side. In Kimberly, the ethical conundrum of modern civilization is neatly packaged within the municipal borders, set off from civilization in the middle of the arid lands of southern Africa, unconnected to any other place by anything more than a two lane road and a small airport.

Kimberley grew up next to and entirely because of The Big Hole. The Big Hole is where there used to be the remnant plug of an ancient volcano. It is the largest hole ever dug by hand. But why was it dug? That is going to require some explanation.

It is now known that diamond is the natural state of carbon at very high pressure, so it seems that there are places at the base of the earth’s crust where carbon in the mantle has condensed into diamonds. Some volcanoes consist of large flows of magma that include unmelted chunks of this basal crust. A very long time ago such a volcano existed in this spot, at present day Kimberley. It did its volcano thing and then stopped and cooled down. Then, the landscape was eroded down quite a ways, so that the volcanic cone, the ash, lava, or whatever it is the volcano had belched out onto the landscape is long ago eroded into the sea a thousand kilometers away. All that is left is the vertical tube of hardened magma and bits of the lowest reaches of the earth’s crust carried along by the magma. If you go to this area of South Africa today you will see several such ancient “plugs” of various different volcanoes, some with diamonds some not, often sticking up from the surrounding flatness.

Then the white people came to this interior region of South Africa between the Gariep and Vaal rivers, and discovered diamonds laying around on the surface. They saw that this was good, and they knew that God had put these diamonds there for them to prosper (more on this later). And somewhere along the line someone figured out where some of the diamonds were eroding out of. They did not know this was a volcanic plug, as they had very little knowledge of geology. But God had put this concentration of diamonds, with clues leading to it, so that the whites could prosper, and that was good enough for them. So they started to dig and they found more diamonds. So they dug more and more and divided the plug into little horizontal patches, each a ‘claim’ just a few feet square, which were over time bought and sold and dug and sold and dug and bought and dug until many people died digging a hole that is larger than any hand dug hole ever dug by our species on this planet.

The Big Hole.

During this time, as the city of Kimberley was being built up, this location became a center of all sorts of activity. There were little wars going on everywhere in Africa at at that time, and so a rather brisk trade in illegal arms emerged. Mercenaries moved through the area, and there was illegal rhino horn trade, illegal ivory trade, and illegal slave trading. Cowboy-like miners and traders got drunk and killed each other now and then. And by “now and then” I mean, “all the time.”

The Big Hole

At the edge of town, someone seems to have had the job of digging one hole every day. The hole was about six feet long, two and a half feet wide, and six feet deep and perfectly squared off. This attention to perfection is an African thing. I feel almost like I know the guy who dug this hole (or more likely three or four guys sharing one job). The hole was perfectly positioned a couple of feet over from the last hole, and it was perfectly executed. And into this hole was placed, tossed, gently lowered encoffined, whoever happened to die that day. If no one died that day, which would happen only now and then, these guys had the next day off. If two or three people died that day, then the hole took less time to fill in because the bodies took up more space. If the person who died was just some slob (which was the normal run of events), the body was unceremoniously tossed in. If the person who died was of some importance to someone and there was cash available, the deceased was placed in a coffin and lowered in. Or something in between happened.

At some point in Kimberley’s past, this is how the graveyard was filled with dead people. About one person a day on average, plus or minus.

There were some bad days. In 1888 202 miners died in one fell swoop owing to a fire. And, during the Big Siege, several hundred more people died. The 1918 Spanish Influenza was devastating here.

The Big Siege was the event most closely connected by modern day historians and ghost hunters with a particular building which is now the McGregor Museum, which is central to this story. The Siege of Kimberly was part of the Anglo Boer War.

The so called Anglo Boer war is a complicated mess of history. There are people who will get mad at me for calling it the Anglo Boer War instead of the First and/or Second Boer War or some other thing. But I’m not going to mess with these details here. Let’s just say that a lot of bad shit was going down in what is now South Africa in the late 19th century. Let’s just say that the Afrikaners and the British of the Cape Colony had two or three points of difference in opinion about things like the rules of government and society which would eventually become Apartheid, about slavery, and so on. And let’s just say that the discovery of diamonds near Kimberley … complicated things.

So there was a war fought in South Africa between October 1899 and May 1902. It was mainly a war between the United Kingdom and the British in southern Africa on one hand, and the Boers (that would be the Afrikaners, the descendants of the Dutch in South Africa) on the other. The United Kingdom had colonial forces in India and elsewhere that they brought to bear, and nearly every community in the UK proper supplied forces. It became the largest single military engagement ever undertaken by the British, and arguably one of the largest wars ever to date. The burnt earth policy was developed during this war. Although concentration camps were already a thing (used in the Spanish American War) they were brought to the highest level ever. All of the Boars in the region of fighting were rounded up and put in the concentration camps because whenever they were captured and release they tended to simply rejoin their Army and kept fighting, for some reason. New kinds of rifles and new kinds of cannon were use in this war, making it a key historical moment for the history of large scale killing of each other. This included the “smokeless cannon.” That was important because when cannons let off a lot of smoke, the enemy could figure out more easily where you were located and shoot back sooner. With the smokeless cannon, that was harder to do.

Have you seen the movie Breaker Morant? That was this war.

At the outset of the war, the British occupied and essentially annexed Kimberley and the surrounding mines, and the Boers surrounded Kimberley and bombarded the city with mortars and cannons. They did this for 124 days, but fighting continued around the city even after its liberation by British forces.

The number of people who died here is somewhat controversial. During the bombardments and fighting, the armed defenders of the city suffered 134 casualties, but close to 1,500 “blacks” including children may have died of disease and famine. Over 67% of all white babies and 91% of all “coloured and black” children died. Well over 2,000 British casualties were suffered by the force that relieved the city.

In Kimberly one finds the old Kimberley Sanatorium, built at the suggestion of Cecil John Rhodes as a high class hotel and health resort in 1897, but used for other purposes since then. Rhodes lived there during the Siege, and the compound served as the military headquarters for the British. Later, it was used again as a hotel, and still later, as a convent. To this day people argue over the origin of the various ghosts said to occupy the structure. Are they the spirits of those who stayed in the hotel for their health, but died anyway? Are they those that lost their lives during the siege? Most ghost hunters agree that at least one is a nun who forever roams the corridors.

Eventually, the hotel was converted to house the McGregor Museum, which is part of the South African National Museums. This particular museum addresses the local history, the military history associated with the war and the siege, and the regional archeology. For several years, I’ve worked off and on in the Northern Cape (the province Kimberley is in) and had the opportunity to work with the folks at this museum. And one year, I stayed for a few weeks, with a small group of students, in the guest quarters of the museum itself.

I have been told, true or not I cannot say, that many of the dead but not gone passed away in agony in the upper floors of the infirmary, in very rooms which now constitute the guest quarters, and in which we stayed during this period.

Indeed, we were warned when we moved in.

“Your’re a scientist, like I am,” said the archaeologist who lived downstairs from the Rooms of Death and Misery, as the students were carting gear and luggage up the stairs to the apartment, winging on about how they had to do all the work. “So I understand if you don’t believe me, but….”

“… But what?” I said, as I glanced up the stair wondering what the students were whispering to each other about and concerned that they were taking the good rooms for themselves.

“Well, the place is haunted, or so it is said,” he continued.

I stared at him. Like, what is that supposed to mean, I thought.

“The Norwegian scientists who came last month …. they were supposed to stay for three weeks but left after five days.”

Seriously?

“The ghost drove them out. Oh, by the way, avoid the bedroom that is an extension of the hallway.”

“Why?”

“Just avoid it.”

So I went upstairs and the students, disgruntled because they had personally carried all our stuff up the stairs while I talked to the archaeologist on the first floor, had indeed taken the two best bedrooms, set our stuff up in the third actual bedroom for use as a common space and informal office, and put my luggage in …. the dreaded hallway extension bedroom.

“So, who told you that the hallway was extra haunted?” I asked them snarkily.

“Everybody knows the hallway is extra haunted” one of them replied, super-snarkily.

That night, everyone was pretty tired which was good, because when the disembodied footsteps came walking down the hallway …. and back and forth a couple of times … I think I was the only person who heard them. But that was not to be the case for very long…

The Ghost in the Hall

So there we were in the Haunted Guest Quarters of the Old Infirmary, and I had already heard the ghost once. In the morning, my colleague and BFF Lynne who was staying with us for a couple of days noted that she had heard the mysterious footsteps as well….

“Greg, one, maybe both, of your students are really afraid of ghosts,” she said.

“Why were they even talking about ghosts?”

“They’ve talked about little else since finding out that the ghost tour business is the biggest thing in town! And sooner or later they’re going to hear whatever that was walking down the hall last night.”

“Nah, they’ll just get drunk and pass out every night as usual. Don’t worry about it.”

“We’ll see. What do you suppose that was walking up and down the hall anyway? I looked out and saw nothing,” she said a little too casually.

“Everything has a scientific explanation, my dear friend.”

“Somehow I knew you were going to say that…”

It did turn out that both of the two students harbored beliefs in things like ghosts and spirits. They were not the only ones in town who did. We quickly confirmed that our temporary abode was indeed on the route of the local ghost tour. The ghost tour is actually one of the more stable businesses in Kimberley, City of Ghosts, as one might imagine. The local ghost tour bus, a Volkswagen “Eurovan” style vehicle, would travel round the city bringing people to various haunted houses. So one evening after we figured out that we were on the tour, we saw the van pitch up on a nearby public street. Several tourists who seemed to be from East Asia got out of the van, and the tour guide began to point in our direction and gesticulate, presumably telling stories about the museum and its ghostly inhabitants, as the tourists alternated between glancing at the tour books and pamphlets they carried with them and the building itself. This is when the students put on their show. They had covered themselves in sheets. They flashed the lights on and off and danced back and fourth in a ghostly manner passing between the various windows that were visible from the street. I may or may not have assisted.

Pretty soon the rather shocked looking tourists piled back into the van and drove off as quickly as possible.

And, as Lynne had suggested, the students did eventually hear the Thing in the Hallway.

I did not hear it every single night, but that may simply be because I slept through it. The phenomenon consisted of the sound of foot steps in the creaky hallway, going from one end of the hallway to the other, then often coming back the way it came. Frequently, the sound of footfalls would stop for various lengths of time, then continue. If you looked in the hall there would be nothing there. But the regular occurrence of the footfalls caused the students to avoid using the bathroom until sunup (which was great for me because I could shave and bathe early without interruption) and one of the student required that I tuck her in and turn out her bedroom light for her until I got her an extra flashlight that she could use as a night light. This is how it was at The Old Scary Infirmary for a couple of weeks.

Then, one morning, when I was down in the bathroom shaving … the strangest thing happened….

Who is that kilted man with the big gun?

Well, we were living with this ghost who would walk up and down the hall in the middle of the night, invisibly, leaving behind only the sound of its footsteps. But before I tell you how this all came out, I want to tell you a related side story.

As I had mentioned, I had the "hallway extension" room. Let me explain.

To get into the apartment, you would walk up a set of stairs and through a lockable doorway. Then to the right was a bedroom, and to the left a bathroom. Moving on ahead down the hallway were two more bedrooms on the right for a total of three. On the left side past the bathroom was a kitchen. Then, at the end of the hall, the hallway took a left and went up a step, and continued on for about 15 feet until it met a door that was always locked and that we were told that we should not attempt to open.

That L-shaped part of the hallway -- the hallway extension --- was fairly wide, and a second door had been fitted at the beginning of it, where the step went up, so it formed a long narrow bedroom with a small twin bed on one side and no other furniture.

That was my room.

The first night I stayed there, I was sitting in my room messing with my luggage or something when the light went out. I assumed the bulb had blown. I looked around for a new bulb but did not find one. So that night, after we went out to dinner and came back, I simply kept the door ajar to let in some light from the hallway while I set up the bed and prepared for my evening retirement.

The next day I forgot about the light having burned out, and nothing interesting happened, but the morning after that, we were staying in the apartment later than usual and while I was sitting there getting stuff ready to go out, the light mysteriously turned on. Right after the light turned on, I heard footsteps on the other side of the door that was not to be opened. I went over and looked through the keyhole and through the keyhole I could vaguely see the form of a 19th century looking chap in a uniform of the style that would have been worn by a Royal Scots Dragoon Guard, kilt and all.

"I'll have to check this out in more detail" I thought, as an explanation for the strange behavior of my bedroom light started to form in my mind.

Indeed, later that night, after a day in the field doing archaeology, I went to my room intentionally at a certain time, and turned on the light and waited. Soon enough, I heard footsteps on the other side of the door that was not to be opened, and in a moment, the light went off. And away walked the footsteps.

The next day, after getting back from the field a bit early, I went round to the entrance of the McGregor Museum's public galleries, talked my way past the ticket taker, and hopped up the stairs along one of the old Infirmary's wings. At the top of the stairs was an open door into a larger room, and in the room were glass cases of manikins of men in various uniforms that dated to the time of The Siege. Near the back of the room was a gatling gun, and behind the gun, a locked door. Next to the door was a light switch.

I walked over to the light switch and turned it off. The lights in the museum room went off. I got on my hand and knees and looked through the old keyhole of the door, and could see nothing. But I reached up to the light switch and flipped it on, and suddenly through the keyhole I could see my room, with my bed, and all my junk on the bed. "Hmm," I muttered,"Really should keep that neater since I'm kinda on public display here."

As I stood to leave, I turned to the people who had been looking at the kilted manikin and said "You know, this place is really haunted!"

"I know!" each of them said, eyes wide, in unison with each other.

So, getting back to the original ghost story...

I see dead people. Hey, It’s my job!

I wrote earlier about the graves that were dug daily to receive Kimberly’s dead. In truth, the details of this procedure are still being worked out by archaeologists at the McGregor Museum, but when we were there on this particular trip, part of the grave yard to which I refer had been just discovered, accidentally uncovered during a public works drainage project. I’ve never seen anything quite like it in all my years as an archaeologist.

It should not have been terribly surprising that there were graves in this particular patch of land, just across a small road from an existing cemetery. Indeed, bodies had been discovered in past decades in this neighborhood, and many people suspected that the graveyard was in fact much larger than the marked area with the headstones that was traditionally defined as a cemetery.

We saw the graves opened and carefully excavated. Each hole, as described earlier, was carefully emptied out of all but the skeletons and some of the objects. A 24 hour guard stood watch to make sure no one or no thing got in … or out. Not that there was anything of real monetary value, but people do covet the strangest objects.

Many of the holes did have more than one skeleton, and quite often the skeleton was clearly tossed in haphazardly. In one case, a person’s body was lying at the base of the grave, but his legs were stiffly leaning against the wall. All of his bones were in place but his kneecaps, which rested enigmatically on his pelvis. What has happened was this: The knee caps were, of course, where they were supposed to be (at his knees) when his body was tossed in the grave. Later, his flesh rotted away, but his pants remained for a while, forming a tube shaped void containing his leg bones. The kneecaps slid down the tube and on to his lap, and later the void filled with dirt.

Another grave had a haphazardly tossed-in skeleton and on top of that was a carefully placed and well decorated coffin containing a woman.

Many of the skulls were cut transversely as one would do to remove the brain. It seems that the coroner or the undertaker or someone was harvesting this particular organ. Those were the days when everyone was doing physical anthropology. Perhaps the local doctor was conducting a study…

The people of the neighborhood were of course concerned about this graveyard, in part because many of these people descended from earlier Kimberley citizens, and in part because these days in South Africa burial of the dead is taken quite seriously, and treatment of the dead is a major social and political issue. In parallel cases elsewhere in the country, the people demanded that the burials be recovered and left alone. But in this case the overwhelming feeling was to apply science to the finds, to figure out as much as could be learned about the history and circumstances of these original burials.

Personally I attribute this local citizen’s interest in the science to the excellent work done by the archaeologists at the McGregor Museum in developing an awareness of archeology and its benefits. In addition, as I have alluded to earlier, there is a certain amount of historic denialism associated with the events and affairs connected to Kimberley, South Africa. And today, the inclination of many South Africans seems to be to discover rather than deny that which can be known.

But I mention the skeletons here because if we are talking about ghosts wandering around in an old infirmary, it is notable that those hearing the ghosts had been messing with the remains of the dead on the other side of the town.

In fact, that’s not the only way we were messing with the dead…

The Grave on the Hill

One of the main reasons we were staying in Kimberley was to assist the museum staff with a particular, and rather singular, survey and excavation. The location and circumstances of this field project were quite remarkable.

This was on the location of an historic hunting reserve, where every one of the buildings where guests were quartered and entertained was built well before World War II. Even the huge ancient charcoal refrigerator was intact and in use. This was a large cylindrical structure with double mesh walls. When the game was afoot and dozens of buck were killed by sports hunters over a few days, the space between the double walls was filled with charcoal and wetted down. The steady evaporation from the charcoal chilled the space inside the cylindrical building down to refrigerator temperature, so the carcases could be hung, processed, and aged over a week’s time.

The accommodations sported brass-fixtured porcelain bathtubs, fine cut glass adorned cabinetry, an excellent dining facility and a bar. None of which we were allowed near except for the one brief tour snuck in between paying guests.

Within the reserve was a small flat topped hill. This hill was the gravelly remains of an ancient river bed, the old thalweg of the Gariep River⁴, or some version of it, that probably flowed at this spot several tens of million of years ago. The volcanic plugs I mentioned earlier were already old at the time that this river flowed, so the gravel bed of this ancient river could contain diamonds eroded out of those plugs, which may have been upstream.

Subsequently, the land was eroded down such that what was once a river bed was now a hilltop.

Now, here’s a bit of geological esoterica for you: There is a debate raging between three or four guys that no one has ever heard of as to whether the river in this area flowed from east to west as it does now (more or less) or if this river channel was part of a system that flowed from the south to the north (and then to the west). I’m betting on the latter because in this river bed we found the eastern most known occurrence of a certain type of rock known as Asbestos Hills Jasperite. In order for this Jasperite to have gotten here, either the Jasperite deposits to the southwest of this site once extended well to the east, which is impossible, or the river flowed from the southwest.

This is not a digression … there is a relevant point to be made here. The ancient volcanic plugs with the diamonds were to our east (and west) but not to the south. If this river was draining the region of the volcanic plugs, there is a good bet that this gravel deposit would include diamonds. If, however, the river flowed form elsewhere, say from the southwest, then there is no reason to expect diamonds.

Whether there were diamonds or not, this hilltop was still a gravel bed representing an old river base, and in this region of South Africa, this meant that people would show up with bulldozers and strip it for diamonds. Regular people (with bulldozers) could legally file a diamond claim pretty much anywhere. A claim needed to be used within a very short time after filing, and you could not renew it indefinitely. Many of the old claims owned by the apartheid-linked megacorporations had been abrogated. The diamonds were now owned by the people. This was probably a good thing in a way, but is also meant that a bunch of Joes with bulldozers could legally take down the fence to this game park and strip this hilltop. Legally they were then required to restore the land to its original state, but that sort of thing almost never happened.

As a result, the megacorporation that owned this particular game reserve … and if you’ve heard of diamonds you’ve heard off this corporation … decided to strip out the gravel themselves so that no one else could work this claim. This would minimize damage to the game reserve. The geologists had gone over the deposits and had found no diamonds. If there were diamonds there, there were not too many. Unfortunately, the word “diamond” was part of the place name assigned a century ago to this spot. So, the idea that diamonds were not here was absurd to anyone looking at a map.

Meagdiamondcorp decided to remove all the big trees, strip out the gravel, process it for diamonds, throw the gravel back on, and replant the trees. This would be done in a few months time with minimal disruption to the game park. But there was one small problem: The hilltop was covered with archaeological sites.

And that is what the McGregor Museum was doing there. My field school joined the McGregor team and we carried out a survey and excavated a bunch of stuff. The archaeological materials ranged from the Fauersmith (close to a half million years ago) to historic, with various time periods in between represented. It was great fun to work on this project because we were working on foot in the middle of a game park. As you know, this is how I roll.⁵ As they say.

And of course, on the edge of the hill overlooking the best potential hunting grounds, ancient Bushmen/San⁶ people had made a pile of rocks, as they tended to do. These cairns were often linked with ceremonial activities, and now and then, they were burials.

So we excavated the pile of rocks that was fairly likely to be a burial. The procedure we followed, which is normal, is to excavate very carefully and on the first sign that the feature was a burial, we were to stop and then other things would happen. That would be complicated, but such things are fairly routine for the McGregor staff. If we found no evidence of anything at all, then we would assume that the pile of rocks was a pile of rocks.

But until then, it was safe to assume that we were messing with yet another grave. It is said, and I cannot tell you where I heard this, that messing with bushmen graves gets you extra ghosts. Not that I believe that, but that is what is said…..

Since we’re talking geology …

Since we are talking about geology, I do not want to give up the opportunity to bring up one of the coolest stories of geology ever, given the discussion of science and religion we often have here. You will be asking for a source for this story. Look it up in Wikipedia, where all knowledge resides, and you will not find it there.

There are things, it turns out, that The Great Knowing Web Site does not know. My source is a combination of primary and secondary documents, written histories, and a documentary that is not generally available bit that I did watch in South Africa.

Barney Barneto nee Barnet Isaacs was a key player in the historical development of the diamond industry of South Africa. Barneto, his acquired name, stands for “Barnet Too” which was his tag line when he worked as the secondary, added-on attraction in a magic act operated by his brother in South Africa. The act would be introduced ignoring him, and he’s yell out “And Barnet Too.” Barneto is one of two men, the other being Cecil John Rhodes. Yes, this is Rhodes as in Rhodesia, and this is the same man who led the British in Kimberley during the Siege. In fact, the private game reserve I mentioned earlier …. that was his.

Barneto and Rhodes would ultimately consolidate the myriad diamond claims in the Kimberley region. After Barneto and Rhodes had scarfed up most of the claims, Rhodes bought out Barneto’s consolidated claims. The Megadiamondcorporation to which I earlier referred is the resulting company, and if you own a diamond, this corporation likely sold it to you. If you own an antique diamond more than a few decades old, there is a good chance it came from Kimberley.

It is said, and I think even Wikipedia may know this, that when Rhodes issued the multi-million dollar check to Barneto to acquire all of his claims, that instrument … the check itself … was the largest banking instrument ever issued to that date.

Anyway, Barneto did not simply acquire diamond claims. He acquired certain diamond claims. As I had mentioned much earlier, the average white South African believed that god had placed these diamonds here for the white man to attain wealth. The local black and other non-white South Africans had other stories which were typically much more poetic and typically less post-hoc, but no more scientifically correct.

I should mention that it was during this time that diamonds actually became the most valuable (more or less) gem. Indeed, there was another south African gem, called Tiger’s Eye, which was considered at the time to be potentially more valuable and useful as a domestic use gem (like for wedding rings and stuff) than diamonds. Tiger’s Eye comes from the Asbestos Hills Jasperite deposits I had mentioned earlier. It is said, and I have this on good but unsubstantiated authority, that a sample of Tiger’s Eye had been sent back to Europe at around the time the diamonds were being discovered here. A return letter asked “How common is this Tiger’s Eye gem? It is quite nice and potentially much more valuable than these plain, clear diamond rocks people are starting to ship here” or words to that effect. The answer sent back by a settler in the Asbestos Hills: “Oh, there’s piles of it. It is quite common.”

As a result, Tiger’s Eye became nearly valueless and Diamond became the gem of choice, even though Tiger’s Eye is considerably rarer than Diamond. Orders of magnitude rarer.

But that is a digression. I want to get back to Barneto, and then, eventually, on to the exciting end of this ghost story.

So, Barneto was busy buying up diamond claims in several localities that were under active mining. Most of the miners were content with a religious explanation for the diamonds being where they were, and that is important because it never occurred to anyone that there were at least three distinct types of material being dug to find the shiny little rocks. Outside of the volcanic plugs, and this was not being exploited much yet in those days but it is where the diamonds were first found, were gravelly deposits that are former river channels. Farmers who found these diamonds did not know that these were former river channels, because there is no reason for there to be former river channels on a landscape created as you saw it by God Himself. In the old volcanic plugs, there were two main types of deposit, a bluish earth and a yellow earth. The yellow earth was easier to dig, so all else being equal people tended to prefer claims … and remember, these claims were tiny, like a few feet by a few feet in size … that were primarily in yellow earth. Indeed, at the time Bernato was buying up claims, many sections of bluish earth were being dug around and were left standing in the ever-deepening holes that were being dug (The Big Hole was one of four that would eventually be mined in Kimberly, the last diamonds coming out in about 2005).

So somewhere along the line, Bernato came across a report written by a geologist. Now, you have to understand that geologists existed in those days, and had been busy working out geological questions for decades before any of this diamond mining was going on, but it seems to me that not much work was going on yet in South Africa. Certainly, the vast majority of human labor expended on the excavation of The Big Hole prior to about 1880 was a labor expended in a nearly science-free (but not engineering-free) context.

Bernato’s acquired report described a theory linking volcanoes, diamonds, and the deposits that were being dug right then in the Kimberley area. This scientific theory, which seemed to have a fair amount of consistency and with evidence to back it and everything, indicated that the place to look for the most diamonds was the blue earth, which was the degraded form of a rock whcih eventually became known as “kimberlite.” Kimberlite is the most pristine part of the earth’s crust brought up from the deep by the volcanic magma. (I oversimplify slightly.)

Ironically, South Africa is now a region where it can be safely said that there is more geology per square mile than anywhere outside of Great Britain. The key point here is that Bernato ended up owning a huge share of the diamond mines because he used science. The other people ended up not owning that many diamonds, and for most people, actually ended up in one of the aforementioned graves that were dug daily at the edge of town, penniless and forgotten, because they thought The Almighty God had put the diamonds there for them.

Ghosts beget ghosts.

And speaking of ghosts, let’s get back to the ghost story…

How I captured the Ghost of the McGregor Museum

One morning I was up a bit earlier than usual, and I was in the bathroom shaving. It was an hour or so before sunup. The lighting in the bathroom was poor, but there was a security spotlight outside the window, as I recall, so I had opened the frosted glass pane to let in a little more light, as well as the clean, cold but dry night air, which would clear the fogged-over bathroom mirror.

As I was just starting to scrape the razor against my face in the bathroom, I heard the ghostly footsteps walking one way down the hall .. away from me. Then I heard the preternatural footfalls coming back the other way. Slowly, deliberately, the steps grew closer and closer until they paused right by the bathroom door.

I was just about to open the door and see what the heck was out there, when suddenly a sound came from just outside the bathroom window. With my attention abruptly drawn to this new sound, I turned, rather startled, just in time to see a giant furry cat drop from the roof onto a nearby ledge. Leaping, she came in through the bathroom window and landed directly on the bathroom sink, and without an introduction of any kind, proceeded to insisted that I pet her.

Which I did. And after a minute of this, she became bored and leaped out of the window onto a ledge, and back on to the roof of the building. And there, she walked to the other end of the roof over the guest quarter’s hallway, and my observation of her doing this allowed me to understand the nature of the ghost that had haunted us all these days and, indeed, driven the Norwegians to alternative quarters.

The roof was metal. There were joints in the metal roof. As the cat pitter-pattered along the roof in it’s cat-like fashion, she would come to a certain point along the roof, in relation to these joints, and the joint would creak or ping. This was just like walking along a creaking floor, which will occasionally let out a sound depending on where you step, but much more regularly. Like footfalls. Like ghostly, preternatural, disembodied footfalls.

So, the ghost was a cat walking back and forth on the roof one or a couple of times a night almost every night. Looking for an opening. And finally, I gave her one. And then she …

Well, for the rest of the day, I couldn’t get that song out of my head.

The End.

Interested in some Anthropologically Inspired fiction? Have a look at Sungudogo by Greg Laden.

Footnotes

¹Unless this statement itself is not true, in which case, how can you know what is true and what is not true? And besides, it can't really all be true because some of it is about ghosts.

²It is hard to read in the dark.

³I use the term "non-White" along side the terms "Black" and "White" to signal that there is complexity here. There are three sources of complexity. One is linguistic, one is ethnic, and one is historical. First, the "ethnic" or "racial" issue: to the extent that these concepts are valid at all, which is very questionable, the indigenous non-European people of South Africa can be thought of as being divided broadly into two groups: Bantu-speaking "blacks" and non-Bantu speaking "Khoisan" (or some other term may be used here) and it is supposed to be true that these people look different from each other. That is not entirely true, but it is widely believed. Linguistically, South Africans formerly and to some extent today use the words "Black" for those Bantu-speaking people and "Colored" for some other people who are not Bantu-speaking. Who the "Colored" (or sometimes "Cape-Colored") people are is tricky. In my view, these people mainly descend from Khoisan (foragers and cattle keepers who were not Bantu-speaking) and who probably also intermarried with Bantu people and also Whites and other immigrants (as everyone has over the last half millennium of historical time). But in the past, since "San" (the "forager" sub-version, if you will, of "Khoisan") were considered sub-human, "Cape Colored" people have found it convenient and even necessary to eschew that label just to stay, in some cases, alive. The historical complexity arises from the existence and history of the Griqua (Griqua) people. Griqua is an ethnicity that seems to have once spoken a creole language derived from Bantu and Khoisan origins, who are genetically Khoisan, Bantu and Afrikaner (European Dutch), and who formed a fairly densely populated state in the region of Kimberly (mainly to the West) at the time of the European intrusion into the area. Griqua is a full blown 'culture' in the usual sense but one that was constructed for economic and political reasons during the late 18th and early 19th century. Many of the people in Kimberly today may identify as Griqua, and that may have been the case during the Siege.

⁴"Gariep" is the new name, based on an earlier used name, of the Orange River.

⁵I hate this expression, not because it is not potentially a smooth, almost sardonic put-off (which is useful) but because I've seen it almost always in a context where the writer is excusing his or her crappy thought process or inexcusable behavior by saying that this is his or her behavior. The Hobbsian fallacy is always annoying to me. That's how I roll.

⁶As you know, the names of ethnic or cultural groups can be tricky. Up in Botswana, I'm told, the word "San" when applied to the foragers of that region (some of whom may be known to you as the Ju/'hoansi) is an insult. It means "wild primitive" or "wild animal" or something like that. The Ju/'hoansi prefer the term "Bushmen." In South Africa, the term "Bushmen" is considered pejorative, and the word "San" is preferred. There are other terms and other complexities. One might think it is silly to worry about this, but it is not. The complexity of "San/Bushman/Khoisan/Khoi/Ju/'hoansi/Etc" culture and culture history rivals that of, say, Europe. Calling the South African foraging peoples "Ju/'hoansi" would be roughly the same as calling the French "Bulgarians" .... not for any particular reason, it would simply be that wrong linguistically, geographically, and culturally. Unfortunately, this discussion is beyond the scope of this footnote.

gregladen Mon, 10/27/2014 - 07:50

Tags

Nelson Mandela Has Gone Home

gregladen — Thu, 05 Dec 2013 16:28:05 +0000

Nelson Mandela Has Gone Home

Imagine going back in time to visit Nelson Mandela in prison and telling him this: "You will live through this and be free, you'll lead your country and set an unattainable example of leadership, you'll retire as president and die at a very old age. The violence associated with the end of Apartheid will be so little it will be mostly forgotten. There will be truth. And reconciliation." That would have been a remarkable, impossible prediction at the time, because he was clearly destine to die in prison, and there was little possibility of reconciliation and there was every chance of bloodshed. Then you could add something equally unlikely: "There is a young African American man at a protest rally in the United States right now, agitating against apartheid. Long after your release from prison and your presidency, he will become the President of the United States and he will, in eulogizing you on your death, mention that his first political act was to protest racial injustice in your land."

I can not say anything about Nelson Mandela that others with more knowledge and experience are saying now around the world. I'm hearing some remarkable voices saying some remarkable things. Go listen if you haven't already. But I do remember a few things that I'd like to write down.

I remember, when Mandela was in prison and Apartheid was still the rule of the land in South Africa, but not knowing much about it, the protests in Harvard Yard and the mock shantytown that stayed up for months to agitate for divestment. I wonder if young President Obama was ever in that shantytown or if he organized or attended any of those rallies. Presumably so.

I remember watching transfixed, along with something like a billion other people, when Mandela made the final leg of his "long walk to freedom" on his release from prison. I remember being in Bloomington, Indiana, at a conference of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists, attended by numerous South Africans who had already sent in their absentee ballots, for the first election.

I remember turning down opportunities to work in South Africa, honoring the boycott, but later of course I did work in the New South Africa (and yes, that's what they call it there) and I spent considerable time in the country across numerous visits. Some of my best memories are in South Africa, and it is where I met Lynne, one of my best friends ever. I remember being there during one of the elections and seeing two of my Afrikaner colleagues in tears because Mandela was president. They were tears of joy, mind you. These men, as boys, had been shuttled to school and back in an armored bus as part of an armed convoy, in the Northern Province, now Limpopo, under threat of the ANC bush army, which at the time was in part led by Mandela himself before he was imprisoned. At another time they showed me the place where they waited for the armored bus, on the edge of a farm by a highway.

I also remember visiting, not too far from there, an Apartheid fence. This was a five meter high double chain link fence topped with razor wire, designed as part of the first line of defense against invading armies that were expected in those days, armies from the front line states that would take over South Africa and throw out the Apartheid white minority government. The fence ran only a few hundred meters and stopped abruptly on both ends, which would have allowed the invading armies to simply walk around it. This was because the permission of the landowner was needed to put in the fence, and only one land owner overlooking that part of the Limpopo River was interested in having it. If you think that is strange, you just don't know South Africa. It's still strange, but at the same time, perfectly normal.

Travelling back south the same week, I learned that the bus stop was on a long straight section of highway designated by the South African military as a landing strip. There were apparently many of these, which would be used to move the army to the border at the time of the impending invasion. We all remember the assumption that Apartheid would likely end in a bloodbath, internally or by invasion or both.

But Mandela did not let any of that happen. The smartest thing the white minority did was to give the country, essentially, to Mandela. Truth and reconciliation ensued.

I also remember, in detail, every single one of the racist stories I was told by numerous disenfranchised whites, whom I would run into now and then around the country while doing my work. I remember the details so well because even though every one of those stories was about someone the person telling it knew, and set in a specific time and space like it had really happened, there were really only a handful of different stories but every story was repeated again and again by different people in far flung regions. When I encountered South African white racism in the wild I found it to be a joke, not a very funny one, a parody of itself, a badly strung together set of urban myths, self aggrandizing and used up. But most of the minority citizens I knew and became friends with in South Africa are as sad today that Mandela has died as anyone else.

As President Obama said today, there will never be another person like Nelson Mandela.

gregladen Thu, 12/05/2013 - 11:28

Tags

Africa

Nelson Mandela

south africa

We will really miss you...Great man of the world..

We loved you much our vivid pan African liberator
BUT
God loved you much than us
REST IN PEACE MADIBA
Always we shall be remembering You

Hadeda Ibis, an iconic South African bird

dr. dolittle — Wed, 09 Oct 2013 13:53:35 +0000

Hadeda Ibis, an iconic South African bird

An article came out today in Wunderground.com about an iconic bird (in both good and bad ways) in South Africa, the Hadeda Ibis (Bostrychia hagedash). There are stores named after the birds, songs dedicated to them and even a documentary called "Hadeda Sunrise" that you can watch here:

dr. dolittle Wed, 10/09/2013 - 09:53

Tags

Here we go again: The vile tactic of blaming shaken baby syndrome on vaccines

oracknows — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 01:46:28 +0000

Here we go again: The vile tactic of blaming shaken baby syndrome on vaccines

About ten or twelve years ago, back when I was in essence, a newly minted skeptic and public supporter of science-based medicine, I was so naive. There I was, having just discovered the Usenet newsgroup misc.health.alternative and confronting the original wretched hive of scum, quackery, and pseudoscience, and I thought I had seen everything. Yes, I realize these days that, even a decade on I haven't seen everything and will never see everything, but back then I couldn't believe that, having learned for the first time about coffee enemas, various forms of cancer quackery, each seemingly more bizarre than the last, and, of course, the antivaccine movement, there could be anything worse.

Then I learned about Alan Yurko.

Yurko, as you might recall, was a man who was convicted of shaking his girlfriend's baby to death, producing a classic case of shaken baby syndrome, and as a result became the most unlikely hero to the antivaccine movement that I could imagine at the time. Unfortunately, now older, wiser, and more experienced, I'm no longer shocked at such things, but at the time I couldn't believe that Yurko and his supporters were trying to blame the child's death not on shaken baby syndrome but rather on "vaccine injury." Worse, this lie has metastasized and become a major strain in antivaccine "thought" (if you can call it that) that has been used multiple times in (thankfully) mostly futile attempts to help child abusers beat their raps. Indeed, one antivaccine group, SaneVax, has even published a guide to blaming the deaths of children on vaccines.

Sadly, "courtesy" of the antivaccine group Vactruth and (of course!) the all-purpose crank and quack blog NaturalNews.com, I learn of another possible case of doing just this again. Here's how the story is being portrayed after the baby received a round of immunizations on September 25, 2012:

Parents in South Africa are facing life in prison for the murder of their baby girl who died just days after receiving routine vaccinations. Baby A had received all her vaccinations on time. On September 25, 2012, when she was aged just five months, her parents took her to their local clinic, where she received a total of eight vaccinations before being sent home.
Baby A’s mother told VacTruth that the vaccinations were administered extremely harshly, with the nurse appearing to stab their daughter viciously with a variety of needles. Baby A received eight vaccines in total, the five-in-one vaccine Pentaxim said to protect against diphtheria, tetanus, acellular pertussis, haemophilus influenza type B (Hib) and polio; the hepatitis B vaccine; the rotavirus vaccine; and a vaccine said to protect babies against pneumocococcal and non-typeable haemophilus influenzae disease, Prenevar/Prenvar.

First off, despite the obvious attempt to make it sound as though this child was somehow violated with eight jabs by an evil nurse, when in reality it was many fewer jabs, given that two of these vaccines were combination vaccines. It's a common tactic of the antivaccine movement to exaggerate how many injections are required and jack up the number of vaccinations. Be that as it may, the child was irritable and had what sounds like injection site reactions, with hard knots near the injection sites.

Two weeks later, on October 9, 2012, reportedly the baby was doing well, playing, kicking, and smiling. Here is how Vactruth is spinning the story:

On October 9, 2012, Baby A appeared to be her normal self, playing, kicking and smiling; however, the next day things were very different. Mrs. A explains:

“Baby A woke up and appeared to be crabby and running a high fever. She was only was happy if we were holding her and carrying her. That day, I gave her Panado and was dabbing her with a cool face towel to bring the fever down. At about 15:30 or so I had just finished feeding her and gave her to my husband to burp and as he was burping he heard her gasp for like a breath of air and when I looked at her she had collapsed on his shoulder and wasn’t breathing. She turned blue and we tried to give her CPR but as we were doing that she was throwing up and still was not breathing.

We decided to rush her to the nearest hospital but we were unfortunate as there was traffic at the time and only got there at about 16:00. I could be off a few minutes, we took her into the trauma unit and they took her from us and told us to wait in a separate room. They managed to resuscitate her and put her in the NICU, they then took her to get a CT scan and then said they needed to take x-rays as well.”

After what seemed like forever, the doctor appeared and informed the anxious parents that their daughter had blood on her brain and appeared to have been shaken. He said that the little girl had multiple fractures of the long bones.

After the previous example of Alan Yurko and other babies with shaken baby syndrome that I've blogged about, I bet you can tell where this is going. Here's the little girl, being called Baby A. She's unconscious. She has what sound like subdural hematomas and multiple long bone fractures. What could possibly have caused this? Obviously, it must have been the vaccines! Don't believe me? Take a look at how Vactruth spins it next:

This is yet another tragic case in which parents have been accused of shaking their baby, after a possible vaccine injury has occurred. Baby A’s vaccination card showed that at the tender age of five months she had received a total of 21 routine vaccinations. This is a vast number of vaccinations and it is becoming evident that many babies of this age cannot tolerate an onslaught of toxins, chemicals and poisons of this magnitude.

It is important to recognize that some parents do physically abuse their children and while I appreciate that this is not acceptable, doctors must appreciate that not every injury is the result of child abuse.

At least in this case the antivaccine activist, Christina England, who wrote this piece concedes that some parents actually do physically abuse their children. Frequently when I read these stories, I don't even see that acknowledgment, much less the concession that beating or shaking your child is a bad thing. But let's take a look at this case, where England's concession appears to be nothing more than a means of trying to seem reasonable while blaming a set of injuries that include long bone fractures and a subdural hematoma. Usually, these sorts of cases of shaken baby syndrome only involve a spectrum of head injuries and retinal hemorrhages that can be spun as being caused by vaccines, not trauma. The way antivaccinationists do this is by claiming that vaccines somehow caused encephalitis that leads to the subdural hemorrhages. It's all nonsense, of course, but that's what antivaccinationists claim.

How one spins a case like this, though, in which there isn't just a head injury but there are also multiple long bone fractures as being due to "vaccine injury" and an "onslaught of toxins, chemicals, and poisons," I have yet to be able to figure out, other than profoundly delusional thinking.

There's another thing about this story. I tried very hard to find the original source of the story. I've failed. Neither NaturalNews.com nor Vactruth.com provided a link to the original source of the story. Searching for "South Africa," "Vaccine," and a variety of terms related to shaken baby syndrome or child abuse only pulled up England's article posted virtually verbatim on a variety of pro-quackery and antivaccine sites. (I even found the article translated into French and a variety of other languages.) Even using Google image search on the images in the article produced the same thing. Try as I might, I could not find the original source of the story. The closest I could find was this, and it's not close. It's one of those Internet stories that are so common, where it's difficult or impossible to track down where it came from. For all I know, England could be lying about the location and enough of the details to make it impossible to track down the original source.

Yes, I smell a rat. Maybe readers in South Africa or readers with greater Google-Fu than I can find the source.

In the meantime, if you really want to be appalled and disgusted, just peruse the comments after the NaturalNews.com version of the story. There, you'll find testimonials of this sort:

my son is in jail accused of shaking his son. His son had his 4 month vaccinations and check up, he was fine and then after became very sleepy , sleeping 5-6 hour naps and not being hungry, then began vomiting 48 hours after his shots. they took him to the hospital, they sent him home with anti nausea meds. they followed up w/ doctor the next day. He just told them to give pedialite and the anti nausea medicine. the next day he was still vomiting so they took him back to the doctor. They said just to keep offering pedialite 1/2 ounce every hour. he was still puking, so they took him to the hospital. the hospital kept him overnight and gave him an IV. then started small bottles and sent him home without any blood tests or anything. The next day he was puking still and had a seizure so they took him to the hospital again. They finally did a brain scan and saw that his brain was swollen and he had blood spots on his brain. The hospital called CPS and transferred him to the children's hospital in the next town. They said he had shaken baby syndrome. The first hospital gave him too much potassium and caused him to have 4 more seizures in transit. When the police interrogated my son and his girlfriend/fiance they kept threatening to take the baby from both of them if someone didn't confess to shaking him. The doctors did not even consider that the vaccines could have caused the symptoms. The baby had no bruises or neck trauma. If some one shook him hard enough to cause that kind of damage he would have had damage to his neck and back or some bruises. My son has lost everything because of this. We are still waiting for his day in court. It is costing us everything we have and then some for a lawyer to defend him. I have been sick because of this and have also lost about 10-15 pounds due to the stress. Please pray for us.

As I've said, there's no depth to which antivaccinationists won't sink.

oracknows Mon, 08/26/2013 - 21:46

Tags

Antivaccine nonsense

complementary and alternative medicine

complementary and alternative medicine

What the h*ll is wrong with these f*cking nutballz?? The vaccine needle don't even hit any bones, much less cause a blunt force trauma on said bones and I dare them to prove me wrong in that there's no mechanism of action to break any bones following a vaccines considering the number of auties who bang their head on the wall (probably from having to deal with these nutballz) and not having any injuries.

Alain (riled off)...

It’s one of those Internet stories that are so common, where it’s difficult or impossible to track down where it came from.

England literally advises her readers not to trust all the claims she has made... The article ends with a note that "Names have been changed for legal purposes" (although no names were actually provided).
The poster child for Munchausen-Syndrome-by-proxy make stuff up? Unpossible!

I too saw this story over the weekend and became infuriated. I wanted to post a comment here on RI but figured someone like Denice would beat me to it. I should have had faith that Orac would develop it into its very own article.

In the comments on the Natural News story, one reasonable person asked how on earth vaccines could cause broken bones, and several other commenters replied that it was a violent nurse who administered the shots and broke the baby's bones. This, as if it's a completely normal and natural occurance.This is so farfetched and ludicrous I can't believe no other readers there picked up on it.

How much force is required to pierce the skin with a small calibre needle, especially in a baby's soft skin? The last time I received shots from my doctor (proud to say a flu shot and other adult vaccinations I was due to receive) he had finished the injections before I even knew he had started. I literally, honestly didn't feel a thing.

Interesting to note the parents of the poor baby are now commenting on Natural News as well, playing the victim card and drumming up support and sympathy.

Has the lunatic fringe at AofA picked up on this story yet?

Of course Orac brings up the point that this entire story might amount to nothing more than an urban legend if there's no corroboration anywhere else. I had never even considered that possibility.

Found it:
http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2012/10/25/probe-into-little-alaia-…

From the mother's account:

At about 15:30 or so I had just finished feeding her and gave her to my husband to burp and as he was burping he heard her gasp for like a breath of air and when I looked at her she had collapsed on his shoulder and wasn’t breathing. She turned blue and we tried to give her CPR but as we were doing that she was throwing up and still was not breathing.

We decided to rush her to the nearest hospital but we were unfortunate as there was traffic at the time and only got there at about 16:00.

Maybe things are different in South Africa, but if my baby was turning blue and not breathing, to the point where I felt compelled to try to administer CPR, my next step would be to call a damn ambulance and not drive there myself through traffic, which resulted in a half-hour delay getting to the hospital.

Wow, vaccines break bones now.

Seriously?

@Woo Fighter:

Maybe things are different in South Africa, but if my baby was turning blue and not breathing, to the point where I felt compelled to try to administer CPR, my next step would be to call a damn ambulance.

In South Africa there have been instances where ambulances have taken literally hours to arrive. I am not surprised they chose to drive to hospital themselves.

Julian,

Thanks for the info. I guess that's why I prefaced with Maybe things are different... I retract my comment with apologies to the parents, if they end up reading this.

Why does it take so long to get an ambulance, though? Is it a matter of economics, geography, politics, or none of the above?

@Woo Fighter, it's incompetence. There are insufficient ambulances due to the fact that most government departments are badly run and very inefficient. I could go into detail, but that would be an Orac-ian length post on its own.

Trying to navigate England's murky prose is not very rewarding, but I note that the child received at most 4 injections, not eight, if one of those was a five-in-one. So half the number of chances for a 'vicious nurse' to 'stab the child repeatedly with a variety of needles' than she implies .

If the nurse broke her bones by viciously stabbing her with a variety of needles, why is it that, "On October 9, 2012, Baby A appeared to be her normal self, playing, kicking and smiling". After two weeks with untreated broken bones, I'd think she would be a bit unhappy.

Vaccines seem to have all kinds of effects. On one forum in the Netherlands, someone blamed the suicide her son committed when he was 37 on the vaccines he received when he was a kid.

If the nurse broke her bones by viciously stabbing her with a variety of needles

If I understand the argument correctly, the idea is that vaccines chelate vitamin D and cause a form of galloping rickets, in which the bones acquire the fragility of crystal goblets, and snap as a result of inflammation. The purported vicious stabbiness of the vaccination is irrelevant except to help us focus our hatred upon the medical professions.

Has the lunatic fringe at AofA picked up on this story yet?

Do they have sufficient self-preservation to stay away from allying themselves with the Infanticide Apologist Network? Only time will tell.

I've had infants and children in my practice who were victims of abusive head trauma (aka shaken baby syndrome) returned to the same environment (home) in which they were abused because no on could determine who actually abused the child. This happens in AZ because judges who view children as property and not people deserving of a safe, loving home. The irony here is rich because concussion guidelines for kids now say that after 2 concussions during a sports season (and we're not talking anywhere near the level of brain trauma as seen in shaken baby syndrome), you (the physician) should have that child stop that sport for the rest of the season. But, hey, infants and toddlers can defend themselves much better than teens playing football, so let's put them back in their abusive homes and let whomever shook them give them another head shot, right?

I don't get it. We've got one lunatic group freaked out over every little thing that goes into their child (the antivaccine crowd), and then we have (at least in the US, especially here in AZ), a court system that thinks it is just dandy to throw abused children back into a lion pit. So, of course, like a demented Reese's peanut butter cup, the two are going to meet for one not-so-great taste.

Since we've already got a nasty little subset of criminal defense attorneys specializing in trying to get acquittals for Munchausen-by-proxy defendants, is there such a thing as specialization in shaken baby defense based on purported "vaccine injury"?

True, it hasn't been very successful so far, but I can see where it could be effective when presented to less sophisticated juries.

http://www.dontshake.org/sbs.php?topNavID=3&subNavID=28&navID=118

I am delighted to report, by the way, that Dr Buttram of SBS-denalism has his own entry in the Encyclopedia of American Loons (as do many other of the usual suspects). Alas, an accident of birth rules out Christina England from eligibility.

There have been cases where there were unknown medical issues that caused injuries that were blamed on shaken baby syndrome, and there've been people exonerated and released from prison when those were realized.

But vaccines? Nope. Nothing vaccines could cause would mimic that.

Ugh, ugh, ugh. Vile. For all their bleating about protecting children from teh eveel vaccine toxins, antivaxxers are remarkably callous about genuine child abuse, aren't they?

Andrew -- one of the more famous is "glass baby syndrome", or osteogenesis imperfecta. It's an extremely rare genetic condition (so, vaccines of course have nothing whatsoever to do with it) that causes the bones to be extraordinarily brittle. It condemns a child to a life of pain and disability and, usually, considerable deformity since constant bone fractures tend to seriously mess up the growth patterns of the bones. Many do not survive to adulthood, but some do.

As Orac is a Whovian, one notable example is the British actor Nabil Shaban, who portrayed the loathsome "Sil" in "Vengeance on Varos" and "Trial of a Time Lord: Mindwarp". He is a little person, but only by virtue of his disability, which has severely stunted his growth, and he has the characteristic barrel chest, and he has considerable mobility problems. His disability was used as an asset here, driving the design choices behind Sil's costume. They made him into an aquatic creature, who was thus forced to rely on personal attendants to push him around in a cart on land. (In a lot of ways, his character is reminiscent of Cassandra on the revived series; extremely conceited, arrogant, sociopathic, and dependent on personal attendants who are constantly bossed around.) The actor himself is one of those who has survived a long time with the condition, of course, and he runs an agency for actors with disabilities.

I googled s africa newspaper and found it with the Times searchbox.

@ Woo Fighter ::

" someone like Denice"... Ha.
Well, right, I did see the article.
Believe it or not, I do have multiply diverse- but inter-nested- duties- ( and clients are the least of it) peace-keeping, raising sunken spirits and financially managing slightly at-sea and overly emotional but otherwise lovely folk who look to me for assistance in their day-to-day travails. Someone has to do it and I'm related to- or have been "involved" with- most of them.

At any rate:
Yurko has been championed by alties including Null who featured him in one of his overly slick but factually insubstantial documentaries ( "Vaccination Nation") - you can see the trailer and excerpts on the woo-meister's you tube channel. Sickmaking.

In other anti-vax news:
AoA features Meryl Dorey's plea for funds to pay her 11K AUD court costs. Money is streaming in they tell us.. Some comments compare her to people who fought against real injustice or rallied to support those who battled actual evil.

Shame on them. She is only a loud-mouthed person who spouts pseudo-science and misleads frightened young parents in order to chase fame.

AoA suffers from delusions of grandeur. Its so-called writers suffer from delusions concerning their verbal ability and its application towards reality.

-btw- I like the 'nym despite Grohl- his is foo, yours is woo.
Supposedly "Foo fighters" were a WWII reference to UFOs.

@Edith

Some of these are the people who endorse bleach enemas. What did you expect?

@Denise - there was an old saying, "where there is Foo, there is Fire...."

No idea where it came from....

@ Lawrence:

There's a 2005 Sci-tech article ( @ the Triangle) by Aaron Sakulich called "Where there's Foo, there's likely to be Fire.."

Most of us don't track alt-med memes, and are surprised when something as ugly and crazy as this pops up -- but very often the idea has been around and accepted by the in-group for a long time. The idea that shaken baby syndrome is actually a misdiagnosis for vaccine injury (note the parallel to mercury) has been around for decades, and is a particular obsession of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Guess who's a member! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Mercola

The wikipedia article for "Foo fighter" (the phenomenon) cites the "Smokey Stover" comic strip as the source of "Where there's foo there's fire".

@ Martin:

So does Sakulich.

My parents have a Time Life book on UFOs. It's surprisingly well-balanced, given its topic.
@Lawrence: it came from a cartoon. Don't ask me which one. The joke is "foo" is a corruption of "feu", french for fire. It's a tautology.
@Denice Walter: yes. It is a reference from WWII. Allied pilots saw strange lights in the sky and nicknamed them "foo fighters". They were suspected of being advanced german warplanes. After the war, it was learnt that the Germans thought they were advanced allied aircraft!

Remember Elwood Sadowski who was convicted of murdering his child?

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/10/05/using-the-lie-that-sbs-is-…

Remember Elwood's wife Tonya, who had a website "The Amanda Project". At the time she had instituted divorce proceedings against Elwood, but was actively defending her husband.

The website is now expanded run by her and other paralegals and she has allied herself with Christina England. England has a book that she will be publishing with Dr. Lucija Tomljevonic (Where have I read about Dr. Tomljevonic, before?)

http://www.theamandatruthproject.com/publications.htm

I see Martin has found the origin.

So, did the parent that tried CPR on the baby actually know how to administer CPR? Any other broken bones? Meh...

This is a year-old article. Slow day at NaturalNews.com? But Denice's comment "despite Grohl" reminds me that The Foo Fighters were huge HIV denialistsand have never refuted their support for Alive and Well, even after its founder Christine Maggiore and her daughter (and untold others) died as a direct result of HIV denialism. Dave, Nate, you have some 'splainin to do, because your support probably has a body count.
OT rant is now terminated

D'oh! The link should have gone here . . . http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2000/02/foo-fighters-hiv-deniers

I admit I was rather disappointed when Orac pointed out the AIDS denialist angle to the Foo Fighters when I switched my user name (from Marc Stephens Is Insane). Ironic considering the Foos worked with Brian May (of Queen) several years back on a few collaborations. Brian May has a Ph.D. in astrophysics and is one of the most intelligent musicians to have ever come along. I wonder if May knew about the Foos AIDS stance back then, considering he watched his bandmate Freddie Mercury die of AIDS in the 90s.

Having met and interviewed Dave a few times in my radio days, I have to admit I was struck by his intelligence on real world matters as well. I guess that intelligence only stretched so far.

To be fair, the Foos have scrubbed all references to the AIDS denialist movement from their website in recent years. Maybe they've seen the light.

@Shay

Some of these are the people who endorse bleach enemas. What did you expect?

Oh, I know. I just think it needs to be pointed out emphatically and often that these people happily turn a blind eye to children's suffering if it will help promote their ideology. And sell their books/quack treatments/get them hired on daytime talk shows.

DB@15: As your link points out, a competent prosecutor can and should move to exclude the so-called expert testimony that would support such a defense. (S)he can also put a question about whether any given prospective juror believes vaccines have caused injury to the juror or anyone in his/her immediate family to the voir dire, in order to weed out some of the ant-vax loons from the jury pool. We can assume that the prosecutor in any such case is not an anti-vax loon, because if (s)he were (s)he would move to dismiss the charges and the case would never reach trial. But there is no guarantee that the prosecutor is competent; certainly not in the US, where district attorney (who heads the office that would prosecute most criminal cases in that county) is an elected position. There is also the risk that, if the judge is an anti-vax loon, (s)he can overrule the prosecutor's motion.

People who pull that crap should be exposed for the frauds that they are, as well as being murderers. No defense attorney should ever try to get that defense in, and no judge should allow it, based solely on grounds of scientific plausibility and of it not meeting the Daubert standard. (in courts in the USA anyway. )

This makes me fvcking weep. Not metaphorically, literally.

Here's the deal - I'm 35 (I think!) and have never wanted children*. I have been told I am unnatural, not a real woman, that I hate children, that I am evil and a danger to children**, simply because I do not wish to bear children of my own.

Now, as someone who's worked in the health service I know how bad life can get for some of the world's kids. I also know roughly how much force it takes to break one of the long bones, to cause petechial haemorrhages, and to cause fatal brain injuries.

It is beyond disgusting that people who have devoted their lives to providing healthcare are being vilified, that they are cast as demonic child torturers, simply to further the heinous, twisted agenda of science-denialists. It never fails to enrage me when these hateful, poisonous charlatans place all parents on an unreachable golden pedestal, as ~Warrior Mommies and Daddies~, that parents are viewed as beyond reproach when children have suffered injury or death. Healthcare providers, those without children, or marginalised groups (by virtue of their sexuality, gender presentation, ethnicity, religion/lack of, profession, disabilities etc) are portrayed as dangerous monsters lurking around every corner.***

Here in the real world the truth is starkly different. Children who are abused, r*ped and killed are overwhelmingly victims of their own parents, followed by other family members, with "monsters" making a rather pathetic contribution to the stats.

Children are denied urgent healthcare (like little Neon, here in the UK), or access to preventative medicine, they act as disease vectors to other children, they die due to neglected conditions that are considered routine and trivial these days (asthma, eczema etc)

Disabled (physically, developmentally, intellectually) children are victims of every kind of abuse by their "parents" and "care"givers, up to and including murder. This occurs at rates so staggering that if it were happening to any other group of people there would be rioting in the streets. Yet nothing is done. In the rare event that abuse is investigated it is typically the child who is classed as the cause of the abuse, the real perpetrator, because their "poor parents have suffered so much". Murdering your disabled child will typically get you a smaller sentence (usually none at all) than you'd get for abusing or killing your dog.

But no, no, it's doctors and nurses, scientists and pharmacists who are evil, murderous monsters, vaccines break bones, bleach enemas are valid treatments, and black is banana, up is kangaroo.

At times like this I'm glad that I'm stuck here and incapable of acting on this all-consuming rage and hurt that I feel on behalf of these kids.

@Alain - nice to see you back!

@Chris Hickie- Nothing surprises me about your country. American RI-squad know that I love you, but as one of two countries (Somalia is the other, I believe) that refuse to sign onto the the UN Convention for the Rights of the Child, it might as well be open season on kids in parts of the US.

*Just as well really! We had planned to foster, years ago, obviously that's not possible now.

**The many children who consider me their 'Auntie elburto' may be at risk of overdosing on the books I give them, being mobbed by their little friends because I've modded (by proxy now) their electronic gadgets, or by inhaling pen fumes from the many pictures they draw to cheer me up because I can't see them in person. SAVE THEM!

***Hi, I'm elburto - former NHS worker, visibly disabled, lesbian, mentally-ill, non-NT, atheist, childfree, feminist geek. FEAR ME, FOR I WILL NOM YOUR CHILDREN WITH FAVAJELLY BEANS, AND A NICE CHIANTI COLD PEPSI!

England's spin on the Sth Africa story turns up on a FB page In Loving Memory of Alex Spourdalakis (in which antivaxxers co-opt the name of an autistic youth murdered by his caregivers, in order to push their barrow and defend his murderers).
I suppose it makes sense to extend that defense to infanticide in general.

Anyway, mixed in with all the woo, the FB page also includes rants about 'Obamacare', of the familiar tea-party "keep government out of my Medicare" variety. The same antivax / tea-party convergence turned up on other FB pages.

@hdb - Alex is one of the innumerable victims of that fatal combination of woo and state-sanctioned ableism that I was ranting about. He'll almost certainly be painted as the aggressor.

@Shay - Nigel Wavers (my girl-fish) says her name is unisex, and to spread it around!

Oh and AIDS denialsts? Filth. Walking faecal transplants. If HIV is harmless then they should put their bloodstreams where their mouths are, and be infected.

The Dachel bot has called out her flying monkey squad to flood the comments section of this article written by a Buffalo New York doctor about vaccines and the now debunked vaccine-autism link.

Our Dr. Chris Hickie has been posting there and I just joined him. Unfortunately the comments platform puts any comments with links in moderation purdah. Come and join us there.

http://www.buffalonews.com/columns/dr-zobra-paster/zorba-paster-20130824

Possible source

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Baby-shaken-at-creche-20130621

@ Elburto,

Thanks for the welcome :)

Alain

@ elburto:

Nigel is SO much better than Nigella.

I appear superficially more the socially sanctioned median than you do,
HOWEVER that makes people even more shocked to learn some of my opinions and beliefs.

I never really wanted children despite having had a supportive partner when I was the 'right age'- he would have probably made a good mother. I think that not having children made my life better ( I can hear the cries of "Stone her!" about NOW). I had other aims and responsibilities which I fulfilled.

Everyone doesn't have to be the same, think the same, live the same. That mentality harkens back to centuries past and who wants to have to go through that rot again?

Plus you can drive a Range Rover, fly everywhere in a G5, burn fires in all your fire places nightly, leave the lights on all night for the rest of your life and still not have the carbon footprint of a person who reproduces just once.

Is it just me or do a lot of the mothers in the various Autism movements seem to be more interested in identifying as mothers than in the well-being of their children? (Not exclusive to AOA, TMR, I also noticed it in a certain woman who is very publicly raising a child with Down's Syndrome.)

And I myself am debating whether I want a partner in life because I want to spend the next 20 years or so, working in some select places in the world (California, Germany among other) holding jobs for which I'd derive pleasure and give my best.

Perhaps I'm unconsciously weighting in the difficulty of finding a mate but I've had limited success with girls and despite my willingness to make the necessary compromise and invest in the relationship, I have been very unlucky so far. And I'm not sure if I want to invest in a relationship.

Alain

OK - in the South Africa story, the evil nurse broke the baby's long bones, and the parents didn't notice until TWO WEEKS LATER when they took her to the hospital for seizures etc? WTF?

Can I ask what dung heap these individuals crawled out of, or would that be too derogatory to beetles and other creepycrawlies that are supposed to be that way?

I mean...isn't "we need child abusers to make us more appealing" a sure sign that your movement has scraped clear through the bottom of the barrel? And shouldn't this be a clear sign in any fencesitter's mind that the antivaxers have completely lost the plot with regard to reality?

offtopic, new blog post:

http://www.securivm.ca/2013/08/thinking.html

Enjoy,
Alain

The funny thing is even if the "violent nurse" had caused the broken bones and the trauma while administering the vaccines, she would be the cause not the vaccines.

Here is a species (dolphins) for whom I wish we had a vaccine right now: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/die-off-of-bottle… .

@Chris Hickie
I did my PhD on morbillivirus vaccines. There is a canarypox-vectored canine distemper virus vaccine (which by definition can't replicate in mammals) which might actually provide some protection (vets used to give measles vaccine to provide cross protection against canine distemper until pups outgrew their maternal antibody). The joy is in administration--most dolphins aren't going to sit still for a vaccination, if you can even find them. Other poxvirus-vectored vaccines, such as rabies, can be given as oral bait, but I'd hate to think of what you'd have to do to stabilize it in a marine environment (and prevent birds from eating it.)
A challenging problem, indeed.

Denice,

Nigel is SO much better than Nigella.

Not least because the latter sounds like a tropical disease. I assume you are talking about names; I definitely prefer Nigella Lawson to Nigel Lawson.

elburto,
OT but I see Wentworth has made it to terrestrial UK TV - it was on Ch5 earlier, except they have changed its name to 'Wentworth Prison' for some reason ( I was a Cell Block H fan in the 80s and have become a secret Wentworth fan).

This is one of those areas that really pisses me off. JPANDS was big on shaken-baby-abuser-apologetics.

@ janet --at least the dolphins wouldn't have "thinking dolphin moms" to refuse vaccination. I was thinking about how you could do oral bait in the ocean (holy mackerel, vacman!), and know that you actually got it to where it needs to be. It doesn't look as easy as on land. I didn't check any other manufacturer web sites, but Merck actually does list a mammalian erysipelas vaccine as approved for cetaceans (including dolphins), with my guess being it's used for those in captivity, and not by some Dr. Ahab out on the deep blue sea with giant harpoon syringes.

Chris Hickie: I'm yoinking 'giant harpoon syringes.' Would be a great gimmick for a villain.

I think this story has a ring of truth. Until very recently vaccinations in South Africa were administered with a lump hammer. It's easy to see how an inattentive nurse tasked with hammering the needle in could smash a child's bones with repeated blows. South Africa more or less acknowledged the risk because they've switched to using rubber mallets instead.

Re. osteogenesis imperfecta:
As Orac is a Whovian, one notable example is the British actor Nabil Shaban
...I know of him as an exponent of the theory that Ivar the Boneless, well-known leader of vikings, was an earlier case of osteogenesis imperfecta.
He is promoting Ivar as a positive role model that will shift young people with osteogenesis imperfecta away from lying around in the victim role feeling sorry for themselves, and will instead inspire them to develop great skills of generalship so they can rally a Viking army and invade England. The story involves viking re-enactors.

@krebiozen -We *cough* 'acquired' Wentworth as it aired in Oz, and spent ten weeks going from excited to euphoric, with the levels increasing with each week. Suffice it to say that by the time we reached the series finale we were nervous wrecks!

We adore PCBH, we're actually rewatching our DVDs from beginning to end, but Wentworth was breathtakingly good. It makes poor old Prisoner look like a kids show in comparison. The fight scenes are incredibly visceral and it's not often on-screen sexual shenanigans can make me blush(!), but it was the acting that blew us away, Danielle Cormack takes Bea Smith to a whole new level

Oh, and the "Next year on Wentworth" five-second preview at the end of the finale made me and OMe literally scream in unison, that's how thrilled we were! Couldn't talk for two hours. Totally worth it.

@Denice - Other Mrs elburto's colleagues keep insisting that 'Nigel' should be 'Nigella'. Luckily they are used to our ways, and understood when they were told "Goldfish do not care about the gender binary, they are too busy learning to dance around their tank, duh".

'Nigella' sounds like a food-borne pathogen, or a generic contraceptive pill.

elburto,
I similarly acquired Wentworth when I came across it quite by accident, but I have been rationing myself, so I still have a few episodes to go before the finale. I think it's a very clever adaptation, having grown up with its fans (strong stuff at times as you say), and not getting bogged down with staying true to the original in every detail - having a prequel set in the present day is genius. I suspect I will never get to see Erica's accent turn posh, Bea have her kidney transplant, or Lizzie turn skinny and brunette ;-)

There's some excellent Aussie drama about. I absolutely loved Rake, for example.

BTW, nigella (aka kalonjo aka black cumin) is also a quack cancer treatment, of course. I prefer to give the seeds to wild birds, who love them.

elburto, given the distances between our respective domiciles, NIgella the goldfish and Nigel the kitten will probably never meet. Fortunately.

Military vaccination methodes are probably the most brutal around -- I've been made to bleed during vaccinations by sadistic Navy corpsmen with injection guns -- but I still can't figure out how a bone could have been broken in the process even with a sailor doing it.

A while ago, I heard of nigella woo for asthma of all things- you need to take a lot of it ( by the spoonful).

One of guys tried it out and it did absolutely nothing for his asthma. Oddly enough, he tried it on diverse foods which didn't really match well- but then he does have an interesting sense of food combinations that I cannot entirely fathom.

Fortunately, he didn't put it on banana cream pies or baklava.

I do not dispute the fact, that some evil people do abuse their children, and they try to shift their blame on something else, for example vaccines, but common, if a mother already had 2 children that were perfectly fine and looked after, why on earth she would decide to shook her 3 baby straight after vaccines and not leaving any evidences of abuse? It just doesn't make any sense at all. I do believe that in some cases vaccines might trigger symptoms of previously undetected abnormalities in the body. I have a child myself and she had all her immunizations on time, I am not anti vaccines, just an open minded person.

I do believe that in some cases vaccines might trigger symptoms of previously undetected abnormalities in the body.

I don't know why you're describing your belief system. Can't speak for anyone else, but I'm more interested in evidence.

not leaving any evidences of abuse?
You do not consider broken bones, bruising and fatal brain damage as "evidences of abuse"? This may be the problem.

Anastasia, my oldest child had severe seizure as an infant before he had any vaccines. It did not cause broken bones.

Please provide the verifiable evidence that vaccines on the American pediatric schedule cause more seizures than the actual diseases, and those seizures cause bones to fracture. I really need to see that evidence.

I was describing the case of my long time colleague and friend. She has 3 beautiful children and a good family background. When she took her youngest child for immunization, he fell ill straight after. At the hospital he was diagnosed with non accidental head injury. No bruises or fractures. Bilateral subdural hemorrhages, extensive retinal hemorrhages in the left eye and some other abnormalities within the left eye. Initial ophthalmologist examination concluded damage to the eye is consistent with shaken baby syndrome, however, later diagnosis was changed to vascular disease. Subdural hemorrhages are of the same day as immunization, coincidence or was it triggered by immunization?

Coincidence, which was not triggered by immunization:

http://www.seattlechildrens.org/medical-conditions/brain-nervous-system…

Initial ophthalmologist examination concluded damage to the eye is consistent with shaken baby syndrome, however, later diagnosis was changed to vascular disease.

If you accept the conclusion of medical professionals that the brain and retinal hemorrhages resulted from an existing vascular disease, then it would seem reasonable to also accept the conclusion of other medical professionals that immunisations are not associated with (do not trigger) the fulmination of a vascular condition.
I mean, you could reject the weight of medical opinion in the second case, but then you are also left rejecting the weight of medical opinion that says your friend was not involved.

Still trying to figure out what biological mechanism would allow vaccines to cause long-bone fractures.....

@ Anestasia
I can think of several reasons:
1. The other children were more easy going, not much crying or in any other way triggering an abusive reaction. (By triggering I don't mean I want to blame the victim.)
2. The mother might be more stressed by other circumstances, making her reacting stronger if the baby is crying. (Again, this is no excuse, just a way to explain why one baby is shaken, while other children are perfectly healthy, which doesn't necessary mean they aren't abused, just that they survived it unharmed.)

To explain the triggering: I tend to shout at my cats if one of them dropped something outside the litterbox. I know they don't do this to annoy me, but in a way it does. So the behaviour of the cat triggers me to shout at them, but they are not to blame.

Sadly, a "good family background" doesn't preclude abuse. I've heard a lot of horror stories involving "good family backgrounds," and I'll leave it at that.

I do wonder if the baby had had previous symptoms that weren't as noticeable, but I don't know how vascular disease works. It's certainly a good thing they realized it *wasn't* shaken baby.

But it wasn't the vaccines either. They'd've caught that already, given that they *do* carefully watch for adverse reactions with vaccines, and can pick up even very rare ones.

Interestingly I asked on the french site how they explained long bone fractures as a consequence of vaccines. I was referred to a paper by Michael Innis (http://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.cmr.20130203.1…). I read and then I did not know whether I should laugh because of the poor quality of the paper or get mad at the publishers. In any case not a solid explanation.

In one sense, this is evolution in action; parents who do this idiot cruelty are much less likely to have children that survive to breed themselves. The pity is that the innocent children die for their parents' stupidity -- and worse, spread preventable diseases that infect other people's children. Winners of the Darwin Award at least take themselves out of the gene-pool without harming anybody else.

was referred to a paper by Michael Innis (http://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.cmr.20130203.1…). I read and then I did not know whether I should laugh because of the poor quality of the paper or get mad at the publishers.

"Getting mad at the publishers" is a valid option here, for they are on Beall's list of Predatory Open-Access publishers (i.e. vanity presses for the academic world). Laughing is also good... in the Reference list the author admits that citation #4 is a retracted article (courtesy of our friend Wakefield).

I'm also impressed that he managed to misspell the name of his very first reference. If he'd mispelled Kalokerinos, I might have understood, but getting "Medows" out of "Meadow" is, uh, not indicative of a commitment to getting things right.

I honestly did not manage to reach the reference section. I was already rolling on the floor laughing reading the methods and results sections and then had too many tears on my eyes to read anything more.
I am not surprised that the editor is not entirely honest considering the claim that such paper had been peer reviewed. Any editor that even sent that for review would have been fired on the spot if working for even a half serious journal.

Oh dear, Michael Innis has his own page at Whale.to.

http://www.whale.to/vaccines/innis_h.html

He's been claiming Shaken Baby Syndrome is actually Haemorrhagic Disease of the Newborn (HDN) since 2002.

"As I’ve said, there’s no depth to which antivaccinationists won’t sink."
Or Orac, it would seem.

Could vaccines cause the symptoms associated with Shaken Baby Syndrome? Well, at least one prominent neuropathologist thinks so. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00401-011-0875-2

But let's take a breast surgeon's word instead. Oh, gee, in fact, Orac even cites this paper and then states, "Notice that none of the conditions listed above includes 'vaccine injury.' There is no evidence that vaccine injury can cause the triad associated with SBS/abusive head trauma." (http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/02/07/the-vilest-antivaccine-lie…) To be fair, the words "vaccine injury" do not appear, but a simple word search for "vaccination" appears 3 times.

The author states:
"Multifactorial and secondary cascades are common, for example ‘trivial trauma' in the context of predisposing or complicating medical conditions such as prematurity, pre-existing subdural haemorrhage, coagulopathy and infectious or post-infectious condition (e.g. recent
vaccination)."

And also states in a bullet point:
"Vaccination - Infants may collapse with the triad in the
days following immunisations, possibly due to a
pyrexial response triggering seizures."

Is this proof that vaccination causes the triad? Obviously not. But it does seem odd that Orac would cite a paper that he apparently didn't begin to read, let alone comprehend the concept of non-traumatic causes of the triad.

"Yes, I smell a rat." I could not have said it better.

@Jeremy - care to explain how vaccines could cause Long Bone Fractures?

How about defending some other child murders while you are at it?

Oh, goody. It's Jeremy again.

@Jeremy:

One notes that I was perhaps too kind to Waney Squier in my original discussion. She did mention vaccination, but it was in passing and a very minor part of a rather long article. I'd like to thank you, because you made me realize in retrospect that I wrongly gave her too much of the benefit of the doubt. Mea culpa. I now realize that the woman clearly falls into the same categories as all the other "shaken baby syndrome" excusers who try to blame it on vaccines. She just buries the same old crap in a bunch of other causes designed to exonerate child abusers. I won't make the same mistake next time. Indeed, one notes that Squier is so bad that she even has her own approving Whale.to page, as unerring an indication that someone has crossed from scientific "maverick" into crank territory that I can think of:

http://www.whale.to/a/waney_squier.html

But, hey. I'm glad promoters of this vile idea like you are reading my posts so closely and clicking on every link. I like to think that someday you might actually learn something. Likely I hope in vain.

I think Mr Praay covered much of the same ground in a RI thread last year.

care to explain how vaccines could cause Long Bone Fractures?
There is always Buttram's theory explanation-shaped pile of words, "metabolic bone disease", which is one step above "leprechauns dunnit".

Oh, gee, in fact, Orac even cites this paper and then states, “Notice that none of the conditions listed above includes ‘vaccine injury.’ There is no evidence that vaccine injury can cause the triad associated with SBS/abusive head trauma.”

I am wondering why Jeremy waited until now to comment on a different thread from 18 months ago.
I am also wondering how Prof. Squier's undoubted qualifications in neuropathology lend her any special authority on vaccination side-effects.

Heh, heh. Jeremy Praay a.k.a. "ELloyd", is back again.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-antivaccine-lie-that-just-wont-…

Praay has been active in a group on Facebook that supports the mother who tried to murder her autistic child:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/For-SBS-Justice/198320686892164?sk=wall&…

I wish Denice would use her powers with a little more caution.

it is indeed interesting how someone who views himself as a skeptic can readily embrace the shaking hypothesis and claim that Dr. Squier is a "crank." But... Hey... Why take the word of someone who has spent more than 30 years as a pediatric neuropathologist when we have a breast surgeon who says it can't be so? I would dare say that Dr. Squier is probably one of the most knowledgeable pathologists in the world when it comes to the infant brain. Does that mean that vaccines cause the triad? Certainly not. But it does put her in a much better position to consider post-infectious causes of subdural hemorrhage.

Orac, I think it's quite evident that you simply enjoy name-calling. It generates lots of laughter among your countless toadies, but does nothing to make any headway toward honest discussion. Contrast this with your colleague, Dr. Novella. I have to wonder how he tolerates you at all.

And by the way, I'm obviously not reading your posts very closely, since I didn't catch this until last week. Too bad you didn't cross-post on SBM again, or I may have caught it sooner.

Hi, lilady.

Do you really think that was a fair comment about the Facebook page? Perhaps you do... I would also like to point you to http://onsbs.com/prologue. Both of these are run by my close friend. Since you posted the link, I was also very involved the the Leo Ackley case noted on that page, and I am quite proud of my contribution. I recently attended a public fundraiser event for him as well. I wish I could say more, but that will have to come out at the new trial. There are other cases that I am helping with as well. Additionally, Dr. Waney Squier was one of those who testified and was successful in having Colin Matchim's conviction overturned.

You can feel free to discredit me as much as you want., but the truth doesn't depend on your acceptance, nor mine. I am who I am.

Jeremy Praay: I am who I am.

Yeah, and there aren't enough middle fingers in the world, monster.

Politicalguineapig:
I'm touched, but keep your middle fingers to yourself, please.

Why take the word of someone who has spent more than 30 years as a pediatric neuropathologist when we have a breast surgeon who says it can’t be so?

Mr. Praay, I have often observed that sarcasm is a favored tactic of people championing dubious causes because it allows them to avoid stating exactly what they want people to believe.

Here, for instance, if you weren't using sarcasm, you would have to come out and say "I think we should trust Dr. Squier's opinions on the subject over Orac's because Dr. Squier has had 30 years as a pediatric neuropathologist and Orac is a breast surgeon." And if you did so, then people would of course spot and point out the huge flaw in your argument, which is that one can be active in a field for several decades and it's no guarantee that one is competent in that field. Just look at Jay Gordon, who is constantly harping on his decades of practice as a pediatrician but recommends homeopathy on his website. You are correct that the truth "doesn't depend on your acceptance, or mine," but that's a funny thing for you to say when you are arguing, from all appearances, that the acceptance of Dr. Squier should be taken as a determiner of truth.

... I find it hard to determine what I should write, next. I want to make it clear that if there was a credible case being made for the overdiagnosis of shaken baby syndrome, I would take it seriously and I think a lot of others would as well - but if I were to spell out all the many ways in which the case made by the current "no such thing as shaken baby syndrome" crowd fails to be credible, that Mr. Praay would take careful notes and use that information to tailor his future propaganda for the cause.

I'll simply say that if someone says "I have come to a rational conclusion that shaken baby syndrome doesn't actually exist, and my best evidence that it doesn't is the case of Alan Yurko, a man convicted for violent crimes both before and after what must have been a false conviction of violently causing the death of an infant", then I am unlikely to agree that the conclusion they reached was rational. It's like insisting that what you saw David Copperfield do couldn't have been some kind of magic trick.

As for me, personally, Dr. Orac, you have made me more skeptical of the vaccine explanation for the triad. So feel free to congratulate yourself. But it is never something I have embraced, simply because it's not generally an explanation that is going to help anyone in a legal context. Indeed, it had nothing to do with Mr. Yurko's exoneration, as other have pointed out.

Could immunization cause the triad in an infant who has an undiagnosed chronic SDH? I think it seems quite possible. Many of the cases I've studied where the infant simply stops breathing during feeding (allegedly), you can usually bet the farm that a chronic SDH will be found. It seems more than a bit odd that so many of these alleged perpetrators have nearly identical stories, and the infants have nearly identical "injuries." "I was feeding the baby when he/she began to gasp, then went stiff (or limp)." Was it due to vaccination? Personally, I hope not, and I have not seen any real evidence put forward that would convince me of it. But clearly, there is a great deal that we still do not understand, especially in the unmyelinated (or incompletely myelinated) infant brain.

There is also the vast dural vascular structure that Dr. Squier has written about many times. Even her critics have begun to embrace many of her concepts, and if I'm not mistaken, the president of the AAP even said something along the lines of, "perhaps we got it wrong" in regard to the ruptured bridging vein hypothesis. Who was responsible for this paradigm shift? Dr. Orac? No. Dr. Waney Squier.

My only real problem is that you refer to those who have been wrongfully convicted and/or falsely accused as if they are guilty. I have never met Mr. Yurko, but I have met several others, and they are genuinely good people whose lives have been put through hell based on an unproven hypothesis. Some might even consider it a disproven hypothesis, but I would not venture that far. Regardless, I do believe the classic theory of the torn bridging veins and vitreoretinal traction have largely been discredited, and are no longer accepted. Mr. Yurko is no saint. He is not a doctor. But when you know that you didn't cause the alleged injuries, and you don't know what did, I can understand why he was swayed by the vaccine injury hypothesis.

But I get it. You are producing infotainment. You have an audience that wants to be entertained. I'm certain you do a fine job with that.

@Antaeus Feldspar

I’m talking about when skeptics whom I admire show a most unskeptical side. I’m talking about when a skeptic who really, really should know better makes an enormous mistake, a mistake that puts him firmly in the camp of denialists, although hopefully he doesn’t realize it. Fortunately it doesn’t happen very often that such a prominent skeptic makes such an error, but it’s very disconcerting when it does.

@Antaeus Feldspar

Perhaps you recognize the excerpt that I reported above.

In regards to a credible case being made, I don't think the most credible case is that "SBS does not exist," but rather that it is being, and certainly has been, overdiagnosed. I am personally aware of scores of people who have been accused, as I stated earlier. Once a child abuser beats the rap, what would be his or her incentive to spend his or her own hard earned money to try to put an end to these false accusations? Fine, that isn't proof of anything, but it should give one pause.

Google Phil Locke on the wrongful convictions blog. He has put together a bit of information. I plan to attend the World Congres on Infant Head Trauma (http://sbstriad.com). While it was originally supposed to be a debate, my understanding is that Dr. Case pulled out when she discovered that those with opposing views would be presenting. There are still a small few on the "pro" side, but I find it very unfortunate that there are not others. As for Dr. Evan Matshes, he seems to be straddling the fence, as do many other pathologists. In fact, in a recent hearing that I attended, the medical examiner stated that "it's like a religion. You have to choose which side you believe." (Or words to that effect) Since when does science depend on belief? As my new friend, Tom Bohan* told me, it's "faith-based forensics."

Instead of asking me for proof that SBS doe not exist, I'm still waiting for the proof that it DOES exist. After an estimated 70,000 cases worldwide, you would think that at least one person would have a shaken baby on video developing the triad.

*Former president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (2009-2010)

Dude, you have no idea what a skeptic is. Or what they do. Fundamentally, skeptics are on the side of reason and data. We aren't on the side of denialism. You are.
You seriously don't think someone who got convicted of child abuse might want to scrub their reputation out of sheer self-interest? Or that anti-vaccine people, being both dumb and malevolent, will latch onto anything that purports to implicate the dreaded needle, regardless of data? You must be new to the 'net.

“I think we should trust Dr. Squier’s opinions on the subject over Orac’s because Dr. Squier has had 30 years as a pediatric neuropathologist and Orac is a breast surgeon.”

The specific topic here is vaccines -- and whether they can produce effects to mimic physical-assault injuries in an infant. Since this is neither Orac's nor Prof. Squier's original research area, I tend to pay attention to the one who has followed the literature more closely.

@ Jeremy Praay: You and your sock puppet on the SBM blog, originally came to the blogs because you and Tonya Sadowsky were defending Elwood Sadowsky, who was convicted of murdering his infant daughter:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/10/05/using-the-lie-that-sbs-is-…

You, your sock puppet and Tonya Sadowsky, were unsuccessful in defending the murderer, in court and on the Respectful Insolence and Science Based Medicine blog...for the simple reason that Orac, Dr. Gorski and the posters on their blogs, took apart each and every false argument that you, Tonya and her "experts" raised on behalf of Elwood Sadowsky.

Elwood is in jail where he belongs. And you Jeremy? What are you doing on behalf of kids who are abused or murdered by their parents or their caregivers?

Orac, I think it’s quite evident that you simply enjoy name-calling. It generates lots of laughter among your countless toadies.

Hypocrisy Meter vapourised.

Once a child abuser beats the rap, what would be his or her incentive to spend his or her own hard earned money to try to put an end to these false accusations? Fine, that isn’t proof of anything, but it should give one pause.

So people in your world care only about "beating the rap" and care nothing for their reputations? Utter BS. Not only is it "not proof of anything," it's not even real evidence of anything. When useful idiots like you are willing to say "Gosh, he's willing to spend some of his own money to try and dispute a reputation for *infant murder*! He must be innocent!" it just gives those who are guilty *more incentive* to launder their reputations at such a cheap price.

And yes, again, referring to Alan Yurko as someone who "knows he didn't cause the [fatal] injuries" shows that you're trying to fit facts to your conclusion, rather than having reached a conclusion through rational examination of the facts.

To everyone, I'm not going to respond to personal attacks. Yes, I have made mistakes, and I can't stop you from pointing them out. In fact, I have no problem being open and honest in this discussion. That's what I attempted to do last October, but I obviously made some poor judgements on the SBM blog.

@Politicalguineapig
"You seriously don’t think someone who got convicted of child abuse might want to scrub their reputation out of sheer self-interest? Or that anti-vaccine people, being both dumb and malevolent, will latch onto anything that purports to implicate the dreaded needle, regardless of data? You must be new to the ‘net."
No, I don't believe that, and I would agree with what you are saying here. If you think that's what I said, then please reread my post.

@herr doktor bimler
Thank you. I agree.

@Antaeus Feldspar and @Politicalguineapig

Apparently, I worded that badly. I know quite a few who are working to stop the false allegations of child abuse against others. Their own allegations have often been laid to rest (for some, years ago), and if anything, it would be in their own best interests to just leave it alone. They are doing it to help others who find themselves in the same mess, usually at their own expense, much as I am doing.

As for Alan Yurko, the last thing I would not want to do is free an actual child abuser or murderer, and none of the people I work with want to do that either. I have NEVER heard anyone say otherwise, but that is not to say that it can't and does not happen. I am aware of these doctors being approached by defense lawyers and then telling them, "I'm sorry, but I think this is a clear case of abuse." Just as there are conditions that mimic child abuse, abuse itself obviously mimics the mimics. Sometimes the correct answer is "I don't know," not "It's not any of these, so it must be abuse, and the last person standing when the music stopped must be guilty." If you don't believe this happens, you ARE a denialist.

Before someone jumps on me, it was supposed to read "the last thing I would WANT to do is free an actual child abuser..."

Since it appears that no one wishes to discuss this anymore, I will simply leave you with this:

Dr. Mark Dias is one of the most vocal proponents of SBS, and seems to have a firm understanding of the literature on both sides of the SBS debate, in my opinion. How does he explain the shaking mechanism in light of the new information? First Dr. Dias talks about how insect flight seemed to violate classic Newtonian principles of flight, and therefore it went unexplained for centuries. But we knew that insects fly, because we observed them flying. He then states, "Similarly, understanding the pathophysiological role of shaking in AHT will likely require a quantum change in our thinking from the classical biomechanical paradigms of the 1970s to a model that takes into account new observations regarding metabolic pathways, the role of brainstem and/or upper cervical spinal cord injury, or other factors yet undiscovered . . . The thrust of current research should be to better understand why this occurs. . ."

In other words, it's our understanding of physics that's the problem. Any biomechanical and animal experiments which do not produce the expected results must therefore be flawed, and we should be trying to produce experiments which give us the results we expect. After Dr. Robert Block posted a slide saying "M=FA" at a recent conference on SBS, I would have to agree that there is a lack of understanding of physics by the proponents of the SBS hypothesis.

Another supporter of the SBS diagnosis testified at a trial, stating, "the whole point of biomechanic studies is to create what we know happens and biomechanic models have yet to recreate what happens in nature and once those biomechanic models create what we know happens, they will be very valuable for us …we do know that children are shaken and have traumatic brain injury. …Not saying that every child with that trauma is shaken. I'm just saying that those that are shaken have been and so if we can't create that in the lab then the lab really doesn't tell us much."

Perhaps we also "know" that vaccines cause autism. Perhaps we also "know" that chiropractic improves digestion. (Ad infinitum)

Finally, Orac. I've begun to realize that you are not skeptic at all. You simply agree with many of the favorite topics of prominent skeptics. There is a difference. Personally, I don't mind if you attack the notion that vaccines cause SBS, but to denigrate someone out-of-hand, regardless of their vast scientific achievement in the area discussed, is not skepticism, but denialism. Refer to your own words in Post #95 to which I would also I might also add this quote, again in your own words:

"What almost certainly happened is that [the author] unwisely jumped into an area about which he did not know enough to distinguish valid scientific arguments from denialist pseudoscience."

There is a lot of both in the shaken baby debate, on both sides. I would suggest a bit more circumspection, but that just isn't you, is it?

Update Your Southern African Bird Guide Collection

gregladen — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 15:23:49 +0000

Update Your Southern African Bird Guide Collection

When traveling and working in South Africa, I've always used Newman's guide to the birds of Southern Africa, and more recently, I found the Sasol guide to be helpful as well. (I discuss both briefly here.) Now, I've got on my desk a copy of Princeton's Birds of Southern Africa: Fourth Edition by Ian Sinclair, Phil Hockey, Warwick Tarboton and Peter Ryan. You will know Sinclair from his South of the Saraha bird guide.

All three books cover about the same species, as far as I can tell (just under 1,000) and have a similar range of illustration and information. They all have overview graphics that help narrow down the species, and other helpful information.

There are things I like about the new Sinclair book that you might appreciate as well. First, the range maps are more detailed and updated, and probably the most accurate of any in a current field guide. Sasol has helpful inflight graphics arranged to group several similar species together, but Sinclair has the in flight images in the same place as the other images of each species. That might make Sasol better for the novice who needs to narrow down "hawk thingie" to a more fine detail, while Sinclair would be more useful to the pro. (Sorry, I'm not making the comparison to Newman right now because I can't lay my hands on my volume right now. Might have left it at Lynne's house. In Pretoria.)

Obviously, you need more than one field guide, especially if you are traveling with more than one person. (Always bring different guides, not copies of the same, where possible!) and at the moment I'd suggest the new Birds of Southern Africa: Fourth Edition because it is the most up to date, along with the Sasol.

gregladen Mon, 11/26/2012 - 10:23

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From Ladysmith to London: A Harrowing Escape

gregladen — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 18:47:28 +0000

From Ladysmith to London: A Harrowing Escape

In late November, 1899, a British military unit which included an embedded reporter was ambushed by an Afrikaner unit in what is now Natal Province, South Africa. This was during the Anglo-Boer war, which was to be the largest military adventure to date in the history of the United Kingdom. The British had been traveling in an armored battle train, a kind of tank-train hybrid that was being used in that war mostly with poor results. The train was partly derailed, and the British were under fire, their only hope to make a break for it, or to hunker down and wait for reinforcements which may or may not come. Suddenly and without warning one of the British soldiers threw up a white flag and surrendered. This moment of initiative caused confusion among both the Boer and British which in turn resulted in several Boer and British soldiers exposing themselves to each other's direct fire. It is one thing to volley bullets back and forth and occasionally hit someone, but standing uncovered several feet apart and heavily armed, the soldiers on both sides collectively decided that taking what was now realized by some to have been a false signal as a valid appeal to surrender was a better choice than a massacre. The British Soldiers and the reporter were all taken prisoner. Over the subsequent month, the reporter was (against the standing rules of the time) mixed in with the soldiers, and they were processed and incarcerated in a facility in Pretoria.

On December 22, the reporter effected an escape which is one of the more remarkable stories I've ever read. It forms a chapter in his later writing, which I've cut down considerably for you to get the gist of the story. Below I'll provide a link to the complete manuscript.

Lourenco Marques: December 22, 1890...No degree of material comfort, no consciousness of correct behaviour, can balance the hateful degradation of imprisonment. Before I had been an hour in captivity...I resolved to escape. ... I do not pretend that impatience at being locked up was not the foundation of my determination; but I should never have screwed up my courage to make the attempt without the earnest desire to do something, however small, to help the British cause. Of course, I am a man of peace. I did not then contemplate becoming an officer of Irregular Horse. But swords are not the only weapons in the world. Something may be done with a pen. So I determined to take all hazards; and, indeed, the affair was one of very
great danger and difficulty.
The States Model Schools stand in the midst of a quadrangle, and are surrounded on two sides by an iron grille and on two by a corrugated iron fence about 10 ft. high. These boundaries offered little obstacle to anyone who possessed the activity of youth, but the fact that they were guarded on the inside by sentries, fifty yards apart, armed with rifle and revolver, made them a well-nigh insuperable barrier. No walls are so hard to pierce as living walls. I thought of the penetrating power of gold, and the sentries were sounded. They were incorruptible. I seek not to deprive them of the credit, but the truth is that the bribery market in the Transvaal has been spoiled by the millionaires...So nothing remained but to break out in spite of them. With another officer who may for the present--since he is still a prisoner--remain nameless, I formed a scheme.

... it was discovered that when the sentries near the offices walked about on their beats they were at certain moments unable to see the top of a few yards of the wall. The electric lights in the middle of the quadrangle brilliantly lighted the whole place but cut off the sentries beyond them from looking at the eastern wall, for from behind the lights all seemed darkness by contrast. The first thing was therefore to pass the two sentries near the offices. It was necessary to hit off the exact moment when both their backs should be turned together. After the wall was scaled we should be in the garden of the villa next door. There our plan came to an end. Everything after this was vague and uncertain. How to get out of the garden, how to pass unnoticed through the streets, how to evade the patrols that surrounded the town, and above all how to cover the two hundred and eighty miles to the Portuguese frontiers, were questions which would arise at a later stage. All attempts to communicate with friends outside had failed. We cherished the hope that with chocolate, a little ... knowledge, and a great deal of luck, we might march the distance in a fortnight, buying mealies at the native kraals and lying hidden by day. But it did not look a very promising prospect. ...

Choosing my opportunity I strolled across the quadrangle and secreted myself in one of the
offices. Through a chink I watched the sentries. For half an hour they remained stolid and obstructive. Then all of a sudden one turned and walked up to his comrade and they began to talk. Their backs were turned. Now or never. I darted out of my hiding place and ran to the wall, seized the top with my hands and drew myself up. Twice I let myself down again in sickly hesitation, and then with a third resolve scrambled up. The top was flat. Lying on it I had one parting glimpse of the sentries, still talking, ... Then I lowered myself silently down into the adjoining garden and crouched among the shrubs. I was free. The first step had been taken, and it was irrevocable.

... Twenty yards away was the house, and I had not been five minutes in hiding before I perceived that it was full of people; the windows revealed brightly lighted rooms, and within I could see figures moving about. This was a fresh complication. We had always thought the house unoccupied. Presently...a man came out of the door and walked across the garden in my direction. Scarcely ten yards away he stopped and stood still, looking steadily towards me. I cannot describe the surge of panic which nearly overwhelmed me. I must be discovered. I dared not stir an inch. My heart beat so violently that I felt sick. But amid a tumult of emotion, reason, seated firmly on her throne, whispered, 'Trust to the dark background.' I remained absolutely motionless. For a long time the man and I remained opposite each other, and every instant I expected him to spring forward. A vague idea crossed my mind that I might silence him. 'Hush, I am a detective. We expect that an officer will break out here to-night. I am waiting to catch him.' Reason--scornful this time--replied: 'Surely a Transvaal detective would speak Dutch. Trust to the shadow.' So I trusted, and after a spell another man came out of the house, lighted a cigar, and both he and the other walked off together. No sooner had they turned than a cat pursued by a dog rushed into the bushes and collided with me. The startled animal uttered a 'miaul' of alarm and darted back again, making a horrible rustling. Both men stopped at once. But it was only the cat, as they doubtless observed, and they passed out of the garden gate into the town.

...

[the path] which led into the road was only a few yards from another sentry. I said to myself, 'Toujours de l'audace:' put my hat on my head, strode into the middle of the garden, walked past the windows of the house without any attempt at concealment, and so went through the gate and turned to the left. I passed the sentry at less than five yards. Most of them knew me by sight. Whether he looked at me or not I do not know, for I never turned my head. But after walking a hundred yards and hearing no challenge, I knew that the second obstacle had been surmounted. I was at large in Pretoria.

I walked on leisurely through the night humming a tune and choosing the middle of the road. The streets were full of Burghers, but they paid no attention to me. Gradually I reached the suburbs, and on a little bridge I sat down to reflect and consider. I was in the heart of the enemy's country. I knew no one to whom I could apply for succour. Nearly three hundred miles stretched between me and Delagoa Bay. My escape must be known at dawn. Pursuit would be immediate. Yet all exits were barred. The town was picketed, the country was patrolled, the trains were searched, the line was guarded. ...

But when hope had departed, fear had gone as well. I formed a plan. I would find the Delagoa Bay Railway. Without map or compass I must follow that in spite of the pickets. I looked at the stars. Orion shone brightly. Scarcely a year ago he had guided me when lost in the desert to the banks of the Nile. He had given me water. Now he should lead to freedom. I could not endure the want of either.

The rest of the story is just as interesting but it is long. The escaped prisoner does eventually make it to safety, hopping a train and making his way to British territory.

That reporter was Winston Churchill.

I'm reminded of this because I just saw a very well done mini-documentary by Tom Brokaw about the Battle of London, which he did in connection with the Olympics. Much of it was about Churchill and it was all the usual stuff about the early days of World War II. I wondered if Brokaw knew about this very interesting story from Churchill's early days, and wondered why, if he did, he would not mention it, given that Churchill was a reporter, one of the original Scud Studs. I'm thinking that maybe this little story is lost to our current repertoire of historical touchstones.

Churchill tells the story in From London to Ladysmith via Pretoria. It is one hell of a war story.

_________________
Photo of Ladysmith from H. W. Wilson, With the Flag to Pretoria, 1902.

gregladen Sat, 08/11/2012 - 14:47

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That was marvelous! The contrast that manifests when real human urgency is expressed in demure 19th century prose has always fascinated me. Thanks Greg, I will download the full document immediately.

John, you won't be disappointed. When you read the chapter I cribbed here you'll immediately know that it was very hard for me to cut out what I cut out. But I had to cut out stuff.

The escape, and various other events, were dramatised on TV many years ago as "Young Winston", depicting Chuchill's early life:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069528/

Zackoz, thanks, I didn't know about that. I can't find it on Netflix, but Young Winston is available as a DVD (that's the link) or as a VHS and Amazon appears to have it as an instant video, but for about the same price as the DVD.

It was a long time ago, but my chief memory of the show was the "young Winston", having stowed away on a train, revealing himself on top of a carriage as the train rolled out of Boer territory (into Mozambique?), and shouting mockingly to the Boer guards "I'm Winston bloody Churchill!!"

The other memory is of Winston at the Battle of Omdurman (?) reporting to General Kitchener.

Wild angry baboons on the high cliff

gregladen — Tue, 31 May 2011 14:14:23 +0000

Wild angry baboons on the high cliff

We three had somehow wound our way down into the canyon without experiencing any really steep slopes, but having walked for several miles in the sandy dry riverbed, Trusted Companion, Young One, and I were now looking rather hopelessly at unsafe-to-climb cliffs on both sides, covered with imposing vegetation of the kind that sports a thorn every few inches. The sun was low enough that the canyon floor was in a dark shadow, and the air was beginning to chill down. We were far enough from the vehicle, lost enough, and sufficiently plan-free that it would be perfectly reasonable to worry that we might not make it across the remote African Savanna before the leopards and hyenas came out to hunt. It was even possible that we'd have to spend the night huddled in some spot we could convince ourselves was protected from the elements and the wild animals. All this dark and scary truth had dawned on me over the last hour as we continued heading up a seemingly endless side canyon in search of a place to climb out of this river valley known among international extreme outdoors people as one of the most treacherous in the world, and known among the more traditional local folk for its dragon-like 50-meter long human-eating snake that was supposedly mythical.

That's about when the questions started from the Young One.

"Are we lost?"

"No. I know exactly where we are."

(In the bottom of some freakin' uncharted canyon.)

The Young One was always worried about our survival, never really trusting my vast experience and well honed instincts.

"Were lost."

"Are not."

Then suddenly, "POP!"

The local bushmen say that baboons are people, and that when we hear them they sound like they are merely speaking in an unknown dialect of their language. This is a story, of course, and they understand fully that the baboons are not people. And they don't sound anything like us. The story goes on to say that the baboons became persona (as it were) non gratis when they broke a rule in sharing meat: They reciprocated in a meat exchange by giving some unsuspecting bushmen bits of human flesh to eat. Baboons have never quite been trusted since, so the story goes. And as night came closer during our trek up the steep-sided valley, we could hear the baboons beginning to speak from high above us on the cliff that impeded our return to base camp.

The first few sounds were loud pops that could have been rocks thrown against rocks. My traveling companions thought, in fact, that this is what they were, and became concerned over the possibility of rocks falling down the sides. I reassured them.

"No, those are just the baboons."

"POP!"

"I've been hearing them for a while now. They appear to be following us."

"Following us? They sound like they are throwing rocks at us!"

"Not throwing rocks. That's just a contact call, letting each other know where they are! But yeah, they are following us. They know we are down here, and they're tracking our movements by following along at the top of the cliff. It's getting to the point in time where they will settle into their overnight spots, and they're probably worried that we're after them."

"Oh. So the troop of wild baboons is not following us. They're just angerly covering our escape routes."

"Right. Should be no problem."

Eventually we came to the point where we would go up the side of the cliff and head across the grassy plain in search of our vehicle, left behind hours ago. This was not the point where climbing had become more possible. Rather, this was the point beyond which if we climbed out of the canyon we would be backtracking to the vehicle. In other words, if we went ahead any father, we'd be adding to rather than reducing our estimated time of return to the truck. It was either climb up now and reach the truck just as night fell, or climb up later where it might be easier and spend time crossing the savanna in the dark. The fact that we were on the shaded (north) side of the canyon was also a consideration: As the sun went down, darkness would fall here first and fast. We'd be climbing in the dark.

Or, I could be wrong. I thought at the time that if the truck really was exactly where I thought it was, and we climbed straight out of the canyon and headed exactly north, then we'd bump into it even with our eyes closed, in about seven kilometers. And I would be very impressed, with myself. Or, it could be somewhere else entirely and we could be totally lost. Perhaps the baboons could be blamed in that eventuality.

"Are we lost?" the young one asked again.

"Why would you say that? Here. We climb out right here."

"We're totally lost, I know it."

So as Trusted Companion looked on eagerly trusting that I was doing the right thing, and half smirking at the untrusting Young One, I carefully picked a route that would bring us to a flattish spot in about 12 meters of scrambling mostly across grass and eroded surface, with few thorny bushes. From there I'd pick out the next leg of our ascent. It was difficult and we were all out of breath when we got there. I spotted another target and headed that way.

"Follow me."

"I need to rest."

"OK, we'll go ahead and you can watch how we go and follow behind when you've caught your breath."

And so it continued, with the Young One, who was most out of shape, out of breath and falling father and farther behind. And the pops of the baboons continued, and as we went up in elevation we could hear their other chattering as well.

And then we could see them. You had to crane your neck to see the horizon, the edge of the cliff above us. And there you'd see contact between the brown grass and brush and the darkening blue, cloudless sky. And there would be a dark gray lump there, like a fire plug covered with a blanket, or a lawn gnome hiding under a beach towel, and then suddenly the rounded lump would drop out of sight and there would be another POP and some chatter. The bigger baboons stayed visible for longer, the tiny ones, the juveniles, popped in and out of sight quickly and randomly. And as we climbed still higher we could see their faces, and their monkey-face movements and their monkey-face stares. There is a difference between a monkey looking back at you from a cage in a zoo and a monkey looking back at you from a tree in the wild. And, there is a bigger difference still between either of those scenarios and a monkey looking down at you from 15 meters above when its Baboon Bubba and his 25 friends and relatives and you and Trusted Companion trailed some distance back by the Young One, who is still asking ...

"We're lost, aren't we. I need to rest."

"POP! ... babble babble ..."

One could easily imagine the drama as the humans emerge onto the plains. Finally ... almost ... reaching the edge of the canyon, where there is an abrupt transition from dangerously steep thornbush covered slope to very flat or slightly undulating grass covered plain, just stepping out of the canyon and onto the flats ... and suddenly the troop of wild baboons .... wild angry baboons ... swoops in from all sides, jumping on the humans and pushing them back down the cliff, Most Trusted Companion letting out a war cry as she pulls a giant baboon off my back as she herself is taken down by three females biting at her ears and ankles, and Young One and a medium size male monkey spinning like a giant eight-limbed Frisbee falling, screaming, all the way back down to the sandy bottom of the canyon's now fully benighted floor, terror shining from their four collective eyes, the troop's big male tearing through the tall grass directly at me with two or three of his cohort right behind him, moving in for the kill. Kill the humans!!!!

But that kind of thing never happens. By the time we were within 10 meters or so of the top of the canyon, the baboons had fallen silent and moved entirely out of our sight. They had no interest in being anywhere near us when we gained the plain. Instead of a primordial battle to the death between primate species, there was nothing, and we stepped, breathless, tired, thirsty, and hungry, out of the canyon. I took a compass reading and pointed to a tree in the far distance.

"That tree. We need to cross just to the right of it and we'll see the car from there."

And we did. My reckoning was dead on. We had gained valuable data that day. We had learned about ourselves and each other under conditions of adversity. And the baboons .... well, they had one hell of a story to tell, and I'm sure they are still telling it to each other and to their little monkey children to this day.

"POP!"

gregladen Tue, 05/31/2011 - 10:14

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You know, sometimes I'm amazed you're still alive.

...the troop's big male tearing through the tall grass directly at me with two or three of his cohort right behind him, moving in for the kill. Kill the humans!!!!

Great visual image. :)

This story brought up a memory from my childhood of a late-night movie.
All I remember from the movie is the final scene where the hero finally confronts the baboons that have been stalking him. They surround him and he's convinced that he won't get out of it alive but he is determined to crack a few skulls before they bring him down. Lots of snarling and growling from the man as he sheds his civilized exterior to tap into his inner cave man.
(Roll credits)
I know it's not much to go on and it's very much a long shot but any movie buff out there happen to know which movie it might have been?

Ah ... the movie was Flight of the Phoenix, and it is the movie from which the image in the blog post is taken ... and which was on my mind during the climb up the canyon wall ... and which was set only a few miles from the story I tell here!

There is another movie that I think uses the same scene (almost) also set nearby, which may or may not be called Skeleton Coast. I haven't seen that one in long enough that I went to watch it the other day but it was too hard to watch. (Horrendous acting)

This has to be verified ... the last time I saw that movie was when it came out. .. either way, I know the scene! Maybe it was Sands of the Kalahari ... which would have also been set a few miles from the scene of the blog post but in a different direction....

Yeah, I'm thinking sands of the kalahari now. Which, based on the photos from the film on the internet movie database, would have been filmed almost within sight of the canyon. I've got to get a copy of that movie.

GOT IT!!!

Kill the humans!!!!

Considering there are about 7 billion of us that would hardly put a dent in the overall score of humans vs all other primates, now would it?

As for danger, try driving in rush hour traffic on I 95 near Miami. You'd wish you were back in the canyon with a troop of wild and angry baboons, heck at least they're not driving tractor trailers at 80 mph 10 ft from your tail lights.

Just kidding sir, I'm jealous of your experience, big time. Though having lived in Brazil and having spent some time in the Amazon, I have seen some real 30 live 30 ft. snakes, just don't let them sneak up on you at dusk >;^)

There was a report a few years back (several Sciblings hit it, IIRC), about a larger-than-usual subspecies of South African baboon moving into suburban areas and exploiting human food resources.

I keep waiting for a talented, enterprising South African filmmaker (there are surprisingly many) to do a remake of Daphne du Maurier's The Birds, but with baboons. Scariest movie ever, even if I only imagine it.

(Chimps are arguably much more dangerous, but baboons are scarier.)

You REALLY ought to write a book. I would buy it in a heartbeat (especially if it were an ebook!.

Hey, it could have been angry wild birds :)

Sands of the Kalahari?
Hmm.
Time for me to do some downloading-no matter how atrocious it will probably turn out to be.
Thanks.

Great story! I was, however, hoping that the baboons would at least apologize for that meat sharing incident.

well, they had one hell of a story to tell, and I'm sure they are still telling it to each other and to their little monkey children to this day

The story of the three strange hairless apes who blundered along the canyon and nearly stepped on the dragon-like 50-meter long human-eating snake without even seeing it.

Into the bush

gregladen — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 10:35:44 +0000

Into the bush

... Continued ...

Obsession can be a good thing. And I'm not talking about some dumb-ass perfume.

The Augrabies Ultra. 250 kilometers over five days. My field buddy was doing that every year.

Stuck in the field without a gym for three weeks was going to be tough, but I worked out two ways to stay in shape. First, every time we were in a city with a gym, Lynne got me into the gym, and my field crew usually came along as well. Lynne knew all the gyms and all the people who worked in all the gyms, and generally had the ability to make things happen. This mainly occurred in the city of Kimberly ... which actually has a very nice gym ... but I also worked out in Pretoria and Stellenbosch.

But that would not be enough. I needed more.

Our field survey required that we have a truck and a trailer. So, I bought a complete dumb-bell set at a store in Pretoria and packed it into the trailer. When I purchased the set, I told the clerk that I did not need the full length bar, just the adjustable dumb-bell bars. He insisted that I take the large bar because I had paid for it. I said I really didn't want it. He checked with the manager. I had to take it. I said no. He said yes. So I said OK, I'll take it. Then when I packed up all the stuff I had bought at that store (which included a lot of field gear as well as the weights) I "accidently" left behind the large bar.

I assume it is still there.

Anyway, whenever we set up camp somewhere, I'd pull out the weights. Lynne accompanied us to most of our field sites, but was not there all the time, so she rarely used them. Rather, she ran whenever she had the chance. There were, variously, four or five other people with us, but only two Americans, a grad student from The U, and my BFF, Stephanie. They decided they wanted to get buff, so they used the weights as well. So, after a day of survey, we'd come back, have some food and drink, and then get down with the weights out in front of the cabin. We stayed most of the time in a tourist rest camp near the Kalahari. Tourists would walk by and openly stare at us as we took turns lifting, spotting each other, writing down our progress on gridded note paper.

This worked. Before going to South Africa, I did a series of calibration exercises to establish the strength and endurance level of various muscle groups. When I got back from South Africa, I was ahead of where I had left off in all areas. Lenora was impressed.

Funny things happened at the gym in Kimberly. I remember three in particular.

First funny thing: There was a series of machines laid out in a very logical fashion, organized anatomically in the order one would ideally use to do a full set of exercises covering all muscle groups. Thinking this rather convenient, I did an exercise on the first machine, a leg press of some kind, then moved on to the second machine, a leg lift. While I was using the leg lift, doing a few sets, a woman came over and waited for me to finish. I wasn't sure why she needed to use this machine because there were other similar machines, but I did not think about it too much. When I fished the machine, she jumped on it like a Texas ranger on his horse.

So I moved on to the next machine, working hamstrings. While I worked, I noticed these funny lights, like traffic lights, up near the ceiling. They'd go from green to yellow then back to green in a cycle for several seconds. As I was wondering what those lights were for, that same woman, was suddenly there waiting for me to finish again. The next machine was calves, but I didn't like that particular machine so I skipped it and moved on to a bench press kind of machine. I was using that machine when I noticed the woman who had been following me was using the calf machine. I then moved on to a back machine of some kind, as the woman moved to the machine I had just been on. She finished there and came over to me while I was still working my back, and started at me until I was done. Then she took over the back machine as I moved to the next machine, feeling this was all kind of strange, and stared working my abs.

I decided to really hit my abs because this particular bench thingie I was using was working really well. So I did a bunch of reps, rested, and did a bunch more, then adjusted the machine to make it harder, then did a bunch more, and then I was resting again when I noticed the woman was standing next to me, looking down at me, ready to say something.

So I gave hear a look like "Huh?" and she said, "What are you, a moron????" And I was like "Huh?" and she was like, "Do you not know that this is a circuit?" and I was like "Huh?" and she pointed to the traffic light thingie and gave me a really dirty look.

Suddenly I realized that these machines laid out in this order constituted what is called a "circuit" which is a series of machines laid out in a certain order with a timer attached to a flashing light of some kind. You were to move from one machine to the next as the light flashed. Like a trainer telling you to keep moving and work harder. A dumb robotic trainer attached to the ceiling.

So I looked at the woman and said "Well, that traffic light of yours is certainly no Lenora!" and she was like "Huh?" and I got the hell out of her way.

Oh, I see I have run out of time. I'll tell you the other two stories next time.

... Continued ...

gregladen Fri, 04/08/2011 - 06:35

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From fit to fat to fit

Ok, I missed it..it is Kimberly, Zimbabwe! Funny story!