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| From 2019 11 22 Valley of the Kings |
Today's photo-of-the-day is from deep inside a mountain in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. It was taken inside the (empty) burial chamber of Pharaoh Rameses IV (died 1149 BCE). The tomb was looted by grave robbers probably about three thousand years ago, along with the mummy of the pharaoh, so we thought it OK to smile and pose for photos. What? Too soon?
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| Rotten Tomatoes |
#NoNeedForAnotherSeason
Read my review of the 2014 novel.
There's another rezoning application before the Richardson City Council. This one is for 16 acres of undeveloped land at Glenville and Lookout. The developer wants to build apartments, an independent living facility, townhomes, and live-work units. The 2009 Land Use Plans designates the property for "Regional Employment." The City staff report states that, despite that 2009 plan, an 8.5 acre tract on the northern half of the property has rights that allow for apartment development equating to approximately 153 units. The property owner is now coming back for another bite of the apple, asking for rezoning for the other 8 acres from industrial to residential to allow for a total of up to 590 residential units. That's almost four times as many apartments as current zoning would permit and, of course, infinity times more than the zero called for in the 2009 Land Use Plan. Will that 2009 Land Use Plan or the current zoning pose an insurmountable barrier for this City Council? That remains to be seen, but my money is on "No." By which, of course, I mean the answer to the developer's request will be "Yes."
A lawsuit against Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+? What's that all about, I wondered. That sent me in search of lawsuits by other cities against Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and other video service providers. That turned up a story from The Dallas Morning News from November, 2021.
Once upon a time, the story goes, we were hunter-gatherers, living in
a prolonged state of childlike innocence, in tiny bands. These bands
were egalitarian; they could be for the very reason that they were so
small. It was only after the ‘Agricultural Revolution’, and then still
more the rise of cities, that this happy condition came to an end,
ushering in ‘civilization’ and ‘the state’ — which also meant the
appearance of written literature, science and philosophy, but at the
same time, almost everything bad in human life: patriarchy, standing
armies, mass executions and annoying bureaucrats demanding that we
spend much of our lives filling in forms."
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| Amazon |
The subtitle of this huge work is "A New History of Humanity" and as the name implies, Graeber and Wengrow range over the whole planet and tens of thousands of years. In the process they challenge the almost universal assumptions of humanity's social evolution. No one will be able to write another "big history" book without addressing the questions raised here.