Catholicgauze's Summer Reading List

Well, Catholicgauze has been tagged by an insidious internet ring which demanded my summer reading list. Well, since the thesis is a time-consuming monster I will include books I have read since March and hope to get in, somehow, by the end of the summer.

Military Geography: From Peace to War by Eugene J. Palka and Francis A. Galgano. A textbook which applies military geography to historical battles, operation preparation, base land-use, medical geography, peace time, and natural landscapes.

A Geography of Human Life by Tsunesaburo Makiguchi. A hundred year old Japanese geography textbook. Discusses how various geographic features affect humans on a personal and cultural level.

Shadowed Ground: America's Landscapes of Violence and Tragedy by Kenneth E. Foote. A study of how places of tragedy in America are either sanctified, simply marked, put back to normal use, or obliterated.

The Oregon Trail Revisited by Gregory M. Franzwa. THE travel guide for the modern day adventure along the Oregon Trail.

Killing Pablo by Mark Bowden. Taking down narco-terrorists.

Reel Baseball by Les Krantz. Short stories about Baseball before money, drugs, and steroids.

God's Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe's Religious Crisis by Philip Jenkins. Will Muslims or Evangelical Christians inherit Europe?

RCTV and the Loss of Freedom

Click to see video of RCTV's sign-off

The big news in Latin America is Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez's decision to close down RCTV, an opposition television station. Protests have broken out in Caracas as Chavez had order military to shoot rubber bullets at students and use armored vehicles in an effort to end the protests and riots.

As noted before while most of the world is moving in a neoliberal and globalized direction, Latin America is moving to the hard Left. Chavez and his ilk are nationalizing businesses, scaring away investors, and repressing their own citizens. Chavez is now moving against Globovision both with laws and thugs.

Fortunately it looks like many Venezuelans are feed up with Chavez having the legislature give him dictatorial powers, rewrite the constitution, have reeducation classes, flirt with having himself be a Protestant archbishop, and basically destroy the economical network of the country. Many human rights groups worldwide have condemned the move. Hopefully some good with come out of this.

A big question is where will the international socialists stand on the issue? Will they back the values of freedom which they claim to defend, or will they support their man?

The Earth Explorer

The Earth Explorer is an easy to navigate catalog of locations which are viewable via neogeographical tools like Google Earth. But what makes The Earth Explorer unique is that once one finds an interesting thing they want to examine, one can open the location with Google Earth, Google Maps, Windows Live Local, Terra Server, or NASA World Wind. On top of that each site has links to related Wikipedia articles, geotagged Flikr photos, and more.

Sites are listed by country or by subject. To add a place is easy using the wizard provided by the site.

For geographers like me who find places like the Google Earth Community Board's way too cluttered, The Earth Explorer is a welcomed relief.

Memorial Day

Today is Memorial Day. Catholicgauze dedicates this post to all those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice to keep the world's free citizens safe and liberate the oppressed.

Short History and Geography of Memorial Day

Memorial Day is an American holiday dedicated to those who have died while in the armed forces. Its equivalent is Remembrance Day on November 11th. The United States uses November 11th to honor those who survived their service to the country. Memorial Day is for the dead.

Memorial Day has its genesis from several sources. The primary one was General Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic who called for a day where all Union dead would be honored. May 30th was chosen because it was not an anniversary of a major battle. At first the day was known as "Decoration Day" because graves would be decorated.

Memorial Day slowly became more and more popular in the northern states. The South; however, was much less enthusiastic about honoring those who died brining the southern states back into the Union. Some of the states had their own Confederate Memorial Day. The tradition for this began before the end of the Civil War. War widows would gather in small groups and go around decorating the graves of the fallen soldiers. It was only until World War I when Memorial Day became a truly national holiday. Men from all over the country died in one of the shortest and bloodiest American wars.

In 1968 Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act which moved Memorial Day from May 30th to the last Monday of May. Veteran and Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI) has led a decade long effort to return Memorial Day to May 30th.

Recently Memorial Day is being used to honor all dead, both military and civilian. In the South, Decoration Day is an unioffical holiday which is on the day before Memorial Day. Decoration Day is the day when dead family members are remembered.

Celestial Bodies as Art

One thing Catholicgauze loves about geography is its artistic side. While much of my studies are scientific or "soft science" like cultural work, I do love how landscapes make me feel. Being a religious man myself I feel that the landforms are the greatest art project ever. I believe God made the blank canvass and used scientific processes as his tools.

Well, enough on what Catholicgauze cannot prove and on to what has put me in such a good mood (and it is not the thesis).

NASA has several exhibits which feature beautiful satellite imagery of celestial bodies. The most extensive one is Our Earth as Art which can be browsed either by image or geographically on a map. It can even be downloaded as a Google Earth KML file.

The second on is Mars as Art. Pages of satellite and rover images show sand dunes, Valles Marinaris, polar ice caps, and much more.

Finally there is The Sun as Art. The 21 page PDF document showcases a wide range of looks at the sun both scientifically and artistically. Well worth the time to see a thingwe all take for granted in a new light.

Map of Africian Migration to Europe

The above map shows African migration by country to Europe. Many of these immigrants are pushed due to poor economic conditions and lack of political freedoms. They go to Europe because of the welfare states' need to attract workers for lower end jobs. Another factor is many Africans go to their former colonial overlords because they can speak the language. (Hat tip: Cartographie)

The Europeans of Ancient China

1,400 years ago a chief named Yu Hong lived in central China. When he died he and most likely his wife were buried in a tomb in present-day Taiyuan. A recent genetic study has revealed that Hong's genetic origins lie not in China but Europe.

The exact origin Yu Hong is unknown but ancient Europe and China were not mysteries to each other. Rome and China had distant interactions with each other. Artwork in Naples features a Roman citizen in silk. Chinese historians document several ambassadors from Rome. Arabic and Central Asian traders acted as the go between when it came to material goods. Mohammad used China as a device to represent the end of the world.

While the above can explain how goods travelled to the West from China, it does not adequately answer the question of how Yu Hong's people arrived in China. When Marco Polo was crossing the Far East he heard stories of ancient others with similar features who were buried in the in the desert west. This combined with Hong prove a very old migration.

One of the more popular explanations for this phenomenon is a lost Roman legion. This theory is now being used to attract tourists to Chinese villages with people who have European features. Many of these Chinese who have European features like to claim they are descended from the Roman soldiers who were impressed into service by the Persians.

The debate continues on their origin. Some claim they are actually Central Asians who share the M17 origin that Catholicgauze has. No firm answers yet but a interesting mystery indeed.