Put Upon

Good News for those who believe that solar eclipses correlate with historical events. There will be an eclipse on Friday, the same day as the Pope's Funeral. Perhaps a little background is in order..

Total eclipses were often seen as the harbingers of great events, from droughts and floods to failed harvests and the downfall of kings.

In ancient China, the belief was that an eclipse was caused when the gods dispatched a dragon to eat the sun. The monster then had to be chased away with dances, incantations, the clashing of cymbals and the unleashing of arrows and fireworks.

Even the word "eclipse" comes from a Greek word, "ekleipsis", which means to fail or be abandoned.

"The sun has perished out of heaven and an evil mist hovers over all," was Homer's horrified account of an eclipse in The Odyssey.

Two eclipses occurred near Palestine in AD29 and AD33 - events that, for some Christians, give astronomical proof to the biblical account that the sky darkened at Jesus' death on the cross.

Total solar eclipses happen about once every 18 months or so, although two partial eclipses occur somewhere on earth each year. The next hybrid eclipse will take place on April 20 2023.

So there you have it. It must be true!!

Go buy the M.I.A. CD and proceed to shake your ass. Sri Lanka by way of London, Dance hall, meets hip hop, meets world beat. Very nice.

I guess I missed this but I've just now been reading about a tribe in Sri Lanka that survived the tsunami. This is a group of people who shun outsiders and don't normally interact with people outside their circle. Somehow they managed to not lose a person or animal to the natural disaster. When asked later how they knew, they said what can only be translated into "Fuck You".

It's baseball season man, now get busy.