Father Foster appears to be back (is he on Saturdays now?) ... here's the official description:

Despite being scathing about Pliny the elder's literary style, our Latin Lover expresses his admiration for the content of this eminent Roman's handbook on everything that the Romans ever knew about the natural world. But he then goes on to speak of free masons and the persecution of the Christians...

Listen ...

::Sunday, February 06, 2005 9:33:59 AM::

Atlantis 2005. International Conference
The Atlantis Hypothesis: Searching for a Lost Land.
 
The first scientific congress of the history about the Plato's Atlantis! 11 - 13 July 2005, Milos Island, Greece.
/noticias.info/ AIM

This Conference aims to serve as a forum for the presentation and constructive discussion of all the issues related to the hypothesis of the lost land of Atlantis. The purpose of the meeting is to gather specialists of all the different disciplines involved in highlighting the scientific aspects of this fascinating subject.

Greece is the most appropriate location for hosting this conference, as the ancient Greek great mind Plato formulated the Atlantis hypothesis.

LANGUAGE

The official language of the conference will be English. There will be simultaneous interpretation to/from Greek.

TOPICS

Scientific approaches to the three main questions: if, when, and where based on research and evidences related to the following disciplines:

- Volcanology

- Seismology, Palaeoseismology, Geodynamics

- Tectonics, Palaeomagnetism

- Geology, Geophysics

- Meteors, Impactors

- Geochemistry

- Archaeology, Maritime Archaeology, Geoarchaeology

- Oceanography

- Geography, Physiography

- Cartography

- History, Mythology, Geomythology

- Archaeometry

- Palaeoceanography, Palaeoclimatology

- Philosophy, Philology

- Plato and History, Plato and Myth

Oral or poster presentations are welcome on the topics mentioned on the Topics.

Interested contributors are kindly asked to submit the Abstract Submission Form by 15th February 2005.

All abstracts will be reviewed by the International Program Committee, and the authors will be notified about acceptance of their paper by 15 March 2005. All the accepted abstracts, will be published in the Abstract Book that will be given to the conference participants.

A CD of the conference proceedings will be published after the conference. Detailed instructions on paper submission will be given at a later stage.

List of Submitted Abstracts -as per 3.2.2005-

1. "The Geology of Gibraltar Strait and the Myth of Atlantis"
Jacques COLLINA-GIRARD, University Aix-Marseille I, France

2. "The Search of Atlantis in Cuba"
Andrew COLLINS, Historian, UK

3. "Scientific Atlantology. Atlantis in Gibraltar, between Iberia and Morocco. The only possible location of Atlantis."
Georgeos DIAZ-MONTEXANO, Scientific Atlantology International Society (S.A.I.S.) and Sociedad epigráfica de España (S.E.E.), Spain

4. "Scientific Atlantology. New proofs locates the origin of the story of Atlantis in time previous to Plato."
Georgeos DIAZ-MONTEXANO, Scientific Atlantology International Society (S.A.I.S.) and Sociedad epigráfica de España (S.E.E.), Spain

5. "Scientific Atlantology. The Plato's Atlantis, an historical-geographic and mythological description of Iberia and Morocco."
Georgeos DIAZ-MONTEXANO, Scientific Atlantology International Society (S.A.I.S.) and Sociedad epigráfica de España (S.E.E.), Spain

6. "A Geographic Comparison of Plato's Atlantis and Ireland as a Test of the Megalithic Culture Hypothesis"
Ulf ERLINGSSON, Geologist, USA

7. "The Geography of Atlantis:Neither Allegorical Nor Exaggerated"
Rand FLEM-ATH, International Best Selling Author, Canada

8. "The Santorini Volcano: Geology and Atlantis Mythos"
Walter FRIEDRICH, University of Aarhus, Denmark

9. "Old and New Tools and Approaches in the Search of the Lost Land"
Michael FYTIKAS, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece and
George VOUGIOUKALAKIS, Institute of Geology and Mineral Exploration, Greece

10. "The Topos of Atlantis: Some Philosophical Insights"
Amihud GILEAD, University of Haifa, Israel

11. "Results of Russian Expeditions in Azoro-Gibraltar Tectonic Zone and Various Geophysical Model Atlantis Destruction"
Alexander GORODNITSKY, Shirshovs Oceanology Inst., Academy of Sciences, Russia

12. "Plato's Atlantis Tale III: Geographical Elements"
Rainer KUEHNE, Individual Researcher, Germany

13. "Palaeogeographic reconstructions of the Aegean. Was Atlantis on the doorstep of Athens?"
Kurt LAMBECK, The Australian National University, Australia

14. "The Constitution of Atlantis"
Manolis MIKROGIANNAKIS, University of Athens, Greece

15. "Linking Myth, Religion, Philosophy of Science, and Geology – The Atlantis Example"
Amos NUR, Stanford University, USA

16. "Dating of a Catastroph in the 12th century B.C, pre-hestoric Athens. Evidence from Platon's Critias"
Stavros PAPAMARINOPOULOS, University of Patras, Greece

17. "Platon's Phaeton and Homer's Phaethousa. Cometary Fragments in the 12th century B.C"
Stavros PAPAMARINOPOULOS, University of Patras, Greece

18. "Atlantis - The Lost Land Hypothesis and the Cataclysmic Mass Edifice Failure of the Volcano of Santorini in the Bronze Age."
George PAPARAS-CARAYANNIS, Retired Director International Tsunami Information Center (UNESCO - Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission), USA

19. "Interpreting Myths; Catastrophism and New Catastrophism"
Spyros B. PAVLIDES and Alexandros CHATZIPETROS,
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Greece

20. "The Novelty of the Atlantis Myth in the Light of Freudian Interpretation"
Yair SCHLEIN, The College of Managment Academic Studies, Israel

21. "A Possible Asiatic Origin for Key Elements of Plato's Atlantis Story"
Robert SCHOCH, Boston University, USA
Logan K. D. YONAVJAK, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

22. "The Deucalion Catastroph"
Emilio SPEDICATO, University of Bergamo, Italy

23. "Atlantis in Quisqueya"
Emilio SPEDICATO, University of Bergamo, Italy

More information about VENUE-LOCATION, USEFUL INFORMATION, REGISTRATION, SPONSORING & ADVERTIZING and ORGANIZERS in http://milos.conferences.gr/index.php?id=917

::Sunday, February 06, 2005 9:31:08 AM::

I guess this explains Catullus ... from the Observer:

For centuries, poets, painters and philosophers have tried to capture the emotions that run through us when we fall in love.

Now it is the turn of psychologists to address how and why our hearts beat faster when we meet our soul mate. The latest edition of the Psychologist magazine, the industry bible, carries a lengthy appeal for the condition to be taken seriously by mental health experts.

'For the vast majority of people who don't suffer from mental illness, lovesickness is the closest they come to suffering from a psychological condition,' said the article's author, clinical psychologist Frank Tallis.

Once taken seriously by mental health experts, love stopped being studied by psychologists and doctors in the 18th century. 'People became preoccupied with sex, not love, thanks to the likes of Freud,' Tallis said.

People who are 'lovesick' exhibit a wide variety of symptoms, including mania, depression and obsessive compulsive disorder, which should be treated like any other psychological condition, Tallis argues. He writes: 'The average clinical psychologist will not receive referral letters from GPs and psychiatrists mentioning lovesickness; however, careful examination of the sanitised language will reveal that lovesickness may well be the underlying problem.'

Failure to analyse the condition could have alarming repercussions for society. If love is not explored, Tallis warns, it becomes idealised, paving the way for future disappointment. Evolutionary theorists hold that 'lovesickness' lasts only long enough for two people to produce one or two children, after which it dies or turns to friendship, what psychologists call 'companionate love'.

Buying into a romanticised view of love, Tallis says, means that people are ill-prepared for what happens when the passion in a relationship goes cold.

Author of Love Sick, Tallis believes psychologists should encourage patients to explore the nature of their lovesickness in an attempt to dismantle what could prove to be an unhealthy obsession with their beloved.

Judy James, a relationship expert with online dating agency Match.com, welcomed the call to take love seriously: 'There is an obsessive mania that can strike people when they fall in love, but many won't understand it. Around 80 per cent of the population won't have ever felt that intensity.'

::Sunday, February 06, 2005 9:29:14 AM::

From the Grand Forks Herald:

Andreas, Caesar and Stephanus trudge down the stairway and through a corridor to the Latin room of Central High School every morning at 10:45 a.m. for an independent study class. They are the Latin triumvirate fourth-year students of Laurie Hollifield.

The three seniors are a joy to a Latin teacher who has at times struggled to get enough enrollment in her classes.

Now, Latin is on the upswing all over. Enrollment is up across the state of North Dakota despite decreasing general enrollment.

Laurie Hollifield is rolling in the good times with 35 Latin students at Central High School and 39 at Red River High School. And to have three students who have stuck four years with Latin and related mythology is rewarding.

The triumvirate has diverse interests and reasons for studying Latin.

Andreas, otherwise known as Andrew Burgess, is going to Minnesota State University Moorhead next year, where he will major in music performance. Like the others, he thoroughly enjoys Latin. He says it was his mother's idea for him to take the ancient language. "I think I have learned more about English through Latin than in any other class. I was struggling." Andreas spends part of his time in a band called Knights of Chaos.

Andreas and his two friends bear witness to the fact that students of Latin score higher on their ACT college entrance scores. That's part of the reason Stephanus, or Steven Huhtala, has been taking Latin and is the third in his family to do so.

"It has exceedingly increased my English skills," he said. "It sounds weird, but it's true."

Conjugating verbs and declining nouns is no problem for him, because he finds it makes words easier to spell. He knows it will help next year when he probably will attend UND and hopes for a career in medicine. At Central, Stephanus has been involved with accelerated math competition.

Caesar, or Tom Hansen, is president of the Latin Club. He likes Latin because it is so basic. He loves mythology, and he has shown zest as a leader of projects. He helped his club win the spirit award at last year's state Latin convention. He also is involved in football, wrestling and track at Central. After he graduates this spring, he plans to take his knowledge of Latin to help him in engineering. He will study at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Ind.

Latin takes patience. It takes discipline to learn the cases of a word and to know the singular and plural forms. But the three students of Latin actually enjoy the regimen of conjugation and declension.

And Laurie Hollifield says, "Old Latin teachers never die; they just keep declining."

She took her first Latin classes in high school in Thief River Falls. She moved to Bismarck and took more Latin from Neil Souther, who has been known statewide for his passion for teaching Latin. Hollifield moved on the UND, where she majored in classical studies. She taught in Bismarck schools and has been with the Grand Forks schools 11 years.

She has a favorite saying: "Omnia et plus." It means, "Everything and more."

"We are always dealing with teaching young people responsibility," she says. "I tell them Latin is a very logical language. I'm a very traditional person. We do our work in logical sequence, and when doing work, we need to realize just finishing isn't the end of an assignment, because the next day I will be asking questions.

"Maybe that is to reinforce grammar and vocabulary. Maybe it is to draw on something else they should learn from history and mythology, or relate to something that is going on in their world today. I don't have patience with anyone saying, 'I didn't know I was supposed to know this stuff.'"

• • •

Cicero, Virgil, Plautus, Horace, Catullus.

They are like friends to David Jensen, a tall, Scandinavian-looking UND senior who is practice-teaching in Latin classes at Red River High School this semester.

When he graduates on May 14, Jensen will be prepared to teach English and Latin. And a renewed interest in Latin should help him get his foot in the door.

His motto is, "Ad astra per aspera," which means, "To the stars through difficulty."

When he came to UND from Erskine, Minn., in August 2000, Jensen had two years of high school Spanish under his belt. He didn't know anything about Latin, but he decided to try it. He recalls, "I had a vague sense it was an important language."

"It went well," he said. "Latin is definitely difficult, and it was definitely challenging in many ways. It made me become an organized person, and I really wasn't like that before."

After two years of Latin classes, Jensen took four more literary courses. He took part in individual study with Dan Erickson, professor of Latin. Through difficulty, Jensen has been able to hold a perfect 4.0 scholastic average and has been elected to honoraries, including Phi Beta Kappa and Golden Key.

::Sunday, February 06, 2005 9:27:01 AM::

::Sunday, February 06, 2005 9:25:53 AM::

1.00 p.m. |DISCC| Vesuvius: Deadly Fury
Remains of 300 skeletons found huddled in 12 vaults on the beach at Herculaneum offer a unique chance to reconstruct life in the 1st century AD; computer graphics re-create the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. 

8.00 p.m. |HISTU| Who Wrote the Bible?
What are the origins of the Bible? Who actually wrote it? We'll explore possible answers with visits to Egypt, the Galilee, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and the caves of Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. (2.5-hour version)
 
9.00 p.m. |HINT| : The Roman Conquests
Although Caesar invaded it in 54 BC, Britain wasn't conquered until 43 AD when Claudius established Roman garrisons at Lincoln, York, and Chester. Viewers go inside this savage period of British history and enter the battlefield from an unique perspective--of those who fought and died there. And a bloody period it proved to be for the Romans had not reckoned on the ferocious campaign mounted against the all-powerful Legions under the leadership of the legendary Queen Boudicca.

::Sunday, February 06, 2005 9:24:28 AM::