In the interest of political commentary...

This commentary on John Kerry seems to be the most sane analysis of some of his shortcomings that I have seen. I suppose it appeals mostly to the post-adolescent male audience, but even so, I think the author makes some good points, points out some interesting facts, and facilitates a more independant outlook on the information available.

Macho Picachu

My brother and I spent some time in peru. Well, really it was me, my brother Michael, and Michael's friends Gerald, Wanda, and Sue.

Okay, so Gerald was more Sue's husband than Michael's friend, and at times the relationship was a little less than amicable, but for the most part we all got along okay.

The angles of machu picchu really amazed me. How was this city built? How were the terraces laid against the sheer cliffs and how did they discover this place at all? Who architected the elegant drainage system and paths of fountains which channel through bores in giant carved stone? Was this city really buildt in a single lifetime as historical events suggest? Was it really the Inca that did this in less than one hundred years of reign?

The Inca are perhaps the most tragic of civilizations. They built an empire in a few years that covered as much land as the Romans did at their height, without writing, without steel, without even the wheel to their aid. They built monuments comperable to those in Egypt, Rome, and Greece, many of which are deserving of being called "Wonders". And then they were forgotten. A hundred years after Machu Picchu was built it was already forgotten by the native peoples.
When, five hundred years later, the spaniards came in conquest, noone was even able to imagine that this beautiful place existed a few miles north of the capital city. Monuments designed and buildt to last thousands of years only lasted dozens.