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Wood generally doesn't last long if left out in the open. That's why finding interlocking logs near the Kalambo River is such a big deal. Well, part of the reason. They've been submerged, it that's the right word, in wet sediment. For something like a half-million years. Which makes them part of the oldest known wooden structure. Ancient Builders on the Kalambo River Luminescence Dating and Carbon 14: a Nerdish Digression Finally Finding Kalambo Falls Cavemen, Labels, and Me Lincoln Logs Long Before Lincoln This Doesn't Change Everything : But It's a Big Deal 'Friends, Romans, Hominins...' Good News, Bad News, and (Slowly) Changing Attitudes We're Learning More at A Catholic Citizen in America . (The Kalambo River structure: interlocking logs that are a half-million years old. New data leads to rethinking old assumptions about "humans".)

Folks living in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, are not having a good time. The last I checked, the Northwest Territories capital was being evacuated. Understandably, since there’s less than a mile of open water between Yellowknife and one of Canada’s wildfires. Since Yellowknife has been in the news, and I knew next to nothing about the place, I did a little checking and took a quick virtual trip to the Northwest Territories’ capital. I'll be talking about something else for next week's post, so what I found gets a once-over-lightly treatment.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America . (Canadian wildfires and folks living in Yellowknife, capital of Northwest Territories: and a remarkable house. Also a cursory glance at crazy rumors.)

(From Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago; used w/o permission.) That's the great hall in Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle, a 13-room dollhouse in Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. The museum's online exhibit page for the great hall opens with something that's not in the room: " ...the good fairy welcoming you to Fairyland.... " But I'll start with that sweeping staircase: which has no railing. It's not a design flaw. Colleen Moore and the folks who created this dollhouse imagined that fairies lived there. The tiny little winged fairies that became my culture's default version of the fair folk in Victorian times, and that's another topic. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

St. Peter's Basilica in Rome isn't nearly as old as it looks. Architects in ancient Rome often covered large interior spaces with barrel vaults and semicircular arches, although they hadn't invented either.... ...Today I'll be taking a quick look at a famous Roman architect, Vitruvius, and then recap what happened during the half-dozen centuries after Emperor Constantine signed off on building the first St. Peter's basilica.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

The Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris has survived Louis XIV-style redecorating, the French Revolution, Napoleon and 19th-century remodeling. I'm pretty sure it will survive repair and reconstruction, following the April 16, 2021, fire. Notre-Dame de Paris is Burning (From Getty Images, via BBC News, used w/o permission.) Somewhere between 6:50 p.m., Paris time, and 7:18 p.m., April 15, 2019, something caught fire under the roof of Notre-Dame de Paris.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

I like Art Deco. Partly because I see it as one of the 20th century's better ideas. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

I'm in the lower half of America's economic ladder, but I've never been homeless. That's just as well, since I've spent the bulk of my life in Minnesota and North Dakota. Winters get cold up here. I am, however, a recovering English teacher; and I like to verify my assumptions about what words mean. Here's part of my country's definition of "homeless." There will not be a test on this.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .