Saturday, March 31, 2007

"Monolithic" pop culture references #47

Ever searching for news about Rapa Nui, this blog's administrator comes across many references to Rapa Nui and its famous moai. Often, these references are quite comical and have nothing to do with the island or the culture of Rapa Nui. Other times, they appear to be speculative, based more on misconceptions than reality, or downright bizarre. Here are some of the more recent references:

Washington Times:
As I looked up at four colossal sandstone statues of the great Pharaoh Ramses II seated on his throne and wearing his double crown, signifying reign over both Upper and Lower Egypt, I felt the same as when I first gazed upon such wonders as the Great Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal and the effigies of Easter Island.

Guardian Unlimited:
More than anything what sets these spectacular sites apart is the human story behind them. Stonehenge, the Great Wall, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Petra in Jordan, the Mayan temples of Tikal, Guatemala, Machu Picchu and the Easter Island statues are all amazing feats of engineering, built by hand in some of the most remote and inaccessible places in the world.

HoustonPress:
HB: Craig Biggio's range at second base is approximately equal to: a) Stephen Hawking; b) one of those big heads on Easter Island; c) the recently deceased Gerald Ford; or d) other.

Cruise visited Rapa Nui with anthropologist guide

Take a Cruise on a Small Ship
Travel with professors on clippers, barges, yachts and other small vessels.
By Beth Brophy
Kiplinger Retirement Report
January 2007

On a visit to remote Easter Island, they listened in awe as their anthropologist guide described how he had led a dig that unearthed one of the famous ancient stone statues along the shore.

Click
here for complete article.

Copy of Alameda Sun photographed at Rapa Nui

The Sun Shines Everywhere
Written by Alameda Sun
Alameda Sun
Published: Friday, 30 March 2007











Rapa Nui, otherwise known as Easter Island, was one of Tina Magill's stops during a month-long excursion in South America. Officially part of Chile, Easter Island is about 2,000 miles from the mainland and is best known for the impressive moai sculptures, each weighing nearly 13 tons.

Click
here for complete article.

Columnist suggests reading Collapse for info about Polynesians "colonizing" Rapanui

A Final Response
By Danny Kampf - Columnist
The Daily Colonial
Posted Thursday, March 29 2007 12:09:09 am

Just how, pray tell could they have gotten there? Yes, Polynesians colonized islands as far as Japan, Australia, Hawaii and Easter Island with nothing more than large canoes, but this was no small task. It took thousands of years of hopping through an archipelago of islands in the Pacific (basically, by trial and error) to accomplish such a feat. One really needs to read Jared Diamond’s book “Collapse” to get a full appreciation of just how arduous an undertaking this really was.

Click
here for complete article.

Moai comes to life in Night at the Museum

Night at the Museum comes to DVD and we are giving away 5 copies
By Patrick Luce
Monsters and Critics
Mar 28, 2007, 23:47 GMT

When it closes at night, Larry soon learns that things are not what they seem when a Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton wants to play fetch, an Easter Island monolith talks to him and Attila the Hun attacks.

Click here for complete article.

Rapa Nui is example of World Heritage site helping economy without disruption

Supervisors vote against Carrizo Plain's U.N. designation
By Bob Cuddy -
bcuddy@thetribunenews.com
San Luis Obispo Tribune
Posted on Wed, Mar. 28, 2007

Neil Havlik of the Carrizo Plain National Monument Advisory Committee said he was incredulous. He noted that the U.S. has 20 World Heritage sites, including Taos, N.M., and Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. Easter Island is a site, and the designation has helped its economy without disrupting the lives of local residents, he said.

Click
here for complete post.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Rapa Nui features among "unusual destinations"

Canadian tour operators attract more people looking for authenticity
By ARTHUR FROMMER
King Features
Houston Chronicle
March 26, 2007, 3:42PM

As the Web site proclaims: "From Easter Island to the South Pacific to the Gobi Desert in Mongolia; from the Arctic to the Antarctic; from Baja to the Galapagos; from the Amazon to Alaska," trips are made on flexible arrangements of the spontaneous sort. These include specifically designated hiking tours, for which the company's mature and elderly participants must be capable of walking for as many as three or four hours.

Click
here for complete article.

Today Show manager discusses Rapa Nui trip

Where in the World is Mark Traub?
by Jaclyn Levin
allDay
Posted: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 6:39 PM

















Another place to return to is Easter Island, the most remote place on earth (that's me on Easter Island in the picture above). Where in the World had to be scheduled so as not to violate the strict international flight rule on the point of no return.

Click
here for complete post.

Entel PCS's geographic network coverage includes Rapa Nui

Entel PCS Chooses NewBay to Increase Picture Messaging Traffic in Latin America
Entel subscribers in Chile can now send personalized printed postcards to friends and family around the world simply using their camera phone
CTIA Wireless 2007
Booth 4141, Hall B4
Business Wire
March 27, 2007 05:39 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Entel PCS is the leading Chilean mobile telecommunications provider and a subsidiary of Entel Enterprises. Since its foundation in 1998, the company has surpassed the competition among the Chilean mobile providers, and is well known for the quality of its service, its innovation in leadership, and its broad geographic network coverage, servicing remote locations such as the Antarctic, Easter Island and Chile Chico.

Click
here for complete release

Raiatea departure point for initial migration to Rapanui

A Drop in the Ocean
When it comes to tropical getaways The islands of French Polynesia are in a league of their own
By:
Miriam Cain
Yacht Vacations & Charters
Mar. 26, 2007 08:00 PM

Lying in the same lagoon as Taha’a, Raiatea is home to French Polynesia’s most sacred temple, dedicated to Oro, the god of war and once the site of human sacrifices. It was from here that Polynesians departed in dug-out canoes to discover faraway islands such as Hawaii, Easter Island and New Zealand.

Click
here for complete article.

Rapa Nui tourism up 26% from last year

Chilean tourism industry turnover in 2 months, 2.4 billion
The tourism industry in Chile generated 2.4 billion US dollars during the 2006/07 summer season according to Oscar Santelices, head of the country’s National Tourism Service, Sernatur.
MercoPress
Sunday, March 25, 2007

Among the Chilean destinations which experienced a major increase of tourists this season compared to a year ago are Osorno, 36%; Puerto Montt, 32%; Easter Island, 26%; La Serena, 25.7% and Punta Arenas, 19%.

Click

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Easter Island Marathon among more "exotic" marathon vacations

Traveling the world to run in marathons is a tourism boom
BY ELLEN CREAGER
FREE PRESS TRAVEL WRITER
March 25, 2007

Worldwide, marathon escorted tours are also becoming more exotic. Sure, you can take a marathon vacation in London or Rome, but Boston-based Marathon Tours and Travel also offers trips to Kenya, Easter Island in Chile and the Great Wall of China. In January, it sponsored its first trip to the Dubai Marathon in the United Arab Emirates.

Click
here for complete article.

Lindblad Travel and Rapa Nui

The world as your classroom
Kansas City Star, MO - March 25, 2007
Lars-Eric Lindblad organized the first commercial tours to Antarctica, the Galapagos and Easter Island with a company he founded in 1958, Lindblad Travel. ...

Rapa Nui National Park on CONAF list of protected areas

CHILE: Ice Fields Could Become Biggest Natural Heritage Site
The Chilean government will nominate six parks and reserves in the extreme south of the country, including Torres del Paine, for the UNESCO World Natural Heritage list in February 2008. The total area covers 7.2 million hectares, and it is unequalled for sheer size in this category.
by Daniela Estrada
Inter Press Service News Agency
Mar 23, 2007

The listed sites are the Rapa Nui National Park on Easter Island (1995), the churches on the Chiloé Archipelago (2000), the historic quarter of Valparaíso (2003), the abandoned saltpetre mining towns of Humberstone and Santa Laura (2005) and the Sewell mining camp (2006).

Click
here for complete article.

Writer stirred by visit to Rapa Nui

A moving experience on Easter Island
BY SUSAN BAYER WARD
Daily Herald
Posted Friday, March 23, 2007














The Rapa Nui believe these 30-ton statues once walked across the island, and just for a heart-squeezing moment I thought the blind, purse-lipped megalith looming over me had stirred.

Click
here for complete article.

New7Wonders

Peru tickles Europe to vote for Machu Picchu as new world wonder
Journal Peru, Peru - Mar 21, 2007
Also in the running are Britain’s Stonehenge, the statues of Easter Island in Chile, the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty and the Sydney Opera House. ...

One out of seven ain't bad
Al-Ahram Weekly, Egypt - Mar 22, 2007
... the Sydney Opera House; Cambodia's Angkor; Timbuktu; Petra; Brazil's Statue of Christ Redeemer; Easter Island; and Chichen Itza, Mexico. ...

Florida's Arabian Nights city showing its age
Hamilton Spectator, Canada - Mar 23, 2007
... phone for the new seven wonders of the world, the Mayan pyramid at Chichen Itza, Mexico, has bumped the statues of Easter Island out of the top seven. ...

Inlet Dance Theatre performance inspired by trip to Rapa Nui

Reaching out in a shrinking world
Donald Rosenberg - Plain Dealer Dance Critic
Plain Dealer
Thursday, March 22, 2007

During his four days on Easter Island, Wade watched local dancers and heard haunting drum rhythms. He also saw a half-clad Polynesian seated on a horse talking on a cell phone, many other Polynesians carrying laptops and others wearing Eminem T-shirts and Rastafarian caps.

Click
here for complete post.

Mysterious moai in Maryland draws attention

Artist’s Easter Island replica serves as gas station guardian
Idol icon no longer taken for granite
by Kristina Gawrgy - Staff Writer
Photography by Laurie DeWitt⁄The Gazette
Business Gazette
Wednesday, March 21, 2007










The mystery behind the statue at the corner of the Glenmont Tire and Auto Service on Randolph Road in Wheaton has been revealed — it’s the work of a Good Counsel High School faculty member.

Click
here for complete article.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Santiago stopover to/from Rapa Nui

Santiago: Gateway to the Chilean Experience
By Marilyn Diggs
Gringoes
March 20, 2007

On a 2-day stopover between Patagonia and Easter Island, I wanted to see the most in my limited time. Here was my solution along with some tips and insights.

Click
here for complete article.

More about the dengue fever outbreak on Rapanui

Chilean authorities fear dengue affecting Easter Island
Source: Xinhua
People's Daily Online
UPDATED: 13:13, March 20, 2007

"Prevention has been intensified on the island, and we are working with the community to isolate the susceptible people from those with fever ... (as) we are suspicious of everything," Iribarra said.

Click
here for complete article.

Gore donates to help reforest Rapa Nui

DETAILS OF AL GORE’S UPCOMING TRIP TO CHILE REVEALED
SOURCE: EL MERCURIO
By Nathan Crooks (editor@santiagotimes.cl)
Santiago Times
March 19, 2007

Gore’s donation to make his trip carbon neutral will go towards a project in Chile. One suggested option was a donation to help reforest Chile’s Easter Island (Rapa Nui).

Click
here for complete article.

No pigs on Rapanui a "rare absence"

Pig Journeys Reveal Human Migration Patterns
LiveScience.com, NY - Mar 20, 2007
Excepting the rare absence of pigs on Easter Island, he said, "they're always associated with the first appearance of people in the Pacific. ...


Pig DNA Suggests Alternate Origin of Malayo-Polynesian People
FOX News - Mar 20, 2007
Excepting the rare absence of pigs on Easter Island, he said, "they're always associated with the first appearance of people in the Pacific. ...

Rapanui dance group performed at NZ festival

Celebration of cultural diversity
A dull and wet start to a windy day was not enough to keep thousands away from the Marlborough Multicultural Festival, where cultures were shared and new friends were made.
Photography by DEREK FLYNN/The Marlborough Express
The Marlborough Express
Monday, 19 March 2007









Claudia Quiroga from the Rapanui-Easter Island dance group Rano Kau performs at yesterday's Marlborough Multicultural Festival.

Click
here for complete article.

Hokule'a has traveled to Rapa Nui

Navigators' journey of spirit, skill ends
Five Polynesians are recognized as select master wayfinders
By Gary T. Kubota -
gkubota@starbulletin.com
Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Vol. 12, Issue 77 - Sunday, March 18, 2007

Under the teachings of Piailug, the Hokule'a has traveled across the Polynesian triangle from Hawaii to Rapa Nui (Easter Island) to Aotearoa (New Zealand) and sailed distances equaling twice around the world.

Click
here for complete article.

Monday, March 19, 2007

"Monolithic" pop culture references #46

Ever searching for news about Rapa Nui, this blog's administrator comes across many references to Rapa Nui and its famous moai. Often, these references are quite comical and have nothing to do with the island or the culture of Rapa Nui. Other times, they appear to be speculative, based more on misconceptions than reality, or downright bizarre. Here are some of the more recent references:

Alaska Star:
In February of last year, the family traveled to Loreto, Mexico, where they whale watched and visited cave paintings. In July, they traveled to Round Island in Bristol Bay to see walrus, and this past December and January, their journeys took them to Easter Island and mainland Chile.

Webware:
Many Eiffel Towers, Chryslers Buildings, and Giza Pyramids can be found at the virtual warehouse. But if you want something really challenging to do this winter, there are no models of Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia church, the Taj Mahal or Easter Island heads to be found.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

More on Dengue Fever on Rapa Nui

UN REPORT WARNS OF IMPENDING DROUGHT IN LATIN AMERICA
SOURCE: LA TERCERA
By Beatrice Karol Burks (editor@santiagotimes.cl)
Santiago Times
March 17, 2007

According to Lorca, these kinds of diseases are already on the rise, having increased significantly since the 1970’s. Today, there are epidemics of dengue fever in Peru, Argentina and Boliva. Chile experienced its own dengue scare when several inhabitants of Easter Island, an outpost in the Pacific Ocean (ST Feb. 12.)

Click
here for complete article.

Rapa Nui cat now lives in La Jolla

Easter Island kitten now lives in La Jolla
Diane Bell (UNION-TRIBUNE)
SignOnSanDiego.com
March 17, 2007

The stray kitty, about 3 weeks old and starving, was befriended in late January at an Easter Island hotel by San Diego tourists Mary and Hudson Drake, the former head of Teledyne-Ryan Aeronautical.

Click
here for complete article.

LAN airline to cut prices on domestic routes

CHILE’S AIR LINES LAUNCH PRICE WAR.
By Nathan Crooks (editor@santiagotimes.cl)
Santiago Times
March 16, 2007

LAN is frequently voted as Latin America’s best airline in international surveys. The One World member provides service to the United States, Europe, Asia, South America, Easter Island, and the South Pacific.

Click
here for complete article.

TV celebrity Matt Lauer visited Rapa Nui

Lauer event to aid cancer charities
PalmBeachDailyNews.com
Friday, March 16, 2007

The luncheon will have the theme, "Where In the World is Matt Lauer," the title of the Today show's trademark series that tracks Lauer's live broadcasts from remote locations. Last year, Lauer traveled to Easter Island; the Panama Canal; the ski slopes of Innsbruck, Austria; Shanghai and Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Click
here for complete article.

New Jersey teacher's book mentions Rapa Nui

A Teacher’s Adventurous Life, Distilled Into an Unlikely Book
By
SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN
New York Times
Published: March 14, 2007

Then he joined the crew of a merchant-marine vessel because it was stopping at Easter Island, a place that had long fascinated him.

Click
here for complete article.

Eco-suicide and Rapa Nui metaphor

Author of 'Guns, Germs and Steel' - Eco-suicide is the new danger; writer finds a warning in failures of past civilizations
By STEVE PARKER, CO-PUBLISHER
Stirling Echoes Sentinel
03/13/2007

Diamond cited the isolated island society of Easter Island during his talk as a metaphor for a Planet Earth that may also reap the whirlwind of short-sighted environmental practices.

Click
here for complete article.

Rapa Nui National Park among Chile's 5 World Heritage Sites, among the world's 830

CHILE’S ASTRONOMERS TAKE LIGHT POLLUTION TO UNESCO
Star Searchers Want A Country’s Skies Designated As World Heritage Site
By Nathan Crooks (editor@santiagotimes.cl)
Santiago Times
March 14, 2007

There are currently 830 World Heritage Sites around the globe. The five protected sites in Chile include the Rapa Nui (Easter Island) National Park, historic churches on the southern island of Chiloe, the historic port of Valparaiso, the Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works and the historic mining town of Sewell.

Click
here for complete article.

"Monolithic" pop culture references #45

Ever searching for news about Rapa Nui, this blog's administrator comes across many references to Rapa Nui and its famous moai. Often, these references are quite comical and have nothing to do with the island or the culture of Rapa Nui. Other times, they appear to be speculative, based more on misconceptions than reality, or downright bizarre. Here are some of the more recent references:

Wonkette:
Alberto Gonzales is a stone-cold criminal sonofabitch who should be sent to Abu Ghraib forever. Dick Cheney is going to bomb Easter Island tomorrow.

Guardian Unlimited:
Freddie Williams was back on his regular pitch in front of Cheltenham's main stand, as canny as Aristotle, as resolute as an Easter Island statue.

The Daily Californian:
Top economists from industrialized nations around the world gathered late one night in 2005 at a secret meeting spot on the hills of Easter Island. There, after shedding their silk ties and pocket protectors, the world’s greatest number-crunchers guzzled vats of the powerful Amazonian hallucinogen Ayahuasca and poured the deadly venom from Henry Kissinger’s fangs over a giant steel replica of the Mayan calendar, producing the numbers 03-11-07.

New7Wonders articles that mention Rapa Nui

The Seven Wonders Reconsidered
Washington Post, DC - Mar 12, 2007
Also in the running are Britain's Stonehenge and the statues of Easter Island in Chile. A few finalists -- notably the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty ...

Votes in for next Wonders
The State, SC - Mar 13, 2007
Also in the running are Britain’s Stonehenge and the statues of Easter Island in Chile. A few finalists — notably the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty ...

Vote now for new version of 7 wonders of the world
commercialappeal.com (subscription), TN - Mar 13, 2007
Also in the running are Britain's Stonehenge and the statues of Easter Island in Chile. A few finalists -- notably the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty ...

Millions weigh in worldwide to reconsider Seven Wonders
Boston Globe, MA - Mar 14, 2007
Also in the running are Britain's Stonehenge and the statues of Easter Island in Chile. A few finalists -- notably the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, ...

EXTRA: The Seven Wonders, reconsidered: online campaign
Las Cruces Sun-News, NM - Mar 14, 2007
Also in the running are Britain's Stonehenge and the statues of Easter Island in Chile. A few finalists — notably the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty ...

PARIS — Maybe it simply feeds modern society’s obsession...
San Luis Obispo Tribune, CA - Mar 14, 2007
Also in the running are Britain’s Stonehenge and the statues of Easter Island in Chile. A few finalists — notably the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty ...

You can help choose the 7 Wonders
Kansas.com, KS - Mar 14, 2007
Also in the running are Britain's Stonehenge and the statues on Easter Island in Chile. A few finalists -- notably the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty ...

Internet world votes on updated list of the Seven Wonders 28 ...
San Francisco Chronicle, CA - Mar 14, 2007
Also in the running are Britain's Stonehenge and the statues of Easter Island. A few finalists -- notably the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty and the ...


Millions cast votes on new list of Seven Wonders of the World
Daily Mail - Charleston, WV - Mar 14, 2007
Also in the running are Britain's Stonehenge and the statues of Easter Island in Chile. A few finalists -- notably the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty ...

Will wonders never cease?
Concord Monitor, NH - Mar 14, 2007
Also in the running are Britain's Stonehenge and the statues of Easter Island in Chile. A few finalists - notably the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty ...

Seven WLU wonders
The Cord Weekly, Canada - Mar 14, 2007
The candidates include the only remaining original wonder in the Pyramids of Giza, the Great Wall of China, the big faces on Easter Island, ...

Updating the Seven Wonders
Cincinnati Post, OH - Mar 14, 2007
Also in the running are Britain's Stonehenge and the statues of Easter Island in Chile. A few finalists - notably the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty ...

Updating the Seven Wonders
Kentucky Post, KY - Mar 14, 2007
Also in the running are Britain's Stonehenge and the statues of Easter Island in Chile. A few finalists - notably the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty ...

Cast your vote for the new seven wonders of the world
Lansing State Journal, MI - Mar 14, 2007
Statues of Easter Island, Chile: 10th-16th century; Discovered on Easter Sunday in 1722 by Dutch explorer Jakob Roggeveen, this collection of stone ...

Millions vote for new Seven Wonders
China Post, Taiwan - Mar 14, 2007
Also in the running are Britain's Stonehenge and the statues of Easter Island in Chile. A few finalists -- notably the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty ...

Wonder which wonders will win contest?
DetNews.com, MI - Mar 14, 2007
Also in the running are Britain's Stonehenge and the statues of Easter Island. A few finalists -- notably the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty and the ...

The Seven Wonders reconsidered online
Bradenton Herald, FL - Mar 15, 2007
Also in the running are Britain's Stonehenge and the statues of Easter Island in Chile. A few finalists - notably the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty ...

World’s wonders reviewed online
The West Australian, Australia - Mar 16, 2007
Also in the running are Britain’s Stonehenge and the statues of Easter Island. A few finalists — notably the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty and the ...

Vote to choose new wonders of the world
Houston Chronicle, TX - Mar 18, 2007
Also in the running are Britain's Stonehenge and the statues of Easter Island. A few finalists — notably the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty and the ...

Online campaign drawing millions of votes
Canton Repository (subscription), OH - Mar 18, 2007
Also in the running are Britain's Stonehenge and the statues of Easter Island in Chile. A few finalists - notably the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty ...

The 7 wonders, reconsidered
AZ Central.com, AZ - Mar 18, 2007
Also in the running are Britain's Stonehenge and Easter Island's statues. A few finalists - notably the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty and the Sydney ...

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

More Easter Island spoofs

Zion Oil prospectors want Passover Island name change
The Spoof (satire), UK - Mar 11, 2007
Easter Island is a Chilean protectorate and the deal bartered a percentage of future oil revenues against a one thousand year lease made out to Brown. ...

"I'ma Pothead," An Easter Head Admits
The Spoof (satire), UK - Mar 11, 2007
BREAKING NEWS: The Spoof reporter may have some leads as to the buyers of the pot grown on Easter Island. The day after he interviewed the pothead, ...

Series of moai-like statues to adorn new condo/hotel in Miami

Executive Suite — Today's Entrepreneur: Miami magnate gives city a makeover
By
David J. Lynch
USAToday
Mar 11, 2007

A recent day spent touring his premier South Florida projects provided a glimpse of the Perez style: hands-on, jocular, cost-conscious but intensely focused on the artistic element. His developments are intended to be distinctive, inside and out. Example: The entryway to Icon Brickell, the triple-towered 2,000-unit condo and hotel project, will be adorned with a series of enormous heads modeled on the statues of Easter Island.

Click
here for complete article.

Rapanui society collapsed due to overuse of natural resources

Marco A. Janssen describes the human world
Marco Janssen
Earth & Sky
March 11, 2007

Some ancient societies even collapsed due to the overuse of natural resources, as in the famous case of Easter Island.

Click here for complete article.

"Monolithic" pop culture references #44

Ever searching for news about Rapa Nui, this blog's administrator comes across many references to Rapa Nui and its famous moai. Often, these references are quite comical and have nothing to do with the island or the culture of Rapa Nui. Other times, they appear to be speculative, based more on misconceptions than reality, or downright bizarre. Here are some of the more recent references:

AK07:
Think Kiwi Max Headroom by way of a hat shop mannequin and an Easter Island statue.

theage.com.au:
Keating described former National Party leader Ian Sinclair as "a political carcass with a coat and tie on", Malcolm Fraser as "like an Easter Island statue with an arse full of razor blades", and Hewson as "an abacus gone feral".

AllDay:
How do you compare places like the Pyramids in Egypt to Guggenheim in Bilbao, Easter Island to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, an oil rig in the North Sea to sitting in Olympic Stadium during the Opening Ceremony of the Games.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Here come the Easter puns

Easter island: Incest eggs orgy shame
The Spoof (satire), UK - Mar 11, 2007
Easter island- This small isolated outcrop of rock stranded in the vast blue desert of the pacific ocean is known the world over for its mysterious giant ...

Easter Island Statues Actually Petrified Peeps
The Spoof (satire), UK - Mar 11, 2007
Archaeologists on Easter Island have made an incredible discovery in relation to the large statues. They have learned through research and chemical analysis ...

Flintstone fans up in arms as James Cameron shakes their bedrock
The Spoof (satire), UK - Mar 11, 2007
Easter Island has been discovered to be the actual location of the town of Bedrock, long thought to be fictional, according to new archaeological evidence ...

Easter Island Chocolate Candy Recalled
The Spoof (satire), UK - Mar 11, 2007
LUNDON, ENGLUND (IPU)--Cadbury, the British candy manufacturer, has announced a recall of some 30 million tons of Easter Island Statue candy not properly ...

Santa Claus Has North Pole, Bunny Has His Easter Island
The Spoof (satire), UK - Mar 11, 2007
Such eminent scientists as Margaret Mead and Thor Heyerdahl have theorized that the giant stone statues of Easter Island are actually Gods of the people or ...

Good price for a week's excursion to Rapa Nui?

Travel Q/A
Getting to Easter Island expensive, but worth it
Andrea Sachs
Sun-Sentinel
Posted March 11 2007

Q. How can I arrange a trip to Easter Island and get a good price for a week's excursion? When is the best time to go?

Click
here for complete article.

Artist hopes to exude "solitude" of moai

Mixed Media, Tied Together
KATHERINE RUSHWORTH, CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Post-Standard
Sunday, March 11, 2007

Datz writes he hopes the pieces exude "the feeling of solitude like stone heads on Easter Island and the necessity of African Art."

Click
here for complete article.

Lindblad Travel and Rapa Nui

More travelers are learning as they go
Seattle Times, WA - Mar 9, 2007
Sven-Olof Lindblad, whose father Lars-Eric organized the first commercial tours to Antarctica, the Galapagos and Easter Island with a company he founded in ...

More tour operators highlight learning while you travel
North County Times, CA - Mar 11, 2007
Sven-Olof Lindblad, whose father Lars-Eric organized the first commercial tours to Antarctica, the Galapagos and Easter Island with a company he founded in ...

Name-calling moai highlight of museum movie

In Sight/ Movies: A silly, fun ride into 'living history'
BY RONDA CORNELIUS, STAFF WRITER
asahi.com
03/09/2007

In "Night at the Museum," Rex the dinosaur wants to play fetch; the tiny diorama people wage war; the mummy has a conniption in his sarcophagus; and everyone from the name-calling Easter Island head to the cavalry-riding Teddy Roosevelt jumps into the melee of a secret after-hours wonderworld.

Click
here for complete article.

Rapa Nui mentioned in recent New7Wonders articles

Machu Picchu one of the 7 new wonders of the world
Living in Peru, Peru - Mar 7, 2007
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, also, Easter Island Statues, Chile and Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico are also monuments competing for the 1 st place. ...

WONDER WOMAN LIBERTY
New York Post, NY - Mar 8, 2007
The new nominees include the statues on Easter Island, Stonehenge in England, the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall of China, the Sydney Opera House and the ...

Machu Picchu among leaders in New 7 Wonders contest
Living in Peru, Peru - Mar 8, 2007
"At the moment, the Incan city of Machu Picchi is situated in the most successful group, while the Mayan temple of Chichen Itza (Mexico), Easter Island ...

Saturday, March 10, 2007

CNN posts Buget Travel article

Easter Island: If these statues could talk
By Reid Bramblett - Budget Travel
Photography by M. Bernetti/AFP/Getty Images
CNN
POSTED: 1:13 p.m. EST, March 9, 2007











The Rapa Nui civilization flourished for more than a millennium, then abruptly collapsed, leaving Easter Island strewn with hundreds of enormous stone statues called "moai." As to how and why the moai were built and moved, or even how people came to the island in the first place, there are at least as many theories as questions.


Click
here for complete article.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Author and TV host breathes pure air on Rapanui

True Stories
Bookslut
Mar 6, 2007
















From Italy, Bernstein goes on to Easter Island, where he finds himself breathing air purer than any he has ever known and thus wondering about the environmental state of the planet.

Click here for complete review.

"Elegant Exploration" to visit Rapa Nui

Silversea Cruises launches New Collection of 'Elegant Explorations'
AsiaTravelTips.com
Tuesday, 6 March 2007

Silver Shadow departs September 17, 2008 on a 53-day voyage from Los Angeles to Los Angeles with calls in Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Robinson Crusoe Island, Easter Island, Pitcairn Island, French Polynesia, Marquises Islands and Hawaii. Best-available fares start at US$23,013 per person.

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here for complete release.

"Dr. Love on Easter Island" film on show in Vienna

MAK Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna, Austria
Nicole Scheyerer
Translated by Nicholas Grindell
frieze
March 5, 2007

At the centre of the exhibition, visitors were shown Dr. Love on Easter Island (2006), a video filmed in the Pacific. For this departure from familiar territory, Krystufek chose Bas Jan Ader as a kind of alter ego. What if, the video asks, the artist who disappeared during an Atlantic crossing in 1975 got stranded on Easter Island? As ‘She-Bas’, the artist roams the home of the famous moai stone giants.

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here for complete report.

Pope John Paul II greeting Rapanui in Valparaiso, Chile

He did not only strengthen us
Anna Cichoblazinska talks to Prof. Jan Ryn, psychiatrist, specialist in mountain medicine, former Polish Ambassador to Chile and Bolivia.
ANNA CICHOBLAZINSKA
Sunday - Catholic Magazine
8 March 2007

He was the only Pope who greeted the inhabitants of Easter Island during the meeting with the youth in Valparaiso.

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here for complete article.

Monday, March 05, 2007

Dengue fever, common in Latin America, can occur in Rapa Nui

Health official dies from mosquito-borne illness
By Pedro Servin, Associated Press
StarNewsOnline.com
Published March 04. 2007 3:30AM

Dengue fever is common in Latin America. Recent outbreaks have been reported in Peru, Brazil, Mexico and even Easter Island, Chile's possession in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

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here for complete article.

Jared Diamond, Rapa Nui and Trinidad and Tobago

Is TT choosing to fail or choosing to succeed?
That is the question I couldn’t help asking myself after reading Jared Diamond’s thought-provoking, 525-page book Collapse - How Societies chose to fail or succeed, with another 31 pages of suggestions for further reading.
Sunday, March 4 2007

Beginning with the seemingly insurmountable environmental problems partly due to mining in Montana, the author takes us to Easter Island where half-finished statues bear mute testimony to its failure, to Pitcairn and Henderson Islands, then back to the Anasazi New Mexico and the Mayas of Central America, the Vikings in Greenland; contrasting these failures with ancient civilisations that succeeded — in New Guinea and Japan.

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here for complete article.

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Free to see moai in London

Budget Travel by Arthur Frommer : See London for free (at museums ...
Arizona Daily Star, AZ - March 4, 2007
... monumental totems from Easter Island), the National Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum — offer free admission, a major act of British magnanimity. ...

London can be expensive, but some great museums are free
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, MO - March 4, 2007
... the Rosetta Stone, monumental totems from Easter Island), the National Gallery, the Tate and the Victoria & Albert — offer free admission, ...

Free Admission to London Museums
The Ledger, FL - March 4, 2007
... the Rosetta Stone, monumental totems from Easter Island), the National Gallery, the Tate and the Victoria & Albert - offer free admission, ...

Rapa Nui caters to "the sophisticated traveler"

Fearless Traveler: The way is long, and quite costly, to Easter Island
By Andrea Sachs
THE WASHINGTON POST
Sunday, March 4, 2007

"Easter Island caters more to the sophisticated traveler, the one who wants to see the most important destinations in the world ... "

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here for complete article.

Saturday, March 03, 2007

"Monolithic" pop culture references #43

Ever searching for news about Rapa Nui, this blog's administrator comes across many references to Rapa Nui and its famous moai. Often, these references are quite comical and have nothing to do with the island or the culture of Rapa Nui. Other times, they appear to be speculative, based more on misconceptions than reality, or downright bizarre. Here are some of the more recent references:

Summit Daily News:
A large, two-sided metal pylon marked the line, reading "Argentina" on the Argentina side and "Chile" on the Chile side. How and why the sign was carried there was not so unlike Chile's other great mystery, Easter Island. Anthropologists in the future will have fun with this one, too. ...

Australian Star:
NUDISTS plan to clean up Point Impossible next week ... “Maybe they should call for some help from those Easter Island statues up in the dunes.”

London Free Press:
I accept the sky is not falling -- on us. But ask our kids, or our grandchildren. Surely this debate occurred ad inifinitum on Easter Island, until it was too late.

Bethal College Collegian:
They worked with diligence on the sculptures of a mermaid, a turtle, a Buddha, a Moai (Easter Island head) and Cthulhu (a mélange of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature) from the middle of the afternoon until close to midnight.

deseretnews.com:
We're stumped by Carlos Boozer. If you thought wormholes were confounding, this guy is off the charts. Any more mysterious and he'd be living on Easter Island.

Argus:
However, the Desert Quartet were met with derision by the general public in 1990 with one former Worthing mayor, Herbie Golds, suggesting they should be shipped to Easter Island.

theglobeandmail.com:
In it, he writes about giving his wife many back rubs (the cow), his struggle with weight and the similarity between the human scapula and the standing stones of Easter Island.

Trip to Rapa Nui result's in "inner narrative" book

Pâques
by
Martin D'Orgeval
Steidl & Partners

“I travelled to Easter Island in the winter. In July. The isolation, the climate and the elements as well as the statues, all created an oppressive atmosphere that is a long way from the tourist images. I wanted to face that, to grasp this uneasy mixture through my own contemplation. This book is above all an inner narrative."

Click
here for complete release.
Thanks to Virani le Beachcomber for suggesting the content for this post.

Dengue fever recently reported on Rapanui

Dengue Kills Paraguayan Health Official
Wyoming News, WY - Mar 3, 2007
Recent outbreaks have been reported in Peru, Brazil, Mexico and even Easter Island, Chile's possession in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Health official dies of dengue fever in Paraguay
Monterey County Herald, CA - Mar 3, 2007 Recent outbreaks have been reported in Peru, Brazil, Mexico and even Easter Island, Chile's possession in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Tingo in paperback

New in Paper
By Jacqueline Blais
USA TODAY
Posted 2/28/2007 8:02 PM ET

The Meaning of Tingo and Other Extraordinary Words From Around the World by Adam Jacot de Boinod (Penguin, $12, reprint). A collection of delicious words. Tingo, which means borrowing items from a friend's house until you own everything, is an Easter Island expression.

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here for complete article.

Hagfish caught off the coast of Rapanui

Hag-ling over deep water fishes
KAREN RAVN
Monterey County Herald
Posted on Tue, Feb. 27, 2007


But in fact they were two grown-ups riffing during a scientific expedition to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean -- about 900 miles south of Easter Island and nearly a mile and a half down -- where no humans had gone before.

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here for complete article.

New7Wonders

Ralph De La Cruz
Sun-Sentinel.com, FL - Feb 26, 2007
It's a slightly kinder, gentler offering of wonders: Athens' Acropolis, Jordan's desert city of Petra, Easter Island's statues, India's Taj Mahal, ...

These new wonders are a little too brick-and-mortar for me
Sun-Sentinel.com, FL - Feb 26, 2007
It's a slightly kinder, gentler offering of wonders: Athens' Acropolis, Jordan's desert city of Petra, Easter Island's statues, India's Taj Mahal, ...

Update on Hokule'a

Hokule‘a requires tows in doldrums
The voyaging canoe and its companion face challenges from the weather
By Gary T. Kubota -
gkubota@starbulletin.com
Honolulu Star Bulletin
Feb. 26, 2007

Makanani, 53, has been on two ocean voyages, including a trip with the double-hulled canoe Makali'i from Hawaii to Saipan in 1999 and the Hokule'a to Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in 2000.

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here for complete article.

Lindblad Travel and Rapa Nui

Destination: Education
Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, IN - Feb 26, 2007
Sven-Olof Lindblad, whose father Lars-Eric organized the first commercial tours to Antarctica, the Galapagos and Easter Island with a company he founded in ...

Tourists' souvenir: knowledge
St. Petersburg Times, FL - Feb 26, 2007
Sven-Olof Lindblad, whose father Lars-Eric organized the first commercial tours to Antarctica, the Galapagos and Easter Island with a company he founded in ...

Rapanui civilization collapsed due to sudden changes in climate

WNC scientists have big impact on climate debate
by
Dale Neal, DNEAL@CITIZEN-TIMES.COM
CITIZEN-TIMES.COM
published February 26, 2007 12:15 am

Civilizations have collapsed in the past with sudden changes in the climate, including the Maya in Central America, the natives of Easter Island and the Vikings who settled Greenland.

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here for complete article.