"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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.