Damn. Oscar winner Gregory Peck dies at 87. I think he was one of a handful of actors who could claim to be thought of as gorgeous by several generations of women. You could probably have gotten my grandmother, my mom and me to all admit he was quite a leading man.

I've seen him in most of his films. And while some of his more serious ones, like "To Kill a Mocking Bird" are probably the most famous, my favorite has always been, "Roman Holiday". He was a great actor who didn't mind tackling controversial material even when he could have been just the next box office hunk.

Not only that - he was just a cool person. He was our Atticus.

Dang. You get used to thinking they are still as old as they were in your favorite movies.

Found via Elke Tanzer: Lost from the Baghdad museum: truth

I have four different reactions to this:

1. Joy.
   Hooray!! Most of the artifacts are intact and safe! My gods, you have no idea how depressing it was to hear of destruction and looting. At the time I was in a world pre-history archeology class covering that period of human history. It was so depressing to see slide after slide of artifacts and realize they were possibly gone...
2. Disgust.
   Good gods. If I didn't have respect for the media before, I certainly don't now. My SFLA freinds remember the Newsweek fiasco, and my DDEB friends remember years of interviews that all ended up spinning us as squealing, teenage fangirls. Now after high profile stuff like the new York Time's plagiarism case and this shit, I have NO respect for and NO trust in the media. None. Zero. Zip.
3. Distrust.
   Which leads me to wonder if I can even believe THIS article. Well, shit. This is what results from bad reporting.

This is seriously cool: Oldest human skulls found

More:

• Fossil Skulls Offer First Glimpse of Early Human Faces
• Dawn of human race uncovered

And this too: Mars rover launch lifts NASA's spirit and Mars probe lifts off for 7-month trek

And not so good news: Veteran newscaster David Brinkley dies at 82.

More bad news on the archaeological front: Looters riddle ancient Iraqi sites with holes. It kinda bugs me that these are always referred to simply as "Iraqi sites". While technically accurate, I ear that most people will shrug their shoulders and say, "So?" because they think it doesn't affect *them*. Nothing could be farther from the truth - these sites are the foundation of western world heritage. Their archaeological value to us is incalculable.

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