Ok, I saw the National Geographic program "Did Leonardo da Vinci Create the Shroud of Turin?" Very interesting. We already have evidence that the shroud is a medieval forgery - carbon dating has shown the cloth to be from the 13th century. But no one has really been able to explain how it was done. In come the art historians, who see the hand of Leonardo all over it. He had the skill, was in the right place at the right time, and was just the kind of person who would do it. One confusing thing was that they had one expert who said that the cloth had pigment on it, while another showed how Leonardo could have done it with a primitive photographic process. I wasn't sure which one the art historians were supporting. I kind of like the photo idea. It is certainly feasable that Leonardo could have experimented with photo sensitive chemicals and an early camera obscura. And the face on the shroud does look like his self portrait, which he surely would have done, even on such a sensitive project. There are two problems with their argument, though. 1) There is no documentary evidence whatsoever that Leonardo might have created the shroud. The experts say this is because it was done in secret, either for the Savoy family or for the Pope himself so that they could pass off the shroud as the real deal. It's possible, but it proves nothing. 2) If Leonardo did indeed use this experimental form of photography, surely he would have used it again somewhere on something, or at least have written about the process. But the experts made no mention of any such evidence, so I assume there is none. Still, it's a nice hypothesis. Maybe something will come to light someday to prove it.
Update: Nicholas Allen gives scientific evidence why Leonardo did Not create the Shroud of Turin.
From Globe of Blogs I came across Last Anglo in El Paso. This is side-splittingly funny - if you are an Anglo in El Paso. If not, it's still amusing. It's one of those things that's funny because it's true. I hadn't realized that El Paso ethnic mix was changing. I just thought I was imagining that there were more and more Hispanics and less and less Anglos. But, it really is the case. I live on the west side, the last "natural habitat" of Anglos, but even in this pleasant, middle class neighborhood I am surprised whenever I see African Americans or Anglos. There just aren't that many anymore.