Sky Earth Native America Published as Two Volumes in Edition 2: General Description

Sky Earth Native America has been published as a book in TWO Volumes via CreateSpace.com and can be viewed at the following two links. Both volumes are "Edition 2" since there had to be a change made from "Edition 1", which is no longer published, and that is why this posting has been amended as follows:

1. http://www.createspace.com/5745812 Sky Earth Native America 1: American Indian Rock Art Petroglyphs Pictographs Cave Paintings Earthworks & Mounds as Land Survey & Astronomy, Volume 1, Edition 2, 266 pages, by Andis Kaulins. Publication Date: September 20, 2015. Language: English. List Price: $49.99. Trim Size 7" x 10" inches viz. 17.78 x 25.4 cm. Full Color on White paper. 266 pages. ISBN-13: 978-1517396817978-(CreateSpace-Assigned). ISBN-10: 1517396816.
   BISAC: History / Americas. Create Space Title ID: 5745812.
2. http://www.createspace.com/5745813 Sky Earth Native America 2: American Indian Rock Art Petroglyphs Pictographs Cave Paintings Earthworks & Mounds as Land Survey & Astronomy, Volume 2, Edition 2, 262 pages, by Andis Kaulins.  Publication Date: September 20, 2015. Language: English. List Price: $49.99. Trim Size 7" x 10" inches viz. 17.78 x 25.4 cm. Full Color on White paper. 266 pages. ISBN-13: 978-1517396831 (CreateSpace-Assigned). ISBN-10: 1517396832. BISAC: History / Americas. Create Space Title ID: 5745813.

Both volumes have the same cover except that one has "Volume 1" on the front cover and the other has "Volume 2" on the front cover. The earth image on the cover was created using public domain space photos of the Earth from NASA.

Although this publication is primarily for my own records, there may be a few persons who are interested in acquiring these two volumes. The following two postings after this one present the Table of Contents of each book volume.

Both book volumes contain the following basic book description:

"Alice Cunningham Fletcher observed in her 1902 publication in the American Anthropologist that there is ample evidence that some ancient cultures in Native America, e.g. the Pawnee in Nebraska, geographically located their villages according to patterns seen in stars of the heavens. See Alice C. Fletcher, Star Cult Among the Pawnee--A Preliminary Report, American Anthropologist, 4, 730-736, 1902.
Ralph N. Buckstaff wrote: "These Indians recognized the constellations as we do, also the important stars, drawing them according to their magnitude. The groups were placed with a great deal of thought and care and show long study.... They were keen observers.... The Pawnee Indians must have had a knowledge of astronomy comparable to that of the early white men." See Ralph N. Buckstaff, Stars and Constellations of a Pawnee Sky Map, American Anthropologist, Vol. 29, Nr. 2, April-June 1927, pp. 279-285, 1927.

In our book, we take these observations one level further and show that megalithic sites and petroglyphic rock carving and pictographic rock art in Native America, together with mounds and earthworks, were made to represent territorial geographic landmarks placed according to the stars of the sky using the ready map of the starry sky in the hermetic tradition, "as above, so below".
That mirror image of the heavens on terrestrial land is the "Sky Earth" of Native America, whose "rock stars" are the real stars of the heavens, "immortalized" by rock art petroglyphs, pictographs, cave paintings, earthworks and mounds of various kinds (stone, earth, shells) on our Earth.

These landmarks were placed systematically in North America, Central America (Meso-America) and South America and can to a large degree be reconstructed as the Sky Earth of Native America."

Both volumes have the following "internal" cover:

I also appended the following information about myself as the author:

"Andis Kaulins is a joint EU and USA citizen, born in Germany in 1946, who received his B.A. from the University of Nebraska in 1968 in English and Political Science and his J.D. (Doctor of Jurisprudence) law degree from Stanford University Law School in 1971.

Kaulins is an alumnus associate of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, an international law firm headquartered in New York City. Kaulins is also a former FFA Law Lecturer in Anglo-American Law, University of Trier Law School, Trier, Germany, where he taught Anglo-American Law, Legal Research and Legal Writing to ca. 200 students per semester.

Kaulins is a co-author of the leading German-English English-German Dictionary of Business, Commerce and Finance, published by Langenscheidt and Routledge, now in its 4th edition in the Langenscheidt version under lead author Ludwig Merz. The other co-author is Dr. phil. Heinz Werner.

Education, Past Positions and Publications

• - Lincoln High School, Lincoln, Nebraska

• - B.A. University of Nebraska 

• - J.D. Stanford University Law School 

• - Associate: Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, an international law firm headquartered in New York City 

• - University of Nebraska Law School -- Project on Appellate Court Delay (a National Center for State Courts project working with the Nebraska Supreme Court as a staff attorney) 

• - Arizona State University Law School -- Project on Law Enforcement Policy and Rulemaking (writing Model Rules of Procedure for police departments of major US cities) 

• - University of Kiel Law School, Germany -- Visiting Fellow, Institut für Ostrecht (East-West trade, Soviet Union, divided nations (Germany, Korea), Latvian Supreme Court decisions) 

• - FFA Law Lecturer in Anglo-American Law, University of Trier Law School, Trier, Germany, teaching Law, Legal Research and Legal Writing to ca. 200 students per semester 

• - Pharmaceutical and computer company consultant 

• - Co-author: Langenscheidt Routledge German-English English-German Dictionary of Business, Commerce and Finance 

• - Author: Stars Stones and Scholars 

• - Author: Ancient Signs: The Alphabet and the Origins of Writing 

• - Author: The Syllabic Origins of Writing and the Alphabet (Create Space print edition) (Kindle ebook edition) 

• - Men's Golf Champion at the age of 61 at the Mosel Golf Club, Cochem, Germany"

Gambling and Gaming Laws and Online Fantasy Sports : What is Legal? What can be Prohibited?

The paternal nature of gambling and gaming lawmaking arises out of the well-meaning illusion that human vices can be eradicated by prohibitions, a faulty line of thinking already clearly repudiated by the failure of the Prohibition of alcohol beverages in the USA via the 18th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which was subsequently repealed by the 21st Amendment to that same Constitution -- for the simple reason that the law did not work.

Amber Phillips at The Fix in the Washington Post asks:

Are daily fantasy sports even legal?

American and international laws on gaming and gambling reflect the minds of legislators trying to cope with "games of chance" in the real world.

What are the odds that the legislators have it right? Not very good.

Anyone who does not realize that life itself is in many respects a "game of chance" just has not been around long enough or seen enough. Life is a lottery in many, even important, aspects. You roll the dice and take your chances.

Is there ANY empirical evidence anywhere that gambling and gaming laws work, e.g. that they actually help to eliminate gambling or gaming addiction?

While it is regrettably very true that excessive gambling can cause personal and/or family ruin and can also be the cause of great harm to third parties, is there ANY evidence that legislation in force achieves ANY of the goals that moralistic prohibitionary laws intend? or are people simply kidding themselves?

The harms that excessive gambling viz. gaming cause should of course be reduced, but what is the right way to do it?

Chief among these harms is the simple fact that too many people modernly spend too much time on gambling viz. gaming pursuits, often to the detriment of their family, profession, and social and other responsibilities. How is that to be corrected?

Various age-old human vices may be bad, but simple prohibition does not appear to be the right method to get rid of them.

For laws, there has to be some empirical proof that prohibition-type legislation works. What is that proof for current gambling and gaming laws?

Certainly the prevailing standards are ridiculous,
and not just in the United States.

Take Germany as an example, where the German Lottery is state-owned and is a marvelous source of income for the government, expressly prohibiting private institutions from doing the same. Does that make it better? See:

• The German Lottery

• Gaming in Germany

We understand very well society's need to keep people from gambling away their fortunes, or their salaries, simply for the sake of gambling (or gaming). 

Those who are addicted to such pursuits and who risk their financial well-being must ultimately be taken care of by others, so that the State has an over-riding interest to make sure this does not happen, at least, as far as possible. Anyone who wants to gamble away his or her fortune can still do so in the present world and "a fool and his or her money is easily parted". Do not worry about that.  Many even do that on the stock market. Can we prohibit that gambling too?

Instead of strict prohibitions, why not put LIMITS on how much anyone can game or gamble in a given year, or month, or week, based on how much they earn, own or have? Why do gambling laws have to be totally permissive or totally exclusionary? Why not have the tax authorities issue individual gambling permits for given amounts, based on a person's financial returns?

A similar solution would be a possibility for alcohol abuse and drunk driving. One strike and you are out. Prohibit purchase and use of alcohol for offenders, not for those who can deal with alcoholic beverages responsibly.

World's Most Complicated Watch, the Reference 57260 (57 Complications), Unveiled by Vacheron Constantin

The Reference 57260 is a pocket watch that has been in the making for eight years and has 57 complications, breaking the record previously held by Patek Philippe. See Vacheron Constantin Unveils World’s Most Complicated Watch