MSNBC has gathered together a variety of political cartoons dealing with the Republic of Turkey. Thanks to Lucine Kasbarian for sharing the link.

Here are a few.

TIME magazine has posted an entry on February 2, 2007, telling of a five-century-old fresco by Giorgio Vasari that some Italian researchers believe is the code to the location of a long-lost Leonardo da Vinci painting.

Vasari’s fresco has a famous phrase – Cerca Trova, that means seek and you shall find it, or փնտրիր եվ կգտնես:

Writes TIME:

Maurizio Seracini is a serious man, with a seriously square jaw and dark tweed jacket. And he is being taken more seriously than ever now that Italy’s Culture Ministry has committed the nation to a full-fledged pursuit of the so-called Lost Leonardo. Seracini, a forensic expert in Renaissance art and architecture, is trying to prove that The Battle of Anghiari–the mural once considered the greatest of all of Leonardo’s masterpieces–lies buried in the Sala del Gran Consiglio in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio, behind a wall covered by a mural–a vision of the Battle of Marciano–that was painted in the 16th century. LINK

The article made me laugh, not because I find these researchers’ quest unwise or something, but because it reminded me of an incident that happened at the Colorado State Capitol earlier this week. As I pointed to the “picture” of George Washington in rose onyx (the Capitol wainscoting material that is not found anywhere else in the world) done by nature during a tour for a 4th grade class, one of the kids shouted, “The Da Vinci Code!”

He was making a reference to my question in which I had asked which U.S. president would not brash his teeth when he was a kid. It leads to the discussion of Washington’s fake teeth and big chin, which is clearly seen in the Capitol rose onyx stone. There was another reason that the kid thought Mr. Simon had just solved the Da Vinci Code. Right next to George Washington’s “picture,” there is a picture of a turkey (the bird), which is “running” after George Washington because the latter did not select turkey as the national bird of America.

Since I cannot locate a photograph of Da Vinci’s coloradode, aka the running turkey after big-chin George Washington, I decided to post a photo of another code (*caugh*) found in the State Capitol. Pictured is Amanda and cerca trova.