Bogomilia Site For The Unsung

Kateryna Lahno: Chess. Brilliance Despite Culture

2012-01-25T20:50:00.002-05:00

Kateryna Lahno Moves!

Study Shows Culture Handicaps Girls at Chess,
Not Ability. Is that so?
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Kateryna Lahno, herself a Grandmaster and in 2011 ranked 11th among women, "dismantled" Grandmaster #206 Sipke Ernst, at the 2012 Tata Tournament in Chess. See biography at http://saintlouischessclub.org/player-bio/kings-vs-queens-tournament-women/gm-kateryna-lahno; http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3270. So?
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So! Is this heretical idea now to be accepted: That women have abilities that culture keeps down. Women long deflected by culture to the sidelines from the greatest rosters of math and chess and other areas reflect the culture, not ability. There are other women champions, see the Russian Chess Blitz Champion for 2011, Alexandra Kosteniuk, but Kateryna of Ukraine offers her skills without the crutches of crowns and lady colors in the publicity, see site.
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Why should there be a women's championship, and then a men's. This is not a muscle game, like golf. No ladies' tee required. Just a brain. Combine the two.

Men. Move Over.

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For years, reports have proliferated about the worldwide enjoyment of chess: striving for championships, showings in great competitions, efforts, enjoyment, aspirations, permanent boards in public squares. Women, welcome aboard. New York Times, feature the story. Why bury it. Is it that your advertisers, your shareholders are not interested in competition.
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The New York Times goes beyond the fact of a win, and notes the gender gap in Chess, and an emerging reason: a math study showing that culture sliding women away from math and related subjects results in their historical disinterest and lower score rather than ability. The header even denies the substance: It says that the study is a "hint," but the article provides a firmer connection to the game's gender gap. True to form resisting challenge to the male, this is on a back-specialty page. See http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/crosswords/chess/chess-math-study-provides-hints-about-games-gender-gap.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=a%20math%20study%20chess&st=cse.
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Congratulations, Kateryna. May schools and educators and families everywhere expand the horizons of their daughters. Too late for moi. End of seriousness. See FN 1
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FN 1 Now, this just has to be funny. Are we allowed? In this men's world of Chess?
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Kateryna, age 20, came in third in the C-section. Kid you not. http://gambit.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/nakamura-wins-tata-steel-chess-tournament/#more-21933
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Kateryna Lahno is from Ukraine. She also defeated the Chinese "phenomenon" You Yifan at the North Urals Cup. Cup? And, of course, the tournament is named the Tata Steel Chess Tournament. Has the Times a sense of humor? Has You Yifan? Have you? Men, lighten up. You are supposed to welcome competition.
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The coincidence of terms here just has to come to light from somewhere.

China. Tata Steel Chess Tournament supporter. Go ahead, laugh. You're allowed.

Tiridates III. First in Conversion. Constantine. Second, and Dubious at That.

2011-12-02T18:59:00.001-05:00

Tiridates III. Who? Tiridates!
Armenia in Christian History
Constantine Second in Conversion

Armenia. Rise to your Applause.

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Tiridates III.

Tridates III is no longer a household name, because of powers interested in attributing Christianity elsewhere. But he was the Armenian ruler who, in 306 AD, first converted to Christianity, and with is conversion, his State.

This was some six years before Constantine, the (fake?)glory boy who hedged his bets on conversion until he saw how it might work out, see http://www.philvaz.com/apologetics/ConstantinePaganChristian.htm. He is said to have converted, but privately, at the time of the famous vision; and waited until his deathbed to do the deed, baptism before just before he expired. Fortuitous delay; Lest the other gods prove the real ones? Constantine. No country followed him until he was dead, and cast his die as he died.
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In contrast, it was the Armenian ruler Tiridates' adoption of Christianity that made Armenia the first State to adopt Christianity as its state religion. See http://www.armeniaemb.org/DiscoverArmenia/History/History.htm. Nothing in antiquity's history is absolute, but here we have substantial information, see http://www.parthia.com/tiridates3.htm. Vet Genesis. Have you more absolutes there, some may ask. So keep an open mind as to true origins of whatever Christianity may mean to whomever. All is power, politics, propaganda, is that so. Keep that open mind as to what the propandists do not disclose. Is that also so? See http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/armenia/Armenia.htm
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Armenia. Does it offer, at last, the slice of truth, hid beneath the PR of the powers, about where Christianity had its real roots as a Belief system. Does it point to the he root: the super-validity of the eastern orthodox branch of Christianity; not the later Roman militant, administrative one. Which is more authentic, closer to The Teachings.
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A. Armenia as the root of the most ancient Christian State Religion.

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1. Armenia the venerable.
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Armenia is the too-often disregarded heritage in modern times; a diaspora of Armenians is worldwide. Yet, Rome, the western sect, takes the credit for the Christian Institution as it "should be."
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2. Armenia the root.
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Armenia is the place of Mt. Ararat, within its borders, so it is told. Armenians settled in Urarty, in the 6th Century BC, and that area was the Assyrian name for "Ararat." Noah: docked in Armenia? Theo, a teacher with whom I worked long ago in Lexington, MA, who was a proud and wise Armenian, Theo: this is for you. Take even more pride. Rome has no original early belief connections at all. It had the roll-o-dex.
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3. Armenia lost out early in Christian history and credit, for no fault of its own.
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Armenia has been the crossroads of empires, and was an empire in itself -- for a time, 1st Century AD, its power stretching from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean. Since the 17th Century in particular, they have been overcome, taxed to destruction, persecuted, attacked, its population massacred -- a genocide that many say goes unrequited.
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B. The City, Ani.

Look, despite the aspersions on Armenia, at Ani. The City of Ani, Ancient City
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Armenia is the place of old Ani, the city of descendants of David and Solomon: in an area now most of northeastern Turkey, and modern Armenia. See Archeology Odyssey, at http://www.bib-arch.org/archaeology-odyssey.asp. Go to archives for September-October 2002, article entitled Ani, Turkey, Mid-1st Millennium to Mid-2d Millennium AD, Easternmost Christianity.
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Ani. In 1000 or so AD, some 100,000-200,000 people lived there, the streets lit, and churches made of distinctive red and black stone. This was a trade-route hub, and by 992 AD there were 12 bishops there, as the Armenian "catholikos" (pontiff, says the Odyssey article) and some 500 Christian priests there.

What?

Then came the invasions: Arabs, Byzantiones, Seljuks (have to look all these up), Georgian and Kurdish. The, in the 1200's, in came the Mongols, Tamerlaine, 1336-1405, was the ruler of an area known as Samarkand, and he conquered southern and western Asia. Look him up also! Have we no education in this country that I, with two advanced degrees, have to pump up my own information??

Tamerlane conquered Ani, and the trade and caravan routes shifted elsewhere.

1441: The Armenian "catholikosat" or pontiff-hood, went to a place called Yerevan. That is near Iran. And Ani just died out. Oblivion.

C. What is left in old Ani, after all that?

There is, says the Archeology Odyssey article, shells of 8 churches, and a convent, and a citadel where there were once, it is said, 1001 churches.

1. . Archeological History

1892 -- Russia incorporated the area. See orientalist and archeologist Nikolai Marr. He did a great deal, but Turkish powers then restricted access since it was so near the borders of the former Soviet Union. Tourists can now travel there. See Archeology Odyssey article.

2. Old Churches left in Ani"

Example. St. Gregory the Illuminator 1215 and many more. Read the article. This is an endangered cultural site.

D. Possible Conclusion:

If truth counts, give credence to the Eastern Orthodox version of Christianity as predating in concept and pollution, Rome.

Rome offered and overwhelmed with the expiring civil Empire's capabilities as to PR, Propaganda, Administrative skills leading to all we know of forced conversions, etc.

Who will investigate a return to the faith of Ani, the faith of, who is it? Rome's patriarchal view has failed in faith and following.

Who are we talking about? Have to scroll up because we have forgotten already because he is not Western. Oh, yes. Tridates III. See http://www.parthia.com/tiridates3.htm

But this site mentions nothing of his conversion. See http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/596845/Tiridates-III

Who to trust. Now to Constantine: start your own search. Another topic, as to whether he was a military opportunist who saw an opportunity, and then at the last, cast the die. Like Fox: You decide. Admen control what you see, hear, taste, feel.

F

Reagan the Democrat. Parse Ronald Reagan's CPAC Speech 1975

2011-11-13T10:40:00.000-05:00

Reagan the Democrat

Parse Speech of Ronald Reagan, Former President Ronald Reagan speaks to CPAC - 1975.

Democrat in Thought, Republican in Label

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A. Summary. President Reagan speaks to CPAC 1975, excerpt here as to those issues most raised in the current time, with some comment.
B. Excerpt itself
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A. In summary, Reagan espouses these principles
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1. Stand for fiscal integrity and end deficit spending.

Note that Ronald Reagan raised taxes some 11 times as part of his fiscal integrity. See http://www.npr.org/2011/02/04/133489113/Reagan-Legacy-Clouds-Tax-Record; taxes are lower now than under Reagan, see http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/06/01/233526/taxes-lower-reagan/
Deficit spending pattern after Reagan admonition not to: http://www.ctj.org/html/debt0603.htm

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2. Limit taxes on earnings

.Reinstate Reagan's levels? No reference to limiting taxation on passive, un-employment earned income; or estates - inheritances being the main source of the 1%'s vastnesses, is that true or false? vet.

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3. Simplify tax code so workers can pay without hiring lawyers
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Why not simplify all finance-related documents and contracts so all taxpayers can pay without hiring lawyers? No loopholes; plain meaning and examples that any high school graduate in the country can understand -- if that means improving education, fine.
No more standardized tests; use the tax code or a sample mortgage at graduation, flunking students to be subsidized for two years of remedial education.

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4. Index tax brackets so COLA's do not move the taxpayer into a higher bracket that may benefit the govt's, but making him worse off than before the COLA
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As part of reform, why not add paybacks to those who were hit with Alt Tax as well as the COLA dragon?

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5. Provide for the people: A free market is to do that.
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Reagan's reasoning would follow, that if the free market does not provide for the people, then it shall be tweaked until it does.
.Tweaking the free market to provide for the people would include no socializing of the risk of the market so the people pay, while privatizing profit so the marketeers benefit

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6. The best way to ward off socialism is to increase people's participation in ownership of the industrial machine. Government coercion is not the best way to ward off socialism.
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Government coercion is already in effect as taxation and enforcement activities, and appropriately so to further basic principles of

providing for the people,
making people personally accountable for misdeeds, and
to promote our free way of life as a democracy as Reagan enumerates.
Government intervention remains open, then, for other purposes, not related to "warding off socialism."

Define "socialism" terms. See #6 on the market's socializing of risk, already in effect, so that the people pay; but privatizing profit, so the marketeers benefit.
Reagan leaves open areas where government might be justified in intervention, as in fostering non-industrial areas of action for the common good, areas of needed activity where people cannot participate in ownership: infrastructure, and where the private sector has misdeeded, as in health
Note that such people's increased ownership in the industrial machine requires access to tools of opportunity: education, employment, health, infrastructure; measures opposed by the Party of Label.

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7. Regulation is not desirable for purposes of nit-picking, for mere harassment, and where it therefore is restricted by such nit-picking in competitiveness globally.
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Ergo, regulation is open for other competitive purposes: to contain and prevent abuses, and to provide for accountability and enhanced ownership of the people in the industrial machine.
Regulation to prevent financier gambling with investors' funds, or increase accountability, would be fine as ultimately serving competition and sustainable global commercial activity.

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8. The goal of holding people personally accountable is to protect the law-abiding.

Demand personsal accountability not only from criminals, but from mis-doers. For "Misdeeds" as Reagan describes.

.Personal accountability need not mean incarceration;

Old Newgate Prison, Granby, CT

Accountability can mean clawbacks for the financial misdeeds, or a new misdeed tithe on earnings thereafter for a calculated period until payback is made, to such entity as is determined as part of the misdeed identification process; or
Containment of the individual but outside an institution, for example
To protect the law-abiding, Reagan would also look to the future, would he not: and provide that persons who have served their accountability, be by then socially productive. That means education, training and health programs
Any immigration restrictions would be limited to a clear and convincing need to "protect" the law-abiding from the immigrant's misdeeds. How is the law-abider damaged by the immigrant in question? That is the question.

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9. Stand up to "international adventurers"

International adventurers include corporate colonizers, ours and theirs

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10. Maintain our free way of life, whatever is needed to do that.
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Free way of life is Democracy, the system;
Reagan did not suggest that democracy as a free way of life supports a no-obstacles highway for some, to any level of material consumption, to the detriment of others -- Reagan would support the 99%]

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11. Fundamental beliefs are to be strongly held, and not compromised for purposes of political expediency, or to expand in a fake way the tent.

These fundamental beliefs for his label party, and Democrats, include, as stated by Reagan,

personal accountability for any misdoer's misdeeds,
fostering a responsible market,
supporting enhanced ownership for the people as to the industrial machine,
the democracy's free way of life [not free exploitation] for all.

Ronald Reagan. The Democrat.

Hush, child. The wreckers are out.

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B. The full speech

See it at http://www.mofopolitics.com/2008/11/05/ronald-reagan-1975-cpac-speech/ We chose a pertinent section, and the numbering of ideas is added for ease of reference to discussion in part A.

Our quoted excerpt, with enumeration

" ****

1. Let us show that we stand for fiscal integrity and sound money and above all for an end to deficit spending, with ultimate retirement of the national debt.

2. Let us also include a permanent limit on the percentage of the people’s earnings government can take without their consent.

3. Let our banner proclaim a genuine tax reform that will begin by simplifying the income tax so that workers can compute their obligation without having to employ legal help.

4. And let it provide indexing—adjusting the brackets to the cost of living—so that an increase in salary merely to keep pace with inflation does not move the taxpayer into a surtax bracket.

Failure to provide this means an increase in government’s share and would make the worker worse off than he was before he got the raise.

5. Let our banner proclaim our belief in a free market as the greatest provider for the people.

6. Let us also call for an end to the nit-picking, the harassment and over-regulation of business and industry which restricts expansion and our ability to compete in world markets.

7. Let us explore ways to ward off socialism, not by increasing government’s coercive power, but by increasing participation by the people in the ownership of our industrial machine.

8. Our banner must recognize the responsibility of government to protect the law-abiding, holding those who commit misdeeds personally accountable.

9. And we must make it plain to international adventurers that our love of peace stops short of “peace at any price.”

10. We will maintain whatever level of strength is necessary to preserve our free way of life.

11. A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers.

**** "

The Maligned Androgyne. Adam the Androgyne. Or Adm Hermaphrodyte. Adm Humankind.

2011-09-12T12:37:00.003-04:00

We are Back To Adm and Adam, this Eve of Election Season.
The Issue: Androgyny; Hermaphroditism; Homosexuality.
Why the Fear?

North Carolina may introduce a bill to ban gay marriage. Our culture shows great interest in people's plumbing and what they do with it. Peek! See http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/63230.html. But texts and early interpretations suggest that in earliest times, including in Eden (even if you take Eden figuratively), mixing it up was fine. The male, the female, attributes back and forth in Eden, still shown in our XX clearly female; and X shaky squiggle little y, the male not clearly X and what else.

Is that the problem. Women know who they are at deepest levels. Men do not. Men must create what they are. And others then judge it.

Other cultures have no difficulty with a range of aspects in every human, see http://www.reconnections.net/androgyny.htm; and http://androgyne.0catch.com/2spiritx.htm; and roots at http://cnx.org/content/m18804/latest/ Other species also: see http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/science/21squid.html?scp=1&sq=animal%20homosexuality%20bonobo&st=cse

I. Theory A - Biblical
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Adm Humankind was originally both - see Genesis 1:26-27, at http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/OTpdf/gen1.pdf; and Genesis 5:1 ff. The original being, Adm, was either separated out into Adam and Eve; or humankind was originally created, one of each (two creation tales, one with details, one without the tails), but which is which?
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The first creation story in the text: created both at once. Created he them. Was it then gradual further differentiation as role and later selectivity issues evolved? That would explain the variation in our own behaviors? Culture and time decide who does what, largely, an efficient, flexible framework. That did not bother early Christians.
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Early representations of Eden show Adam and Eve with similar attributes, and Adam with the leaf. Or are they both Eves? Transcribers of old texts do have their own agendas. Perhaps that was so.

Adam and Eve, Each Nurturers, Sonderborg Castle, Denmark

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II. Theory B. Also Biblical.
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Genesis 2:5-7. The second story in the text is full of detail. The deity needs a being to till the ground. A specific job description, so the deity creates a being to perform those functions. Deity needs an Adm as a gardener-custodian, so the deity makes the Adm, put "him" [English permits no genderless human, so a "he" is ascribed] in the garden. Then the Adm "himself" needs help so the deity creates it. Out of the Adm. "She", separated out, to be the guide, is the upgrade; "he", what remains, is the prototype, and the one originally lacking to meet the purpose (here, gardener), as are all prototypes. And remaining overall is the ambiguity: what was the gender first created, and what attributes constituted that. What is the cultural role of patriarchy in gender-bending.
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This also is consistent with gender blending in early times. See http://kngdv.blogspot.com/2010/10/theologys-gender-blending.html
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Genesis and the kngdv for Adm, the guide as is in front of him, at Genesis 2:18-27. See http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/OTpdf/gen2.pdf;
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More gender ambiguity. Out she came, full-blown, rib area: but how much of her was left inside the Adm now Adam? We know men are X and Y mixed, with the Y a little odd, hardly developed. Her two X's are firm. Identifiable. Adam doesn't know who he is any more. Never did. Scares him.
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Eve emerges, Roskilde Cathedral, Denmark

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Theory C.
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Theories A and B are symbolic, not literal. There is no scale of "values" among people with varying X and Y behaviors or attributes. Just culture, money to be made, supremacisms to be asserted, so on with it! Make that money! Assert that supremacy! Adm the Human cannot stay that way: define as a this or a that, despite texts.
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Recall, however, that the most famous angrogynes are the angels. Angels: ultimate androgyne. See http://www.glbtq.com/arts/subjects_androgyny.html. Supremacism issue settled. No need to fear. Ambiguity is in us, ambiguity in texts, and ambiguity in what was intended, if anything. interpretations.

Aborigines - Outstanding Individuals in a Timeline of Ongoing Defeat. Indigenous vs Internal Colonialism, Economic Fundamentalism; Dehumanize and Exploit

2011-06-26T13:37:00.011-04:00

Aborigine Timeline
Australia
Aborigines. Outstanding Individuals In a Timeline of Ongoing Defeat
Timeline: Aborigine Exploitation, Violence.
Who rose above?
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Update. Aboriginals not going quietly into night. Is the era of ongoing defeat going to end? Update 2012: Aboriginal Tent Embassy protest, see http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/on-national-holiday-australian-leader-forced-to-flee-protesters/?scp=1&sq=australia%20police%20prime%20minister&st=cse. Protesters demonstrating for aboriginal rights acted against the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, as she appeared not far from a 40 year old protest site of that name.

The protest list now is topped by sovereignty. Australia Day marks the arrival of the first British colonists in 1788, and is not marked with veneration by the aboriginals already there. The Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, had suggested it was time for the tent city to move on, adding to the anger.

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We now know definitively that Aborigines were first in time. See (update) DNA sample, article Aborigines: The First Out of Africa, The First in Asia and Australia,

http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/09/aborigines-the-first-out-of-africa-the-first-in-asia-and-australia/245392/?google_editors_picks=true. Yet ancient lineage has been no help in terms of "advancement" as we normally measure it. Is our measure wrong? Theirs is the longest continuous culture on earth, is that so. Respect it, and its context. Is some form of Geographic Determinism back as a factor. If so, look what adverse conditions this group survived.

And now did these ancestors get to Australia from Africa? Was there a land bridge? Debate. The "first out of africa" site says they went by sea, see article and now a video at http://img.ibtimes.com/www/articles/20110924/219309_hair-shows-aborigine-ancestors-were-first-out-of-africa-australia.htm. But boats for distance use did not come into being until very recently, like 5000 BC, see In a Sunburned Country, source list in section III, below. And there are no ape remains in Australia. The humans there could not have conducted their own evolution from their own apes.
Here:
I. Timeline, with references to the source list in section III
II. Aboriginals, Individuals; Peoples
II. Discussion, source list

I. Composite iTimeline:
The Aborigine of Australia
Tasmania

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A. Prehistory, Global look at humana
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7,000,000 BCE (!) Hominid-type skull found, Bega district, New South Wales, see Aboriginal History Timeline
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950,000 BCE. Homo Erectus, the first human found in France, dating from 950,000 BC.

350,000 BCE. Homo Neanderthalensis, as proto-traits, date from 350,000 BC; and "full-blown" by 135,000 BC or so. http://www.timelineindex.com/content/select/142/45,142.

195,000 BCE: Homo Sapiens in Africa, see http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/uou-toh021105.php

120,000 BCE Evidence of burning to clear land near Canberra, http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/aboriginal-history-timeline.html
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70,000-68,000 BCE Aborigines said to "immigrate" to Australia, but no indication how they got there; and no discussion of the finds noted above:
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56-68,000 BCE Three human remains found, near Sydney. Rock shelters also used in this time by people, see http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/aboriginal-history-timeline.html
http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/aboriginal-history-timeline.html

.See the overall Aboriginal History Timeline site, see II, for details ongoing about human finds, breadmaking, uses of decorative ochre, spiritual and creative life, and technology enabling survival in harsh land, tool artifacts, beads. Still, how did they get there? Are they evolved from the hominids?
But the author of In a Sunburned Country, by Bill Bryson, Random House 2000 suggests, since there were no apes, how did the hominids get there? Does absence of ape mean no evolution, we ask??
There was no land bridge, we understand, and boats did not come in until far later. See http://www.clickforaustralia.com/History.htm %20Or. Or was the migration in 50,000 BCE. Aborigines descend from "remote Asian ancestors of the current Australian Aboriginal People" who first arrived in Australia some 50,000 years ago. http://www.history-timelines.org.uk/places-timelines/05-australia-history-timeline.htm

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ISSUES -- THE HUMAN DISPERSAL ISSUE

Note all the information about human and humanoid movements in European-MidEast, South America. Where is the Aborigine even mentioned?

Ask again, how did they get to Australia [did they indeed come out of Africa?] 50,000 BC if boats were not in long-distance use until 5,000 BC.
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This question is asked in In a Sunburned Country, at Ch 13 p 185ff.. He cites first occupants at 45,000 to 60,000 BCE. A woman's skeleton was found and first dated at 23,000 BCE; other finds pushed back the date earlier. Woman. Than means human. Homo sapiens. See also Principles of Human Evolution, by Roger Lewin, http://books.google.com/books/about/Principles_of_human_evolution.html?id=sv78WGFFkOgC

How did they get there thousands of years before any other humans could do it anywhere else.

Q. Could the first human occupants have walked?

A. No. Australia has always been an island. But is that view uncontested?

Wait! The Aboriginal History Timeline says that there was a land bridge, at least between Australia and Tasmania, and that it flooded over as the glaciers melted 13000 BCE. Does this confirm that that was the only land bridge? See http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/aboriginal-history-timeline.html

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Q. Could the first human occupants have evolved from apes?

A. No, no ape creatures have been found.

Q. Could the first human occupants have arrived by sea, closest to land being a distance of some 60 miles across the water, at Timor, Indonesian Archipelago?

A. Not likely. A simple lost fishing craft would not have held enough people to populate a colony; and imagining repeated trips or a big flotilla, all arriving at the same place in order to begin their populating as a group, is not reasonably imaginable unless a vast amount of time is involved, and luck, and generations. It takes 25 people to start a sustaining colony, says Mr. Bryson at page 186. Is he right?

Q. Could the first human occupants have arrived by spontaneous creation by the Creator?

A. Sure. Creationists, to your travel agents. Your proof is here. No evolution to cloud the issue.

ISSUES: VALUING THE CONTINUOUSLY MAINTAINED CULTURE - Oldest continuous culture in the world is the Aborigine? Wonderful.

Assume, then, that the Aborigines had Australia to themselves, no other humans, spread over it, and they were free and unfettered to develop.d customs to enable survival in all its differing climes. Find a positive account at http://library.thinkquest.org/28994/abhistory.html

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35,000 BCE Aborigines reach Tasmania, http://www.clickforaustralia.com/History.htm

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22,000 BCE (a fast forward, see http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/aboriginal-history-timeline.html . Aboriginal use of ground-edge tools - axes. Aborigines mine flint, and make markings like grooves on cave walls. Relationship: art, work.
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Dating: The Aboriginal Timeline site dates as "22,000 years ago" -- since there is only 2000 or so years to the beginning of the Common Era calendar, we are not adjusting the 22,000 years ago to 19,000 BCE.
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The ground-edge ax: This puts the Aborigine in the forefront of human tool-making in the world, says site, is that so? Forefront of technology?
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Ice Age:           About 10% of Tasmania is under a glacier
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18,000 BCE      Aboriginals harvest grain seeds, grind, roast, or eat whole. http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/aboriginal-history-timeline.html. Cave art shows extinct animals.
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16,000 BCE    Hearths, stone tools, bone tools
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13,000 BCE     Land bridge between Tasmania and Asia is flooded as the glaciers melt
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10,000 BCE    Boomerangs! Used to hunt waterfowl. http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/aboriginal-history-timeline.html
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B. Ancient History

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8000 BCE Aboriginal belief connected to the Rainbow Serpent. This makes this belief the oldest continuous belief in the world! And the dingo arrives. See Aboriginal History timeline.
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5,000 BCE Distance boating. See how late in time: Boats. Southeast Asians begin boat travel, long-distance http://www.well.com/~mareev/portal/prehistory/ancient_prehistory_timeline5.html. Pacific islands are settled, see http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/aboriginal-history-timeline.html
.
Copper Age begins in the Middle East and Caucasus.

4,000 BCE. Basques arrive in Europe http://www.well.com/~mareev/portal/prehistory/ancient_prehistory_timeline5.html Another of all our interesting human groups. Who? Where from? Recall sites suggesting Middle East. Need to check. DNA?

2200 BCE. Evidence of knowledge of Atlantic ocean. How? "Oldest chart of the Atlantic Ocean recorded at petroglyphs of Kercado, Brittany." http://www.well.com/~mareev/portal/prehistory/ancient_prehistory_timeline6.html

C. History ACE

Numerous explorations, see White oriented site at http://www.clickforaustralia.com/History.htm Indonesia, China, trade. See timeline of early arrivals, departures, at the Aboriginal oriented site at http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/aboriginal-history-timeline-pre-cook.html

Early explorers: saw Aboriginal shell mounds, huge, covering perhaps half an acre, inland and uphill, away from the beach where the shells would have been found, some 33,000 cubic meters of shells at one location, and it took perhaps 800 years to make it. Sunburned at p.188-89. These are not mentioned at the Aborigine History Timeline.

Then:

1770 Captain James Cook lands and claims land for England. Some 300,000 Aboriginals may have resided in Australia at the time, Sunburned at p. 189. This number is far higher at Aboriginal History Timeline: 750,000 to 1,000,000

What was the culture? What is it now? See Aboriginal Culture Timeline at http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/index.html

D. The West Arrives
.
Systematic or Incidental Decimation of Aborigines by Settlers. Economic Determinism:

Compare to Similar Treatment, Mindset of Colonialism
re Native Americans, Blacks in and from Africa, South American indigenous

.
Some 20,000 Aboriginals are intentionally killed in the next 150 years, Sunburned at p.191.

This does include some "justifiable" circumstances, such as self-defense, battles, but even those come under the guise of "punitive expeditions" of Whites against groups, in retribution for a malfeasance of an individual Aboriginal.
.
Some 200,000 Aboriginals die of disease in the next 150 years, Sunburned at p. 191. Diseases - no resistance - include smallpox, syphilis, pleurisy, influenza, In a Sunburned Country, by Bill Bryson, see http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/bryson-sunburned.html: cited here as Sunburned, at p.190
.
1792 Smallpox epidemic, see http://bovination.com/cbs/australianAboriginalHistory.jsp

Europeans' view: Subhuman; if not that, then "inconsequential." Aboriginals lived in small tribes, speaking different languages, no central authority.
.
Worldview: no word for yesterday or tomorrow, were unclothed, no house-building, or other permanent structures, no planting crops, no herding, no pottery, no "property", Sunburned at p. 188, no concepts of "negotiation" or "treaty", Sunburned at 188-89, but content.
.
Captain Cook wrote that they live in tranquility, have what they need from their surroundings, no need to part with what they have or want more, and probably happier than "we" Europeans. We should be so lucky.

Go here. Somebody with great patience scanned in the entire 700-790 pages of manuscript by Captain Cook, at National Library of Australia site, http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview?pi=nla.ms-ms1-t-cd/ It is an ebook at http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/cook/james/c77j/ by Stephen Thomas. In time, may try to find the exact section for his observations on the Aboriginals.
.

1793-1795    Aboriginals show vast nativation and distance sailing skills, see http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/aboriginal-history-timeline-early-white.html
.
1804            Hobart Town established, Tasmania. See it now at http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/travel/124484593.html
.
1805            Killing, torturing of Aborigines not a crime. Acting judge advocate for New South Wales declared that Aboriginals could be tracked down and punished as may be merited, rather than clog the courts with them, since they had neither the discipline nor mental capacity for court proceedings. Sunburned at p. 190. Author asks: invitation to genocide?
.
Affirmation of killing, see Cultural Survival organization at http://www.culturalsurvival.org/australia?gclid=CKLN9ryz0akCFRE95QodnF3YMA
.
More affirmation of killing, see http://bovination.com/cbs/australianAboriginalHistory.jsp
.
1810           Briton (Scots) Lachlan Macquarie is installed as governor, New South Wales.
.
Macquarie, however, also set up schools for Aboriginal children, removing them from their families in order to educate them in western ways and give them a "better" life?; ultimately so opposed by the Aborigines that the schools closed. http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/aboriginal-history-timeline-early-white.html
(herein Aboriginal History Timeline)
.
1816 Macquarie restricts movement of Aboriginals, approves killing of "offenders" see Aboriginal History Timeline.

At some point in the Hawkesbury area does he give permission for soldiers to kill Aborigines found in groups of more than 6, regardless of activities or age or gender? Sunburned at p.190. Aboriginal History Timeline says, after other incidents of killing, that the restriction was on groups of 6 loitering near farms.
.
1822           Smallpox epidemic, see http://bovination.com/cbs/australianAboriginalHistory.jsp
.
1833            Forced white immigration. Port Arthur is set up as penal colony for English prisoners from the jails
.
1838            Slaughter at Waterloo Creek, see Sunburned at 195. Two hundred Aborigines killed. Noone was punished. Nobody even raised the issue. Many more instances, see site at p.195, too many to list or know.
.
1838             Slaughter at Myall Creek, see Sunburned at p. 191. Somebody drove off livestock from the farm of Henry Dangar. Off goes the vigilante or posse group.

They find Aboriginals peacefully camped. The pursuers rope them together -- some 28 people, men, women, children -- in a big ball and ride them around for hours, then kill them with rifles and swords. Governor George Gipps took note of a journalist. Edward Smith Hall, complaining about the behavior (heretofore nobody paid attention), and held a trial. One of the defendants said he did not realize it was illegal to kill Aboriginals. The jury acquitted. There was a second trial: Seven of the pursuers were found guilty and hanged.
.
But killing of Aboriginals, says Sunburned, just went underground; and not bragged about openly, Sunburned at p. 194. And questionably was supported in legal proceedings, but perhaps that was justice -- See 1928. There is no memorial at Myall. Sunburned at p.192. Corroboration of Myall massacre: Aboriginal History Timeline 1838
.
1838            Offer Aboriginals poisoned food. Account by one Pilger in a mid 1800's government report from Queensland, Sunburned at p. 190: " 'The niggers [were given] ... something really startling to keep them quiet ... the rations contained about as much strychnine as anything and not one of the mob escaped.' " The mob was about 100 "unarmed men, women, and children." Sunburned at p.191. Story of poisoning corroborated at Aboriginal History Timeline 1838
.
1839            Visitor "Melville" wrote a history of Tasmania (says Sunburned at p.190) and include the story of a kangaroo hunt where one of the respectable hunters noticed a huddled human (aboriginal) behind a tree, and went up and shot him dead.
.
In general:    Food scarcity. Aboriginals may kill sheep for food, then the settlers would send out punitive excursions to kill groups of Aboriginals, see http://bovination.com/cbs/australianAboriginalHistory.jsp
.
1851             Gold Rush in Bathurst
.
Year?           Lines in South Land (book not in our library, quoting from Sunburned at p.190) lays out examples of settler cruelty: butcher Aboriginals for dog food, force an Aboriginal woman to witness the killing of her husband by decapitation, then forcing her to wear the head around her neck, chase an Aboriginal woman up a tree and shoot at her, she stuffs leaves into the rifle holes until she finally is killed and falls back down.
.
1853             Last prisoners arrive for settlement
.
1873            Ayers Rock found by Europeans (now Uhuru)
.
1876             The last true full-blooded (says site) Tasmanian aboriginal dies: one Truganini (a woman)
.
1886             Fruits of cross-fertilization. Half-castes are excluded from definition of Aborigine, thus can no longer live on protected Aborigine "reservations" (missions and reserves) and so half the population has to leave. See Aboriginal History Timeline 1886
.
1888             Maybe 80,000 Aboriginals left across all of Australia. Aboriginal History Timeline for year 1888. Reduction by some 220,000 (from which date?)
1900             Aboriginals reduced in number to some 50,000-60,000, Sunburned at p. 189. Not all intentional wrongful killing, of course. Disease also.
.
1901             Commonwealth of Australia formed. Aborigines not allowed to vote, not considered "Australians" see http://bovination.com/cbs/australianAboriginalHistory.jsp
.
1914-1918   Australian military fight in WWI ANZAC (Australia-NewZealand Army Corps?). Aboriginal soldiers fight at Gallipoli, see Aboriginal History Timeline 1914
.
1920            Aboriginal population in Australia down to some 60-70,000. Aboriginal History Timeline
.
1928            Somebody killed a white dingo hunter, Fred Brooks, at Alice Springs. Whites hunted down and killed 17-70 (broad range) Aboriginals. Judge found that was within the law, perhaps so. This is said to be in 1926, and that an entire village was slaughtered in reprisal, see http://bovination.com/cbs/australianAboriginalHistory.jsp
See also Aboriginal History Timeline 1928
.
1929             Aboriginal Lynch Cooper named World Professional Sprint Champion. See Aboriginal History Timeline
.
1930-60        "The Stolen Generation: - Child Removal program. Take Aboriginal children from their families and raise them by Whites. http://bovination.com/cbs/australianAboriginalHistory.jsp.
See also Stolen Generations Timeline at http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/politics/stolen-generations-timeline.html
.
1939    Aboriginals are not citizens in Australia, but are formally enlisted in the armed forces (like US with its non-citizen soldiers) and serve in Europe, Pacific, Middle East, New Guinea, see Aboriginal History Timeline 1939
.
1940               99% of Australia's population is now White, Aboriginal History Timeline 1940
.
1948              Melbourne's first Moomba Festival. Whites asked for suggestions for the name, Aborigines said this meant getting together and having fun, but it really meant (still in use and still does), 'Up your bum.' Aboriginal History Timeline 1948
.
Fast forward
Past usual events of a growing country, increasing wealth
.
1971             First Aboriginal member of parliament, Neville Bonner
.
1981            Asian immigration increases to Australia
.
1993    Legal rights timeline: See http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/aboriginal-calendar.html
.
2011    Immigration policy focuses on "desirable" immigrants, targets certain skills, fosters arrival of those already educated. None of this helps the Aborigine, as we see so far. Economic colonialism no change? See http://www.migrationexpert.com/australia/visa/australian_immigration_news.asp
.............................................................

II. Aboriginals. Individuals and Peoples,

whether by tribe or larger group; and by date of event name.

.
A. Definitions.
.
Aboriginal is a 17th Century word meaning first, or earliest, see http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=aboriginal. In the 1790's, it was used as a noun. In the 1820's, the term came to be applied specifically to the first people in Australia, before "discovery." The groups we call Aboriginal do or did not use that term for themselves. They were groups or bands with differing languages and different area geographic environments, occupying their own territories historically, and not using a single word for themselves. See http://www.crystalinks.com/aboriginals.html
.
Aboriginal does not include Maori of New Zealand, Polynesian heritage, recent (1300's).
.
Find details of individuals and groups of Aboriginals at Aboriginal History Timeline http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/aboriginal-history-timeline-early-white.html. The listing and details demonstrate the extensive resistance of the Aborigine to decimation of their population and culture, and a range of talent as broad as any group anywhere (it seems to us). Resourceful, brilliant survival adaptations to environment (see In a Sunburned Land book cite), a spirituality of balance, not exploitation.
.
Focus. This listing (and this site) does not explore individuals or history of the Maori of New Zealand. We had looked for Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, brilliant soprano, to include her; and found that her heritage is Maori.
.
In time, we may research these on our own. Until then, please visit the Aboriginal History Timeline site for information, year by year.
.
B. Choose a name, look it up, with respect:

1788    Arabanoo
.
1789    Benelong and Colebee
.
1790    Yemmarrawanie
.
1791    Bon-Del
.
1793    Gnung-a-Gnung-a Murremurgan ("Collins")
.
1795    "Tom Rowley"
.
1796    Pemulwuy
.
1804    Darug People
.
1814    Koori People (see also Koorie in 1830)
.
1816    Carnabyagal
.
1822    Windradyne; Wiradjuri People (or place?)
.
1830    Bungaree
.
1831    Yagan
.
1835    Dunghutti People
.
1836    Kaurna People
.
1838    Jagera People
.
1843    Multuggerah
.
1876    Truganini (a woman)
.
1890    Jandamarra
.
1928    Anthony Martin Fernando
.
1929    Lynch Cooper
.
1930    Yorta Yorta People; William Cooper
.
1937     William Ferguson
.
1950     Gwoya Jungarai; Walpiri People
.
1963     Yolngu
.
1965     Pintubi People; Frank Ganngu; Elsie Darbuma
.
1966     Gurindji People, see also 1967, 1975
.
1966     Charles Perkins, Margaret Valadian
.
1968     Albert Namatjira; Lionel Rose
.
1971     Harold Thomas; Luritja People (or place?); Evonne Cawley; Gumatj People (or place?), Millrrpum, Larrakia People, Neville Bonner (see also 1972, 1979, 2008), Evonne Goolagong,
.
1977     Isobel Coe
.
1978     Pat O'Shane, Galarrawuy Yunupingu, Yoingu People
.
1980     Jim Hagan
.
1981     Pitjantjatjara People
.
1982     Joe Pat, Mark Ella, Eddie Mabo (see also 1992), Ken Colbung,
.
1984     Lowitja O'Donaghue (see also 2011)
.
1992     Mandawuy Yunupingu, Yothu Yindi People
.
1993     Wik People (see wiki-wiki Hawaiian?? wikipedia? do the Wik hold copyright to their name? somebody check the Wik); see also 1996, 1997
.
1995    Thayorre People
.
1996      Jawoyne People, Robert Bellear ("Bob")
.
1998      Cathy Freeman, see also 2000
.
2001     Aden Ridgeway
.
2003     Elaine George
.
2004     Mulrunji Doomadgee, Casey Donovan, Michael Long
.
2007     Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarra, Bruce Trevorrow, Vicki Roach, John Howard, Marion Scrymgour
.
2008      ________Ward (see also 2010), Ngaanyatjarra People, Patrick Dodson, Nathan Jawai,
.
2009     Mick Dodson, Anthony Mundine, Ampilatwatja People, Tom Calma,
.
2010     Ruby Hunter, Charles Dixon ("Chicka"), Megan Davis, Michael Leslie, Samantha Harris, Timana Tahu, Ken Wyatt, Noongar People,
.
2011     Helen Mary Cooper, Yindjibarndi People, Jodi Brown, Butchullah People, Les Malezer

III. Discussion; Source List

The Aborigine Experience; the Indigenous Experience.

Dehumanization as Economic Tool of the Conqueror

.
Western Culture Trods Australia Underfoot; Yet They Survive, Excel In Their Culture. Western religious institutions also dehumanized "nonbelievers" in forcing conversions, conducting crusades against other branches of Christianity as well as Islam, is that so?
.

Free Market Individualism, Economic Fundamentalism, and Disregard of Inconvenient Humans.
.
The Aboriginal

Overview Section III:

A. Sources and overview: Free market mindset, impact on value of humans. What the loss? What the cost.
.
B. Human striving, defeats, excellence, persistence. A memorial and contemporary listing of Aborigine individuals in history. Check their contribution, or role, or reason for demise, in the timeline of events and persons at http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/aboriginal-history-timeline-early-white.html

..........................................................................
.

A. Sources and overview: Free market mindset, impact on value of humans.

.
Is lack of economic acquisition the only model of success in a culture.

Aborigines: successful instead in survival with continuity of culture.

Does that continuity constitute a human luxury, producing more individual satisfaction, but possible only as a result of isolation, lack of belligerent newcomers, until now?

How can non-acquisitive cultures defend against being acquired.
.
Note: This topic focuses on the Aborigine of Australia.
The Maori of New Zealand are not Aboriginal, we understand

.....................................................................
A. Several sources to read at the outset: Aborigines in Australia.
.
1. In a Sunburned Country, by Bill Bryson, see http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/bryson-sunburned.html (herein "Sunburned"); and
.
2. Taming the Great South Land, by William J. Lines, see http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/6934869?q=Northern+Territories&c=music (herein: "South Land")
.
3. Aboriginal History Timeline, comprehensive compendia of Aborigine-focused events at http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/aboriginal-history-timeline-early-white.html (herein Aboriginal History Timeline). Use that for specific time periods, persons.
.
4. History Timeline of Australia: Review a White-focused overview of history at http://www.clickforaustralia.com/History2.htm.(herein History of Australia)
.
.
B. Our focus
.
Find examples of western cultural expansion, and by means of attitude of disregard of others, combined with militaristic capability and interest. We take that expansion by force process for granted. Get out of my way, says western culture on the move.

Self-interest, the justification of "American Exceptionalism" used for this framework of imposition, is becoming ever more prominent again in United States politics. The growth of toxic individualism, that Great Britain also fostered in its colonial activities, and other Powers That Succeeded economically and militarily over others through the ages shared the view. Take what you can.

What was lost, and at what cost. See See the detailed timeline of a "typical" Aboriginal life at http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/people/aboriginal-statistic-timeline.html
.
.
C. Preliminary examples
.
The aboriginals in History of Australia (lower case "a") are mentioned as arriving by sea to Australia from Asia in about 60,000 BCE, and thriving as nomadic hunters across the land. They are not mentioned thereafter. In the timeline at the site, they are finally listed very late, in 1971, when there was an aboriginal member of parliament, Neville Bonner; and in 1876 when the last Tasmanian full-blooded aboriginal, Truganini, died; and at the 70,000-35,000 BCE time slot when they arrived. The process of disregard can be seen as internal colonialism, economic fundamentalism where only economic status "counts." See the reach of economic fundamentalism, free market fundamentalism, at http://martinlutherstove.blogspot.com/2011/06/religion-of-economic-fundamentalism-has.html
.
To further illustrate the impact of economic supremacism taking over individual thinking (the next step, according to Tocqueville, see site), we put together a combination timeline (selective), highlighting and crossreferencing from various sources and using as the first basic framework the History Timeline for Australia at http://www.clickforaustralia.com/History.htm.
.
.
D. Suspect timelines, even this one.
.
Everybody's timeline serves an agenda, including ours: To connect broader western me-first colonialism mindsets to its present incarnation, as anticipated also by Alexis de Tocqueville. Individualism, at first rugged, becomes ruinous.
.
Is it too late to stop the economic supremacism that has such momentum now. Can a devalued group be revalued by a process of information. Probably not. The timeline here is an overview, not comprehensive; unidentified sources are from Sunburned. For details, not quite year by year, but good as a reference corroboration for the broader topics here, see dates and names and places at Aboriginal History Timeline. That site breaks down the timelines of different eras, so look for the click connections to prehistory, ancient history, pre-Cook, and then the more modern. Early White is at http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/aboriginal-history-timeline-early-white.html (herein Aboriginal History Timeline)

The Targeted. Unsung Assaulted. The World's Assaulted. The Put-Upon. Women. Children. Behavioral Entitlements

2011-04-10T20:18:00.014-04:00

The Targeted
Teach Defenses to Targets of Assaults.
Rape, Bullying, and on to Cultural and Religious Assaults, Girls' Genital Mutilation
.
Women, Children, any Powerless, Assaulted.

Culture, Economics, Religion and Politics .

A. Scope of the Problem: Not just rape, but genital mutilation, bullying into acquiescence. Can information help. Yes, some. How to protect the children against even the parents? Surprisingly, group persuasion seems to help.
B. Root of the problem: Behavioral entitlements, based on religion, culture, supremacism. Enforcement of position, cultural habit.
.

A. Scope of the Problem

.
Defense and information training to the powerless: would that be a deterrent to abuse. Can you teach the moves, teach for motivation.
.
Information and facts may help the adults, in a position of power to make change or to get away. Information and facts do little to help those without power in those areas. Little babies, little girls, whose reproductive organ mutilation and removal has become a cultural or religious norm, see Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away, book by Christe Watson (this by way of update) Other Press 2011, at http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Tiny-Sunbirds-Far-Away/Christie-Watson/e/9781590514672
We think we know about rapes. We may well not know this other area at all.
.

Learn the practices, how it is done. Female mutilation is far worse than the simple nip-off suggested by the New York Times, and it is the removal of the entire organ, not just some fantasy idea of some kind of tip, at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/world/africa/movement-to-end-genital-cutting-spreads-in-senegal.html?scp=2&sq=female%20genital%20mutilation&st=cse

Among the choices for the procedure are the slicing of of parts needed for expansion and accommodation of the birth process, and sewing it all up in the child -- guess the rest, what then is needed, what can and too often happens, especially in remote areas.

There is little evidence that incidents of rape and other assaults on women around the world are decreasing. They go unreported, hidden. It has been easy to ignore the issue in developing countries, where they are not like "us;" we deceive ourselves. ee http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/06/24/congo.rape/

Commiseration with the victimized, offering counseling after the fact, both inadequate. Neither gets at the offender.

Teach defense. Let the woman and the girl choose what technique to use when. Even the child. Tell the child that the child can "tell." Publicity works. Deal with it. Mindset matters in health, and in conveying the ability to defend.

Defense to Assault. How to make No meansNo.

B. Root of the Problem.
.

Behavioral Entitlements. Nobody told her she could make war on her own behalf, but as a group, with support, she can. She can. And do it well. It is Time. Children. Who will fight for them. Is "fight" even the right language? No, we need persuasion. But if that fails, what? What other barriers.

What do their drawings show?

Entitlements: Scrutinize the emotional, productivity and family cost of social, sexual entitlement.

The Bully operates in multiple arenas outside the schoolyard. Is it true that most bullies have cultural and religious permission. Look how political tax matter movements have been coopeted by NRA and Extreme Armageddon fantasizers. It works.

It takes education and group strength to withstand that kind of corporate (religious, economic and political) pressure against those being exploited. So, teach even the Beholden, the Polite, the Child:

Teach the Well Placed Knee. The Scream at the person bothering you. A polite child will be polite. Teach time, place, manner. And fast acting for legal help. FN 1

.............................................................

FN 1 News updates:

Arrogance of power and related issues; sexual "escapades" for the man http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/05/18/are-french-women-more-tolerant/the-arrogance-of-power?scp=3&sq=rape&st=Search.

Add Wall of Shame at http://www.wherestheoutrage.org/wallofshame.php

.
IMF corporate culture; and Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/business/20fund.html?ref=todayspaper
.
And clergy molesting on and on. Will the institution ever see itself as others see it.

Dan Widing in Croatia, wondering what this clergy did to deserve this.

.
Information:
.
Women in War: Would we find a suppressed, real talent. Tell her her history. She can take charge.Tell the child, that the child can and should acream. Sexual entitlement: culture as the enemy. Can she, or the child, use force and noise to make new rules. Can we teach, and can she practice the verbal tools, the acts. that prepare mindset, reactions, ability to shape rules. Helpless? No. She may be pushed down the steps for being new, but she may regain some confidence thereafter.

Bullies. Girls today. Stop it against each other. Kids. Shape yourselves. You have the knee, the voice.
Do not go gently into a forced night. Entitlements: Parents, force the rethinking. Start with the Behavioral entitlement of the male, the economic victors, or the "popular," the powered. Their gratification will kill your soul. Dare scream,make a scene. Life is Breath In. Your life, as you breathe, first. Your breathing life or the Zygote's cellular movement. Why must one person's adopted dogma control another's path.
.
For the child. Abuse kills the mind, as well as the body. For the young, the dating. So does date rape.

Francis Bellamy. Christian Socialism; a philosophical balance underlying the Pledge of Allegiance

2011-03-01T13:55:00.008-05:00

What is socialism, that so many fear it so much.
.

The Author of the Pledge of Allegiance was "Christian Socialist" -

What did that mean? What does "socialism" mean today;
How did a concept with such a range of ideas become vilified.

Christian Socialism includes a Responsive Capitalism;
Fiduciary Capitalism. A mutuality in culture.

In 1892, this Baptist minister, Francis Bellamy, wrote the Pledge of Allegiance. He was a Christian Socialist, a concept that combines social justice and responsibility with a religious Founder's teachings to do that: an idea that has brewed some hate sites with agendas to keep people from feeling safe if they look further into it, see ://rexcurry.net/pledgetragedy.html/ Do the old words of political difference carry informative meaning any more. Could perhaps be interested in a little political test? Who, for example, is a neoliberal, a sectary. What was Francis Bellamy? Who is what except by the imposed labels of others dismissing them. See ://knol.google.com/k/artur-landerzon-barrera-garcia/could-perhaps-be-interested-in-a/ahpk7a5l7a4r/93#

What did Christian Socialism mean at the time. As with any other movement, there were extremes and a middle. Other sites address Bellamy's life and the history of the Pledge, see for example ://oldtimeislands.org/pledge/pledge.htm/. Francis Bellamy's cousin, Edward Bellamy, was also socialist, but focused more on utopian ideals, with "political, social and economic equality for all", see site. Francis Bellamy left out "equality" in the pledge for practical reasons: there was strong opposition to equality for women and blacks. Apparently he had to leave his church because of his socialist leanings in seeking equality.

In retirement, Francis Bellamy left the church entirely because of its racism.

Was Bellamy a Marxist. No.

Christian Socialism embraces a range of ideas, within a general concept that unbridled capitalism leads to exploitation of workers for the sake of owner profits. A Christian should extend a hand to help, seek a balance as the religious Christianity of the time advocated in book and liturgy. Francis Bellamy the minister said, in a sense, don't just talk it; do it. A person's station in life is a combination of context and character; neither all context, so that industrialism is 100% villain; and not all character, so that if someone is poor, that person deserves it.

Did Francis Bellamy advocate pooling of assets, common ownership as a prerequisite to being a Christian Socialist. We do not find that. His idea of Christian sharing, like a fiduciary obligation to the less fortunate, fell short of compulsory joining communes. for him, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address call for government of the people, by the people, for the people, includes concern for the sustenance and opportunity for all idea. But lose all you have? NO. You are not required, in order to be socially responsible, to sell all you have and give it away. Is that so? Experts, researchers, line up. We are interested. How were mindsets so changed. Were there active agendas to paint midground people as extreme, media and talking head blitzes, see Wars for the Mind. Technologies for Control.

Start here in vetting whether Francis and even Edward Bellamy were in the center of ideas, a balancing. Or at an extreme, an individual's condition in life is because of this or that, but not a blend.

We see a mid-position -- Christian Socialism as a midground. What dictates a person's economic position. Christian Socialism, Francis Bellamy's perspective, would say that economic position results not just from aspects of an individual's character (assuming the person is responsible for his or her character solely). Economic position is also a result of context (assuming that context comes from outside.

Economic imbalance: vast income and opportunity disparities, that resulting in an extreme of deprivation for some, and an extreme of excess for others, has nuanced origins according to Christian Socialism. It is a balance, a combination of factors.

19th Century Christian Socialism.

And sin. Read carefully this fair use quotation about how in the 19th Century "sins" of the people were reflected in their economic condition. Marx said no -- economic condition results from the economic, politicsl, social environment. Frances and Edward Bellamy took the midground. Both were important. This from American Socialists and Reformers, Ch.3, by John Baer, 2007: http://www.oldtimeislands.org/pledge/pdgech3.htm

The orthodox Christianity of the 18th and 19th century often placed the entire responsibility for the sad condition of humanity on the sins of individuals. Marxist theories in the 19th century assumed that individual defects of character were chiefly the result of a faulty economic, political, and social environment. Edward and Francis Bellamy took the intermediate position that both personal character traits and economic, political and social organizations were responsible for many of the miseries of mankind. (Emphasis supplied)

This balance reflects the moderates' position in current political ranges as well:

1) totalitarian ideologies at either end press for one set of factors justifying themselves; and
2) a mid-ground is willing to see elements at work, of many factors.

Thus, the hate sites for those who disagree with the ideology du jour, is that so? Someone research the hate sites, the hate speech. What is at work? Why should dear Francis Bellamy get vilified?

Feudalism Redux. A reversion to feudalism? Set roles? Restrictions? Feudalism: Areas with a Lord, the peasant, the Clergy, and the Military? Save us. Look up Feudalism at ://www.lectlaw.com/def/f024.htm/.

1. Christian Socialism description.

The most accurate description of the context of Christian Socialism, we think, is this:

That the Christian Socialist movement arose because of the "clash between Christian ideals and the effects of competitive businesss." See ://www.questia.com/library/economics-and-business/economics/economic-systems/christian-socialism.jsp

Who could argue with that?

Christian ideals, vs. what happens in competitive business.

An obvious disconnect. How to care for your neighbor, when your main objective in life is to make money off him. Privatize public utilities, for example. Will that end up enriching owners and shareholders, or serving the needs of less-clouted communities. From those who have, more will be required, two coats when one are asked for, etc. The traditional Sunday Morning meets bankroll-addiction. My Fair Shady: Privatizer Alert

Is that older definition still operative. It appears to be. There is a website, see ://christiansocialistpartyusa.org/. Christian Socialism appears to espouse sustenance for all, healing, helping the poor and incarcerated. But watch the wrathed ones: There has been pressure on Wikipedia to remove the page from its tome, and so it did, says the site, and the Christian Socialist site asks people please to see what it really does and reinstate it on the Wikipedia place. This identifies clearly as a Christian site.

2. History of the Christian Socialist movement; positions.

The movement started in England in 1848, says ://www.jstor.org/pss/2762617, in Christian Socialism in America. The date is 1909 for the article. It meant a "philanthropic attitude, toward the poor, the oppressed."

An oppressed, Verona, Italy

Most Christian socialists preach an ethical point of view rather than a political program: improvement of conditions, but not a "socialist" political-revolt-takeover of means of production in the Marxian sense. In Germany, the movement was started by Protestants, and there JSTOR stops unless you pay. That site gives the start date of 1848, after a failure of something called Chartism.

So: There were two basic lines of thought:

One Marxist, and secular; with violence
The other cooperative, guided by thinkers who sought common ground between producers and laborers, thinkers like (this list from ://www.questia.com/library/economics-and-business/economics/economic-systems/christian-socialism.jsp) Ludlow, Maurice, Kingsley, Carlyle, Southey, Coleridge -- have to look them all up.

Christian Socialism in Europe meant "a party or trade union directed by religious leaders in contrast to socialist unions and parties." See ://www.questia.com/library/economics-and-business/economics/economic-systems/christian-socialism.jsp/

But the thrust of the Christian Socialists was not revolution, overturning who owned what. They sought to "encourage the labouring masses and the church to cooperate against capitalism." Nothing "Nazi" there. See the definition: the disconnect between Christian ethics and the marketplace." Cooperate against the abuses because a Christian would have to do that. The issue is still with us. What does capitalism need to do to become more "Christian" and can capitalism do that and still be capitalism, they might ask.

"Responsive capitalism" may be an answer -- work on that. Even fiduciary capitalism. Would that be consistent with people's traditional religious values, Christian but still making appropriate money.

Those earlier religious-cooperating people addressed the disconnect by helping working people form associations, go to college. That succeeded, to a degree -- we do have unions, education more broadly based. Now watch them go: My Fair Shady: Privatizer Alertl

The religious-commerce thinkers failed, however, in trying to get the producers, the capitalists, to cooperate, and that also is still with us. See the Questia site.

2. So: How to be both a clergyman and a socialist.

They are only inconsistent in a current climate where anything "socialist" must be bad, and even subversive.

Can't be both, say some. Pick sides. Either you're socialist, thinking of the Marxist overthrow idea, or you're capitalist, the good guys. They miss the point that socialism embraces a broad range of people concerned with laborers and conditions: from the religious cooperatives to the Marxists.

Karl Marx, Chemnitz, Germany. Why fear ideas? Analyze them. Dan Widing learns about Marx and is unharmed.

To label all 'socialist' ideas as though they were the Marxian extreme is bad propaganda, but it works. Religious cooperation Socialism is not the Marxist extremist overthrow idea. Like anything else, there are extremists who get all the attention from those who want to prevent people from thinking.

3. Options.

With the publicity against anything socialist, and mis-associating socialists with Marxists, some say the choice has to be for the producers, the capitalists; and against the workers. Look at the placards at rallies. People virtually spit out "socialist" as the worst pejorative in the world. Yet many of those people may be Christian. Christian Socialist, even, if they were allowed to find out what it meant.

Why? Some need to have absolutes. Some panic at the idea that capitalism may not be wonderful after all, for all; or they need to side with capitalism because that is their bread and butter, regardless of its effect on other humana. Manipulate others into panicking. What? Challenge competitive business? Up go the crossed index fingers against the evil. Is it true that they have garnered support with emotional talk, not history and fact, so that Tea Parties accuse people of "socialism" as though it were some drooling vampire. Talk about propaganda. This is over the top.

See this modern, even Nazi view of socialism as this site relates it back to 1892 and the clash of Christian ideals and the effects of competitive business (to feat that is absurd) see ://rexcurry.net/pledgetragedy.html/ This person has a large ax to grind, and it is difficult to even read the site seriously. It is all agenda, all unilateral conclusion, no objective discussion. Keep looking.

4. History does not support that extremist view of all socialism.

Just as history does not support the extremist fundamentalist view of Christianinty as all "Christianity." Go back to history again to see how far off base extremist views are, how manipulative. Like it or not, there is a reasonable range of belief within categories. Is that so?

There are other sites, a blog that addresses issues of libertarianism and socialism and capitalism - and inconsistencies among them as the theories are followed through. The main point seems valid, however:

Conclusion.

Francis Bellamy, you have been maligned, as have other Christian Socialists.

People who knee-jerk against the word socialism have been carefully taught. Is there an insidious form of propaganda going on here, keeping you from vetting what you are told. Check the motives of the teacher. When the Roots of Belief are Propaganda. What then?

Wikipedia now has a site back up for Christian Socialists as an alternate track to the Marxists, but it is wrong wrong wrong.

Who has energy to fix it.

Wikipedia says that a fundamental tenet of socialism is "community of goods." That is only the Marxist view, not the Christian Socialists who seek only balance and responsibility, not an upset.

Who got at Wikipedia? If Wikipedia hides the true range of socialism, it is complicit in propaganda that says social responsibility means community of goods. Iis that so, Wikipedia?

The term "socialism" as in Christian Socialism is on one track, seeking cooperation between producers and workers so that Christian precepts can coexist with capitalism;
and then there is another track, the Marx track of overthrow and revolution and forced "equality".

Some would and do throw Marx around as though there is but one approach - revolution -- to looking out for workers, ascribing some responsibility to producers for how they produce, and the human cost. That kind of propaganda is more a danger to our democratic society than any idea of reaching out to workers, a self-interest rightly understood idea for the producers.

Some people, even Tea Party people, may be interested to know that a fully American approach to reconciling the ethics of Christianity with workers' conditions in capitalism may result in a responsive capitalism. That idea might satisfy Clergy and Producers alike. But not those drooly-joker-vampire websites.

But an American approach, with duties to all the people, cannot include control by corporations. Commercial corporations are legal entities whose obligation is to the bottom line. The shareholders. Not you, the consumer, the people. That would take a change of the corporate charter, to become a fiduciary. America already is a fiduciary nation.

Who woulda thunk it?

See An Act to Incorporate the United States as a National Fiduciary Corporation, Not Commercial. No common good. Keep the people away from realizing that their corporate handlers in secret, the ones who trump up the buses, are not acting in their interest at all. By law, they can't. They serve the shareholders, not you. Go, Francis Bellamy. Come back,

They have to force their own way, is that so? And it also works. People follow noise.

Edward Bernays: How To Regiment the Public Mind. The Unspoken Guide to Think Tanks.

2011-01-15T20:21:00.007-05:00

Manipulation of the Mind for Politics and Market.

All Sales.

Is there a need to educate for anti-manipulation?

I. Edward Bernays

A. Background

Edward Bernays is an advertising genius who dates from the early twentieth century, 1920's. Public Relations (read: public salesmanship) Genius. He is a brilliant contributor to a field that virtually governs our political process, but few know his name despite access to the information. Are we distracted from researching, his name underplayed, lest people read his material, and perhaps the think tanks will be neutralized.

If people know what methods manipulate them, they may (?) choose not to be manipulated, but to require facts before committing to a position. Edward Bernays. He is known as the father of spin. See http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1999Q2/bernays.html/

There is even a museum about him. See http://www.prmuseum.com/bernays/bernays_1915.html. He is the sales-opinion-changing savante, from whom all propaganda analysis springs (not a bad word in the 1920's, just a word for selling ideas and things, the sales talk techniques). Is that so? See his book, Propaganda, at http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/bernprop.html/. As a nephew of Sigmund Freud, he no doubt bumped into psychological and psychiatric concepts early.

B. Message.

1. Any one can be sold any thing. To that end, the public mind must be regimented.
Those with and in power must regiment the public mind in order to retain their position, just as the military regiments bodies. Bernays lays out just how to do it. His analyses are in use against us all today. See Timeline of Edward Bernays' Events and Work, Google. The science of ballyhoo, see Natural Pragmatism, Edward Bernays and the Science of Ballyhoo

Regiment the public mind. It is going on. See politicos and talk-jockeys use his advice. News columnists, email bombers, article-planters, tares among the wheat, is that so. One group of political operatives leaves the stage, another enters, does the same thing, and Bernays goes on forever. Consumers can be sold anyything, sellers' delight: http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/08/16/specials/bernays-selling.html. Repeat, deny, repeat, never debate, repeat, repeat.

2011 Update: Governor Jerry Brown of California also notes the mantra, the regimentation of the mind, there the Republican mind, see http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/us/politics/brown-says-california-gop-is-harder-to-work-with-decades-later.html?_r=1&ref=us

2. Any transmission of an idea or position is propaganda. Enjoy your evening "news".

Transmission of ideas and positions is, as Bernays says, propaganda. Listen to and watch the master, at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4612464

There is a publisher-owner's choice in media, of what to put out there, and how to put it. Media can transmit ideas and positions that in themselves constitute persuasion, not information: propaganda.
He who owns the media owns the people, is that so? The only defense of the people is to spot it, and that takes education, independent sources of information immediately available, update to http://sassafrasthicket.blogspot.com/2011/09/imprinted-consumer-adult-ed-meets-new.html.

C. Relevance today.

The techniques he spearheaded are now running our airwaves, is that so? Someone from the 1920's was so potent in his insights in commercial and ideological sales, into how our minds work, that his name seems to be suppressed. He was so influential that current users may well fear that ordinary people might read about him and learn to defend. Put a WikiSnoop into the political think tanks, the talking points bunkers, and up pops Bernays. Boo.
His approach is echoed in modern military-socio-economic persuasion lore: technologies of social control, see the Tactical Reality Dictionary at http://world-information.org/trd/dictionary. Edward Bernays himself is credited by name at, I believe it is, the detailed Introduction. Go to the home page and begin.

II. Technique Variation Today:

How to Regiment the Public Mind

Rhetorical Flypaper

The question or association context itself is a tactic,
a planting of a seed, so it stays put; not a request for information

The Rhetorical Flypaper is a technique of association, where asking the question, or making the association, suggests a position, a persuasive "yes" to that assocation. It blurs lines between what is descriptive, neutral, demonstrable or not; and what is directive, believe this about that.

Watch for prime-time Rhetorical Flypaper: where an association is laid out there, offering no facts to support the "connection" -- but the mere association in print or airwaves raises a question that, if not denied (nobody can deny what they cannot prove) it must be true.
Where were you born? Can you prove it? No? Then we say you were born on Mars.Then we are right, that you are from Mars.
Watch videos on Bernays' techniques, see

Associations that mislead. By the way a question is asked, or a statement made, the responder is put in a box -- the mere asking the question or making the association suggests its truth: and those in hearing distance are, by the form of the question, steered to the impression that the asker wants. "Will no one rid me of this _________________?"

Descriptive or directive hyperbole.
Descriptive: You have a right to open carry.
Directive: Use it. Send a veiled instruction to do the deed. See Vetting Roots: Killer. Change the Legislative Name, Mr. Speaker. Rhetorical Flypaper.

Bernays would applaud concept associations that mislead: Rhetorical Flypaper. Glenn Beck used it himself against others; then it was used against him.

Beck himself had extended a tribute to Edward Bernays, see http://www.glennbeck.com/content/tvshow/2011/01/who-is-edward-bernays/ FN 1

News is full of associations made with agenda. Shootings of politicians, masses. Arizona. Did Obama's rhetoric cause the shootings? Of course. The question is asked, the association is made, Obama does not go on TV to deny, so it must be true. Rhetorical Flypaper.

III. Read Bernays' Propaganda

The word then meant merely "marketing" or "sales" tactic

The Chapters in Propaganda

These are laid out online: Learn how to organize chaos, who are the new propagandists (tuck them in unawares), what is the psychology involved in persuading the public of something, a big one -- business and the public -- we have to get into that one; and propaganda combined with political leadership and women (!); uses of propaganda for education, and remember that propaganda was not a bad word, as it became after Germany's use of it; it meant just how to sell; propaganda in arts and science and for education, and the bottom line: propaganda's methods, its mechanics.

Effectiveness of Bernays' methods.

Bernays got women to smoke, because of his ads. Soon everybody was doing it.
Think tanks today use his tactics. Make claims as to an actor's motives. Study the group mind. Do focus groups. Attach electrodes to see what people like and don't like in proposed advertising, whether products or ideas.
Modify how it is presented to fit the group mind. Ah-h. The "people" relax and absorb.

Bernays died in 1995, at age 103. Regiment the public mind. He says smoke, and you smoke. Find his obituary at http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/bostonherald/access/20488203.html?dids=20488203:20488203&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Mar+10%2C+1995&author=&pub=Boston+Herald&desc=OBITUARY+Edward+Bernays%2C+103%2C+public+relations+pioneer&pqatl=google

............................................

FN 1

Rhetorical Flypaper straight out of Bernays' ideas on how to regiment the public mind: Death panels. Job-killing health care. As to that, just think: Whose jobs are out, and should they be; whose will open up with new opportunities? No matter. Distract from the real issues, and damn it all by a misleading and likely false association. If it were true, "job-killing", wouldn't people be given facts to support it? And the counterarguments? Make up an association, dare the other side to refute it, then declare it true because the other side did not provide its negative proofs. A twisted Rhetorical Flypaper.

We have tools for defense today, but they take time and research. And meanwhile, the impression is made and the position struck. Can ordinary people differentiate without immediate access to fact-checks, comparisons. Who will pay to educate the people, when an ignorant people serve the needs of the marketers. Bernays relied on people not differentiating.

Can any of us differentiate fast between rhetorical descriptive, rhetorical hyperbole to show conviction; as opposed to rhetorica; directive, rhetorical hyperbole suggesting specific action against specific people in specific ways, to an audience known to contain the vulnerable. Meanwhile, the imprint is made.

Technologies of social control are so sophisticated that ordinary people can have no effective defense. Antimanipulation should be a first choice in school curricula, and adult awareness.
.........................................................................

FN 2 Edward Bernays and his sales techniques that move populations has morphed into Psy Ops. See lecture series, this one on Propaganda, PR and PsyOps, at The Battle for Your Mind, presented by Kenneth Warren and John Guscott 2000, at http://www.lkwdpl.org/wildideas/propaganda.html/ See Studying Wars: Wars for the Mind. Technologies for Control

Then, uses of fake information leaflets, now the equivalent of leaflet bomblets on the net, see past uses of this venerable strategy of ballyoo in war, at http://www.psywar.org/

Lest one get depressed at the extremes now engulfing us, with the three-fold political-military-industrial complex loosed against ourselves, lighten up:

Ballyhoo may call you: *

Net by night, TV by day

Your head, it will not warn you:

Think this way; think this way.

Ballyhoo will whisper.

Non-logic guides. Desensitized.

Here am I, no will for thinking,

I follow thee. Thee thinks for me-e-e.

Think for me-e-e-e

... Think for me-e-e-e

... Think for me-e-e-e e-e-e-e

please?

(with thanks to South Pacific)

Hey! Who's there? Anybody home?

Max Ehrmann. Desiderata 1920; Gerperga 770 AD.

2011-01-11T20:09:00.007-05:00

Desiderata.
Seeking Calm and Affirmation in the Midst of Angst.

Desiderata, the Symbol in 1920,
Desiderata. the Person in 770 AD (wife of Charlemagne),
A/k/a Gerperga

Desiderata, for today, in a time of Glocks.

Desiderata - Gerperga

A Poem of Calm, Reassurance, Perspective

How does it express, as Gerperga?

1. The name of the poem by Max Ehrmann 1920.

Is the name, Desiderata, a choice inadvertent, or is it the stuff of invisible hands. Consider "Desiderata."

Desiderata is a poem by Max Ehrmann from 1920.

A desiderata is "something for which desire is felt." From the verb form, desiderare: To long for. See ://dictionary.reference.com/etymology/desiderata/. What is longed for in the poem. Peace of mind, common humanity.

Desiderata is also a historical figure, a real woman, in her own time of angst. Angst continues, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAH4klqLTXg

Desiderata was a daughter of the Lombard King Desiderius. The Lombards in Italy had been defeated in 751 by the Franks but remained a power bloc, and their lands surrounded the Papal States.
Charlemagne, who co-ruled with his brother, Carloman, married Desiderata in 771.
This alarmed Carloman and the Pope, who feared an alliance between Charlemagne and the Lombards.
In 771, however, Carloman mysteriously died, leaving Charlemagne in sole power (surprise). and Charlemagne had the year-old marriage annulled. Why? Why should the Pope do that?
Charlemagne then allied with the Pope and promised to protect the Papal lands. Aha.
Desiderata. A woman eclipsed as a person by her spouse, Charlemagne, and her times; and used as a tool in that marriage -- to further the political goals of Charlemagne, first to set the Lombards at ease; and ultimately to conquer them; and then to ally with the Pope with Carloman out of the way. Did Carloman die naturally? There is no evidence of foul play ....
At the outset, Charlemagne's alliance, first between the Frankish King Charlemagne and the Germanic Lombards then in Italy (Desiderata's father, Desiderius, was King of the Lombards), excluded his co-ruler brother, Carloman; and the Pope. Those two, as powerjockeys in their own right, were worried.
Charlemagne was on the move, and Desiderata was out. See Charlemagne Timeline at http://faculty.cua.edu/pennington/churchhistory220/lecturetwo/timelinecharlemagne.htm
The Lombards were a Germanic tribe that moved south from Sweden and over time slid into Italy. By the 6th Century, there were there and ruling vast territories. Lombard, Longobardi, long beards. http://www.hyw.com/books/history/Langobar.htm
And without family ties to the Lombards, Charlemagne moved againast them in the Wars of 774 (father in law Desiderius's group, with perhaps Desiderata in her father's court again at the time), saving the Pope. Charlemagne promised to continue to save the pope, and so he did. See Timeline.

Desiderata's father, betrayed

Desiderata. She had no children, and her fate is unknown. Some say she went back to Desiderius' Court, her father. And even her name is uncertain. It could be a scrivener's error in spelling; or other mixup.

Her real name may have been Gerperga. See summary site at http://www.geni.com/people/Desiderara-van-Langobarden/6000000006727892012

2. The author.

Max Ehrmann is a lawyer and Jewish, writing in a time of gathering clouds in Europe. Unremarkable in appearance, introspective, apparently wise, even a seer perhaps. He wrote a great deal, and few know his name. Like Desiderata, Desiree, Desideria, desideriata filiam, desired daughter, Gerperga, Max Ehrmann passed into history with a shrug.

Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, c.1920. He lived from 1872 to 194. Class of 1894, DePauw University. See lists of poems, essays, journals. Biography there at http://www.depauw.edu/library/archives/dpuinventories/ehrmann_max%20.htm A Jewish mystic. in his way? See commentary, chronology, at http://pretendthisiseasy.blogspot.com/2006/02/desiderata-by-max-ehrmann.html/

Instead of credit, a myth has spread that this astonishingly plain-speaking dates from the 1600's -- not so. It was published in 1920 at the beginning of that flapper era after World War I, a decade before the Great Crash, before the Third Reich would set out to kill people like him.

3. The Poem, As Gerperga, Revisited in her Year of Marriage to Charlemagne.

Is there any poem more reproduced, altered as to stanzas and phrasing, on more refrigerators?
http://www.fleurdelis.com/desiderata.htm Who holds the copyright? For a fresh reading, put it in the context of the real Desiderata, but with the name Gerperga. She seems more real that way.

The Angst. Desiderata in the Time of the first Desiderata, Gerperga 770-771 AD. Gerperga / Desiderata, daughter of King of Lombards in Italy, wife of Charlemagne 770. Marriage annulled by Charlemagne 771, Charlemagne 772 marches against the Saxons in northern Germany, and claims kingship over the Lombards in Italy 773, kills 4500 Saxon prisoners in 782, finally prevails over them 804, etc. What was her story, left out of his story.

GERPERGA

In her Year of Charlemagne

In the Court of Charlemagne 770 AD, the One Year of her Marriage, knowing how she is used; and fearing for the Lombards, and her father, King Desiderius of the Lombards

Gerperga goes placidly
Amid the noise and haste

And remembers what peace there may be
In silence,
Gerperga, Charlemagne's First Wife?

As far as possible, without surrender,
She aspires to good terms with all persons.

She speaks her truth quietly
And clearly;
And listens to others,
Even to the dull and the ignorant,
They too have their story.

She avoids loud and aggressive persons,
They are vexations
To the spirit.

Gerperga knows

If she compares herself with others,
She may become vain and bitter;
For always there will be greater
And lesser persons than herself.

There are always greater and lesser persons. Desiderata

She enjoys her achievements as well as her plans.
Keeps interested in her own career,
However humbled;
It is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Gerperga: Exercise caution in your business affairs,
For the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;

Many persons strive for high ideals,
And everywhere life is full of heroism.

Gerperga: Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,

For in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
It is perennial as the grass.

Gerperga, as you take your leave,

Take kindly to the counsel of the years,
Gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit
To shield you in sudden misfortune.

But do not distress yourself with imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
Be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
No less than the trees and the stars;
You have a right to be here.

Did Gerperga grieve? Was she supposed to?

And whether or not it is clear to you,
No doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
Whatever you conceive Him to be,

And whatever your labors
And aspirations,
In the noisy confusion of life,
Keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham,
Drudgery
And broken dreams,
It is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

............................................................

Sigge Fridulfson: Legend; or Sweden's Caucasus Connection? aka Sigge Fridulson (French source).

2010-12-25T16:45:00.023-05:00

Sigge Fridulfson. Sigge Fridulson (French archive).
Sigge Fridolfsson. Fridolphson (German). Fridulfsson.
And Variations.

First King of Sweden and other lands

Self-Proclaimed and Reigning Odin. The Caucasus in Swedish history.
A Greater Caesar?

The role of victor-written and victor-shaped records in historic perspectives later.

100 BC Migrants to the North, possibly 300AD+

whose descendants later returned

To their Caucasus homeland
and beyond as Viking traders -- and raiders.

Any less violent than other Vikings?

I. Overview

A. The identified man; the man as leader. Is there fact behind the legend.

Here we track a question: Is there a man behind the Odin who morphed into Nordic mythology. There is too much history to put everything in a curriculum for our children and ourselves, but some people and events deserve a more prominent place. Old stories hold that one Sigge Fridulfson became the first King of Sweden lands after leading his people from, was it the Caucasus, or the Don; and adopted the name Odin so the indigenous people would worship or at least accept him. Start with the Heimskringla, The Ynglinga Saga, Icelandic, see "the chief called Odin" at section 2 ff, and all he oversaw and did, sections 6-7 ff, including laws, at section 8, at ://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/heim/02ynglga.htm/.

Tales say that the chief was Sigge Fridulfson who took the name of the god Odin when he led his very bright group into the North from the Caucasus in about 100 BC, others say 200AD and later (300-450), and some track the group back to refugees from Troy, Thrace, and Jephtha son of Noah in the OT, and other ancestors of even Elvis, oh yes. Some, who obviously are joking claim as an ancestor the Norse Giantess nursed by the Cow at Creation, and who married Fridulph Sr. and gave birth to son of Fridulf or Sigge Fridulfson. Beware the genealogy sites if you are credulous.

The point is, however, that this Sigge was brilliant. He arguably surpassed Caesar in that all Caesar did was lead armies and take over existing politics. He made use of the tools already at his disposal, and brilliantly. Sigge Fridulfson was a leader of people on the move, having defended well against Caesar in the Caucasus frontiers, simply heading north instead of coping with them. Creative as well as an administrator, implementer; and if we take seriously his establishment of systems of adjudication and religion (his form of multi-deism lasted a thousand years, is that so?), he can be seen as inspirational as "incarnations" of other religious cultural concepts. Is that so? Maybe. Legend roots in fact. Caucasus origin of Swedes. What else.

Long footnotes are here: These roughly lay out our main sources so far, with excerpts.

B. Tracking back: The context of a migration: Who, from where, to where, and why

Rome had been getting bothersome, so Sigge and friends -- being advanced in arts and skills -- left, and after standing up well against them. The tactic of adopting the name worked. The Swedes of old considered themselves descended from Odin, as in a sense they were; and promptly left out any reference to Sigge Fridulfson. The story of Odin stuck, not the name of Sigge who used the name. Is that so? What corroborates that, or is all too lost in legend and mist.

C. Why Explore this particular legend? The man as leader

Brilliant. The equivalent of a Caesar, to install his sons on so many thrones as are claimed, to start Runes, to lay out wise laws, to be so canny as to take on the name of a god, Odin, so that worshipers of Odin in the North would follow him. That worked so well that people forgot who he, Sigge, was. Instead, they saw themselves as descended from Odin the god -- concepts blur. Set up laws, system of justice, runes, eloquent.

D. Sources of Information; Difficulties in the Fog

Summary: We are finding more sources daily, many from 19th Century historian sources when people had time to research myths and legends and history, as best they could, and people were interested: and who actually name this Sigge Fridulfson, or Sigge Fridulsson, or Sigge son of Fridulph or Sigge Fridulson. Others skip the step of Sigge adopting the deity's name, drop the given name, and adopt the version of the legend by which the ancient Swedes and others in the North simply consider themselves descended from the god Odin (Sigge took the name Odin to ease his way into hearts and minds).

II. Discussion

A. The man, the leader, the legend

Sigge Fridulfson is said in tales to have been the leader of the Asar peoples in their migration to the North, a group superior in ingenuity and in the arts as compared to other peoples north of the Roman areas.

Sigge Fridulfson is found in legend and corroborations; but remains a virtual unknown except to people on genealogical sites who claim him and repeat each other without verification sources. If this was a real person, he would be as great as Caesar, given what he accomplished. But without contemporary cultural linguistic professionals writing it all down, as Caesar had, Sigge got lost. Is that so? His Runes could not narrate with the same clarity as the Roman and Greek Alphabets.

Skills: administration, leadership, politics, laws. See FN 3-5

Nom d'homme. Adopting Odin's identity. Smart. What's your name? I am Odin. Odin? Bow down! Bow down! Like Ulysses: What is your name, asks Cyclops. I am No Man, answers Ulysses. And the Cyclops runs out, blinded, into the community, accusing No Man of the deed. Nom d'homme. Like politicians claiming to protect liberties, while pocketing billions from those who think they are protecting their "liberties" by giving anonymous sources money, and losing it to corporations all the while, is that so? Ageless. Tactics. Spin. Power. Deify by association. Propaganda tactic through the centuries.

We think we know that he adopted the nom de dieu du jour, Odin. Smart. If this was indeed one person's possible conscious personification of "Odin" so that legend of a person merged with the god, very smart If so, we should be paying attention to that man.

Deify by association. A propaganda technique Rove would be proud of. Inculcate by association. Odin and treatment of Odin in the Ynglinge Saga. Read this site slowly - at this site looking at verifying parts of the Ynglinga Saga, ://mshwan1.livejournal.com/1129.html/ This will take more time.

The Ynglinge Saga, and the Ynglinga kings -- treats Odin as a historical person, see ://idrisi.narod.ru/volvewitch.htm; and the chronology gets even more fogged with connecting him with a Prince of Troy. Legends. Mixed traditions. Return again.

B. The Context of an Ignored Migration

1. Who, Where, Why: The Asar People.

Asar, Aes: is that the spelling of Asa, the "Aes" we are looking for? Black Sea, Sea of Asov, largely matrilineal,
Sigge Fridulfson led the Asar, says our primary research site so far -- from 1844 -- The History of Sweden by Anders Fryxell. Fryxell claims that Sigge and group came from the Caucasus.

According to that old historian, Fryxell, Sigge and the Asars would not succumb to the Roman forces in 100 BC or so, but simply moved north, eventually to Sweden. Probably in disgust. More similarities with linguistics: Aes, Aesir, Asa, Asen, Aesgard, Asgard, Asaheim. Asar could mean Asian, and the location there gets more specific in Fryxell: the Caucasus. Asaland (Asia) or Aesir (a group of the gods, this one including Odin, another being the Vanir, and wars between the Aesir and the Vanir, etc)

Going further, the Asars are refugees from old Troy, landing and settling in Colchis, the Caucasus, says History of the Swedish People, ://www.osterholm.info/swedes.html/ Take a look. Then go back further, to Real Origins: Creation in the Norse view, see Origins, the Norse View: Who Were Odin's Parents? See the Sagas, Snorri, Icelandic by that time. These tales are interconnected.

The Aes: Other roots. Thrace.

Are these the same as the Asar as it is spelled in the Fryxell Swedish History?

We do find connections between a Thracian group known as the Aes, who are said to be ancestors of the Swedes. See http://www.osterholm.info/thracian.html / Romans called them Thirasians. This site takes the roots of Swedes farther back than most of us are ready for (Noah's son Japheth, ancestor of Indo-Europeans), but why not consider? And Trojan Aes. Is this tracking just nationalism or following reasonable dots? Slavs came later, the site says, in the 6th Century. And the Svear and Daner people in the Balkans, see http://www.osterholm.info/swedes.html/

The Caucasus

Population group: There is the Svaneti in the Caucasus, even now. There were other groups, but this looks closest in word roots. Find the Svaneti, in Svanetia, where the Svans live, a Geogeian population. Svans? Svedes? We are not scholars. Soanes to Szabo. A high, mountain-and-gorge area, conifers. Wikipedia says that the Svan language is unwritten, see ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svaneti/ That Wikipedia section on history only starts with 552 AD. Suomi - Finland.

Other similar roots --

Svenska. Sweden. See Svenska at ://www.yawiktionary.com/s/1148347501881.html There!

This area of the Caucasus. The old Colchis. Known as Suaneti, see Svaneti History at ://www.experiencefestival.com/svaneti_-_history/ Aeetes hung the Golden Fleece until Jason grabbed it, Medea, the Argonauts, Prometheus chained to the cliff with vultures eating his liver because he gave fire to mankind, Amazons as originating in Colchis -- references that could establish why the first sources we found reported the superiority of the group in arts and other ways.

To where

Sometimes it is best to go to an overview, like Wikipedia. Try Sigtuna, the area near Upsala where there are antiquities. There find people called "Asaland" people, and Sigtun, but no Sigge Fridulfson -- just the name of Odin as though the god himself was there, and not just a smart people-mover like Sigge. A man who called himself Odin for political purposes, if that is so, is a different kind of legend. Wikipedia needs help here, and we aren't in a position to give it except to point out issues. If scholars have considered the man Sigge and rejected any basis, we would like to know where that it. Look up "Fornsigtuna". Near old Uppsala, or Upsala. Near Stockholm.

C. The man as leader - qualities, skills

Fryxell: see FN 1, and FN 3-5 for lists of Sigge Fridulfson's accomplishments and other matters that people attributed to him, or to "Odin". Go to the site itself for the origin of the tax on every nose, nose tax, nose-tax, later erroneously attributed to the Danes in the 9th Century, and burial customs: who gets a mere cairn constructed over ashes; and who gets the "Bauta stones". See his introduction of Walhalla as the place where the brave would join him in the hereafter, and denigration of the "straw-death". The dreaded straw death. Don't die in bed. Get out there and do it yourself (your own personal death panel, no-one forcing you, and no need even for a panel even if you participate on the panel with your instructions) or get it done in battle. He will reappear to you in sleep, and if you get victory or death, both equal. Just not the straw-bed. Find his ability to place sons on thrones, be the stuff of legend. Did he originate Runes? Probably not, probably that took centuries, but that takes looking at specific rune sources. for another day. For now, still looking for the sources that Fryxell used. That means learning Swedish.

D. Sources, Difficulties

We are looking for sources older than this.
What sources before the 19th Century are there?

1. Source: The History of Sweden by Anders Fryxell. This comes in 3 volumes: early to 1060 or so (heathen, say those who use "Christianity" as the Measure of Superiority and all else is Inferoior, or panoply deism, or multi-deism say we), middle 1060-1520 or so (Catholic) and later 1520-present. (Lutheran) Fryxell was a scholar and historian in Stockholm. Read his description at History of Sweden beginning at page 9 of the site for Sigge as a named leader, and the pages before and after for context and story. Oldest recorded we see so far (we speak no Swedish) --

See The History of Sweden from 1844 ata free download, New York Public Library, at http://www.archive.org/details/historysweden01fryxgoog; or at this site, that oddly we can only access by a search for King Inge the Younger History of Sweden. Why is that? Google won't produce results for Sigge Frudulfson directly, in its own google book presentation, unless you look for King Inge? Find out at
://books.google.com/books?id=6B4CAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA179&lpg=PA179&dq=King+Inge+the+Younger+history+sweden&source=bl&ots=t64vHslLvP&sig=199mBuRmbUUdxXLJ5_0hQy6uCfI&hl=en&ei=6dkUTerYNsP48AbRyJipDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDgQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false/

Because we could not access that site except sideways (with a search for later kings, Kings Inge Elder and Younger), we reproduce the Sigge Fridulfson portion here. See FN 1.

Details at FN 1

What were Fryxell's sources for old stories? Older written stories? That would take a Swedish linguist. Please to to Stockholm and find out.

2. Source: Next oldest: French archive. Archive des missions scientifique et litteraire, by France's Commission of the same name, fair use from page 82: In summary it is stated: that (we are paraphrasing here, see FN 2)

from greatest antiquity,
travelers and merchants
came from the Caucasus up the Volga and Dnieper,
to mix with northern peoples, that
they (Goths and Swedes, is that it?) drove back the Lapps or other unknowns in the north, and
came to establish themselves in the middle of the peninsula; and
later, about a century before Jesus Christ, the Adzes,
from the Gothic race, came to their former compatriots who accepted them with benevolence; \
their chief was Sigge Fridulfson,
which took the name of Odin and
based on the edges of Lake Maelar
the town of Sigtuna, religious and royal metropolis for worship and government that he wanted to establish.

3. Source: German 1867 - Meyer's Neues Konversations - Lexikon: ein Worterbuch des allgemeinen ... by Hermann Julius Meyer. This was an encyclopedia, later merged with another.

We cannot yet translate, but the name Sigge Fridulsson (Fridulfson?) is mentioned in connection with Sigtuna, at ://books.google.com/books?id=xyNCAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA582&lpg=PA582&dq=sigge+fridulsson&source=bl&ots=IZWvC88lS3&sig=hExWGSV-SmYBdyMZlSIQY0Px8q8&hl=en&ei=Os0XTbWKFsSp8Aa8kb36DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=sigge%20fridulsson&f=false

4. Source -- Further 19th Century : Outlines of Universal History: In three parts; with a copious index to each. By Joseph J. Reid. See FN 4 -- just found. Look at the detail here about Sigge Fridulsson. Amazing. Not picked up anywhere else, just slogging through search and search, and finally just honing in on Sigtuna, the place near Upsala where he hunkered down. Better than Caesar, this one.

We put in at FN 4 a fair use quotation from the larger work, the entire book, to show in this small part how influential this Sigge Fridulfson was and should be still.

5. Source -- Yet another 19th Century: See FN 5 for The Westminster Review, 1845, Vols 43-33 at pages 190, 192, 197 ff -- ://books.google.com/books?id=RT6gAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA192&lpg=RA1-PA192&dq=sigge+fridulfson&source=bl&ots=uzhCSK1aGu&sig=jbz8dhXAISEIXqG08Ry9GryXP3I&hl=en&ei=Q48YTcvdNsqr8AaBp6z-DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=sigge%20fridulfson&f=false

The section on Scandinavia begins at page 185. Sources cited: from 1822 and 1844 at page 185.

Copyright. Sources needed for analysis. Here, we use the limited but lots approach. Fair use for analytical purposes, not claiming them as one's own creation. Changes in form to assist the analysis. For example, The more we read, the less Caesar becomes. All you did, Julius, was use the tools already available to you, including written narrative capability beyond the Rune. What did you invent, do, that was new? We need to be able to refer to sources to test ideas like that.

6. Source: History of the Swedish People, online at ://www.osterholm.info/swedes.html/

7. Difficulties with Sources

Difficulties with Linguistics.

Sigge Fridulfson, also known as Sigge Fridulson, Fridulph's son, or the double s -sson, or -en. There are many other variations possible depending on the language root appearing. Spellings not consistent at all, since Runes were the recording and divining tools of Sigge; still, not a good ongoing narrative tool; and the Roman Empire recorded its matters its way, when it chose to do so; and omitted what is inconvenient.

Word similarities: As to geographical connections, cultural connections, there are similarities between the Indo-European root, even Sanskrit, and the Norse. For this so far we only have looked at the etymology section of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86sir/ That last is the way to get in AEsir when the AE are joined, is that so?

Difficulties with Tracking a name

Continue to run into the roadblock of spellings. This name may be elsewhere, but spelled differently. We are just starting here. Who was Sigge Fridulfson. In a German site, find Son of Fridulph from era 70 BC. Again dates flummox. See 1867 Source at FN 3, at the "Scandinavia" section of that early work. There, find that Sigge "distinguished himself" against the Romans - not merely being pushed along with his little band of sad refugees. That would put him in the earlier end of our broad time frame, not in the 300's or later. How to reconcile.

Fridulph's son. Fridulf's son. See FN 3 - we put in the full quotation there as fair use of a very large work, shows why he have a surname Fridulfson. Fridulph's son. Fridulfsson. Etc.

But is it still fair to ask, isn't that a naming form later, to signify a father as being Fridul? If the group was from the Caucasus and matrilineal, as may be, would then Frid in the early millennium be female, the mother.

Look up Fridul: perhaps that is found in the Bahai, but if this combination of syllables is related to Islam, then it is too much later than the Sigge Fridulfson we are trying to find. See ://bahaistudies.net/bahaiworks/promiseofallages027828mbp.pdf

Fridulf, Fridolf, etc. Freydolf, Friedulf, now Fridulph.

Fridolf, as a baby name, means peaceful wolf, with old English origins, says ://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/1/Fridolf/ Old English: Think roots in the Saxon, Angle invaders. Germanic, connections to the countries further north, but Charlemagne could not cross the line north. Look up Caucasus history: at http://armenianhouse.org/villari/caucasus/caucasus-history.html/ Nothing we see.

Here, did the name of Sigge Fridulfson become detached from recorded tales because
a) it has no significant basis; or
b) such an illustrious figure contradicts the dogma of the day; and/or
c) adopting the ame of a god, Odin, predictably eclipsed the real name of a man.

What is the nom d'homme when compared with a nom de dieu. An illustrious adversary, who got away, makes the claim to greatness of the ones in power, less great. A common western flaw: the systemic de-emphasis of people with superior qualities in performance, but who are not in the "destined" glory line of fixed attributes. All Rome is superior. All non-Romans are inferior. If the inferiors prevail, hide it.

Fri means "peace" in the old high German, for example. See a 2003child-naming tome by a Teresa Norman, mythological references included at ://books.google.com/books?id=uSAlLaV6JIEC&pg=PA189&lpg=PA189&dq=frieda+mythology&source=bl&ots=9vZiUvwpTa&sig=WGsxy5tCS1G3s9gQCWmzuBYa0dc&hl=en&ei=yOoWTdKQL4WdlgejtbXsAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&sqi=2&ved=0CEwQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=frieda%20mythology&f=false

Ul as son, or kin. or offspring appears at the initial search blurb for the Caucasus Foundation, at http://www.kafkas.org.tr/english/analiz/karacaylarin%20tarihi2.html in a search for caucasus mythology frid ul, but with the click I could not find the ul definition. In Turkic, ul means water, see ://russiatrek.org/barnaul-city/name_origin/ so that Barnaul, the place, would mean wolf river; and Fridul would mean something else river (Frid what?) but we could find that little ul root in many places probably. With time, look up obscure language roots in names at another baby-naming site, ://www.mybaby.net.au/baby-name-full-detail/frid/43564/1/

Fred. Came by water.

Difficulties with Slanted recorders; absence of recorders; oral tradition morphs (so does the writte

This is a broader topic than Sigge Fridulfson himself: What happens to names and events that are transmitted by oral tradition when the stories are finally recorded, but by others with an agenda. Oral tradition: Not necessarily unreliable, but it is easier to blur identities, stories, roots, with no written record or interpretation at all. Or is it more reliable because people depend on it for their cultural identity, and the burden to pass it on unscathed is there.

When the recorder is biased, what reliability is there. Is there such thing as objectivity from those who consider themselves superior. Is there much twisting for power purposes, in antiquity as well as now, to shape perception of victor and victim, or to use highly colored words to dismiss a worthy adversary out of hand.

Osterholm site: Osterholm does not mention Sigge, as far as we see so far. Is that significant? What old stories do they leave out and why? At least mention the name and then discredit it if you must, but deal with it. Leaving it out leaves us wondering what else is not dealt with.

3. Fast forward to people's genealogy sites online. Details as FN 3

These cite only "the old stories" and repeating each other in their haste to show actual bloodline to Sigge Fridulsson (two s's). Some spell it as Fridulson. What old stories? Where? Show us the Swedish and we can do a rough translation.

Genealogy sites: A morass of mutual back-scratching. See one summarized at FN 3.

The main Sigge fan club: people doing their own genealogies and repeating each other in touting Sigge back there.: A search for Sigge in those sites is fun, but the claimants leave no trail. What is the source other than "the old stories." Their accounts of the birthdate for Sigge are several hundred years "off" (several hundred years later) from those of the 1844 Fryxell The History of Sweden, see below. Who is right? We tend to trust the published historian. Even see somebody who claims Elvis as a descendant. Is that necessary?

Clues in Sagas.

Put Saga and culture together. Theory presented: The Aes (Asar, Asa, Asgard) and the Vanir people as well-- and find the idea that Odin or its similar sounding equivalent (research the Caucasus?) itself may be a "hereditary title" for King among those people; concept brought North. Sigge: emerging as a real person perhaps, but with a particular rank, a title, that coincided with concepts in the North and the title superseded the name. And time's fog then took over. Follow the rewriting of tales to suit the teller at this site that has an agenda, ://idrisi.narod.ru/volvewitch.htm/ People who call Charlemagne "the Vatican's warlord" as occurs there may differ substantially in world view from traditional we-are-chosen Christians, but read the site anyway. Opposing fervors can lead to new vieiwpoints.

Sigge Fridulfson -- where did the name come from anyway? The Caucasus would not have had the same naming culture of son of or daughter of, would it? Legend of Sigge Fridulfson. Too bad it has a contemporary less serious sound -- Ziggy Fridulson. Nerd. Ziggy. Cartoon. Anybody named Sigmund: dear Ziggy. Oh, dear. But the point remains: a name defines a person. Drop the name, and the role merges more easily into the desired cubbyholes of the teller. Tracking legend. Do multiple viewpoints ever converge.

...........................................................................

FN 1 FRYXELL - HISTORY OF SWEDEN - Fridulfson

We first found Sigge Fridulfson in an 1844 volume that includes three eras of Swedish history, beginning with the pre-Christian, and 100 BC group; then the Catholic beginning in 1061, and then the Lutheran after 1521 or so. But we could only access it indirectly: with an earlier search for later Kings, named Inge. Try a search for Sigge Fridulfson directly, even though he is discussed in the book, and we get nothing.

You try. See The History of Sweden by Anders Fryxell, a scholar and historian in Stockholm, at page 9 for Sigge named, and pages before and after for context and story. See
http://books.google.com/books?id=6B4CAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA179&lpg=PA179&dq=King+Inge+the+Younger+history+sweden&source=bl&ots=t64vHslLvP&sig=199mBuRmbUUdxXLJ5_0hQy6uCfI&hl=en&ei=6dkUTerYNsP48AbRyJipDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDgQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false/

Because we cannot access that earliest era by a search for Sigge Fridulfson directly, this should be fair use to guide others; Chapter I discusses pre-Christian Sweden, a wild land, inhabitants wandering, hunting, small huts half beneath ground, no known regular government or any kings names, gods Odin and Thor worshiped. Greeks called this area "Thule". Romans called it "Scandinavia".

Fair use portion of Chapter II of this volume that does not come up with a search for Sigge Fridulfson, even though he is named. We have split the phrasing into numerated paragraphs to make the reading easier, but the wording not changed. Tell us when Sigge is made part of a regular google search on its own.

Meanwhile, fair use, portion of Chapter II, History of Sweden by Anders Fryxell, 1844. Paragraphing changed, numbering added for concepts. From:

"CHAPTER II [fair use portion, paragraphing and numbering added]
ODIN'S ARRIVAL IN SWEDEN.

(separating out the sentences, making paragraphs, because each idea is important to us)

1. About a century before the birth of Christ, in a region to the north-east of the Black Sea, lived a people called the Asar, the name of whose chief was Sigge Fridulfson.

2. The Romans, at that time had subdued all the neighbouring nations, leaving the Asar no peace, when Sigge resolved to emigrate with his people to a new country further north.

3. The Asar at this time were more ingenious, and further advanced in all the arts than the rest of the northern nations.

4, Sigge, in particular, was remarkable for wisdom and prudence. He knew that Odin was worshipped by all the northern lands; he therefore commenced his wanderings with much solemnity, declaring himself to be Odin, and his chiefs the other Gods.

5. Thus he past through many countries, as Russia, Saxony and Westphalia, placing his sons everywhere as Kings. He stopped some time in Denmark, on the Island of Fyen, and founded there the town called Odinsee, bearing his name; but learning that there were large fruitful tracts to the north in Sweden, he left Denmark to his son Skold, who built a town called Leire in Seland, where his descendants reigned long under the name of Skoldungar.

6. Odin himself sailed up to Sweden, in which, at that time, reigned a King called Gylfe, the first whom history mentions. He received Odin with sacred honours, and opened his kingdom to him.

7. Odin proceeded to found a town on Lake Malar, which he called after his own name Sigtuna, or Sigge's Home. He made his own residence, and founded a temple there; but divided the neighbouring country among his chiefs whom he appointed to preside at the sacrifices, and to assist him in the administration of justice; these chiefs were termed Diar, and looked upon as Gods ; but Odin was considered as chief of all.

8. [original paragraph here] He was possessed of a handsome and majestic mien ; and when he sat at a feast with his friends, his presence gladdened all; but to his enemies he was cruel and terrific.

9. His eloquence was such, that whatever he said was alone thought to be true.

10. He introduced the art of poetry into the north, and was the first who there used the art of writing.

11. His letters were called Runor, and were carved in wood; the people believed he could work charms with them.

12. It is said that he understood another species of sorcery, called Seid, so that with a few syllables he could extinguish fire, quiet the sea, and change the wind.

13. He could even let his body he as dead, while his soul in the shape of a bird, a fish or some other animal, carried his messages all round the earth.

14. He had a ship called Skidbladner which could be folded together like a sheet of paper, and had fair wind in whatever direction he pleased, which probably signifies that he was the first in the North who used sails, and understood tacking in contrary wind.

[see http://www.osterholm.info/swedes.html, ancestral roots in Trojans]

15. His men rushed forward in combat with great strength and impetuosity, using no defensive armour, whence they were called Berserks, or Mail-less, and such an attack was called Berserkagang.

...................................................................................................

FN 2 FRENCH ARCHIVE - Fridulson, not Fridulfson. The missing f.

Go a google search for Sigge Fridulfson, and there is no mention of the first google book, the History of Sweden, but find instead a somewhat later but still old French text from something called Archive des missions scientifique et litteraire, by France's Commission of the same name, fair use from page 82: but there it is Sigge Fridulson

Internet translator translation: at/://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_txt/ Enough to figure out the gist --

"All this qu' one knows, c' is qu' with deepest the d' a disproportionate antiquity, travellers and merchants come from the Caucasus went up the Volga and Dnieper to come to adulterate with the people of North; that them (îoths and the Swedes, driving back the Lapps (or another unknown race) in north, came s' to establish in midday of the peninsula; that later, and approximately a sjècle before J.C., the Adzes, from Gothic race, came s' to establish in the middle of their former compatriots, who accepted them with benevolence: their chief was Sigge Fridulson, which took the name d' Odin and based on the edges of Maelar the town of Sigtuna, religious and royal metropolis of the worship and the government qu' he wanted to establish."

Here is the French:

"Tout ce qu'on sait, c'est qu'au plus profond d'une antiquité démesurée, des voyageurs et des marchands venus du Caucase ont remonté le Volga et le Dnieper pour venir trafiquer avec les peuples du Nord; que les (îoths et les Suédois, refoulant les Lapons (ou une autre race inconnue) au nord, vinrent s'établir dans le midi de la péninsule; que plus tard, et environ un sjècle avant J. C., les Ases, de race gothique, vinrent s'établir au milieu de leurs anciens compatriotes, qui les reçurent avec bienveillance : leur chef était Sigge Fridulson, qui prit le nom d'Odin et fonda sur les bords du Maelar la ville de Sigtuna, métropole religieuse et royale du culte et du gouvernement qu'il voulait établir."

So: we are still left --

Sigge is well hidden. Why? Is it because there is no evidence? Then where did the name itself come from.

Unearth him, and see if you find him Caesar's equal, if not surpassing him. Sigge: originator of the Runes, leader of people, establisher of sub-kingdoms loyal to him, eloquent, wise, maker of wise laws, prudent and propaganda specialist: if people worship Odin, call yourself Odin and they will believe. Enough apparently did. A precursor of Fox.

............................................................

FN 3. GERMAN source

............................................................
FN 4 Outlines of Universal History: In three parts; with a copious index to each. 1867 or so. By Joseph J. Reid.

Outlines of Universal History 1867 at ://books.google.com/books?pg=PA127&lpg=PA127&dq=sigtuna%20history%20sigge&sig=dVK716GGJivhowodPnYAtXNsRR8&ei=3dgXTZ6xIIWdlgemtbXsAg&ct=result&sqi=2&id=St8-AAAAYAAJ&ots=Hk8WGyuWEl&output=text

Look at the creation of the Runes, the wisdom and power of the man. Caesar, meet your match. Is that so?

Extended use of a separated-out quote but fair use given the size of the original, and the limited use of it in the main body here where we rely on other sources: We also are changing the format, dividing this passage into sentences, concepts, and lettering them for easy reference later. New names to search:

a. Reign of Grylle, east of the Don, near the Black Sea [same as Caucasus now or not? maybe not], time of Sigge setting out 70 BC according to this account
e. Reign of Gylfi, in Sweden, when Sigge arrived
f. Yngvi, son of Sigge, honored by Swedes in welcoming Sigge. See also y and z paragraphs
h. Odin as chief deity of the Scythians
n. Empire 50 BC
q. Invented the Runes, a 16-letter FUTHARK
cc. Saxons paid annual tribute to successor king in Denmark, son of Sigge, Skjold. Descendants of Skjold: Skjoldungians, para dd.

Section 1 -- our division for convenience only, to highlight the factual chronology laid out and make a comparison easier with other sources

"a. In the reign of Grylle (about B. C. 70), Sigge, the son of Fridulph, who had distinguished himself against the Romans in his country east of the Tan'a'is (or Don), near the Black Sea,

b. set out with his chief priests and a vast concourse of followers for the West.

c. Leaving his brothers to rule at Asgard, the capital of his ancestors, he traversed Russia, and entered Saxland (the southern shore of the Baltic), subduing all nations as he passed.

d. He then crossed the Baltic, and passed into the island of Funen, where he built a city, named after himself, Odensee [contemporary Odense, Denmark]. He next subdued Denmark and Sweden.

e. In the latter country reigned a prince, named Gylfi, who was so struck with admiration for him, that he paid him divine honors.

f. The Swedes came in crowds to do him homage, and, by common consent, bestowed the regal title and office upon his son, Yngve, and his posterity.

g. Sigge fixed his abode near Lake Logur (the Maelar Sea), and erected a splendid temple at Sigtuna for the new religion which he introduced, and which rapidly spread.

h. He either assumed the name of Odin, the supreme deity of the Scythians, probably giving himself out as the same personage as the ancient Odin ;

i. or, pretending to be the prophet or priest of that deity,

j. the ignorance of succeeding ages confounded him with the god, thus producing, out of the attributes of the one and the history of the other, a medley, out of which nothing very certain can be extracted.

k. He introduced new laws, also the customs of his own country, and established a supreme council or tribunal, composed of twelve pontiffs or judges,

l. whose duties were to watch over the public weal, to distribute justice, to preside over the new worship, and to preserve the religious and magical secrets which he intrusted (sic) to them.

m. This council held its sittings at Sigtuna (a city now destroyed, situate in the same province with Stockholm).

n. Odin was acknowledged as a sovereign and a god by all the petty princes of Sweden and Denmark, and firmly established his empire (B. C. 50), adding Norway to it, and bestowing the crown of that country on his son,

o. Seeming, whose descendents (sic) reigned for many generations. Odin, finding his end approaching through a lingering disease, put himself to death by giving himself nine wounds in the form of a circle with the point of a lance, in the presence of his friends, saying that he was going to join the gods in Asgard, where he would receive with honor all who should die bravely in battle.

p. His body was solemnly burnt at Sigtuna, conformably to a custom introduced by him.

q. He was a poet and a musician, and is said to have invented the Runic characters. This alphabet consisted of sixteen letters, arranged as follows: F, U, D (or TH), 0, R, K, H, N, I, A, S, T, B, L, M, V.

r. These Runes were distinguished at first as of four kinds, namely, bitter, favorable, victorious, and medicinal. The bitter were used to bring evil on enemies; the favorable, to avert misfortune ; the victorious, to procure conquest; the medicinal, to heal, to prevent shipwreck, to counteract poison, and to win a woman's love. They were written sometimes from right to left, sometimes from top to bottom and back again. The student will find an interesting account of the Runic alphabet in Bishop Percy's translation of Mallet's Northern Antiquities.

s. A summary of the religious doctrines which prevailed in the north of Europe has been already given in the columns devoted to Germany (pp. 48, 53, 57, 61).

Section 2 -- our section division for convenience only. Find here the 1867 authors' commentary, weight of contribution of Sigge Fridulfson

t. That a great leader, bearing the name of Odin, really achieved what is related of him in Sweden and Denmark, is tolerably certain.

u. Many marvellous exploits are said to have been accomplished by him through his skill in magic; but allowing for this belief, so natural among a barbarous people, it is clear that his superior intelligence and knowledge enabled him to overrun a vast tract of country, extending from the Don to the Northern Ocean, and to found a new religion, which endured for centuries, and prevailed among the northern German and the Scandinavian tribes so late as the 12th century A. D.

v. Some learned men have supposed him to have been also the founder of that system of hostile aggression on the Roman empire, which burst forth with such fury in the 2d, 3d, and 4th centuries A. C.

w. They suppose him to have been actuated mainly by hatred of the Romans, who had driven him out of his own country; and that his principal object in invading so many distant kingdoms, and there establishing his sanguinary doctrines, was to rouse the inhabitants of all nations against the Roman empire.

x. But there is no historical evidence of his having had such a design. Whatever may have been his ruling principle, he was a man who left a deep impression on his fellow-men, and became their guiding spirit for ages, as Zoroaster, Confucius, Budha, and Mohammed have done.

Section 3 -- our division for convenience in reference only, about the chronology after the death of Sigge Fridulfson

y. On the death of Odin his authority descended to his sons. Njord became the supreme chief; Balder became viceroy of the Angles; Heimdall, ruler of Scania; Skjold, ruler in Zealand and Denmark;

z. Frey (or Yngve Frey) became king of Sweden. From him sprang the dynasty of the Ynglings, the last king of which, being the 21st in descent from Frey, was Ingialld Illradi, who reigned in the beginning of the 7th century.

aa. These heroes were deified along with Odin's other children, Thor, Frigga, and Tyr.

bb. Njiird [who is Njiird? don't say it precursor of Nerd? get serious] died B. C. 20, and was succeeded by his son, Freyer Yngve, during whose reigns profound peace existed.

cc. In Denmark, Skjold greatly enlarged his dominions by subduing the Saxons, whom he subjected to an annual tribute. He was possessed of enormous strength and indomitable courage. He died B. C. 40, and was succeeded by Friedlief I., of whom we have nothing worthy of record. After a reign of 17 years he died, leaving his kingdom to Frode I., who enjoyed the reputation of unrivalled prowess as a warrior.

dd. It is said in Danish tradition that Frode [Frodo!] carried his victorious arms into Sweden, Germany, England, and Ireland. These expeditions were probahly (sic) nothing more than piratical incursions along the coasts of those countries. He compiled a civil and a military code of laws, of which he strictly enforced the observance. The descendents of Skjold (a Danish word, signifying "a shield",) were called, after him, Skjoldungians.

.... ****

We stopped there.

......................................................

FN 5 - The Westminster Review, 1845, Vols 43-33 at pages 190, 192, 197 ff -- ://books.google.com/books?id=RT6gAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA192&lpg=RA1-PA192&dq=sigge+fridulfson&source=bl&ots=uzhCSK1aGu&sig=jbz8dhXAISEIXqG08Ry9GryXP3I&hl=en&ei=Q48YTcvdNsqr8AaBp6z-DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=sigge%20fridulfson&f=false

Count Graberg de Hamso, scholar, antiquarian, vice-consul, literary gentleman. The section on Scandinavia begins at page 185. Sources cited: from 1822 and 1844 at page 185.

From page 190 ff (Summarizing and some quotes as shown. Concepts instead are bulleted)

This entire Footnote 5 is a preliminary series of notes and separated sections for purposes of going back and comparing more accurately the differences in the 19th Century sites. The quotation marks are not always consistent, but reflect a fast way to abbreviate and move along. A work in progress, and also designed to show how much information we just don't have time to put in our schools any more. Surely, however, the idea of an incarnation of deity, such as Sigge Fridulfson may have been "seen as" is worthy of a look, just as other religions have their "incarnations" -- who is to say. Thou sayest. What does that mean? That thee indeed said it, or that it is so.

SUSPEND ACCURACY HERE IN WHAT IS A QUOTE AND WHAT IS NOT -- GO BACK TO THE ORIGINAL PLEASE.

When did Odin or Wodan, Sigge Fridulfson, moved into Scandinavia with his colonists. Sagas disagree. Greek and Roman writers of the 5-6th Centuries give little information, and Danish and Swedish sources as to any emigration of Goths coming north -- not much. The dates differ by as much as 500 years. Snorro Sturleson (Snorri in other sources) gives much truth to the Sagas amid the fable, so does Torfceus, and so doubt the existence of Sigge who is not featured in them.
Count Graberg concludes that the Huns drove the Alani, a Gothic tribe, away from the Don and Volga Rivers, toward the Baltic.

"Ammian Marcellinus speaks of a certain Athanaric, King of the Visigoths, or Goths established in the neighbourhood of the Euxine, who with a considerable body of men fled northward before the invading Huns, and took refuge in these countries. They were aware that a party of Alani, with whom they were connected by blood, had taken that course, and it seems not improbable that they followed their footsteps."

Count Graberg believes these to be the same as the Odin-Wodan-Sigge group. He may even be Athanaric himself, or Alan as the name is also known, or at least, a "distinguished follower." Graberg notes that "the ancient Scandinavian histories all speak of their ancestors as a people established near the mouth of the Tanais, which they call Vana Quislar, where stood the ancient city of Asgard, most clearly the Aspurg of Strabo, the Tana of the middle ages, and the Azof of the present day."

More quotes: "The northern Chronicles mention that the same Sigge, in his passage northward, built on the lake of Ilmen a city which he called Asgard, or city of the Ases (doubtless after his native capital), where he established his son Sigurlam at the head of affairs."

Migration was 4th Century according to these: Russian connection early. Graberg notes that the city of Novogorod, Nougard, like other places such as Holmgard and Gardarike, are Scandinavian names of Russia, and are probably all Gothic-origin words. Tradition says these were established by Sigge. This movement took place towards the end of the fourth century, and 500 years later, the Novogorodians needed a prince who was descended from Sigge (the dynasty of "Sigurlam" had become extinct) and so sent into Scandinavia for one, who would be thus allied by blood to their own rulers. Accordingly, one Rurik established there the Russian monarchy.

Sigge: How did Sigge secure areas he conquered. Sigge "established his sons in the different countries through which he passed.: He then fixed himself in Scandinavia.
How many were in his group. It is not clear. Check the "Edda" and find there a tradition that suggests that, but other chronicles speak of Sigge's "Diar" or subordinate chiefs. This concept would include persons skilled in poetry and scientific lore, more than as warriors or heroes.
Sigge's qualities, character
"Sigge himself is universally represented as a man of extraordinary genius, commanding eloquence, and most persuasive powers. He seems to have gained such an ascendant over the minds of all the people with whom he came in contact, that it is not to be wondered at, if in those dark ages he acquired the reputation of being something more than human, and gave rise to the most exaggerated and fabulous reports."

" A transcendant genius," says Count Graberg, " who finds his advantage in playing the impostor in order to awe mankind, and wholiolds in his hands arms of all sorts, may make a simple, ignorant, and credulous people believe anything. It is enough to cast a glance over the life of the founder of Islamism, as well as those of the warrior legislators of antiquity and the middle ages, not to find anything extravagant in the relation of the Sagas on the subject of the prodigies performed by Odin, even the greatest men sometimes employ like means to arrive at the ends they propose themselves—fortunate, if the effects correspond as completely with their conceptions and hopes, as the reforms of Sigge in Scandinavia were crowned with success."

Back to when did Sigge arrive in Sweden: Not before or during the time of Pompey, because Caesar and Tacitus both say no Asiatic colony penetrated north Europe. And there is an interval between Caesar and Tacitus. That puts the movement not before 370 AD. There was open communication between the Roman Empire and the north (never conquered, also Germania was never made part of the Roman Empire), and the Baltic amber trade was still prospering. The outer limit would be the 5th Century. By then, the Yngve Dynasty ruled Sweden; the Skiold ruled Denmark; and the Begdeg and Boldeg, sons of Sigge, ruled Saxony.

Corroboration: Chronicles: 6th Century. The Saxon and English chronicles corroborate. Do a calculation of average lengths of reigns of Odin-Sigge's succcessors, and note that Sigge was also a Vice-King of the Angles, the Anglo-Saxon Kings derived their pedigree from Odin.

Then: see the religion connection that we seem to have forgotten -- title of King, and proximity to a Deity idea

"Count Bjornstjerna, in his ' Theogony, .Philosophy, and Cosmogony of the Hindus,' takes the same view of Odin and Sigge Fridulfson as his countryman Count Graberg. " Odin, Wodin, Wodh, Bodh, were the names of the founders of the religion, not that of the personage who carried it to our coasts —the latter was, as we suppose, Sigge Fridulfson," he says. We cannot, however, agree with his derivation of the word Odin. Odin, he truly observes^ was pronounced in the older Saxon dialect Wodan. "In and An are terminations; the root is Od and Wod," he goes on to say. From this we must demur. We are quite satisfied that Odin was a generic title, given to many distinguished persons both in the east and in the countries where eastern modes of expression were adopted. But we have not the slightest hesitation in saying that O and Wo arc prefixes—dan or din the roots. Every Hebrew and Arabic scholar will, we doubt not, agree with us in such an assertion. Dan (br), or Din (b''']), from the root Dun (ban), see Gen. xlix., 16, implies the legislative character of a ruler. The same exists in the Arabic and Chaldaic, and we find don in the same sense in the old Punic. It forms a part of the name of many princes and rulers in the Oriental languages, and frequently in that of the Assyrian kings. We shall take Sardanapalus as an instance, and analyse its component syllables. Sardanapalus, or as sometimes written, Asardanapalus, with the a prefixed, as is common in these cognate languages, consists of three words, Sar, or Asar, Dan, and pal, with the Greek termination us. In like manner the O in Odin is a prefix to the original word Bin. Sar from "nx. fTvij or Tnin. the primary meaning of which is to contend—the second, to have the sovereignty —signifies a prince in his conquering character. Dan we have already stated to mean a prince in his character of a lawgiver. Pal, from t*bc, nbcoriiic (Gr. #»»X) signifies, primarily, separation, and secondly, to be illustrious or distinguished. We find Pala in the Sanscrit bearing the acceptation of Lord. So that we here trace a great similarity between the eastern languages. Sardanapalus will thus be rendered by " the illustrious conquering prince and law-giver ;" Odin, in the same way, will mean the judge or governor, and the names of his principal followers, the Asar, may have reference to their superior and almost divine powers rather than to their Asiatic origin.* The first Odin was probably only the personification of those great qualities which are held in the highest esteem by an illiterate people in the rude ages beyond the pale of history."

So Sigge found it expedient for himself and his followers to confer on himself the title of the deity of the new country. This artifice could even have rejuvenated the idea or life of Odin (Norse gods were not immortal necessarily), put Odin in corporeal form to impress the indigenous, get respect, veneration.

Value of the Sagas. A good translation is a window into the area customs, social, intellectual state. It is hard enough to read the Sagas, and few read Swedish, so we need good translations -- this in praise of a Mr. Laing who is well acquainted with Danish (not Icelandic). Now what is "Aal's" translation? Laing used that. An occasional error does not disqualify the merit of the whole.

Discussion goes on with Snorro Sturleson's Sagas, Snorro appearing as Snorri elsewhere. The Heimskringla, all not referenced here.

Vikings (literally kings of strife), the Sea-kings did trade and fight with a large portion of the then known world.

Skalds, poets: Now, although we cannot just say what truth there may be in these, yet we have the certainty that old and wise men held them to be true. Every culture has its forms, liberties of allegory, rhyme, melodies, cadence, idiom, that adds to imagination and expression. But skalds were narrators of facts, immortalization of great deeds, keep a faithful record, meter but not shackled by need to rhyme. Different from the entertainment and exaggeration of the poet.

Here the discussion is on Laing's work: Snorro says, Odin was a poem-maker. Skalds were the earliest historians in Scandinavia. And the population was indeed "civilized." Barbarism meant those who were unfamiliar, who did not speak Latin or Greek.

On barbarism: " Barbarus hie ego sum, quia non intelligor illis."

Sigge and followers were highly civilized, by conquest and by way of the moral force of genius and eloquence.

"But the inhabitants of Scandinavia, whom Sigge found there, the lutes, cannot properly be called barbarous. They possessed a form of religion. They had a regular government, laws, and institutions. They believed in the immortality of the soul and a future life. Their recorded sentiments were noble and chivalrous. Their love of glory, contempt of death, personal valour, and sense of honour, would entitle them to be classed above the rank of savages and barbarians."

Yet, these conquests did not entail any violent change on the native tribes with whom they incorporated themselves.

"He made no considerable, no radical alteration in their civil, moral, or political condition. His object was to consolidate the laws and institutions he found already in existence, by introducing a more ceremonious character into their form of worship—by cultivating among them a warlike and heroic spirit. Few legislators perhaps of ancient or modern times have so successfully displayed the rare talent of regenerating a nation without disturbing its customs and institutions. He was in the truest sense a reformer, without

causes as well as the dates of this vast movement are lost in the night of antiquity."

Mr. Laing has worked out in figures the proof of Count Graberg's genealogies, calculated from the supposed arrival of Sigge--

" The date of the inundation was nearly four hundred years after Christ. There have been more than one Odin—the name is generic and applied to many Eastern leaders (not conquerors, the word implying rather a civil governor than military commander)—and the causes and dates of this vast movement may be traced with tolerable exactitude."

Mr. Laing points out the leadership style: Sigge as King unites the three vocations of prophet, priest, and king. He is supposed to be able to divine the future. He is the head and fountain of their religious faith and practice. He is their commanderin-chief—their first soldier in the field. And the role of skalds was prominent:

The Scalds performed some of the same functions in the earliest times of Scandinavian tradition. They probably did not figure much as warriors. If the authority of Ossian be admitted, they certainly existed in Scandinavia before the time of Odin. Lochlinis confessedly Scandinavian, or a part of it, and King Starno was of the order of Scalds. We think it probable that their duties were modified on the introduction of the Diars, or judges of Odin, who were an Asiatic institution.

Scalds: They were still, however, the depositaries of mythological lore and general learning—they were consulted by the people on matters of history and family affairs. They recorded births, marriages, and deaths—we.re skilled in he-' raldic science—not unfrequently perhaps employed as arbitrators and referees in cases of dispute about property and succession, and were the confidential messengers and ambassadors of kings.

The first hearsay rule? King Olaf Tryggvesson used to say to them in his time (about the year 1,000), "You will not recount what you have heard, but what you have seen."
"This looks as if they were then still more matter-of-fact persons, and that they no longer exerted their eloquence in recalling the glories of the past, but were the viva-voce historians of what was actually occurring before their eyes.***"

Enter the Christians:

"Christianity appears gradually to have banished the Scaldic language and mythology. Little is heard of them after the first half of the twelfth century. After its introduction the profession of the religion of Odin was often punished with death—and Mr. Laing accounts for the decay of that mythology and our want of information on it, by supposing that the Siga-relator or Sagascribe might not have thought it safe to go deep into Pagan doctrirtf s, customs, or observances. The language of the Scalds was soon obliterated by the learning of the monks who spoke and wrote in Latin. The former did not know the art of writing—spoke or sung extempore in prose, and their narratives were therefore more difficult to commit to memory than the rhymed verses of the monks, which were preserved on parchment and in written documents. From whatever cause, however, it is true that we glean but little information from these Sagas as to the mythology of the Northmen—which is the more extraordinary as Paganism flourished among them for five centuries after the Anglo-Saxons had embraced Christianity. Its Asiatic type, however, is clearly developed. Many of its ceremonies and traditions were purposely confused by the monks, who were obliged to give them new interpretations, lest the dogmas of the old religion, many of them too firmly rooted to be easily eradicated, should clash with their own Papistical observances. They went even farther than this. When the Eddaic myths had been collected in their present form, and Scalds and men of learning began to commit them to memory, in order to remove any religious influence they might have, they persuaded the people that they contained so many historic facts, which, however, it required considerable ingenuity to find the parallels to in real history. Rome and Troy were thus confounded—Asgaard and Byzantium—and the early Scandinavian mythology incorporated with that of Greece and Italy.

" Thus," says Finn Magnusen in his dictionary, " the most ancient mythology was in many ways confounded with historical genealogies and narrations, which circumstance was most fortunate for the Christian writers of the middle ages, when, induced by the same reasons, they began to reckon the very Gods of the Scandinavians as mere mortals, and adopted the same opinions about the divinities of the Greek and Roman mythology."

Mr. Wheaton, the accomplished representative of the United States at the Court of Berlin, says—

" The religion of the north in the conjoint adoration of Thor, Odin, and Freya bore a strong family likeness to the faith professed by the votaries of the Dalai Lama. This correspondence points most significantly to its origin ; and the filiation of religious creeds and forms of worship thus combines with that of language to trace the present people of the North to the remotest regions of the East."

" Buddhism forced its way to the distant North," says Count Bjornstjerna, " for it cannot be denied that the doctrine of Odin is an echo of that of Buddha." He considers too that the Veda and Edda, the sacred books of the two systems, have just those points of resemblance which prove the source to have been the same, and merely such diversity of doctrine, as might be expected from the different characters of the i Hindu and Scandinavian. It is only on the supposition of such an origin that we can account for finding so much sound theology in the elder Edda—a theology so nearly allied to that of biblical inspiration, so many centuries before Christianity was introduced into Scandinavia.

" God made the heavens and the earth, and all that they contain, and especially man, to whom he gave an immortal soul, although his body perish in the dust or be reduced to ashes. The just shall live for ever with Him in heaven, but the wicked shall be cast down into hejl. . . . . . . Heaven shall remain, when the skies and the earth have been consumed by fire, and there good and holy men shall dwell for ever."

A nearer approach to truth than the boasted reason of an Aristotle or Plato has ever made. For a fuller view of the religion of the Northmen, we must refer our readers to Mr. Laing's preliminary chapter, where he has given an interesting analysis of the Sagas, on that subject. We cannot do so, however, without protesting against some of his own deductions, and especially those where he appears to place inspiration below natural religion. We agree with him that it is immaterial whether the Scandinavian Deities were real personages, or merely impersonations of Divine attributes—but we do not agree " that no such hero-worships as classical schoolmen and antiquaries suppose (another sneer at antiquaries) ever did take place among any portion of the human race." He argues that the innate feeling of the divinity which stirs within all ....****"

More than the scope here.

..........................................
FN 6 GENEALOGY WONDERLAND

Somebody's claimed ancestry from Sigge Himself, but it has echoes of the History of Sweden chronology, but here Sigge is several centuries later than the 100 BC of the History of Sweden, dates more like the other 19th Century sources -- 375-500 AD. There are other areas of contrast. For this one, see ://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mgholler/Caden/a62.htm#i547458520; and search for other genealogy sites, including with spelling Fridulson, no f

Names to search:

Bor Frithuwalk Scandinavia and Beltsa, parents of Odin First King

8637596458809327616. Odin (Woden) (Woutan) 1St King Of SCANDINAVIA.

(summary)

^{The claim is that this Odin, as the first King, was the son of one Bor Frithuwalk Scandinavia (last name apparently is Scandinavia) and Beltsa,}

^{[Stop! Bor and Beltsa?? In a genealogy? Here is Beltsa, from the Icelandic skald, Snorri, in the Gylfaginning. That is the part of the old Edda about the Deception of Gylfi who ruled Sweden when Sigge arrived, and who went back to Asgard in disguise to find out how Sigge could do all he was doing, and describing how the cow Audumla nurtured the Giants, and nurtured herself by ice blocks, this from the part of the Edda, Gylfaginning at ://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/pre/pre04.htm -- boldface supplied}
"She licked the ice-blocks, which were salty; and the first day that she licked the blocks, there came forth from the blocks in the evening a man's hair; the second day, a man's head; the third day the whole man was there. He is named Búri: he was fair of feature, great and mighty. He begat a son called Borr, who wedded the woman named Bestla, daughter of Bölthorn the giant; and they had three sons: one was Odin, the second Vili, the third Vé. And this is my belief, that he, Odin, with his brothers, must be ruler of heaven and earth; we hold that he must be so called; so is that man called whom we know to be mightiest and most worthy of honor, and ye do well to let him be so called."]

^{and born in 210 AD in Asgard, Asia, or perhaps Byzantium, and died at Lake Malaren, Uppsala, Sweden. It states that another name for Odin was Sigge Fridulfsson. The site says that Sigge, as did other kings in Saxon lands, and Norwegian and Danes, claim descent fro Odin. Sigge was first? And took the name Odin so he would be worshipped.}

Odin's roots: A places called Asgard, that is also where, in myth, ghe gods live. Danish historian Saxo, from the 1100's says Asgard is Byzantium (we also found linguistic roots with the name of the people who moved north, and Asgard, Asa, Asars, Asia, etc) is said to have come from Asgard, the legendary home of the gods. (Interestingly, the twelth-century Danish historian Saxo identifies Asgard with Byzantium.) This hombre Odin allegedly founded the Kingdom of the Svear, we would say at Sigtuna and not Upsala, but the site says Uppsala (one p two p's same) and that is indeed nearby, and near Stockholm.

Now, fair use quote from the geneology, because the story is nicely told:

"King Odin, we are told, had five sons. They reigned over various parts of Scandinavia, and at least two of them ruled in Denmark. (One must remember that Denmark at that time included Skane. Although this region has belonged to Sweden in modern times, it was Danish from legendary through medieval times.) We shall not endeavor to mention all the legendary kings of Denmark, but rather highlight some of the more famous and interesting heroes of the sagas.

The Danish kings, like those of Norway and Sweden, did not always follow a direct line of succession from father to son. But they were required to be of noble blood, and they were elected by a gathering of nobles known as the "Thing". [Royal Families of Medieval Scandinavia, Flanders, and Kiev]"

[Then back to Odin King]:

He married Frigg, Friege, Frea, a Saxon Queen born in Asgard (but Asgard is in the Caucasus, according to our story line, but that may need correcting), but either way, some would deny that kind of royalty system among the decentralized Saxons of Europe back then. The site calls her a princess of Britain, marriage about 236. But Saxons did not invade Britain in substantial numbers until after the Roman Empire fell, is that so, so these dates are questionable -- still, who's to say.

Go on in the genealogy site to find their children, and the story also says that Sigge planted his sons on thrones as he went north from the Caucasus, but the rest goes beyond our interest. Corroboration for names, such as a King named Trojans Hiemdall. Another topic entirely about the mish of mash of names. The site even puts all those Brits

with the Cadwalladers, a notable family, but the stretch is too much.

A Lysistrata Group. Lysistrata. Cindy. Political Spouses Speaking Out and Against.

2010-11-18T11:04:00.004-05:00

A Lysistrata Group

May be Forming Near You
Ask Cindy

Political Spouses Speaking Out, and Against

A Lysistrata Group. A Lysistrata Group is comprised of those who ordinarily stand a step behind the Power, but who find the moxie to speak up at some point when the Power goes too far.

Lysistrata was an ancient Greek (perhaps not real) who spoke through drama a long time ago. Says she, and her lady friends, old and young: End war or we will withhold the cookies. See #3 here. Her moral is this. No more should the Powers take for granted that they are the only deciders. No more should they ignore the wisdom, the foretelling, the views of those who stand a step behind. Ignore us at your peril, because actions will be taken.

Perhaps not the same as Lysistrata's but significant. So far, and with research ongoing: we offer as the preliminary Lysistrata Group: Cindy, Calpurnia and Lysistrata herself. The Lysistrata Group for Today. What opportunities for sensible governing, balanced policies over politicking.

1. Cindy.

This refers, in a dignified way, to Cindy McCain: The quiet, still one of classic face, a step behind the Man Event du jour, in Designers', as of birthright-cashright, the one of many houses and significant brewhistory-bucks, Budweiser here before it was sold. Yet no voice was audible, usually, and she was seen with a polite one hand seen in a clapping motion gliding toward the other, the other dutifully receiving the intrusion, while remaining magically soundless.

That was during The Campaign of Sad Ending for the family. And the persona Cindy adopted probably reflected a way to keep sane. No complaints, Cindy.

See Cindy now.

Applause for her, and not him. A clear voice for human rights, over the political weasling of one who disappoints us all, betraying even his own principles for gain.

Let's have some quasi-eloquence here. She deserves accolades, even inartful ones. Cindy, step up.

Hear the applause of millions of non-elites, and some elites we believe, resounding for the Voice that you have now found, or that at least you now let us hear. Speaking out in favor of the civil rights of gay and lesbian persons, and their right to serve openly in the armed services.
See and hear Cindy McCain Breaks With Husband John McCain and Supports Gay Rights, at ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0sOXgRWUxg

During the campaign of 2008, we looked at the candidates in the water, including John McCain. Candidates in the Water. Did we learn anything? Then we looked at Cindy McCain back then, and asked, what is she thinking? See Cindy, What Do You Think? Perhaps now we know. And perhaps she is sleeping more soundly, with it out. Cheer.

2. Calpurnia.

Third wife of Julius Caesar.

Himself's first wife was Cornelia Cinilla, and she died in childbirth and for lack of universal affordable healthcare;
Himself's second wife was Pompeia, and she lost out to a rumor. Caesar divorced Pmmpeia because she was suspected of some wrongdoing, it has never been established what that was. She seems to have been a participant, perhaps, or allowed her house to be used as others engaged, in a ritual not uncommon for women of the time, who were always kept in the house, it seems, and that the men saw as subversive to them somehow? Go figure at ://www.dl.ket.org/latinlit/historia/people/caesar.htm/. Yet her plight as one suspected of something was enough. That was as important as having done something the husband would disapprove of, and established the Maxim Bigotus that Caesar's wife must be above suspicion, see ://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/shakespeare/60secondshakespeare/themes_juliuscaesar.shtml/.

Himself's third wife was Calpurnia. She had a vivid dream. Several. A lot. And she warned him not to go to the Roman Senate that day, the Ides of March. She had had a dream of his death. Very vivid, many scenes. He could have postponed, of course, but he went anyway, and was stabbed by his political enemies, including an erstwhile friend, Brutus. Et tu? Yup. Look up Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene 2. Do a "find" for "Calpurnia" to find her dreams, what she said, did, and almost convinced Caesar to stay home that day. A later soothsayer also warned him of the Ides of March, but Caesar looked to his image and his glory in the daylight and .... Decius Brutus convinced him all worry was in his head and not in realty, and .... (fair use quote)

"How foolish do your fears seem now, Calpurnia!
I am ashamed I did yield to them;
Give me my robe, for I will go."

Thus spake Caesar.

Caesar, at Turin, Italy

3. Lysistrata.

Meet the heroine of the Greek play of this name by Aristophanes, 411 BC. A comedy, but a protest play as well., Watch the truthitudes trickle out.

The Greek city-states were at war, yet again, and the fighting had gone on for so long that it was the new normal. Peloponnesian Wars: Named for the Peloponnese, the peninsula hooking on to and south of the Piraeus-Athens area. Think Sparta. Mycenae. More at ://www.sikyon.com/index.html

Lysistrata got fed up with this preoccupation, and called a sex strike. She gathered the Greek women from all the city-states whose men were at it yet again. Buck up, says she to the helpless-looking ones. Declare to thy beloved knucklehead, if it is still on his silly shoulders after all this mayhem, that there shall be nonononono sex that is no-o-o-o- s-e-e-e-e-e-e-x-x-x-x until a treaty is signed. Then there can be a greater chance of peace than what we have now. And so they did.

Greece, panorama from Mycenae

The ladies had a bottle of wine to celebrate their unity , and could hear the older woman already taking over the Acropolis where the treasury was. See a summary at ://www.lycos.com/info/lysistrata--women.html/. Go deeper at Greek Theatre at ://www.san.beck.org/EC20-GreekTheatre.html#44. See * for a caution.

Can we apply this to other areas: Maybe so, maybe not. Lysistrata's idea now to stop wars? More to it than that, probably. So just be creative yourself. What might apply. FN 1. And who did not make the cut here? See FN 2.

...........................................................................

FN 1 A modern Lysistrata Group for ladies, perhaps a Lysistratus Group for gents. What else? You think.

Field guide to forming a Lysistrata Group. Pending our further research on who else stood a step behind, but who spoke up nonetheless, you, too, can form a Lysistrata Group. Take your own chosen action, speaking out or acting out. We are designing T-shirts and mugs and pens, and are casting about for a logo and color scheme for marketing. Not. But the idea is fun. Cindy, why don't you?

Congress wives and husbands standing a step behind; any Significant Others.

If you think that your Significant Other is being a knucklehead, acts to block things for political gain rather than participate in affirmative governing for the country (and this takes consideration, and is aside from good faith, thoughtful disagreement with an alternative to offer specifically on the issue and with facts to support) or being Political To Get Re-Elected when there is real need and common sense out there to be worked on together:
Here comes a rant about jeopardizing national security for politics, or the health of people who cannot be productive if they are sick, or stopping unemployment benefits to those jobless when -- what was it, 9 million jobs were lost before the Present Pres took office? Look it up. Grasp your nearby goat by the horns if there are any, as your first exercise.

Some goats: Some goats only can be stubborn.

For example, go immediately to Kyl the Knucklehead and all his myopic supporters of Doing Nothing just to run out the clock a while and embarrass an opponent, and say there shall be no such etc. etc. until the Arms Treaty is signed, as he has been in on all the ins and outs of it for weeks if not longer, and is just being goatish;
Delay for politics' sake? No excuse. Serve the people, Knu _ _ _ _ _ _ _ d! Or no cookies. Or pick your own issue.
Other issues: civil rights and the military instead of some people's religion governing guns; and unemployment benefits, and the mosquito bite of a tax reinstated on the wealthy -- it means one less course at a twelve-course dinner when they can't eat any more anyway.

FN 2. Who did not make the cut.

a. Laura. Nope. Then again, if her silence means genuine and thought-out loyalty based on merit, we accept that. If it is just "woman's place", no. We also acknowledge that presidents' wives are in an awkward position while they are at the White House. Separate views expressed by family of the president take up the 24 hour news cycle time in a distracting way.

So I look at what Laura has done or said since, and find she has keep very, very quiet. Either she agrees with himself all the time, or doesn't feel strongly about anything that might challenge himself, or just chooses not to speak out. Her choice. Not everybody is cut out for a Lysistrata Group.
b. Virginia, who speaks by phone message. Nope. She just spoke up on himself's behalf, not with a different voice. A different voice -- name of a book decades ago, find it at In A Different Voice by Carol Gilligan, review and notes at ://acypher.com/BookNotes/Gilligan.html/ Time to take a new look at that one. From the 1980's. Looking back at that, and the notes on it at the site look accurate as I recall (book is downstairs somewhere), it is worth a re-read.Virginia's SO is a lifer, so we don't apply the same restraint acknowledgment to her as we do for White House SO's.
c. Michele. Not under consideration yet. See Laura note at a above. We'll wait until she is out of the White House; then again, maybe after her own sixty terms, voted in by acclamation as Forty What? Then we see if Her SO joins a Lyisistratus Group.
d. Still thinking.
e. Eva? Nope.

Now, loyalty is not to be taken lightly, and may well be deserved. Loyal SO's, applause, where the loyalty also meets needs other than the Power's politico-status-ego-rigid ideological that also serve politico-status-ego; and extends to good governance on behalf of all persons, especially those of the household of the nation and of the world.
...................................................

* Be careful of the Internet. Paragraph 1 of the site says it was by Aristophanes. Others say Aeschylus. Look it up elsewhere. Aristophanes. And learn that "Lysistrata" means "disbander of armies." See http://www.curtainup.com/lysistrata.html/. Look up the ancient Greek playwrights at ://www.san.beck.org/EC20-GreekTheatre.html /

Harald Bluetooth I. Harald Bluetooth Gormson. And the Vikings

2010-10-24T20:41:00.089-04:00

Vikings in Context
Big Era 793-1050 AD

In the middle: Harald Bluetooth 911-980 AD

Why the Viking Violence At That Particular Time;
And Against Christians mostly

Harald. We thought we knew you.

Who were you in historical perspective?
.

Were Vikings so barbaric in the contexts of others' religious aggressions. Look at The West overall and its religio-military incursions northward. The West's religious-military incursions were bootstrapped, "justified" by theology: proselytizing and punishing those whose beliefs were different:, up to and including Charlemagne 742-814 AD and after -- (visit the Sachsenhain Massacre 782 AD).

Did those events help trigger the 250 years of Viking raids. Similarly, did an ancient Roman defeat at Varusschlacht back in 9 AD, its disciplined legions slaughtered by Germanic tribes, echo in a fear of the Germanic tribe's fervor, that Rome's successor, the Roman Church militant, had to quash at all costs. Was Charlemagne driven, with the Pope's armies in tow, to overkill. Or is Sachsenhain a legend? Charlemagne's court biographers are mum.

To what degree does history trigger later responses against a group that sees itself as attacked.

Does racial memory carry meaning. See the New York Times. Parcels containing bombs in printer cartridges were addressed to persons with historical names from the Crusades and Spanish Inquisition, see ://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/world/02terror.html; and A-6, the NYT 11/3/2010.

Diego Deza, Inquisitor. See Deza's portrait and bio at ://www.nortonsimon.org/collections/browse_title.php?id=F.1970.06.1.P/ ; and
"Reynald Krak", who is Reynald of Chatillon 1125-1187? Young. Brutal. Treacherous. And executed. (or Reynald de Chatillon, Chatillon in northwest France). Krak is an old city in Jordan, with a fortress dating back to the Crusades. Reynald took the throne in Christian Palestine when it became vacant and broke an important truce with Saladin, and is seen (it looks justified) as cruel and deceitful, see ://www.lpj.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=743%3Akarak-parish&catid=89%3Aparoisses-en-jordanie-&Itemid=116&lang=fr/

Is there a continuing impact of earlier religio-military incursions into the territory and belief systems of others, forcing conversions, slaughter, etc. Is that so? It is not done when it seems to be done, is that so. Hidden reins of history. Ignore it at our peril, educators. And watch accuracy in representing other cultures. Why promote what is not so, except for propaganda purposes. See http://www.chapatimystery.com/archives/talkies/main_course_-_in_response_to_saladin_dressing.html

Find Harald Bluetooth's mark at://www.fortidensjelling.dk/jellinge5.htm; more at ://www.cphpost.dk/culture/culture/122-culture/49329-archaeologists-uncover-harald-bluetooths-royal-palace.html

Harald Bluetooth, Roskilde Cathedral, Denmark

Harald Bluetooth. Perhaps entombed in thise Cathedral column. A mid-era Viking. Was he a leader with engineering skills, and foresight, and a wise man.

If the Viking Era dates from the attack on Lindisfarne monastery in 793 (not all agree), and extends to the Battle of Hastings 1066, then we are looking at a relatively brief period of time - say 250 years at most - of relatively unbridled raiding and slaving and Christian-killing. In that time, Harald Bluetooth stands as a measured, wise ruler, respectful of old ways, but willing to embrace the new, at least for a while.

We offer here a Violence Test. First, meet Harald to get an idea of the extensive culture of the Scandinavians. Then see their violence in 250 years, in the context of a long timeline, blending many available timelines, to see if the West and its attitude and actions against others is a smoking gun over millenia. Go.

Agenda today:

I. Harald Bluetooth, King of Denmark and Sweden c. 911-980 AD

A. Personas of Harald Bluetooth

1. Harald Bluetooth, the Builder; the Defender against Christian invasion

2. Harald Bluetooth, the Viking in Normandy

3. Harald Bluetooth, the Pragmatic Convert

B. Why an interest in Harald:

Does Harald belie the random violence image of the legends, fostered to promote Christianity and belittle the Scandinavian cultures.

II. Viking Context

A. Proximity to Saxons, cultural similarities

B. Varusschlacht and the Ancient Roman Defeat by Germanic Tribes

C. Charlemagne and the legendary mass murder of Saxon prisoners at Sachsenhain

D. Other Vikings

III. Viking Raiding Years: 800-1250 ACE

A. Why then

B. Why against Christians mainly

IV. Western Violence and Violent Reaction of Others

A. Western Ethnic/Religious/Cultural/Military Violence Timeline

B. What to conclude: which is, was, more violent: Vikings or Western Roman Religious-Military-Cultural Expansion

V. Conclusion

..........................................

Then:

FN 1. TIMELINE

Western Ethnic - Religious - Cultural Violence History
Now moved, because of length, to Studying War: Western Ethnic Violence Timeline

==================================================================================

I. Harald Bluetooth, King of Denmark and Sweden c. 911-980 AD

BLUETOOTH'S FAMILY DATA: See, e.g, ://www.biographybase.com/biography/Bluetooth_Harold.html

Wives:

Thora

Gunhilde

Gyrid, the niece of Sweden's Eric the Victorious

Children:

Hakon

Sven or Sweyn (Sven Forkbeard, who later deposed Harald)

Gunhild (no e)

Thyra - she married Styrbjorn Starke

Did Bluetooth mean a dead incisor, for example, as my husband used to have (Jon Bluetooth), or is it from Blatand, meaning dark-skinned, and great man. See ://www.cs.utk.edu/~dasgupta/bluetooth/history.htm/ There are accounts of the Danes being dark, and Norwegians and Swedes light. DNA shows some odd migratory patterns, another tale. More on Bluetooth: at ://www.fortidensjelling.dk/jellinge5.htm/

A. Personas of Harald Bluetooth

1. HARALD BLUETOOTH, THE BUILDER; THE DEFENDER.

Harald was King of Denmark 936 or so, and also of Sweden starting 945 AD.

For a short period, he also ruled a very limited part of Norway. Find a biography at ://www.palowireless.com/bluearticles/picoking.aspVikings/. We think of mindless violence, raids, slaughters, maces, battle axes, no mercy, grab the loot, the slaves, then back in the longboats to some safe fjord in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, laughing all the way with merry sagas throughout the long winter, and then Repeat. Is that so? We suggest here that you meet a real Viking, and explore his time's setting. He was ruler about 140 years after the first really ferocious raid of Vikings on British Isle monasteries (attack on Lindisfarne in 793 AD); and by his time, Viking advances included settlements, and more methodical attacks as part of invasions. The Northmen (Normans) ultimately invaded England and prevailed at Hastings in 1066.

Military matters: For defense against the Christian armies, as well as some against fellow Vikings from Norway, he built large and precisely placed trelleborgs, ring forts, in Denmark and Sweden.

Trelleborg, ring fort. Unreconstructed; now just earthworks. Harald I Bluetooth. DK

He built a large bridge at Velje, DK, anticipating Otto's success in moving north into Denmark. Against Otto and competing Vikings, he was an excellent military strategist, a precise builder, and oversaw engineering feats (bridges, forts) for defense against Germans and other Viking groups.

Civil matters: He built vast burial mounds at Jelling, one later found empty and perhaps constructed for himself; another for his father, Gorm the Old; and set vast Rune Stones to glorify the memory of his father and mother, and his own feats. When he converted after pressure from HRE Otto II from Germany pressing north, he also built a church later at that same site, and moved the remains of his father beneath the church. Another Rune stone, apparently raised by an earlier Wife and at a site a small distance away, has been moved to the church site as well.

2. HARALD BLUETOOTH, THE VIKING IN NORMANDY

He joined in the Viking invasions of France, and their settlement in Normandy (this colonization, a result of the French King buying off the Vikings, to keep them from sacking Paris and other sites further) leading to the Norman invasion of England at Hastings 1066). Harald Bluetooth: an "enlightened" Viking participated in the Normandy establishment. Then focused on defending against the Holy Roman Emperor Otto, beating at the borders of Denmark.

Harald in Normandy: This may be an error in identification, someone else being at Bayeux: See ://books.google.com/books?id=d-XiZO8V4qUC&pg=PA435&lpg=PA435&dq=Harald+Bluetooth+Normandy&source=bl&ots=btReyj8VMx&sig=Uja9DaMUoPfVIy1QnaI7P7kf3Xo&hl=en&ei=l7DQTJ_VI4vknQenwN2NBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CCIQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Harald%20Bluetooth%20Normandy&f=false/ Someone else, please research.

We continue to ask: Was there more to the ferocity of the Roman Church and its military leaders against the Saxons than we think; and did that lead to the Viking response back. Its neighbors, the Saxons, long broken up, some earlier to the British Isles, but those remaining virtually decimated by slaughter and forced migrations.
.

Harald was deposed late in life by his non-Christian son, Sven Forkbeard in 980; fled, and was killed. Bluetooth may have reverted from what might have been Christianity for Convenience (avoid being killed if he did not convert) to old religion at end. Forkbeard himself ultimately converted, and Danes followed suit.

3. HARALD BLUETOOTH, THE PRAGMATIC CONVERT; WHO MAY HAVE REVERTED [a pattern for Scandinavian and Saxon "converts"] WHEN HE COULD

Christians pressed north: first through quiet missionaries; and then through the militant Otto the Great who saw himself as a new Holy Roman Emperor. Up past Germanic borders came armies and ideas from Germany. Harald had hard choices. So Harald saw how the deck was stacked, converted to Christianity; stayed that way as King, but did not push for overall Dane conversion. Many did convert, he took credit for that, but there were (as we see so far), no great mass movement to convert in any spontaneous way by the vast Dane population groups at that time, See Denmark Road Ways, Jelling, Harald Bluetooth

B. WHY AN INTEREST IN HARALD:

Harald belies the random violent legends,
fostered to promote Christianity and belittle Scandinavian culture

Why an interest in Harald? This began as an examination of the life of Harald Bluetooth as a responsible, careful ruler; a defender of territory; a later-convert supporter of Christianity as he was in that religion's path as it was forced northwards with the Franks and others.

My assumption had been that the Vikings were a wild bunch of raiders, slaughtering all in their path for fathomless reasons except the lucre they stole, and love of bloodshed. We had seen several in the series of ring forts, or "trelleborgs" he caused to be constructed; see Sweden Road Ways, Viking Culture, Trelleborgs, and Harald ; and read of the 1/2 mile long Ravning Bridge near Velje, Denmark, 979 AD, that was 18 feet wide, to enable a north-south access route as part of defenses against Germans. See ://www.visitvejle.com/international/en-gb/menu/visitor/nature/vejle-aadal/produktside/gdk019491/the-ravning-bridge-and-ravning-station.htm/.

Vikings could do that? What other Vikings were admirable, skilled, knowledgeable, and not primarily savage in attacks.

We are interested in the Vikings and the precipitous timing of their 250 years of violence against Christian sites: a religious-type war response, posits Robert Ferguson, in The Vikings, A History, Penguin 2009 and not randomized mayhem (among other theories); and purposefully against the West's religious-based institutions and persons, and its incursions by force into Northern Europe. Religio-military incursions into the territory and belief systems of others, forcing conversions, slaughter, etc. See Charlemagne in particular, and his treatment of the Saxons, a contiguous culture to Vikings, related beliefs, etc.

So we began to check the context for Harald's life, including his role in the Viking-Norman settlement at Brittany.

Were the Vikings, and Harald, such barbarians as we have been taught. If Vikings had these kinds of advances under their belts, why and when did the raiding start. I began a timeline: getting dates from multiple other timelines online, and chronologies and information from The Vikings, A History, by Robert Ferguson, Penguin 2009. when did the Vikings begin serious raiding, especially of helpless but rich monasteries. Why that activity, why then. Why there?

II VIKING CONTEXT

A. Proximity to Saxons, in culture and religious roots

Saxons. Germanic. Vikings. Norse. Geographically and linguistically, through similar rune-writing, rune-divination ideas, similar pantheons for religious purposes, Saxons and the Scandinavians to the north, the Vikings of Norway, Denmark and Sweden, had commonalities. There was intermarriage, trade. Widukind, the Saxon chieftain who fought Charlemagne, found refuge with his brother-in-law, King Sigurd, of Denmark. Melt into Viking lands, wait, and strike again.

B. The Roman Church's Memory of Germanic Fervor, Ferocity --
Explore the Idea at Varusschlacht

Rome forces its way north; Germanic Tribes defeat them at Varusschlacht. Highly disciplined and well-equipped Roman legions were defeated by Germanic tribes, Teutoborg Forest, see ://www.livius.org/te-tg/teutoburg/teutoburg01.htm; also known as Kalkreise, Varusschlacht. See the German, with some translation, at ://www.kalkriese-varusschlacht.de/index/getlang/en

See a face mask, stripped of its silver, found at the site, horses and warriors buried for millennia, Historians, reported at the time, the battle then suppressed in the histories. How to tell which was which warrior, when one knocked off, had his armor and mask taken and used by the other side. Or, if the Romans customarily shared their armor and tactics with the others, and then the others turned against them, complete with their new knowledge and technology. Sound familiar?

Face mask, battle of Varusschlacht 9 AD, Germanic Tribes defeat Roman Legions, Vorden, Germany

See it at ://www.livius.org/te-tg/teutoburg/teutoburg01.htm

The lesson taught at the museum site, near Vorden, Germany, is this:

that the Roman legions were so defeated, so shocked at the fervor and fury of the Germanic tribes,
that the uncentralized tribes could actually defeat the famous legions,
that they literally did not recover.

They remained in awe, afraid, says the Museum exhibits, very afraid of what the Northern tribes could and would to. And the Romans remembered, and became fixated on revenge and the drive to show they were superior, with their rationality, organization, the discipline, over unleashed frenzy.

Varusschlacht, Teutoburg Forest, 9 AD Germanic Tribes defeat Roman Legions

That is what is taught at the site. They fear us. They have always feared us They should fear us.

C. The Charlemagne Experience in Memory

Was Charlemagne so Violent just because of the times, and everybody was; or was there an element of this: That

ancient Rome's historians, those who preserved the tale, taught such fear of the Germanic Tribes. Rome won those early wars in its era, but the humiliation of Varusschlacht was remembered, and the lesson learned. Smash. And so it was at Sachsenhain, and the centuries of forced conversions and submissions; and so it was that the Vikings struck back.

Or is all just happenstance. No connection. No connection at all.

Viking ship, Roskilde Viking Museum, Denmark

Charlemagne: 742-814 ACE

Charlemagne took over the role of Christian expansionist in Europe, subduing all other tribes and forcing conversion to Christianity. He became crowned by the Pope as Holy Roman Emperor. His armies, and those of the Pope, engaged in decades of warfare. The wars against the Saxons, in particular, took 40 years to conclude. Two generations of killing. Charlemagne's scribes and official biographers, named Einhard and then there is Notker the Stammerer, fall over themselves adoring Charlemagne. Are they objective as they complain about the fierce Saxons, Norse, all Heathens. Ask. They resisted Charlemagne and his armies, for decades. So what did Charlemagne do to cap it off. To set in a new stone, a reaction that echoed for 250 years. What word had spread north from southern Europe about these Christians and their ways, their persecutions.

In the histories, watch for Sachsenhain. That is the place of the story of the mass beheading ordered by Charlemagne of 4,500 Saxon prisoners, already defeated by Charlemagne, at Verden, in northern Germany.

These were not literate people, and their story was not written by a dutiful scribe in a neutral role who was free to criticize Charlemagne. But stories live in people, and so has this one. After centuries of violent Christian expansion, this war against the Saxons, and their deaths at Saxon Grove, as it is called -- that Sachsenhain near Verden -- is believed and believed, and even the Nazis appropriated it to their ends. They took over the area, made a memorial, got the support of the people, then installed the Hitler Youth and SS at the site. That's how to do it. Appropriate a concept, get the people cheering, then turn on them.

Did the travesty of Charlemagne echo around northern Europe. Charlemagne could not be defeated in the short run, but he persisted and it took 30-40 years for him to suppress the northern tribes; and the neighbors of the Saxons to the north had their vengeance. Is that so? What can we believe? These were not literate people. They did not write down their own histories. The sagas serve other purposes than historical accuracy. What to believe. Charlemagne's court scribes were in the business of glorifying, not analyzing. Why should we believe them, either?

Charlemagne, Osnabruck, Germany

D. Other Vikings

Some names. Start with

Our focus here, Harald Bluetooth I of Denmark, Harald Bluetooth Gormson (Son of Gorm, and that would be Gorm the Old), Harald Blatand or Harald Blatann (Haraldr blatonn Gormssen as Old Norse for Harald Bluetooth, Gorm's Son). With each spelling comes some variations in search results. Try the above as Harold, not Harald, for example. A "Master Builder" - see The Vikings, A History, by Robert Ferguson, Penguin 2009
Ragnar, Viking Chieftain, attacked Paris
885-886 AD Rollo, Viking Chieftain; Norman (Northmen) colony in France, Brittany, as payoff for stopping raids toward Rheims, Rouen, and past Paris (Rollo himself probably was not present at that attack on Paris specifically) on the Seine River; William the Conqueror, the Norman, used that area for staging the invasion of England in 1066
Erik the Red, Viking Chieftain, led colonists to settle on Greenland
Leif Ericsson, son of Erik, conducted explorations sailing to Labrador, Baffin Islands, Newfoundland, "Vinland" - Gaspe - Nova Scotia coast? Settlements 980-1020 perhaps.
Canute - King of Denmark rules in England, Danelaw established, broad areas of settlement, influence, (invasions beginning 865, then some 130 years later, governing in Buckinghamshire, Middlesex, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, and Yorkshire

III. VIKING RAIDING YEARS 850-1250 ACE or so

Why then, and not long earlier -- Vikings had coexisted for centuries with other cultural groups.

Ask why the ferocity of the Christian Church against any who did not submit, and particularly the Germanic tribes; ask if Rome "remembered" the battle where the tribes beat the legions (do we know all the facts of Varusschlacht, Germany?); and why the ferocity of the Germanic resistance to Charlemagne, tool of the Church; and when the Saxons lost and were dispersed, then the Viking raiding and slaughters against the Christian military and theological centers, mainly

First, try a summary of European aggressions on a timeline. Then, in a long footnote, FN 1, see a more complete timeline composite from many sources.

The summary timeline:

For Vikings only, see this site: ://www.scaruffi.com/politics/vikings.html/ Get an idea of when and where they went. I am interested in the site name, scaruffi, because the root skarf is Icelandic Norse, Otkell, Son of Skarf, in the Burnt Njall Saga, etc. Trivial pursuit. Then again Piero Scaruffi sounds Italian. All is imagination, is that so?

Note there is no violence until the Vikings have to fight the Franks.

Vikings in context in a summary way, a history of violence before and after:

50 BC - 300 AD --- Roman expansion into Europe, including 9AD and the Roman defeat at Varusschlacht, now Germany; the Germanic tribes there victorious over the Roman legions;

300 AD - 1400 AD -- Christian Church expansion throughout Europe, including
persecutions of contrary-believing Christians.

see long list and dates and acts as to Jews at this timeline, at Jewish Persecution at ://www.simpletoremember.com/articles/a/HistoryJewishPersecution/ (note that the persecutions pre-era of Mohammed are attributable to Christians)
institutional church forcing conversions and killing nonconformists, in much the same way that earlier Rome had persecuted Christians
slaughter of "barbarians" who would not convert, in geographic expansion of church 'n turf
full-blown wars against non-submissive European groups "slow to convert", including Saxons, Norse ://www.worldtimelines.org.uk/world/europe/northern_eastern/AD 800-1250/The_creation_of_the_Scandinavian_kingdoms
1095-1248 or so, Crusades outside and in Europe
killing witches and heretics, The Burning Time 1350-1500,
The Inquisition, continuation against heretics, witches

Look back at that highlighted portion on the bullet list. See that Viking 250 year frame (793-1050 or so) when Vikings made Christian lives miserable, and shortened many of them with a bash on the head. And enslaved others. Why did that begin when it did, and against Western Christians. Swedish Vikings, the Rus, reached Constantinople, but apparently there was primarily a trading relationship there. Their cities in Russia were not connected, as we can see, with particular bloodshed (Novgorod) and Kiev.

With the bombs found (see current news) headed toward Chicago, and addressed to persons or names from the Crusade era, and the Inquisition, can we doubt that racial memory of Western incursion and exploitation has a role in later reactions to the West, who is still there. In those lands. Who can find the exact message of Osama after 9/11 -- wasn't there something about getting out of their lands? Go check.

See FN 1 for the full, or at least a more complete, timeline. A work in progress.

IV. CONNECTIONS BETWEEN WESTERN CHRISTIAN
RELIGIOUS-POLITICAL-MILITARY INCURSIONS;

FORCED CONVERSIONS; AND WARS

AND VIKING RAIDING AS CULTURAL-RELIGIOUS RESISTANCE

Look at what came later: Vikings gave up, lost, quieted down, settled in. But the same Western religio-military forces pushed on. See the 150 year frame after that (1500-1650) when the Roman Church's Inquisition engaged in continual raids and killing of those identified to its satisfaction as witches or other heretics. See the Malleus Maleficarum and The Burning Time, below. Christians: Violent before Vikings, violent while Vikings were violent, and violent after. Mirror, mirror.

Extensive timeline combining various sources at FN 1.

What had happened in, for example, the century or less before to set them off, if anything. Did Christian activities trigger it. What had the record been as to the Christians in killing other people, before the Viking waves of killing. Were the Christians any better, in their way, except that the West honors them as killing for The Faith? Then expand the timeline forward. Once the Vikings had settled and become mainstream again, what did the Christians do. Did they stop their killing? Who has kept up the violence for millennia. Who the barbarian.

CONCLUSION

Our schoolchild history of Vikings comes from those promoting Christianity, and demoting everybody else. It paints a few Vikings -- the explorers -- as fine folk, but somehow all the rest are a violent scourge without reason, from the Northlands in the Dark Ages: bursting from the seas and rivers in their swift longboats, heaving hacking death upon the peaceful, killing the helpless as well as the armed, victimizing Christians in particular where they could be found, including the holy lonely in monasteries whose defenses were few, but treasure great. Why, intone the recorders of the time and now, did they arrive like that, out of nowhere and against the true faith!

Put a face on the Vikings. What weight to be given to the other view of Vikings, as traders, poets (see sagas), artisans, artists, carvers, rune-stone makers, town-founders; and when does that go too far from the reality of the blood, to the sappy. Revive the ferocity? Vet.

I am interested in the theory suggested (among others) that the Norse had good reason to lash out against Christians wherever they could be found: the theory points to the force of the Christian push to take over and convert, by killing and population removals (Charlemagne) and the mass beheading, allegedly and for example, of 4500 Saxon prisoners, helpless in that position, by Charlemagne.

So: Vet theories of the why as to timing of violence, its hundreds of years' duration, and its consequences. Vet some of the early historians or writers of sagas, people who wrote about them; but watch for the propensity to laud one's own forebears, canonize the Christians, demonize the Heathen who would not see the light until forced; and and liked their own ways; went back to those ways, and Repeat.

How did the Christian slaughter of the Northern tribes in Europe, especially Charlemagne's execution by beheading in a day's time, four thousand five hundred Saxon prisoners, already defeated, even if after 30 years of fighting against Charlemagne for their own way of life. Was the Viking rise in response to Christian incursions, through violence, into Northern Europe.

Or were they merely crazy, crazed people.

One historian, Robert Ferguson in his book, Vikings, A History, Penguin 2009, suggests that their sudden explosion in European political affairs, after centuries of being not any different from others who raided and took, was a religious response. A religious war. Look at the history, the timeline, see the violence of the Christians in perspective, and meet Harald Bluetooth. What did the Christians do to set the stage for the backlash.

Were Papal and Holy Roman Emperor obsession with the Norse related to some memory of the untamable northern Tribes, the ones that defeated even the Roman Legions, at least that one time. That resonated. Stamp it out! These people get furious. And they did. See the Berserkers, the most fierce of the fierce Vikings, see http://library.thinkquest.org/C003446/a.php?b=16/

CONCLUSION DEUX, PERHAPS

Why demonize Vikings so much. Especially, look at the eras after the Breakup of Charlemagne's Holy Roman Empire 850-900 AD. Charlemagne's sons couldn't hold it together, and finally arrived an ambitious Successor when his sons fell apart, came along; Otto the Great 912-73 AD. Follow the dots in Europe: Then came forcible expulsions of Jews from European countries (Spain started it in 1492); then the Burning Times, against Rome's identified "witches" and heretics; then the Inquisition; then Protestant vs. Catholic; and more heresy justifying killings, and colonies doing it to each other, and genocides of native Americans, the Vale of Tears, then invasions by corporations into other lands, and on and on. Not just Western ecclesiastical militant incursions into turf and mind; with forced conversions or executions for the stubborn, at home and abroad, for centuries thereafter. But morphing into heresies of economics.

This is a work in progress. Unfinished. But the idea is interesting that the Vikings' little 250 years of mayhem was triggered by centuries of worse mayhem by Christian expansionists, who then continued centuries after the Vikings were going to school board meetings. First for deity, now for profit.
.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

FN 1. EUROPEAN ETHNIC AGGRESSIONS
TIMELINE

Now moved, because of length, to
Studying War: Western Ethnic Violence Timeline

A Common Man - Joseph Nadon

2010-10-10T11:49:00.002-04:00

JOSEPH NADON, in silhouette

And thoughts on who bestows immortality on whom,
at least for a while.

Preservation of this little scissor-snipped silhouette is thanks to one Miss Mary O'Connell, Race Street, Philadelphia, deceased about 1981 or 1982. No known relatives. Her priest from Harrisburg managed her estate, such as her belongings were, and this was among the discards he was not interested in, as he salvaged what he could for sale, to pay for her burial and a marker.

Silhouette, Joseph Nadon (undated)

Someone cared enough to save this little hand-cut memento after it was made, and Mary kept up the care. Joseph Nadon. His name is apparently French; her father would have been Irish or such, with the O'Connell. As far as we knew, she lived in Philadelphia at least her whole adult life.

We lived on the floor below her apartment in a venerable solid house near the University of Pennsylvania, three sets of renters and the landlord below. We knew her as a friend, an elderly lady making her way up the stairs and down, past our door, with shopping bag, woolen coat, sensible black shoes, and ancient black hat flat on top, hair in a bun behind. We miss her. But who is Joseph Nadon? His name is written in pencil there on the right side, going up. Look closely. There he is.

Women and immortality: men may make buildings and things, and carve their names on; in an effort not to die. Women may pass on recipes with the name on it, so that Mrs. Stafford's 5-day pickles live forever (they should); or Mrs. Henry's fast non-gourmet tasty aspic from the 1970's, duly passed down to This Hus, gets remade every so often. She also added dollops of cream cheese at the end to hot spinach.

Immortality. The recipe card.

How many of us keep keepsakes carefully in trunks, an immortality as lasting, is that so?

Silhouettes: named for an 18th Century French minister, of finance: in 1759. See the rise of this art, at ://www.portraitsinsilhouette.com/history_of_silhouettes/. they became part of Americana and folk art, see ://www.peggymcclard.com/aaa%20History%20of%20Silhouettes.htm/

Handsome fellow. So we googled him:

There is a Joseph Nadon, son of Jean-Baptiste Nadon and wife Dormie Rochon. That Joseph was a carpenter, and he married in 1973, roots in French RC. What is that? He married Emma Ranger. They had a daughter, Marie Anne Nadon born 1885 and died in 1967, so she is not our Mary, See ://www.familytreehaven.ca/b17.html
There is another Joseph Nadon, who married Melanie Chevalier in Quebec in 1833, see ://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/s/n/e/Jennifer-M-Sneirson/GENE13-0011.html
There is another thread for a Joseph Nadon at http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/CAN-ONT-KENORA/2004-03/1079830408; and posts with at least one connection to New England

So we stop. To me, an unknown silhouette is someone's memory to be cared for in turn. So we do.

News of Raoul Pugno - 1852-1914 - Pre-War Pianist, Organist, Teacher, Composer

2010-07-10T10:12:00.003-04:00

The Lost World of Performance Art

I. The Lost Performance - Pre-War, Victorian, Edwardian

Now, this was a performance, Here is a brittle, yellowed snippet (all that remains) of a review of concert artist Raoul Pugno at an orchestral setting keyboard, conductor (was this a full orchestra?) Walter Damrosch. This is from some newspaper, found in a box of household stuff, various sources, Pittsburgh. It also must have been before 1914, because Pugno died in 1914.

Mystery bit, newspaper review pre-1914, Raoul Pugno, Pianist, Organist

At first fast read, the instrument appears to be an organ; but the imagery of surround-sound is to set you up. Read closely and you will find that he played a regular piano -- the performer apparently achieved the same effect as a straight-organ or some other organ amalgam of seventeen octaves that was huge, see the second paragraph. He made a "common or garden piano" sound like it had seventeen octaves.

Sit back and enjoy Raoul Pugno in your imagination, from your seat in Center Orchestra: Here he is. Concert pianist and organist himself.

Raoul Pugno: Thumbnail from Widimedia commons at ://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Raoul_Pugno/.

And the review bit:

"It is easy to think of a man of physique so imposing seated at centre of a great mystic circle of keys, touching at will the chords of a shifting humanity, dashing off on one bank of keys with electric cable to Boston a rare old Bach fugue, while his extra hand sent Luther's Hymn thrilling other wires to Philadelphia. He should be choregus * to the Olympian Zeus. He should, like a twentieth century Franklin, draw to earth the ether-borne music of the spheres. Just fancy Hercules of old doing five finger exercises, or the Colossus of Rhodes playing scales.

"Pugno contented himself last night with one common or garden piano; it was no baby-grand, but the biggest single instrument known. The way he read the riot act to that piece of wood and wire was a caution. He was an all-'round pianist. Even with no keys to right of him, none to left of him, but just the ordinary seventeen octaves in front of him, he volleyed and thundered. Conductor Walter Damrosch faced him with all the helpless expression that the late Rev. Sidney Smith said he experienced when a fat woman asked him ***[column cuts off, at a fold, the rest missing, except on that last sliver of a line, this barely legible bit:] An orchestra of seventy ... *** [thereafter, who knows]."

* Choregus. The Choregus was the "lucky" person of means who was appointed for the season in Ancient Greece, the "Dionysia" of Athens; one such Choregus for each of the three tragic poets. The Choregus was charged to manage, train, equip, house and feed the chorus. For the big procession, the Choregoi wore gold and crowns, and had lighter pocketbooks than before. See ://ancienthistory.about.com/od/greektheater/g/060410Choregus.htm

Raoul Pugno should be a household name, judging from his biography, see ://www.naxos.com/person/Raoul_Pugno/5026.htm/ His are among the earliest piano recordings available, for a pianist trained in the mid-19th Century. He was a genius, performing at age 6. Relax, and settle into the calm of a Chopin's Nocturne at ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3nq2WSxdTQ/ Wear a big hat. See Hatpins Collection, with suitable Hat Pin.

II. Context

How to throw away a nugget of newsprint that must predate 1914, because that is when the subject died? And when long gone is the identity of the particular press, the page, the rest. Answer: You can't. So you share. If this were digital or email, it wouldn't even exist. Sic transit gloria etc.

Why was this saved: It probably wasn't. The intention more likely was to save the reverse side, some housekeeping hints,

Pre-1914 household hints, newspaper snippet, Pittsburgh

including using molasses to remove mildew from linens, much as sailors did for the sails; blot grease on wool with cotton balls (no synthetics), and clean your cut glass with a strong ammonia solution. There. Now you know.

BP and the Busted Pelicans: Life Without Value. Unsung Non-Humans.

2010-06-11T15:45:00.005-04:00

The Measure of Loss

Uncounted, Unsung Lives - Non-Humans

A creature has no value
If it cannot be converted into cash.
Wild life, the wild card,
Just so much collateral damage.

Measure damage by gallons?
Self-serving, that.
BP's mega-barrels disperse,
Especially with toxic help
Diluting, concealing plumes below;
Remaining but ghostlike,
Cannot be measured.
Corporate winner fist-bumps.

So: Measure instead by numbers
Of the dead and crippled.
Wars do;
But only as to our species.

Measure instead by the dead
As to all kinds who were living.
Add to the neutral gallons-count.

Tally the lives.
Say $700 per life.
10 lives all sizes per cubic yard.
Measure the scope of spill.
Multiply $7000 times the dead cubic yards
Shore, wetland, deep.
Add that to the gallons.
Each life integral to the Chain.

Why measure a Plague
By the flea-count.
Why measure the carrier.
Count the bodies
Of these who were alive;
And had they no right to stay so.

No, say the pocketers.
These are just
"Environment".

Busted Pelican.
New logo for BP.
Make up a flag.
Bring out your dead.

Ephemera, Kramer's, Pittsburgh. Who Is This H.E. Wilson?

2010-02-24T19:09:00.002-05:00

The Crash was 1929.
Ask from the Menu: Who was broke in 1928.

Menu and Insert
Kramer's Restaurant, Pittsburgh

Kramer's Restaurant, Pittsburgh in the Old Days. Oriental theme insert, individually done, not mass-produced. Seating capacity: 425. With 91 purveyors about. And 31 waiters and 8 chefs. Graeme Street. Segregations of many kinds, but part of the times, taken for granted. This was a "public" restaurant, but no member of the "public" was ever seen eating there. is that so?

Kramer's Restaurant, Pittsburgh, Oriental theme insert, 1928

Kramer's in 1928 - what does it mean to be rich but broke. Ephemera before the Crash, see ://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/bierman.crash

Kramer's Restaurant, Pittsburgh: "Both broke" menu. 1928, But that was before the crash.

Both broke, says the menu, so the poor lass with the babe gets nothing -- broke for him means he carries no cash. Is that it?

This was during Prohibition, beginning in 1919 and that ended December 1933. What did they imbibe? Kramer's and Prohibition" read the menu - creme de menthe frappe for dessert. Other offerings sub rosa or in flaskibus? Lawbreakers in the privileged classes, or was there a threshold for the "proof" allowed?

Round Table Fellows Menu from 1928, Kramer's Restaurant, Pittsburgh

Kramer's, the Round Table Fellows at their dinner. Perhaps those Fellows were a precursor to the Duquesne Club Round Table? Wednesday luncheon weekly, as we recall....

H.E. Wilson was a customer who, a few years later when Prohibition was repealed, in 1933, downed the first legal drink and it was at Kramer's. He had a martini as the gang cheered. Kramer's gets the credit, despite the Pittsburgh Athletic Association;s efforts at claiming the honor, but it was Kramer's that had the phone line set up to establish their claim. Bootleggers stayed in business, selling stuff cheaper, but more fun is the gent who wanted the record for downing the last of the rotgut. Instead, he was passed some good stuff and he spat it right out. Just not the same. See Eyewitness 1933 Pittsburgh, "1933 Pittsburgh Prohibition Ends with a Betrayal at ://www,postgazette.com/pg/10010/1026928-294.stm/ Post Gazette. We always got the Pittsburgh Press -- but at least these archivists are keeping history alive. Who would be first to get down The Drink - and the one turned out to have been betrayed. A bonded, not hootch.

Trivia: H. E. Wilson. His wife, Carrie C. Wilson, owned some Pittsburgh property and years later, after this conveyance and that, some not recorded, oral lease (upheld), terms in issue for payments, etc., there was a lawsuit about ejecting somebody, see 112 A. 233 (1920), see://books.google.com/books?id=NQc8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA234&lpg=PA234&dq=%22H.+E.+Wilson%22+Pittsburgh&source=bl&ots=OyaiakvMuw&sig=5ekXyEBKaDaqIqUgbrAc_5wwet8&hl=en&ei=Jt0VTMK4LoG8lQe34KX1DA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBoQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%22H.%20E.%20Wilson%22%20Pittsburgh&f=false

Pittsburgh. Kramer's was known. Deserves the record. See ://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19301109&id=b78aAAAAIBAJ&sjid=QksEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1161,524241/

Pass the little white gloves, and look discreetly around as the chair is pulled back for the seating; whose teenage son might be home for holidays from school and enjoying lunch with grandmother.This was a public setting, not like the private clubs, but a regular for day-to-day socializing, shopping, all that.

Epilepsy. The Grand Mal. The Petit Mal. Religious Founders, Writers, and Others

2010-02-19T19:01:00.005-05:00

Epilepsy in Visionaries, Leaders, the Creative

Unsung is the role of epilepsy in visions that religious followers use as anchors for belief. For those of faith, grounded in that epilepsy idea is a challenge. For those of faith, the challenge is: what is the source of visions, the proximate cause, the without which nothing. Without a condition, would the visions have occurred; or was the disease somehow a vehicle for a deity. Or is it all spiritual, unconnected to the physical. Who is to know. Ancient India, Babylon, all grappled with the meaning of the losses of consciousness, was it a spiritual matter, or physical - as Hippocrates believed; what the fallen person "saw", the "moonstruck", the "lunatic", the "sacred disease", see ://www.allcountries.org/health/epilepsy_historical_overview.html/

Sites geared to the occurrences of epilepsy in history are a treasure of lists: for many, the epileptic condition is theorized from behavioral observations of others at the time, or from the person.

Dante, Moliere, Sir Walter Scott, Byron, Poe, Shelley, Tennyson, Dickens, Lewis Carroll, Tolstoy, Flaubert, more at ://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/famous_writers

We know of other visions in other cultures, from gases at Delphi to you-name-it in indigenous cultures, Native Americans. Those are from herbs, substances. We are discussing here the role of a chemical or (to those voting for inspiration) inspiration.

Julius Caesar, Pope Pius IX, Czar Peter the Great, see ://www.allcountries.org/health/epilepsy_historical_overview.html/
Harriet Tubman, who rescued slaves, see http://www.disabilityhistory.org/people.html (her condition a result apparently of a blow to the head as a child by an overseer)

Epilepsy, the unsung. Move to roots of ancient and modern religions:

Ezekiel, Prophet of Old Testament fame. Epilepsy? This site says that Ezekiel displays epileptic symptoms, see ://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1565-old-testament-prophet-showed-epileptic-symptoms.html/ Hear about him seeing the wheel at ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSoCFAdByOI/ (the Vintage High School Chamber Singers)

Vet Paul the Apostle, Epilepsy as "St. Paul's Disease" at ://www.epilepsiemuseum.de/alt/paulusen.html/ The BBC agreed, see ://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1427916/St-Paul-converted-by-epileptic-fit-suggests-BBC.html/. Does our religious community admit the possibility of new facts, or once faith takes hold, is it a death-grip. Who decides. Other groups have their own theories, see ://relijournal.com/christianity/was-the-apostle-paul-gay/; but the point is: in any religion, how do we know inspiration from pathology, or cultural bias.

No answers yet here.

Vet Mohammed, PBUH (peace be unto him, here as a sign of respect) - this is not a discussion of the merits of inspiration, just a possible role of epilepsy, as with any person with epilepsy making writings or reporting for others to record, see ://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/sina41204.htm; countered by ://www.sullivan-county.com/x/mecca.htm/; see also ://www.bangladesh.com/forums/religion/7535-mohammad-suffering-epilepsy.html/ The condition, as with many others in history, must be theorized from accounts of behavior at the time, or illustrations in other ways, see ://www.hermetic.com/sabazius/mohammed.htm/. Asking the question, as is asked of anyone. And even those with conditions - a different matter from the bona fides of inspiration. A condition does not negate an inspiration, of course. We are looking for Arab culture-oriented sites addressing what they have found, as the question is not a new one.
As to anyone theorized as having epilepsy, do your own search and vetting: as to Mohammed, we used the simple proposition, Mohammed, epilepsy, and similar wordings. Where to get at untainted sources, the earliest, most reliable, before dogma took over as it does in any religion as it institutionalizes. There are many Qur'anic manuscripts, see ://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Mss/hijazi.html/, but it will be up to others to explore and see changes and differences in what is said. A discussion of 1st Century HJ is at section 4. Scroll down. As in any collection of religious works, there are changes and additions, and deletions, apparently. For proto-Koran work, if it is so that it was Arabic language in Syriac script, see Was the Koran Originally Written in Garshuni, at a subheading of that section 4. When was the Koran codified: the differences, as to the founder and/or Christian and Jewish origin/influences at the time, may cast light on what was ultimately included, and what was rejected as undesirable as the theology coalesced.

Others - the idea is not new: See ://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/famous_religious/

They add Joan of Arc, see France Road Ways, Joan of Arc. Epilepsy has long been connected with genius in some form. See http://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/famous/
St. Valentine - patron saint of epileptic persons, see ://www.allcountries.org/health/epilepsy_historical_overview.html/ His was the falling sickness, don't fall down in German being something like "fall net hin", or Valentin, see ://www.epilepsiemuseum.net/alt/body_therapieen.html

Epilepsy in leaders, religious leaders, political leaders. Can we consider new information, or is a countering dogma taboo.

Epilepsy in art - see ://www.epilepsiemuseum.net/alt/body_arsen.html/ This site takes you through room after "room" of topics related to the history and treatment and occurrence of epilepsy. Find more patron saints, depictions of people being cured, or afflicted. See overall www.epilepsymuseum.net/

More in literature, and other areas - at ://www.desitin.no/index.php/artgallery/detail/1296/

Treatments: find a history of approaches from the ancient world, through the middle ages and renaissance, at ://www.epilepsiemuseum.net/alt/body_therapieen.html

To The Thirteenth Century. Hagiography. Women Who Led.

2010-02-16T17:38:00.001-05:00

The Thirteenth Century. Women who led.

From Hagiography, or Biography of Venerated or Ideal Persons

Saints, a Ruler, Movers

This was an age of women leaders; or women whose impact was huge. Why does it matter. Why was their impact suppressed. Get an overview of the panorama of women in religious history until the 1300's - especially, see the Dictionary of Saintly Women, Volumes I and II, from 1904-05, cited here. On and on. Where is a comparable Dictionary of Saintly Men? Must look and compare. Here from the 13th Century, the last of them, meet

I. Elizabeth of Thuringia
II. Margaret of Hungary
III. Spirandia of Cingoli
IV. Hedwig of Poland; and
V. Hedwig (Jadwiga) of Poland, King Yes, King.

It matters because all the backpedaling that happened thereafter showed how important they were. There was fear of what the Thirteenth Century meant. Women in that age in theological institutions and civic life were were independent of parallel male institutions of the time. That was intolerable.

The context: See this for a start: The Contours of Female Piety in Later Medieval Hagiography (what is that?) at a journal article by Michael Goodich at ://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=LhQf5gpWJvkSFlkhTms42hZpp00fVhW7y5xRGv7jMNWqyQt9pMSk!-1196327867!1517079229?docId=96511290/

Naming names: Note the many full saints here.

I. Elizabeth of Thuringia - 1207-1231. Franciscan.

A princess from Hungary, engaged at age 4, raised in the future husband's household, see painting of the wedding feast at ://www.rijksmuseum.nl/catalogue/sk-a-3145.html'; that one dies so she becomes engaged to a younger brother, Ludwig IV, and marries him, lived at Wartburg Castle. Ludwig appears as Louis in other accounts.

She has three children (another account, see below, says four), comes under the influence of an ascetic who inflicts punishments if she errs, Ludwig joins the ascetic in religious exercises (take up the cross as a crusader and go to Palestine), and Elizabeth is left in charge of the domain. If so, this would be a woman in charge.

She has had a long practice of caring for the sick, founds a hospital, distributes food. Self-sacrifice, love of her fellow man. Ludwig approved. Ludwig, however, dies of plague on the way to Palestine, and Elizabeth's in-laws, embarrassed at her contacts with commoners, either force her out of Wartburg or she relocates voluntarily to Marburg where she joins the Franciscans as a Tertiary (living under chastity, obedience, simplicity; the first two orders live under celibacy, obedience and poverty, a more stringent set of standards, sehttp://www.cb1.com/~john/Religion/tertiary.html/.

Note that she became a Third Order Franciscan. There was no order, as we understand it, for women apart from the men, no Sisters of St. Francis. Is that so? Need to find medieval differences in convent and monastery, and when each began. The Franciscans did not become established until 1221, so there may not be much available for Elizabeth's time. Were women in their own orders, but not under the aegis of a men's group. Autonomous. Not answerable to them.

Elizabeth still has dowry money, and starts another hospital, also continuing to engage in self-mortification. Why did her memory so endure, with no direct influence on the powers of the day. What more should we know, if anything. See ://www.mun.ca/mst/heroicage/issues/10/bio2.html/.

She was canonized in 1235. A full saint. Do we have the details right? Here is her 800th anniversary celebration, at ://www.elisabethjahr.erfurt.de/html/04_das_elisabethjahr_in_thueringen/4_01_eng.html/ Details of homage at ://www.travelgermanyinenglish.com/saintelisabethofthuringia.html/

What does this earlier source say, from 1904, Volume 1 of the 2-part Dictionary of Saintly Women. This is a huge undertaking.

And who ever knew of all these religious women, these names and names and royalty and great works and selflessness and miracles and founding and building and directing monasteries - not just convents under some male group - this is unbelievable. What happened to women after that era? Women were heirs, there was rejoicing when they were born because the line would continue, etc.

Back to Elizabeth: The page is 259-264 - a very long account - at the google book Volume I at ://books.google.com/books?id=rZ8i5hLH5roC&pg=PA53&lpg=PA53&dq=a+dictionary+of+saintly+women+volume+1&source=bl&ots=pPwtifpyIG&sig=QDNac0YqQIqKIVFP_f_WfL-ho1g&hl=en&ei=_gt7S8u7NoialAfvo8SjDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CBkQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=&f=false/ There are other Elizabeths, including another later Elizabeth of Hungary, so be sure the page is right.

In this account, there is no ascetic that influences her or her husband, the Duke Louis; she tends that way on her own when her husband is away. And she was expelled from Wartburg after Louis husband died, and had to live in dire straits until other relatives found her a castle, and restored her to a higher station. This account also does not have Elizabeth in charge when Louis leaves, but rather he recommends her and the four children to the care of his mother and brothers.

II. Margaret of Hungary - 1242 est - 1270. Dominican.

She was also a princess, an ascetic. When the Tatars were stopped, her parents dedicated her before she was born to a convent, sisters who were Dominican (not under a male Dominican group, but autonomous, we understand), and later they built her her own convent. Again, not under a male order. Hers. Ask about this early conventing of little children, their later asceticism. To those of us on the outside, this is less theology and inspiration than early training - see the mistreatment of Elizabeth in the section above. Does that get absorbed, that suffering is her due. Experts, what say?

Now: look at an early source, A Dictionary of Saintly Women, vol 2 of 2, at page 19 from 1905: a google book at ://books.google.com/books?id=rnr_YADaQn4C&pg=PA231&lpg=PA231&dq=st.+sperandia+biography&source=bl&ots=bUL4qx-qgC&sig=PpZs9p2lmy2-P1Kk5mMuSCze_qA&hl=en&ei=BQd7S9bvH9HVlAea17yiDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CBkQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=&f=false/

There it says

"Her parents built her a monastery, at Buda, on the island in the Danube afterwards called in honor of her St. Margaret's Island."

Not a "convent" but a "monastery". Were there no "convents" at that time? It looks from a quick research that there were not - all were monasteries - and Margaret was the Abbess. No difference between women in the monasteries for women; and the men in the monasteries for men?

Margaret undertook the worst, most squalid tasks, with self-immolation included causing great amazement. She had no, and was required to have no, supervision, no strong-minded superior. Read about all this and her piety, and human touches, at ://www.katolikus.hu/hun-saints/margaret.html/ Ecstasies and miracles, and restrained witness testimony lending credence where otherwise one would think fantasy. She died suddenly, and the beatification was not then completed, although many depositions of witnesses, still available, were taken; she was finally beatified in 1943 (her cult had been approved in 1789, so she was never out of mind), so strong was her following.

Willful, even imperious. She made things happen her way.

III. Spirandia of Cingoli -1216-1276. Benedictine

Beata Spirandia or Spirandea was known for her visions, see://www.lifeinitaly.com/religion/incorruptibles.asp/ and miracles, see this text advertised for sale about them, at ://www.oac.cdlib.org/search?style=oac4;titlesAZ=l;idT=8b722a34239eb18ebe0674038a9aef0b/. She became a saint. Her body did not disintegrate as do the rest of ours, and she rests with other "incorruptibles" at Cingoli, Italy, the Benedictine Convent, see ://www.sacred-destinations.com/sacred-sites/dead-on-display.htm/ She has been exhumed some eight times, the last time to check on her was 1952, and there was said to be an "odor of sanctity" about her. A "sweet fragrance".

Read some explanations at ://www.speroforum.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2863/ Some preservations are accidental, like being in dry sand, others are intentional, the mummifying by a process, and others are baffling: remaining moist, flower (rose) fragrance, free of decay and science and reason know not why, see Speroforum.

" *** In 1265 she built in Cingoli, the monastery of St. Michael, of the Institution of BB. Spirandia and Santuccia, and there she presided with wonderful piety until her death. She was illustrious for her mortifications and visions, and for her admonitions to persons whose faults could only be known to her through miraculous revelation. ***

This from A Dictionary of Saintly Women, vol 2 of 2, at page 231, from 1905: a google book at ://books.google.com/books?id=rnr_YADaQn4C&pg=PA231&lpg=PA231&dq=st.+sperandia+biography&source=bl&ots=bUL4qx-qgC&sig=PpZs9p2lmy2-P1Kk5mMuSCze_qA&hl=en&ei=BQd7S9bvH9HVlAea17yiDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CBkQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=&f=false/

So: Spirandia both built and ran the place. She "presided with wonderful piety." No male supervision? No order above hers, overseeing? No. Why should she?

With that fine resource and detail, we are going to look back at Elizabeth and Margaret. Margaret's section is at page 19: Elizabeth must be in Volume 1. Yes, there she is.

Saint Hedwig of Poland 1174- 1243 Cistercian

(at the Abbey, and in dress, but never took the vows?)

Why Did The Role of Women in Religion Stop after the 13th Century?

It did, didn't it.

Who Ordered It?

We are starting here with the Dictionary of Saintly Women because there is so much more there than at any Roman Catholic or other site we find. Here, at Volume I, at page 262 (copy and past entire URL from St. Elizabeth above, also in Volume I). It looks like her niece is that same St. Elizabeth. Is that so?

Hedwig was schooled at a monastery in Kitzingen, then moved from the convent school (there is a blending of the two ideas, a monastery and a convent?). Much there about her marriage at 12 to Henry, her 5 children, then her decision to live the rest of her married life as a celibate, and her husband agreed, and the two only met thereafter to manage their family and responsibilities and Henry never cut his beard thereafter. They lived in "perfect amity". They established, soon after they were married, a Cistercian monastery and set up Cistercian nuns to establish its order (again this blending) and it also is called a nunnery as well as a monastery.

They set up many religious houses and churches. There were troubles with children's rivalries, battles, terrible Tatar invasions, the death of Henry the Bearded, Hedwig continuing her minsitrations to the diseased and the poor, self-deprivation, think barefoot and chill-blains, She was canonized in 1266.

Another account is at ://www.katolikus.hu/hun-saints/hedwig.html, but that is of Hedwig of Poland Matron 1399.

This is Jadwiga of Poland

Jadwiga of Poland 1373-1399, and King from 1384-1399.

Venerated, Beatified late, in the 1980's, canonized 1997

(another form of Hedwig) and she was King of Poland in the 14th Century, King because she was sovereign in her own right and not just a consort, see for a fast overview before digging back into the Dictionary of Saintly Women, ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jadwiga_of_Poland /.

This Hedwig smuggled food out to the poor, there were miracles - once when she was stopped and ordered to show what was in her apron, she let it open and there were roses, not the food. Also other miracles.

Hedwig in the Dictionary of Saintly Women: at page 366. Lengthy, lengthy account and many miracles. So there are two St. Hedwigs in the 13th Century - perhaps more.

Important is the ability of the women to make their own decisions, and even this Jadwiga herself chose to marry when she could have received a dispensation because of the childhood betrothal, and miracles after her death.

Spain

Female Orders in the Military

Female Orders in the Religious

Dominicans: Dominic aimed to rescue women from heresy

Diana of Andalo, Bologna, foundress of Dominican nunnery 1220's

Juliana Falconieri, Florence, foundress of Servite Order (dedicated to Mary Virgin, patronized by the Dominicans)

Mary of Cervellone, Barcelona, foundress of female Mercedarians (rescue Christians held captive by Moors)

Order of Preachers - including Nera dea Tolomei and companion Genovese, women were part of this/ "Tertiaries" lived in civil life, pursuing heretics and "moral offenders"

Benedictines:

The Worthy, Clever and Useful, Banana-Eating Monkey. The Maligned Epithetee.

2009-08-01T21:54:00.008-04:00

Examining our Epithets.
The Unsung Virtues of the Maligned.

The Epitheter vs. the Epithetee.
The Epithetee Often Wins.

Jungle Monkeys?

Hold. Your. Tongue.

One culture's brunt. Another culture's example of a virtue. For example, what is at the root of our evolution-challenged disparagement of monkeys. And our deeply flawed obsession with likening the habitual walkers (us) as superior to those who locomote in different ways. Yet, Curious George is a monkey of many virtues; including a white face, see://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNzFFvW20G0/; and this proud reddish fellow is the patron of a medieval trade guild for stonemasons and bricklayers, statue in Bern, Switzerland, see Switzerland Road Ways, Bern Statues.

Here, follow an investigation of sorts, into the nature of the put-down, the assertion of superiority that then falls apart if examined. Stereotypes. And find a surprising role of serotonin in leadership among leaders in monkey societies, and where it is lacking, belligerence. Can we solve some problems by fostering serotonin in our bullies? Rush, is your belligerence because you simply don't feel good? Ask the monkeys.
.

Dan the Tourist and Tailless Gibraltar Ape

Here, see examples of the denigrated: issues here are in this sequence - including topics related to bananas, those who eat them (monkeys), and where they eat them (in jungles perhaps). And our forced uniformity, reducing their varieties for our economic gain.

1) Monkeys are key in banana variations. Do not disparage.

2) Monkeys and bananas grow in the greatest variation where commerce and corporations are controlled.

3) Harnessing and limiting variation in animals and food for our own use, regardless of what is good for them, works against our best interest.

4) Dietary wisdom. Banana-eaters in variation (eat different kinds) are not obese.

5) Monkeys know how to eat a banana. Start from the bottom tip, not the stem.

6) Monkeys teach us about hierarchies. The lead monkey has the most serotonin. Add serotonin to a low-status monkey, and it starts to lead - and the ladies notice, but the guys just look confused at the change in the order of things. The most belligerent have the least serotonin. Shall we feed serotonin to the far right? Bananas in the House?

7) In Spider Monkeys, females take the leadership role.

8) Monkeys, people, and skin color. Do monkeys have white skin. Curious George has a white face. Some monkeys have black faces, but look at the overall skin color beneath the hair - is it white? You go check. Examine stereotypes.

9) Theology. Is there a Hindu connection with stonemasons, perhaps secret knowledge from the east, you experts are alerted.

1. Monkeys are key in banana variations.

Are we superior because we bury the variations, and let ourselves eat only the kind that industry bred so they could profit most. What we get ro eat are one type. The familiar yellow hand.

See the many varieties of bananas that have managed to survive despite us, from the Yucatan to the Himalayas. See Nature Products, at ://natureproducts.net/Forest_Products/Bananas/Musa_itinerans_tall.html/ Look up that Musa Itinerans.

Here is a fair use thumbnail from Wikipedia.

For most bananas, the seeds mature during the summer, and it is mainly the monkeys that distribute them. There are red bananas, cold-tolerant bananas, ornate and dwarf ones. The musella lasiocarpa golden lotus banana is sacred in Buddhism.

This thumbnail is from ://turtlegabys-tropical-oasis.net/.
.
2. Monkeys and bananas grow best where corporations and commerce are controlled.

Commercial focus is fine to a degree: it enables a floor to survival. Efficiency, knowledge, how things grow, distribution, good use. But past that mythical tipping point, profit takes over and variation suffers. It takes a conscious effort to sustain the variety, or it will be gone. And before, perhaps, we knew its contribution to our own well-being.

Varieties of bananas grow where people, if giant corporations have not taken over, sustain biodiversity- friendly lifestyles. Is that also true of people: our varieties die off when corporations move in, commerce takes over. This thumbnail (thumbnails also violate nothing, so we sing their praises as well) is from www.chinadiscover.net/ Do an images search for Xishangbanna and it will appear.

Visit Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, China, see ://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl/, where no less than 14 different cultures, with linguistic differences from each other and from the surrounding Chinese, live in a biodiverse area and harvest bananas - but not our ordinary, uniform, cultivated and bland bananas. Will China let this diverse population thrive? Another topic.

3. Harnessing fruits and animals for our own use works against our own best interest.

So: bananas. Our history, as Americans, with the banana, is not honorable. See ://en.allexperts.com/q/Central-South-American-673/Banana-Wars.htm/ We have invaded, taken control, capitalism amok, all that, and weakened the once strong banana strain, so that now it is susceptible to disease and the one basic type we have reduced to boredom and fostered - the Bright Yellow Stop and Shop type - may well be in jeopardy. We have ourselves to thank. And our engendered Banana Republics are angry. Justifiably so. The United Fruit Company and the US - joined at the hand, see ://www.mayaparadise.com/ufc1e.htm/ Think Curious George.

Dull man, yellow hat,
Little monkey having fun
Monkey smartest one.

4. Dietary Wisdom

Monkeys are not obese, fat. We are. They are in shape. See Health and Wellness; The Banana Diet, at ://www.associatedcontent.com/article/715097/the_banana_diet_dont_monkey_around.html/. The site lists "bananas, berries, oranges, seeds, herbs, roots, ants and meat". Hey. Where's the beer? The pasta. The chips. "Don't monkey around with your health," says the article.

Eat like a monkey. Sounds like a new dance. Eat,,, like... a... Mon-key....

5. Eat like a monkey. How monkeys eat bananas.

Monkeys know how to eat bananas. Bananas grow up, from the stem at the bottom forming the hand for all the growing bananas upwards. So, hold the stem at the bottom, folks, and peel by starting with a pinch at the top. That is how monkeys eat bananas. Very wise, and leaves you with a little handle at the end. See Instructables, at ://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Eat-a-Banana-Like-a-Monkey/

6. Learn from monkeys in establishing hierarchies, if you need to have one.

The highest status monkey is the one who turns out to have the highest serotonin levels, that hormone leading to feelings of well-being - and, interesting here, the highest status monkey, the one who feels best, enjoys the most well-being fights the least. He doesn't have to fight. He gets the lieutenants to fight if the need arises.

Does that mean that the belligerent among us are so because they don't feel good. Bring on the couches. Rush? We are ready.

Lower status monkeys are the risk-takers, the ones making most noise, and often get smacked down, or make bad judgment calls. Overdoing the posturing, like leaping big chasms on their own.

Now, take the status monkey out of the troupe, and give serotonin (prozac, to us) to a low status monkey, and over time, he gains in status.

Who realizes it first? The ladies - heightened sensitivity here. But the guys don't get it. They are confused at the change.

Serotonin turns out to be important in status and the more secure monkeys don't have to go out on the limbs like the lower status ones do. See the video at ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXxKBiidbeo/

So, the least secure make the worst judgment calls.

7. In spider monkeys, however, the female takes the leadership role.

Why isn't this in our text books? See ://www.honoluluzoo.org/spider_monkey.htm/ "It was also observed that males were not able to plan an economic and varied food route like the leading females; therefore they have a less varied diet." See the Honolulu Zoo site. Spider monkeys are banana-eaters, among other fruits, nuts, etc.

8. People and Skin color.

How do we get the way we look. Skin color apparently follows a gene for it. There is no gene for "race". See Researchers Discover Skin Color Gene, at ://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5055391/ Race is a social idea, dependent on many factors important to you, but perhaps not someone else.
.

Gibraltar Tailless Ape On The Go

Now look at the Monkey House. Scroll down to the "Animations." How different is the monkey, how it can move, from us? See ://users.soe.ucsc.edu/~wilhelms/fauna/Monkeys/index.html/And monkey skin cells programmed to become stem cells? See ://www.physorg.com/tags/monkey+skin/

Do monkeys mostly have white skin? Except for the ones that got color vision early, and developed a yen for red skin and hair? See ://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070524155313.htm/

Jungle behavior is reasonable and ecosystem syntonic. What on earth is this? The wisdom of monkeys. Worthy of emulation.

9. Theology. See the Hindu monkey god, Hanuman, who aided Lord Rama against evil, at ://hinduism.about.com/od/lordhanuman/a/hanuman.htm/. Is there a bricklayer, stonemason, masonic connection, secret knowledge, etc. Beyond us, but the Bern monkey is no slouch.

Cathars, Albigensians. Vet the So-Called Heresies. Violent Phase-Outs by Religious Zoning Forces

2009-07-06T15:24:00.005-04:00

Check this out about the Cathars:

There is no heresy.

There is no heresy. There is only the drive of many to flock with the powerful, and drive out the threats to that power. Is that so? Vet it.

We are looking here at the Cathars and the Roman Catholics in the Middle Ages. The Cathars were deemed "heretics" and killed off, so they say, from the Languedoc area of France by the 14th Century. We look into what they believed, and whether their collective extinguishing was justified. Is killing unbelievers ever justified? Who says?

1. The life cycle of a religion.

Must it include a period of time, about a thousand years after a founding, where a) its immune system turns on itself and b) the religious with most power lash out against all nonconforming uses. This looks like zoning from hell. The ultimate cancer. Who are we to criticize Sunni vs. Shi'a and others. Revisit the Languedoc, and the 13-14th Century purge/slaughter of the Cathars, the Albigensians, as "heretics." The Pope(s) sent Crusaders to kill Evildoers in the Holy Land. Then, Upgrades on Ideas, or Heretical Ideas, depending on your viewpoint, returned with the Crusaders; then when the Ideas took root in many parts of Europe (Balkans, France especially), the adherents were hunted and killed as Evildoers. Inquisitions thrived.

We are interested in this group because the concept of "heresy" itself is interesting. Who defines, and for what purposes.

2. The wording of the search matters.

See what different persuasion approaches result from the slant of the search.

Try "Cathar heresy" or "Albigensian heresy" and you get dogma, how evil and in error they were, how foreboding their concepts. Those are attached to sites with a religious bent. Read them, and it is hard to see why anyone could ever question the Church's efforts to wipe them out. And those efforts largely succeeded. The sites against them seem almost to have to justify what happened. Why else use such tilted words, focusing on the conclusion that Cathars were Evil personified and we are better off without anyone who so disagrees with Established Truth.

Then try "Cathar beliefs" or "Albigensian beliefs" and up pops neutral, or, at least, some counterarguments to the dogma presented before.

Go here first, for the neutral presentation, and for the perspective of counter-arguments: "The Cathars: Cathar Beliefs" at ://www.cathar.info/1201_beliefs.htm/. The drive against them was completed in the 14th Century, in the Languedoc area of France, but as with the Bogomils in the Balkans (see home page here, photograph of Bogomil graveyard in Bosnia), the ideas lived on in other forms, as people blended in with other cultural groups more tolerant.

3. Cathar Beliefs:

So far, we have found these. These are points to check out further, and represent the beliefs as were alleged by the Cathars; or as viewed today by pro-Cathar people, see the cathar.info site.

Why kill these people? They were a threat to authority, and had stayed closer to original precepts than the Roman Catholics in power. Is that so?

Overall, our understanding is that the Cathars followed the model of living of the Founder. For Catharism today, see this group called "Assembly of Good Christians" or the "General Conference Cathar Church". Start at ://www.cathar.net/20904_aboutus.html/ and navigate about, especially to ://www.cathar.net/cathar_distinctives.html#home/ and other topics listed there. As we find sites with additional or different information, we will report and revise.

This is a checklist for checking further, not an adoption of all it says - we are not experts, just interested in these ideas.

4. Tracking original precepts:

Which was more "Christian" - the Cathars, or the Roman Catholics. Note, however, that there is disagreement on exactly what the Albigensians or Cathars believed, because the site says they did not leave many writings, and records were purged, leaving opponents to frame many issues. We think so far that the Cathars and the Albigensians are the same. See ://www.medievalchurch.org.uk/h_cath_alb.php/ They were also known as Poblicantes, or Publicani, perhaps from Paulician, and reflected ideas brought back by the Crusades to the Holy Land.

No priesthood. Had no formal priesthood, as was the case also in the earliest Christian churches. See ://www.cathar.info/12011411_priesthood.htm/ The Cathars did have a lesser hierarchy idea, however, of those with a secret knowledge, and those without such knowledge; like the gnostics. A "priesthood" indeed developed later with the Roman Catholics.
Dualism *, docetism - the nature of God, good and evil, nature of Matter, and spirit, see://www.medievalchurch.org.uk/h_cath_alb.php/
Apostolic Succession. Originated the idea of an apostolic succession, see ://www.cathar.info/12011402_succession.htmas other gnostics, see http://www.cathar.info/12011414_gnosis.htm/ also did, and this was adopted by the Roman Catholics later. Even translations of early texts changed in form for the Roman Catholic version, see ://www.cathar.info/12011406_forgeries.htm
Ascetic. Followed an ascetic lifestyle, as did Jesus; and the Roman Catholic church itself did not (monks and nuns did so, depending on their Orders); poverty - and here we start on the injunctions section at ://www.cathar.info/12011412_injunctions.htm
Shared authority. Shared power, as in the earliest Christian Churches and
Included women. Women were teachers, as well as men, also true of the early Church
No killing. But you could starve yourself to death (that form of suicide acceptable) and kill fish; compare to all the killing allowed in the Catholic church, see this injunctions section of the cathar beliefs site at ://www.cathar.info/12011412_injunctions.htm
No swearing of oaths. None. This later was reason for killing someone as a heretic, if they refused to take an oath, see ://www.cathar.info/12011412_injunctions.htm
No judging others
Baptism of the spirit. Not water. This follows the earliest church and according to Jesus' teaching, see ://www.cathar.info/12011403_practices.htm/, not with water (what church today does not use water in some way?), see ://www.cathar.info/12011404_baptism.htm; their baptism of the spirit, or consolamentum (also given to the dying) see://www.cathar.info/12011001_consolamentum.htm/, was also closer to the early Church practice. It required preparation, instruction, not just doing it to babies as the Roman Catholic church did. See the chart there, at that site, with more comparisons. The extreme unction of the Roman Catholic church came in the middle ages, and is modeled on the Cathar consolamentum. See://www.cathar.info/12011405_sacrements.htm
Sacraments. They disagreed on what the sacraments were supposed to be - but the Roman Catholic Church also had no agreement on what the "seven" were, as late as 1167 AD, see http://www.cathar.info/12011405_sacrements.htm/ (the misspelling of sacrements in the URL is corrected in the text there)
Confession. As to the Cathar sacraments, their confession, the apareilementum, was closer to the early Church than the later Roman Catholic one, see ://www.cathar.info/12011003_apareilementum.htm;
No marriage. Marriage was not instituted by God and Jesus did not sanctify it, just went to a wedding and made wine, so is not required, see http://www.cathar.info/12011405_sacrements.htm/ See also Created from What An exploration of the no marriage idea.
Agape. No transubstantiation or eucharist (the Roman Catholic Church only initiated those interpretations in 1215 AD), but a blessing of bread at meals, agape, as in the earliest Churches. These agape meals were discontinued in early Church groups after 2-3 centuries, because apparently they degenerated behaviorally (agape - love? more research!) ://www.cathar.info/12011405_sacrements.htm/
Lord's Prayer: The Cathars had it right as to thine-is-the-power-and-the-glory etc. - and now our Prayer includes it. The Cathars translated the word we still don't know what is, but use "daily" as in give us our daily bread, in a more sensible meaning of "supplemental" - give us this day our supplemental bread. See ://www.cathar.info/12011413_prayers.htm/

These ideas were a threat to the Roman Catholic Church, that had already just separated itself from the Eastern Christians, the Orthodox, in 1054 AD, on grounds of theology and competition, see http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_orthh.htm/. Force decided which theology would prevail, not affinity to original precepts of a Founder. Is that so?

5. So, are these conclusions, suggested from the cathar.info site, true:

The Cathars predated Roman Catholicism

Many of the Roman Catholic beliefs at the time themselves were "erroneous". Here is the vindication page at the cathar.info site: ://www.cathar.info/120114_truth.htm

Many of the Cathar beliefs at the time were "correct" (in terms of later development of dogma)

The Cathars were accused not only of faulty theology, but abominable practices -- that led directly to their persecution in the Inquisition and Crusades against them (what were those? were any true? which? is this the usual use of propaganda, or is it fact-based? did they eat babies, for example)

Wikipedia has an extensive entry on Catharism, that does not seem to contradict any of the thoughts here -- but it needs source references - too much unattributed. We are not in a position to do that, but recommend the Wiki for its scope and historical setting. See ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharism/

Supplemental sites as found: language and presentation are not neutral here, in that they lead to a conclusion of "heresy oh my", instead of simple description, but read anyway, ://www.mystae.com/restricted/streams/gnosis/cathar.html/
..........................................
* Dualism. See the modern philosophical idea at://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/dualism.htm

The Vlachs. Nomads, Shepherds, Roma Roots

2009-05-21T15:09:00.003-04:00

Vlach shepherd, Romania

Vlach culture here is ancient, and nomadic. They often are shepherds. So far, we have seen them in Romania and Greece. See Romania Road Ways; and Greece Road Ways.
Many, however are now settled, urbanized. For extensive coverage on details of life of Vlachs and their history, see this site on Hungarian Vlachs, Everyculture, at http://www.everyculture.com/Europe/Vlach-Gypsies-of-Hungary-Religion-and-Expressive-Culture.html

They were once a kingdom, in the middle ages. See cepes.ro/publications/pdf/politics_culture.pdf at page 115. That is a UNESCO site, Studies on Science and Culture, Politics and Culture in Southeastern Europe 2001. Vlachs are also said to be a branch of Gypsies, see the Magyar connection at ://www.everyculture.com/Europe/Vlach-Gypsies-of-Hungary.html/ and reference to the origins of some groups in Romania in slavery, in Wallachia and Moldavia. The Magyars appear to be different, however, at another section of that site, at ://www.everyculture.com/Europe/Vlach-Gypsies-of-Hungary-Settlements.html

Vlachs from Czechoslovakia settled in Texas and here is a site explaining a view of their overall background: www.angelfire.com/tx5/texasczech/Valachs/Who%20are%20the%20Valachs. Another broad history: experts.about.com/e/h/hi/History_of_Vlachs.

We saw only this one shepherd maneuvering this huge flock through a village, under the wheels of cars and trucks, and out the other side. Drivers and passers-by all checked carefully for lambs huddled by axles, and only proceeded when an all-clear was very clear. Start up, rev slightly, then check again. There was an 18-wheeler up to the right.

Vlach flock, Romania

Vlachs are usually Eastern Orthodox Christians in the Eastern Balkans, and Roman Catholic in the Western Balkans. There are few Muslims. See overview at ://www.everyculture.com/Europe/Vlachs-Religion-and-Expressive-Culture.html/ Their traditional religious, social and cultural life is interspersed with practices including conjuring, fortune-telling, and exuberance, preferring to implement or celebrate important events of life within their communities, not in the church. There are traditions of tattooing, but little "fantastic" imagining in oral tradition, story-telling, riddles, ballads. Sounds very practical, and fitting for a non-luxurious lifestyle. Healthcare: traditional herbs, infusions largely. See the Everyculture site at ://www.everyculture.com/Europe/Vlach-Gypsies-of-Hungary-Religion-and-Expressive-Culture.html/ They believe intensely in life after death, and celebrate life-death simultaneously in some circumstances.

They are not workers of the land - that is for "peasants" - and the Rom engage instead in buying and selling, trading, other occupations, see ://www.everyculture.com/Europe/Vlach-Gypsies-of-Hungary-Economy.html/ Is the Hungarian site applicable elsewhere? That takes an expert. Family customs: ://www.everyculture.com/Europe/Vlach-Gypsies-of-Hungary-Marriage-and-Family.html

Read their history. See reference to India and mogul invasion era at ://www.everyculture.com/Europe/Vlach-Gypsies-of-Hungary-History-and-Cultural-Affiliations.html/ and later Greek roots, at this site,://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Soc/soc.culture.romanian/2009-04/msg00754.html/ They are also called Koutsovlach. The newsgroups site notes the efforts of the Romanian government to identify Vlachs as Romanian, through education, and the Roman and Orthodox Churches competed in trying to attract them. Eventually, apparently, the Romanian Vlachs lost the right to claim Greek citizenship, so could not return even though many had wanted to. This was in the early 20th Century. Then, a Vlach homeland area, Dobrogea, went from Romania to Bulgaria, and the Vlachs became virtually homeless.

A section of that culture.romanian site is entitled, Assimilation and Oblivion.

After WWI, the government needed places for refugees, and took Vlach lands that had been used for grazing and wintering over. Use of the language declined, became low status. Greek-Romanian political rivalries proved a disaster. In 1997, however, there was increased interest in preserving minority languages, and "Aromanean" began to be taught in Greece. Then stopped, for lack of interest, and is being taught now, apparently, in Germany.

Ah, ha, ha, ha, Livin' a Lie. When Appearance is Not the Reality.

2009-05-03T08:30:00.005-04:00

Lawrence of Arabia,
and Others Whose Reality
Is Not The Appearance

Or Those Who Overcame

Like Lawrence of Arabia

Life stopped at '18. Then a War. Life as somebody knew it, suddenly gone. Life as it was, hidden. In cultures, families, governmental relationships, sometimes the smile precedes a scream. For many.

This comes to mind with Lawrence of Arabia, see Wales Road Ways, Lawrence of Arabia, of Wales. Many secrets, orientation, flaws, at issue a thwarted respectability in the family if, the trying on of new identities, the coming home, still caught in old tapes. For some, a consequence of a status sounds trivial to those on the outside, for others, a hidden past. Meet some of the unsung illegitimate in history, see The Unsung, The "Illegitimate" - Many Who Made It Anyway. And meet those who became great leaders, or in their field, anyway, when the culture still was damning. In its way.

For all who. Who knows. Knew. The used. The erred. In any way. Culture, music, politics, relationships and history - the misfits - and leaders - fake it 'til you make it - ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_it_till_you_make_it/ - who made it anyway, or not.

Disguise. If the twig is silent, is there anyone to hear.

To be. Robert Howard. Where, thee. Name change shape shift Robert Feneley, Gee. Mysteries in lives.
As the twig is bent. Or not to be. Gee. Dub it at ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G7ZbhsQsaE/ Not this one, but perhaps it, too - "Livin' a Lie" - Rihanna at ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw1SynDpufE/. In the noos. ://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8026249.stm/ Noose? Who knows. Knew. Not in the news. Until.

Shadow Children - Unsung Backgrounds, But Doing Well, Thank You

2009-04-09T15:49:00.015-04:00

Unofficial Children - A Continuing Human Tradition.

Welcome Them All Home.

Backgrounds and All.
It's Time. It's Safe Now.

We should be equally proud of children born in as out of wedlock. Our culture has a mixed record on that issue. Other cultures are more uniformly condemning, especially of the mother, see http://www.sistani.org/local.php?modules=nav&nid=2&bid=59&pid=3090/ There, the taint of having an "illegitimate" child carries over into broad other areas of life.

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci, Amboise, France

Evita Peron

Those from ://www.parentdish.com/2007/11/23/some-famous-illegitimate-children/. We think none are "illegitimate." Just largely unrecognized, some for reasons that balance out, others that do not, given times, cultures.

Charlemagne

Charlemagne was reputed to have been a "love-child" while his brother, Carloman, was legitimate. See Einhard and Notker the Stammerer, Two Lives of Charlemagne, at page 4, at ://books.google.com/books?id=L7Rf2PsyvowC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Notker+the+Stammerer+Charlemagne+Saxons&source=bl&ots=raZiCBta7f&sig=39RqxVxuEy_t1SnNaUDltlTlz8c&hl=en&ei=KlUzTJHyLYa8lQeQt4TBCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Notker%20the%20Stammerer%20Charlemagne%20Saxons&f=false

To the list, add from this site, ://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/9842/

Confucius
Thomas Paine
Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton and Friends, Madame Tussaud's, London

Lawrence of Arabia. See also ://www.pbs.org/lawrenceofarabia/players/lawrence.html; Wales Road Ways, Lawrence of Arabia, of Wales.

Miscellaneous Royal Offspring. Kings have many. Robert the This. Howard in ancestries. Hammersmith. Civil and other wars '61. Hoerltling entitlements overcome no nicens say the ages. Londinium of the Empire.

See The Royal Family Tree Sprouts Unofficial Limbs, at ://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/03/nyregion/the-royal-family-tree-sprouts-unofficial-limbs.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all /

Then on to some that particularly interest us:

Christopher Columbus -

Speculation, a Portuguese Prince's son extra-marital, see Spain Road Ways, Seville, Christopher Columbus' Bones; in addition to those items, is he the son of Pope Innocent VIII, see "Christopher Columbus, The Last Templar," at http://store.innertraditions.com/Product.jmdx;jsessionid=AD4D23697D8F982AE64B465ACE039850?action=displayDetail&id=2252&searchString=978-1-59477-190-3&selectedTextTypeKeynames=23&displayZoom=1/

Cristoforo Colombo, with Tourist for scale, Madrid

Enjoy the detailed outline of the book, the resemblances physically (but that can be said of many of us to unrelated persons), cultural clues, etc. An enjoyable speculation, and we know nothing of his upbringing. The name "Columbo" apparently was often given to foundling children, perhaps of Jewish parents in the north of Italy (Jews were expelled from Spain finally in 1492, same year), Colombo or Colon signify the Jewish "Jonah", says the site, and the children were considered born courtesy of the Holy Spirit, thus "dove" and "Colomba." Speculate about history. Enjoy. Birth of a man without parents. Hmmm.

Dorothy Jennings Ruth Pirone, daughter of Babe Ruth.

This seems to be established. Dorothy is from Babe Ruth's relationship with Juanita Jennings, not his wife. Their relationship was in 1920. See http://radio.javaranch.com/michael/2006/05/11/1147383508809.html/ Babe and his wife, Helen, eventually adopted Dorothy, but she was not told this until she was 59, so it is said. This is not the adopted Julia Ruth Stevens, daughter of Babe Ruth, and there were other children from various wedlocks (see http://www.baberuthmuseum.com/press/pr/index.html?article_id=27/). Search Amazon for a copy of "My Dad, The Babe - Growing Up With An American Hero," by Dorothy Ruth Pirone and Chris Martens, see http://www.amazon.com/My-Dad-Babe-Growing-American/dp/1557700311.

Play ball! Hatpin, Scharfe Collection.

See Young Babe Ruth, by Harry Rothberger, at page 167 google book http://books.google.com/books?id=hJOD0KlvCSAC&pg=PA167&lpg=PA167&dq=Dorothy+Jennings,+Babe+Ruth+daughter&source=bl&ots=phAVuOU88c&sig=7SiKpMNk2dArsj7gOjk9bx8xfWg&hl=en&ei=B0TeSaOkAqLflQe0uJhV&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8

Dorothy died in 1989. See obituary at http://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/20/obituaries/dorothy-r-pirone-68-babe-ruth-s-daughter.html/ She knew her natural mother only as a family friend.

Look at page 63 of the google book, Babe Ruth, a Biography, by Wayne Stewart. Juanita's father was president of Mexico, and ultimately assassinated. See ://books.google.com/books?id=AVXykh_yjP8C&pg=PA63&lpg=PA63&dq=Dorothy+Jennings,+Babe+Ruth+daughter&source=bl&ots=Fu7zHxWklh&sig=Wq7lxFVbNhyt1gskVpt2BDMaIBg&hl=en&ei=B0TeSaOkAqLflQe0uJhV&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3/

Jesus of Nazareth -

Faith begins where reason can go no further, so see ://www.jesusdynasty.com/blog/2006/07/26/an-unnamed-father-of-jesus/; and Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera, at ://sg.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090207222647AAnWyuL/ and the rest on your own, as you may or may not be inclined. See Germany Road Ways, Pantera Tradition Adding to Christmas.

Many, many more

Here is a site with 20 more famous people listed - see Trivia on 20 Famous Illegitimate Children, at ://www.trivia-library.com/a/20-famous-illegitimate-children.htm/ That list stopped in 1981. Find on the long list these folks:

Marilyn Monroe
Sarah Bernhardt
Richard Wagner
Jenny Lind
Erasmus
Cesare Borgia
Alexandre Dumas
Pope Clement I

Then:

William the Conqueror.

Looking back to the top, one of our favorites remains William the Conqueror, from Normandy and the Norman Invasion of Great Britain. He came to a sad, painful end.

Until then, William the Conqueror, here, did quite well. See France Road Ways, Normandy, Normans.

William the Conqueror, Grave, Caen, France

Alois Hitler, Father of Adolf Hitler (1837-1903).

Alois Hitler was employed at Austria's customs service; Adolf feared him, distrusted him, but Alois himself did well and left an adequate pension to support the family. See biography of Adolf Hitler at http://www.biography.com/articles/Adolf-Hitler-9340144/ Adolf's surname for a time was his mother's, Schicklgruber; but by 1876, Adolf had firmed up his claim to use the Hitler name. Did he ever use "Schicklgruber"? Or did he personally always use Hitler. Still checking.

Art Linkletter - TV host (1912-2010)

Art Linkletter was born out of wedlock, as they say, and put up for adoption as a baby. See http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/26/art-linkletter-tvs-people-are-funny-host-dies/ He hosted shows memorable to early TV watchers, such as "People are Funny." These were shows of good will, humor at the human condition, whimsy and courtesy. We miss him. Flim-flam rude-crudes, who make up shows that live under rocks during the day and exploit at night whatever angle puts people down, or makes lots of money in shock and a-a-argh, a take an hour and watch Art. Real Art.

And some that do not interest us, but seem to preoccupy others:

Trigg Palin, born 2008, Alaska, talents unknown except for photogenicity, son of Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston, see grandma and others who have not reacted in public yet to perhaps a pending marriage putting more eyes in the camp, after all, at http://www.ontheredcarpet.com/2010/07/bristol-palin-and-levi-johnston-are-reportedly-engaged-to-be-married-following-a-breakup-after-she-gave-birth-to-their-son-tr.html/.

Applause for all who did well with hands they were dealt. One day it will not matter - any of that.

Go here for applause ://www.partnersinrhyme.com/soundfx/applause.shtml

Now: How about the mothers. What is their story. What do secrets do to lives. What does humiliation, or force, do to lives. Does that concern skip a generation, the generation that bore the babies. Do they count. Obviously, not. Reconsider.

Louise Lucinda Hilliard (Brien) 1876-1963

Louise, or Louisa; or put the Lucinda first; was born to Margaret Hilliard in Trillick, Ireland. Margaret was known as Maggie. Maggie was 14 years old, helping the housekeepers at Glengeen Lodge, a maid. Living there was William Brien, age 39 at the time, and he had his way. My grandmother, Louise Louisa Lucinda Hilliard Brien was born. Not all letches are evil; Mr. Brien as we referred to him as we learned the story, tried to have a relationship with both Maggie (too young at 14, and not suitable as a bride for a local "Lord"), and supported them both. When they came to the US, it was by second class steamship, and his stock and its income provided sustenance. See the Hilliards, parents still living on Main Street; and Mr. Brien, in 1910 at http://www.libraryireland.com/UlsterDirectory1910/Trillick.php

My cousin has letters, and has shared them.

The point here, is that ordinary people have children out of wedlock, they do well, but in our case, the humiliation and anger of my grandmother at being so stigmatized in a small Irish village by the 39-year old taking the 14 year-old stayed with her.

Rabbi Shmuel Ben-David: Idea vs. System, in "Isaac's Torah"

2009-04-08T09:38:00.004-04:00

"Isaac's Torah:
The Memoirs of Jacob Blumenfeld"

Articulating Idea vs. System

An Eternal, and Literal, Tug to War

Rabbi Shmuel Ben-David. A real person, we believe, mostly. We met him through a memoir.

The setting begins in pre-World War II, in Central Europe, an area that wafted in boundaries between Austria-Hungary, Poland, Germany and Russia during the first half of the 20th Century. The holocaust, and before.

Rabbi Ben-David is a friend, confidante, advisor, co-philosopher, to the very real survivor of two world wars, Isaac Jacob Blumenfeld.

Blumenfeld narrated his verbal memoirs to author Angel Wagenstein. Mr. Wagenstein wrote the book, "Isaac's Torah" see ://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9781590512456/

Read a review of "Isaac's Torah" by Richard Marcus at ://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/10/14/145229.php/.

Rabbi Ben-David comes into play after World War I, and during the years preceding the Holocaust, and into it. How much is fiction, how much is literal transcription, hard to tell. Does not matter. The work is "[a] conscientious transcription of another's memores and reflections" and is claimed to be without invention, says the author at page 1, "instead of a forward." Suits me. His ideas deserve special memorializing.

Warsaw, Ghetto, Holocaust Memorial, Hiding in the Sewers

.
In "Isaac's Torah," at page 165, Rabbi Ben-David considers the relationship of a) original religious idea as expressed by the founder; to b) the later system that crusts around it, and takes on a life of its own - and they, the idea and the later system, are not interchangeable.

I. Listen in.

Fair use quote, nearly a page-paragraph, out of 306 pages in all. Fair enough. The rabbi is speaking to the Christian professor, who offered hospitality and hiding to the rabbi and Isaac, at the time of the German invasion of Poland at the outset of World War II. Here goes the rabbi: read slowly. We have separated out the sentences in clusters, from the one ongoing paragraph....

"And you, I dare say, are confusing the idea with the system and this is welcome to the system.

"It likes to be confused with the idea, and even to be perceived as its only materialized expression, equivalence, and interchangeable equal.

"How can I make myself clear? As far as I understand, you are a believing Christian, and does the Christian church not want to be identified with Christianity?

"But the Idea is one thing, and the System that has to materialize it, another.

"And a day comes when the defense of the Christian ideal of brotherhood, love of one's neighbor, and forgiveness for all, is taken up by the Inquisition, the Crusades, and the technologies for burning witches and chasing the devil.

"The spiritual glamour of your Christian idea is imperceptibly replaced by the glamour of church ritual, and the asceticism and personal dedication of the early Christians by the gluttony and lechery of abbots and cardinals. Isn't it so?

"The system has its own survival needs and logic, and if the Idea stands up to them, so much the worse for it -- it can be silently buried and replaced by an exact copy or a demonstration model. but you remain true to the original idea, regardless of everything.

"You can deal with myopic vision, but are powerless in front of color-blindness.

"And exactly there lies the zone where the Idea and the System blend so tightly that you don't know which one you are serving: the ideas of Christ or the canons of the church."

Amen.

Selah.

For that, see ://www.mountainretreatorg.net/faq/selah.html/ - perhaps, as this Tony Warren suggests, from words meaning a weighing, a measuring against, as in balance scales. See the Jewish Encyclopedia, agreeing it is difficult to translate with precision, at ://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?letter=S&artid=449

II. Watch the wheel of the concept turn:

1) Idea vs. System, and

2) the System has to materialize the Idea, and then

3) the System develops its own "survival needs and logic," and

4) the System then subsumes the Idea for the sake of the System's survival, and yet

5) the Idea can survive the System, outside the System.

III. Today.

This cycle comes to mind with today's Hartford Courant, and its article about all the unaffiliated - many of us - who may list faith as "none" on the questionnaires - the Nones.* A return to the Idea, outside the System.

The Nones: They-we may be religiously unaffiliated in terms of regular participation, but search for the spiritual side. In other ways. Expression, help, dot dot dot dot. See Hartford Courant 4/8/09 at page C1. This kind of article gets us back on track with the Courant as informational, and educational, and helpful; not agenda-driven. Shall we renew our subsciption?

IV. Then and now.

How else have Systems distorted the original Idea.

See the Idea in action, with examples of women's substantial independence, even serving as warriors, int he time of the Prophet, see cites at Studying War, Women in War. How has the System changed the Idea, in that religion as ours. Any religion. Any idea, any system.

Witches and the Devil - The System creates anew its targets, reasons for being?

Witches' Cage; Cage of Disgrace; Levoca, Slovakia

.
If you haven't read the Malleus Maleficarum lately, go back to this Inquisitor's handbook, at "The Malleus Maleficarum" at ://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/. The Witches Hammer. Hammer of Witches. Pound, pound, pound on them until they confess. Or go to its Index at ://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/mm/

Find its incarnation. Much is written about the ghetto in Warsaw, Poland. Here, see the city where Isaac's wife is being treated for an illness when the German invasion begins: Lodz. We do not know if she ended up in the ghetto there, but see the Lodz Ghetto, at

Jewish Virtual Library site at ://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/lodz.html/; and "The Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto" by Lucjan Dobroszycki, at ://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300039245/ ; and
For an anthology of documents, poems, proclamations, photos, ephemera out of that experience, see :Lodz Ghetto, Inside a Community Under Siege" edited by Alan Adelson and Robert Lapides, see ://www.amazon.com/Lodz-Ghetto-Inside-Community-Under/dp/0140132287/

Isaac Blumenthal was in two concentration camps, one near Buchenwald, a labor camp near Weimar, Germany. He mentions Buchenwald. Here it is. The book does not focus on anecdotes of the experience of horror in detail, it is more a book of the human spirit, so see the horror's remains:

Buchenwald, Labor Camp, near Weimar, Germany

Meet also Mendel - the main character in so many stories told by Isaac Jacob Blumenfeld from the Jewish experience, lexicon.
......................................
* Nones. That sounds to old Latin buffs like the Nones, of Roman calendar fame - the fifth or seventh day of the month, when there is the visible new moon, or waxing crescent; with the Ides (the Ides of March, Caesar's downfall), the Calends or the first day of the month, from which our "calendar" comes, and the Pridie or the day before, see ://www.logofiles.com/calendar-elements.html/.

William Horatio Bates - Bane of the Vision Dependency Industry. Got Glasses? Why?

2009-03-07T17:29:00.009-05:00

BEFORE

My eyes are dim, I cannot see.

Why did you sell those specs to me?

Why did HEY

You HEY

Sell those specs to me?

Tired of looking for your glasses? Stepped on them once too often?

Contacts gritty? William Horatio Bates 1860-1931. has had a solution for many of us with fuzzy eyes since 1920. Medical doctor; ophthalmologist. Vision weakness cure through exercise, not "accommodation" with glasses. We tried doing without eyeglasses for a week, and are doing the exercises - roughly - see The Fodder Site, No-Glasses Week.

William Horation Bates is unsung ophthalmologist, but this one with a cure requiring no medication, no prescription. Yes, folks, a cure, for many whose eyes are just weak or eye muscles just diminishing, as any other muscles might, not diseased. Many of us would qualify. No intrusion, no side effects.

A Road Less Traveled. Treatment options without prescription.

This doctor wrote a book in 1920. We have a copy from the 1930's. Read the book itself at "Perfect Sight Without Glasses," or full title, "The Cure of Imperfect Sight Without Glasses," at ://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Perfect_Sight_Without_Glasses/

See Biography of William H. Bates at ://www.i-see.org/bates_bio.html/. Impressive, and mainstream.

But his findings never took hold, obviously, given the overrun of the spectatular spectacles on all of us.

Hhe determined that

the "normal fixation" of the eye is central to good vision,
but that the fixation is not stationery. It moves all the time.
There is a point of "apperception" and as you go out from that, things get inreasingly less focused.

Try it yourself. Look at something. The stuff around it gets progressively fuzzier the farther you get from the vision poin.

He developed a method of teaching people how to do two things at once: in order to keep vision focusing optimal no staring, no gazing, just keep with this program. Relax, and focus; relax and focus; relax and focus; No long periods of the eye just dozing off.

Sounds simple, and even the exercises are simple.

We like real books better than an online version so far - gives you time to look away, think, relax, focus; change; relax, focus, as the brain does its thing, With a computer text, you feel obligated gto stay fixed. The point is, change the focal point, go from near to far all the time, all the time, all the time. Exercise, in other words.

A. Is Bates Worth Revisiting? We think so.

1. Testimonial second-hand.

We had a landlord from a million years ago in an old house in West Philadelphia. He said once, as we sat in the back yard by the fire escape that led to our alloted slot on the second floor, that he wanted to go into the Navy in WWII but was rejected beause of his eyes. So he picked up his Bates, did it all, and was admitted later on with no problem. And has been fine ever since. Veddy interesting. He gave me his copy, I did it for a while, then let it go.

2. Possible testimonial pending first-hand.

So: Today I started my No Glasses Week. The only differences from this newly non=bespectacled state I notice so far is that ) it slows me down.; and 2) on a computer, I can't tell a period from a comma. Proofreading is shot.

Reading the paper is like being a child - I finger point, and hover over blurry words. Reading a book - I am into "Black Tower" by Louis Bayard, needed a dictionary for "lambent" and "faubourg" - the dictionary defeated me. That tiny printin the Webster New World took a long time, Np squinting - I don't do that. But I do bring eyelid down in a sultry way and things do get clearer. I plan to rely on no recipes this week.

Will I last? Now, I am luckier than most. No prescriptions for glasses ever filled (got one once, went to the drugstore instead), no eye disease, now just the leisurely decline and increasingly strong drugstore glasses. Excellent far vision, reading, Ennnnh. Don't even try without glasses. Why? I do crunches, slog down to lift weights irregularly, climb on the elliptical and take hikes when the snow melts. Why do I not do eye exercises, and what would I do anyway? Bates!

What if everybody dumped their glasses eventually? What if there is a CURE for many of us. The Vision Industry! What would they do!

I do have motivation. I have headaches, the glasses I have are all different strengths by now, all bent out of shape. I will go check that nothing else is going on - look up any medication on the internat and everybody has headaches, and that means more medicatio if you succomb, but do we have to put up with that? So I am trying no glasses first.

Like Big Pharma, what would all those people do if there actually were allowed a cure for what they deal with. If there is a cure, they lose their reason for being. If there is a cure that costs nothing, or can be grown in your back yard (sassafras), they lose their PROFITS! Shriek!

II. The Vision Dependency Industry and Optimal Optimistic Optical Options
.

The Vision Care Industry. Remember, this exercise approach does not fit with glaucoma or other eye diseases. But since when is a normal laxity increase or variation in muscles strength have to be seen as disease, to he Fixed by Outside.

Glasses shoudl be last resort, temporary, especially for children who do have to see the blackboard, and combined with Eyeball Exercise Therapy. Every child, every adult. The jobs lost to the glasses people get gained by the therapists; and the do-it-yourselfers in times of recession-depression do it themselves.. They can always go back to the crutches.

Protagonists. If there really is a cure for many of us: The first one would lose, the second and third ones would win.

1. The vision dependency industry.

Vision care. Sounds so benign. Like American pie. Caring for you. What is it really doing most of the time? Look around you, if you can find your glasses. Fostering progressive dependency. Get people hooked, the industry makes fortunes. Selling costly and intrusive treatments - and in the absence of disease. Many weak eyes are a muscle matter - not disease.

We are told that muscles can be strengthened, should be strengthened over a lifetime. But eye muscles, that control focus and etc? Those we dare not strengthen because then we would not need glasses and that is counter to the vision industry ideal. Vision care industry. See //findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_pwwi/is_20050229/ai_mark02017473/ Started out helping the diseased; now making people equivalent to diseased. Like Pharma? The product has so many side effects that they are in business forever. No cure, mind you. If we cured, we would lose our customer base.

Watch the fight, the PR campaign against people engaging in simple exercises. We are not saying to skip the checkups - just try some self-help. Are eye affected by muscles? Then work on the muscles.

Russian tank, Afghanistan campaignn, at Montreal Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps Museum,

So: Here is the idea.

At the first sign of blur, provided there has been an examination so that we know there is not disease here: go ahead and weaken the poor soul's eyeballs some more.

This is like taking an injured leg fully capable of recovery with sensible therapy, but instead keeping the person on crutches all his life. Just remeasure as he gets older. So we add glasses, drops, contacts, bifocals, monocles. We strengthen lazy eyes - know how to do it - why not strengthen ordinary eyes. All the time. Teach the exercises. Can't do harm. We need therapy here, information on what to do to help ourselves, not glasses all the time.

The vision care industry. Watch them widen their eyes in horror if the eye exercise tenets of William Horatio Bates are allowed out from under, and take hold. William Horation Bates proposes that people strengthen eye muscles, rather than promote their weakening by progressive accommodations to weakness.

2. HealthTrax Registered Trademark!

Good place for exercise, 'though pricey; so they reasonably are always looking for new fitness enticements. Add an EyeTrax room to the cycles and treadmills and ellipticals. Solved. Whole Person Fitness.

People come in, blink about in groups or individually (personal trainers), close off one eye as directed, for the time prescribed, move in long swing rotations of the body while focusing eyes, close them, let them open peacefully and see, Let the eye see, take time for adjustments, let them quietly focus, must send chills of fear through the vision indiustry

From the Quarter Master's Store, see ://www.raymondscountydownwebsite.com/html/war_poems.htm, we can finally say, some of us,

3. Therapists.
.

Get in line to learn this new specialty. We seem to need motivation to look after ourselves, and here is a new avenue.

C. Motivation. Self Reliance. Independence. The American Way.

Independence

Just in case we have to be self-reliant, if suddenly we have no glasses stores, no money to buy new glasses when we step on them, the contacts dissolve in tainted solutions, you will be prepared. Be prepared. Get independent.

Next step: Independence from chemicals, to a degree. Good soil, not additives at the last minute. No chemicals raising our plants if we can. Why can't we? Put the vitamins and minerals in the food, not add them - that doesn't get absorbed anyway - in pills later.

Humane

Lab news. New Iberia. See New Iberia lab abuse at ://www.2theadvocate.com/news/suburban/
/40885022.html

We are sick. We are worse than animals. We don't cure, we just want ot make money, at whatever expense to any other sentient being. Is that so? Would that be supported by an outside observer?

Absolutely humane meat processing or none at all, get chlorine out - could we do that? A friend of ours is in her own house, with all of us looking in and children moving in for the winters, at age 101 and she has always been on her own well water. Age in Place. The ultimate blessing, if you can do it with safety and health. And vision. She seldom wears glasses. Sigh....

Abuse of consumer, abuse of subjects. Now, I know we have that Bates book here somethwere. Where are those glasses?

AFTER
.

My eyes were dim, I could not see.

Dependency is bad for me.

So Bates HEY

Try HO

Exercise for me.

Otkell, Son of Skarf. Scarphedinn. Libertarian Medieval Icelandic Lives Live.

2009-03-01T11:17:00.011-05:00

Iceland Before Formal Government:

Old Norse - Parallel Original Libertarians

Minimal Government

in the 10-11th Centuries.

How did those systems work then? Can we learn for now?

Find 1) Otkell, Son of Skarf, Son of Hallkell;
and

2) Skarphedinn.*

*Read: "Skarp-Heddin" (see Wikipedia Burnt Njal on that)

.

Why include this less than model character in a site for the unsung. Doesn't he deserve to be unsung, our Otkell here? Then again, didn't he pay for his transgression, according to the times and custom; and even if he is our black sheep, we choose to sing him. Otkell, Son of Skarf. Sung by some far-distant, imagination-loving Scharfes. Have we progressed, or not. And, if his setting was a libertarian one, what can we learn about how that system works - or didn't. What do people do when government is minimal, really.

Here we listen to the singing by the fires in the long hearth, the tellers of tales in the long winter, tales of old names, of dreamt forbears, sagas of old relationships, glories, trickeries, battles. See the hall at ://www.viking.ucla.edu/hrolf/hallsect.html. Meet many unsung in our culture, but well sung in the Sagas. The good but informal leader Njal is indeed sung among his own. Read about it and some of the places now, at the Boston Globe's ://www.boston.com/travel/articles/2007/03/11/resurrecting_a_13th_century_icelandic_legend/ There is an easy-to-read history of Vikings, and Iceland in particular, at://www.localhistories.org/iceland.html/

To be a libertarian today means advocating low taxes, small government, more freedom. See the Libertarian Party website at ://www.lp.org/ . The Old Norse did that. We see no assessments or taxes at all in Iceland, the topic here. Government? Nor really. A system in a context where everyone knew your name, or your family; and everybody could bring suits to resolve issues at an annual Althing. Some persons emerged as counselors, wise, even prophetic (Njal here). But no elected positions. How did the Norse fare, and why did their groups succeed or fail, What to learn.
.

So: Sing. What can the stories tell us.
.

Old fires

Find here some important moral views for our national conversation: Njal, and Gunnar are the main characters in Njal's Saga. We learn there that, if your neighbor is in need, there is a response that serves the community (share, provide goods when goods are available) and another that serves self (no help, just drown). What works for the long term. What is the role of leadership, in setting the course; especially generosity in leadership.

Meet Njal, prophetic, doomed, loved, prudent, jurist, counselor, a leader in times of no formal leader.

At the end, never abuse your foes, or threaten them. Kari, Njal's successor has that for us.

When does a leader have to intervene. What degrees of social cohesion, shared history, isolation, are needed for even beginning libertarianism to function.. Speak, O Iceland!
.

Find this and other Sagas at Online Medieval and Classical Library Site at ://omacl.org/Njal/1part.html/ It is also known as the Story of the Burning of Njall, or the Njala, see broad overview for an everyman's context at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nj%C3%A1ls_saga/
.

This winter's tale-song we refer to here is the old Burnt Njall Saga, or Brennu-Njal Saga, or Njalssaga, from medieval Iceland. This saga tells of a family-clan's life experiences in the 10th and 11th Centuries, stories finally written down in the 13th and 14th. FN 1. Names from which the rest of us flow. Or do not flow. Either way, explore the lives.
.

And there we find two Persons of Interest:
.

1. Otkell, Son of Skarf
.

Skarf himself remains obscure. He is- just a passing mention of Skarf as the Daddy - of Otkell; and Otkell takes center stage. Otkell is a man of wealth in goods, who makes some bad judgments about it. Yet, there are other Skarfs. We look into those names as well.
.

2. Skarphedinn, a Son of Njal
.

Old roots, talkingSkarphedinn stands out but, as the Saga says, is not a comely man - his teeth stick out but he has a good eye and is a good fighter.

First hurdle: Is there a semantic connection between Skarf and Skarphedinn?

We conclude yes. That at FN 2. And, at Chapter 22 of Njal's Saga, we learn that the word "Hedinn" means a smith. See ://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/ice/njal/njal022.htm (that version is easiest to read start to finish - lines go all the way across the page).
.

So - Daddy! Daddy!
.

Yes, child, we are here. Boom-thunderbolts-battleaxes, and a nice saddle of elk on the spit.
.........................................................................................
.

1. OTKELL, SON OF SKARF, SON OF HALLKELL
.

Otkell, The Man of Wealth Who Would Not Sell to the Needy

And Njal, the Admired Jurist, Counselor, Who Then Did It Himself
.

Skarf: We offer several references to the word or surname "Skarf" in these examples from Burnt Njal's Saga. See The Icelandic Saga Database at ://www.sagadb.org/://www.sagadb.org/brennu-njals_saga.en/ This translation is from 1861, from something called the original "Brennu-Njal's Saga". The translator in 1861 was George W. DaSent. Scroll to Chapter 47: or do a find for Skarf:
.

A. Otkell, Son of Skarf

.

From Northvegr, Njal's Saga at Chapter 47://www.northvegr.org/lore/njal/017.php

"There was a man named Otkell; he was the son of Skarf, the son of Hallkell, who fought with Grim of Grimsness, and felled him on the holm (footnote reference says this is a duel-type event). This Hallkell and Kettlebjorn the Old were brothers.

"Otkell kept house at Kirkby; his wife's name was Thorgerda; she was a daughter of Mar, the son of Runolf, the son of Naddad of the Faroe Isles. Otkell was wealthy in goods. His son's name was Thorgeir; he was young in years, and a bold dashing man. "

Now our summary of the rest of the story at Chapter 47:
.

Otkell, this Son of Skarf, this man wealthy in goods, had a good relationship with a certain thrall from Ireland named Malcolm. Malcolm was owned by Otkell's brother, but the brother had few good words for him.

Otkell bargains to buy Malcolm because Malcolm works hard. As soon as he owns Malcolm, however, Malcolm slacks off. Otkell is not pleased but is stuck.

Sower, Quebec. Good years, bad years.

Now there comes a bad economic year. Crops fail. A neighbor in need, Gunnar, who is a main character in the Saga, with Njal, helps out other neighbors with his own meat and hay until Gunnar himself comes to be in need.

Gunnar comes to Otkell, to buy hay in such a year. He offers many terms for repayment; and Otkell refuses him at each suggestion.
.
Then Otkell asks him if he will buy Malcolm.

He does, but still, no hay.
.

In an era of no formal leadership, there was a respected chief, a jurist, counselor, named Njal. There was no formal government, but the Norse basic legal principles were known and valued, and disputes were resolved at group meetings (the Althing) periodically, with leaders emerging as need arose. Njal was prominent in the community.
.

Njal, this good but informal head, heard of the bad business of the rich and greedy Otkell. Otkell's refusing to sell to his neighbor Gunnar even though Otkell had hay to sell; and after Gunnar himself had been generous to others, did not sit well.
.
Njal was not pleased, went and bought hay himself and took it to Gunnar. Gunnar said he was grateful for the gift, but the friendship of Njal was worth more.

Gunnar is a main character in the Sagas, loyal to Njal but a firebrand himself.
.

If you look at Wikipedia on Burnt Njal, go immediately afterward to the original and compare the summary with what you yourself read. Wiki at ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nj%C3%A1ls_saga/ It would take time in a bottle to even begin to point out the misreps. Vet everything. Rush, Wiki, Bible, everything. Read the original about Gunnar and the sale yourself. To us, the moral that it so well stated there is worth including in a summary. Wiki puts in none of it.
.

.........................................................................................................................................
. .

B. The Name "Skarf"
Elsewhere in Burnt Njal
.

Meet Helgi Skarf, the Son of Geirleif
.

(must be different from Skarf Son of Hallkell?)
.

Fair use quotes here.

From Northvegr, Njal's Saga, at ://www.northvegr.org/lore/landnamabok/005.php

"Thorstein, the son of Solmund, the son of Thorolf butter, settled land between Botn's river and Foss river, the whole of Brynjudale. He married Thorbjorg Katla, the daughter of Helgi Skarf, the son of Geirleif, who settled Bardastrand. Their son was Ref the Old, from whom the Bryndalers are descended."

From Northvegr, Njal's Saga, at ://www.northvegr.org/lore/landnamabok/013.php, at Chapter 25 -

"Geirleif, the son of Eirek, the son of Hogni the White, settled Bardistand, between Waterfirth and 'Berghliðar,' he was the father of Oddleif and Helgi Skarf"

and

"Helgi Skarf was father to Thorbjorg 'Katla' whom Thorstein the son of Salmund, had for wife; their sons were Ref in 'Brynja'-dale and Thord, the father of Illugi, the father of Hrodny, whom Thorgrim 'Sviði' (singer) had for wife.

and

"Thordis was the name of another daughter of Helgi Skarf, she was the wife of Thorstein, the son of Asbjorn, from Kirkby in the East"
..............................................................................................................

C. Skarf as Norse for Cormorant *
.

From Northvegr, Njal's Saga at Chapter 98 ://www.northvegr.org/lore/njal/039.php

Wolf sang another song in return:

"Swarthy skarf from mouth that skimmeth
Of the man who speaks in song
Never will I catch, though surely
Wealthy warrior it hath sent;
Tender of the sea-horse snorting,
E'en though ill deeds are on foot,
Still to risk mine eyes are open;
Harmful 'tis to snap at flies (6)."

(6) "Swarthy skarf," the skarf, or "pelecanus carbo", the cormorant. He compares the message of Thorwald to the cormorant skimming over the waves, and says he will never take it. "Snap at flies," a very common Icelandic metaphor from fish rising to a fly.

* Also used for the shaley sharp-stoned cliff areas where cormorants nest, see Orkney Road Ways. Big bird, sharp of beak, sharp of dive, standing there on the rock looking silly with big, black wings outstretched to dry, because there is no underdown underneath.

....................................................................................................................
.

II. SKARP-HEDINN IN THE BURNT NJAL SAGA-

ONE OF NJAL'S SONS

Uncomely, a good fighter, burned with Njal and Household.
In any community, people doomed and dooming others
With Jealousy, Resentment, Revenge;
and Mutual Insult and Attack -

Humanity in Community. Ultimate reasons for failures.
What works, what doesn't, until the greed and jealousy take over.

The Battle:

The cause essentially was insult. And reactions to insult. Escalations and power-seeking. Does a society depend more on the quality, vision and common good interest of people in power, than the ideological form of government. Does greed and ego trip everybody up.

Events happened back in Norway, resentments and anger brought back. Insult and jealousy. Finding and claiming insult, framing issues as "honor," resentments of others against Njal's success in chieftancy, more insults, mayhem; skulduggery and attack and revange.
.

Skarp. Skarp means "sharp, critical, cutting, strong, able to cut, 'skarpa' " - see ://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/skarp, from the Norwegian and Swedish (mixed with the German with settling Norse there, becomes scharfe or German for sharp??)
.

Skarphedinn: Does this name come from "skarp" or "skarf," see FN 2. Regardless, here is who Skarphedinn is and what he does.

Events and People Examples -

Related to Skarphedinn.

Chapter 25 - Njall has a son named Skarp-Hedinn.
.
"Now we will name Njal's sons. Skarphedinn was the eldest of them. He was a tall man in growth, and strong withal; a good swordsman; he could swim like a seal, the swiftest-looted of men, and bold and dauntless; he had a great flow of words and quick utterance; a good skald too; but still for the most part he kept himself well in hand; his hair was dark brown, with crisp curly locks; he had good eyes; his features were sharp, and his face ashen pale, his nose turned up and his front teeth stuck out, and his mouth was very ugly. Still he was the most soldierlike of men."

Tall, strong, brave, dauntless, athletic, but not handsome - teeth stuck out, nose turned up, ugly mouth. But good eyes. And soldierly. Overall, not comely. There are other children of Njal as well. Njal arranged a wife for him, Thorhilda. And a wife for his other son, and the sons remained living with Njal.
.

Skarphedinn features in many stories. Read any version of the Saga, and do a find for Scarphedinn, and the references are too many. That takes a book.

We finally went to Wikipedia for the overview, and were not happy because we had already read most of the Saga, and found different material. Nonetheless, continue to be skeptical of Wiki in specific statements, but it does give an overview of most events, see Njal's Saga at ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nj%C3%A1ls_saga/

Finally (we understand there have been found burned ruins thought to be Njal's house)

Chapter 20. Berghthora

She is is the wife of Njal, whose name identifies the Saga, and she is the daughter of Skarphedinn.
.

She was strong of heart, brave of spirit, hard of temper. Njal himself was handsome, wealthy, skilled in legal analysis and argument, generous, a good advisor, owner of multiple homes. Clearly a winner. However, even she got drawn into disputes, rivalries.

Chapter 119. Of Skarp-hedinn and Thorkel Foulmouth -

See this easy to read version at ://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/ice/njal/njal119.htm/

Skarphedinn goes to meet with Thorkel Foulmouth and is warned. A few excerpts, fair use: This is such a huge saga, that a few paragraphs to show the character of Skarphedinn seems warranted and fair - just picture it -

"Skarphedinn smiled at that. He was so clad, he had on a blue kirtle and grey breeks, and black shoes on his feet, coming high up his leg; he had a silver belt about him, and that same axe in his hand with which he slew Thrain, and which he called the "ogress of war," a round buckler, and a silken band round his brow, and his hair brushed back behind his ears. He was the most soldier-like of men, and by that all men knew him. He went in his appointed place, and neither before nor behind."

Then Thorkel went on and said,

"Who is that big and ugly fellow, before whom four men go, pale-faced and sharp featured, and unlucky-looking, and cross-grained?"

' "My name is Skarphedinn," said Skarphedinn, "and thou hast no right to pick me out, a guiltless man, for thy railing. It never has befallen me to make my father bow down before me, or to have fought against him, as thou didst with thy father. Thou hast ridden little to the Althing, or toiled in quarrels at it, and no doubt it is handier for thee to mind thy milking pails at home than to be here at Axewater in idleness. But stay, it were as well if thou pickedst out from thy teeth that steak of mare's rump which thou atest ere thou rodest to the Thing while thy shepherd looked on all the while, and wondered that thou couldst work such filthiness!"
.

***
.

' Then Thorkel sprang up in mickle wrath, and clutched his short sword and said, "This sword I got in Sweden when I slew the greatest champion, but since then I have slain many a man with it, and as soon as ever I reach thee I will drive it through thee, and thou shalt take that for thy bitter words."

' Skarphedinn stood with his axe aloft, and smiled scornfully and said, "This axe I had in my hand when I leapt twelve ells across Markfleet and slew Thrain Sigfus' son, and eight of them stood before me, and none of them could touch me. Never have I aimed weapon at man that I have not smitten him."

'And with that he tore himself from his brothers, and Kari his brother-in-law, and strode forward to Thorkel.

'Then Skarphedinn said, "Now, Thorkel Foulmouth, do one of these two things: sheathe thy sword and sit thee down, or I drive the axe into thy head and cleave thee down to the chine."

Then Thorkel sate him down and sheathed the sword, and such a thing never happened to him either before or since.

Then Asgrim and his band go out, and Skarphedinn said, "Whither shall we now go?"

"Home to our booths," answered Asgrim.'

Chapter 131 - The Burning of Njal's house, and his household, and Skarphedinn

'Then Kari sang this song:

"Bender of the bow of battle,
Sleep will not my eyelids seal,
Still my murdered messmates' bidding
Haunts my mind the livelong night;
Since the men their brands abusing
Burned last autumn guileless Njal,
Burned him house and home together,
Mindful am I of my hurt."

Kari spoke of no men so often as of Njal and Skarphedinn, and Bergthora and Helgi. He never abused his foes, and never threatened them.'

The Saga also covers the time of conversion to Christianity.
.

What to learn - See FN 3. A Start.

Also note, at Chapater 48, apart from Skarphedinn, that Gunnar's wife remembered when he had slapped her for her part in some bad stuff, and said she would repay it when she could, and she did - refusing his help in restringing his bow - he needed some of her hair - and he was killed. The Saga of abuse? Or just part of the custom of the time. See (we offer several sites for the same translation) at ://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/ice/njal/njal048.htm

..........................................................................
.

FN 1 Brennu-Njal's Saga; Burnt Njal's Saga; Njalssaga;
.

Find translations at The Online Medieval and Classical Library site, ://omacl.org/Njal/. This is a harder to read than Northvegr, because of the typeface.
.

For places such as river vales that are not more specifically located in Njal's, look up other Sagas, such as at the Northvegr site, Landnambok, ://www.northvegr.org/lore/landnamabok/030.php/ We started reading the whole Njal's, and in the first line had to go elsewhere to find rangrivervales. It is an area of settlements by the Rang River, with vales. Obviously, now.
.

Saga geneologies are like the begats, but better. Geneologies go into what the people did and what they were like, in pithy bits, quirks, faces, and conundrums and kerfuffles. Begats are there to prove something, tie the chain. Make some lineage irrefutable for later purposes. Sagas don't try to prove points somebody else later wants proven. They just lay it out.
.

Fans with names now like Scharfe, Scarf, Scharf, Scariff, Scaife, Scarfe, may or may not be interested to find that this old surname has old Norse roots, and the Norse were not only Vikings but Normans, invaders of England and Anglo-Normans invading Ireland, etc. etc.
.
And in the other direction, Russia, Germany, etc. And in yet another, messing in the Mediterranean, but probably as Normans and in Crusades there. Is there more?
.

How to vet for truth?
.
Same issues as with any stories told and retold, and then written down only later. Many slips 'twixt cup and lip. See The Antiquity of Proverbs, by D.E.Marvin 1922, a google book at page 266 at http://books.google.com/books?id=DxVlAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA266&lpg=RA1-PA266&dq=proverb+slip+twixt+cup+and+lip&source=bl&ots=YvGMmCOvRK&sig=PliiV248DwskM7qaT4zik4xPv1g&hl=en&ei=qYyqScj5E6GbtwfYrITnDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result#PRA1-PA266,M1/.
.
And we are more interested in the content for what it says. Go back to the proverb about slip betwixt cup and lip. Find what research lays out of its origins - What role the boar? What role the bore. Bore the role. Roar the bole. Weevil?

..........................................................................................

FN 1 Where odd interests begin.
.

The names and events in the geneology and tale-telling here make us dizzy. So we hone in on the people with surnames sounding like or from or having a root connection with Skarf.
.

Here: Skarf - Back to medieval Iceland this time. Hear the genes. Skarf, Scarf, Scharf, Scharfe, Scarfthe, Scariff, An Scairbh.
.
The forge, the shaley place, the join in the longbow arrow, the sword. The Norman, The Northmen.
.
Whttthpkpt! The arrow loosed. Unnnh! The hit. Bonk. The skull mashed. A sometime Viking? Or the mere farmer picking a name out of the blue.
.

Ancestry Imagined. Addictive. Type in "Scarf" in the Icelandic records sites, for example, ://www.cyndislist.com/iceland.htm#People/ and find a common surname that is not that common elsewhere. Find the queries, Iceland, Orkney, Isle of Mann, England, Ireland, etc. at ://listsearches.rootsweb.com/th/read/ISLE-OF-MAN/2007-06/1182127982/

..............................................................................

FN 2

Are Skarf and Skarphedinn connected in any meaningful semantic way?

First, is Skarphedinn pronounced Skarp-he-dinn (with a hard "p") or Skarph -e-dinn (with a soft "f" sound for the diphthong ph). This seems likely, because diphthongs from one language are not usually lifted for another. If the pronunciation is "f" then we think an "f" would be used.

If it is Skarp-he-dinn, that is connected to Skarf because of the meanings-occupations-roots of both, we think. See Wikipedia's spelling as Skarp-Hedinn, at Njal's Saga at ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nj%C3%A1ls_saga/

Skarp and "sharp" able to cut, and skarf coming from forges, connections in swords, ironwork, arrows, shaley places where cormorants nest, and minerals derive, are not that far apart. Look up "Scharfe" at Ireland Road Ways and Orkney Road Ways. The names do seem connected. Ergo, we adopt both variations because we can.

Like the begats? Proving some point in retrospect, regardless? No. This is recreational hypothetical gene-tracking. No old prophesies that we now have to show are legitimately based. But an interest in odd traits, red hair (none in recent generations we know of, but so-and-so the red shows up). Nothing like a good fantasy.

..................................................................

FN 3

Old Norse.

Conservative. Libertarian.

Decentralized.

Low Taxes, If Any.

Legal Principles. but No Organized Executive Power

Sagas Tell The Tales.
.

Explore:
.

How did libertarianism and conservatism work out then;

what conditions helped, which hindered.
.

Does libertarianism and conservatism only work, and then temporarily (greed and self-seeking will always rise), where there is

a cohesive society,
everybody knows everybody else (listing geneologies)
common history and understandings (that does not mean no disagreements),
small enough groups so they can get together at the Althing as needed to try to resolve their disagreements directly.
Does it require the voluntary generosity that Njal espoused. He was displeased that the wealthy Otkell would not sell to a neighbor, and even took advantage of the neighbor's plight.

So Njal, acting like government, heard and saw the deprivation, and stepped in himself. He sold hay to the needy Gunnar. Now Gunnar was no pauper - he had given his goods to help out others in the community - but the point is that if the community needs, people have to step in. Is that is? And that left Otkell out to stew - had his goods but no respect. While Gunnar repaid Njal in loyalty.

Is Rush the newly incarnated Otkell?