97

97 blog                                     

REVISIT THE DATING GAME

I thought I had it all figured out on my #66 BLOG , but after after thinking about it a bit, let's review it.  This will never be sought after by the U.S., we can't even get the Metric System accepted.

A couple of thousand years ago  Justinian accepted that the Christians were a formidable force, and  he restarted (changed)  the dating from the time of a wise man by the name of Jesus (at least 300 hundred years earlier.). But when Mohammed was born and conquered most of the contemporary world of the time, they started their own ,  at about 635 AD. , Do Muslims still use that system?

I might as well get on the bandwagon and announce that from here on, we will begin the dates from the time of my birth, which is kind of handy since it is on a decade number, say, 1930.. If we do that, today's date would be 87 AL (After  Lamont). Of course, everything that happened before I was born would be BL (before Lamont, or BS;  Bullshit), which we have been living with since day one (birth of Jesus?). Just kidding....

  Proposition; Let's try to minimize the use of "Before & After. " and start dating from around the time of Troy or 1200 BC.  That's kind of a wild card as no one knows when the time of Troy was.

However, assuming that, it follows that the following figures will apply

            Founding of cities                                -6800 BT ( We may
                                                                          have to use Before Troy)

            Discovery of writing                            -1310 BT

            Time of Troy-  1200                            0 (Anything previous to
                                                                                      be BT)

            Founding of Athens - 1000?                800?

            Founding of Rome                              753.   (By Remus
                                                                     & Romulus, a Myth)

            Socrates death - 900 (No BC or AD)  900?

            Jesus birth                                          1200 (Another Mythical
                                                                                             story)

            Mohammed birth                                 1850? (A real guy)

            WW One (The War to End All Wars?).  3114

            WW Two (Or was it this One?)            3141 (Pearl)

            My birthday                                          3130, June 4

            Birth of a Nation                                   2976, July 4

BOOK ALERT

DARK MONEY by Jane Mauer

If you are interested in where the money comes from in American politics, you might be interested in reading this book. Climate change? Lots of money will take care of that from the Koch (Coke) Brothers. 25 million. Obama Care? More $$ will take care of that. Amway gave 20 million to get out of paying taxes to IRS. These folks have invented an array of organizations that are called "Tax - deductible Philanthropy" , academic institutions, Think Tanks, Congress, etc. Have you even heard of Richard Mellon Scaife? He & the Koch's buddy in donating millions to orgs so they could get around paying taxes.  Jane traces the Byzantine trial of the billions spent by these folks and gives us vivid portraits of the colorful figures behind the new American oligarchy. It appears we are duplicating the fall of Athenian Politics, as their 600 senators were all Land Owners. No peasants, please.

           

          

Jeffers Place

Wright's Walker House

 

ON A LIGHTER VEIN.   We visited my old haunts in Big  Sur & Carmel a while back and I use these times to re--connect with my love of  Robinson Jeffers work. His fabulous stories of old Big Sur I have read several times as they are so pithy and manage to convey the early people who lived there.  He built a wonderful small stone house in Carmel that is always worthwhile, also it is nearly across the street from Wright's 1948 Walker house, perched on the seashore there. Anyway, it gives me an excuse to remind all of you readers (of books, you are out there , are you not?) of Jeffers works. ('Give my Heart to the Hawks,' 'Tamar', 'Roan Stallion'). 

           

SO MUCH FOR SECURITY  When the secret service was established in 1865, it had no responsibility for protecting the president. This, despite the bitterest irony in American intelligence and protective services; The authority to form the Secret Service was given by president Lincoln on the day he was shot. The agency began with ten men, and it's first mission had been to combat currency counterfeiting at a time when more than 1600 private banks printed their own money. It was not until after 1906 that Congress authorized the agency to expand into a protective force around the president, a espesially  after the deaths of Garfield 1881 and McKinley in 1901. But remember; Guns kill people, not guns.

MISCELLANY

DEFINITIONS; A   musical interlude

The ARCHITECT is the  COMPOSER hired by the KING or the  OWNER

The  DIRECTOR  is akin to the CONTRACTOR, organizing & keeping the workers  in line

The SUB-CONTRACTOR is akin to the MUSICIANS who actually do the work.

The AUDIENCE or your FRIENDS enjoy the fruits of every ones labor.

Hot day; Cool beer.

DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME

My first experiment in beer making was a gallon of Mead, something akin to what early, Medieval  imbibers drank. A simple recipe, mostly fermenting some honey.  Along my trail of beer making, I usually showed friends how to make their own Pliny the Old Guy.

Michael wanted to make up a small batch of it so I showed him the ropes, then he took the gallon jug home to ferment on the kitchen counter.

The crucial item I did not give him was a cork that had an air-lock, which allows the gases to escape as they build up in the container from the yeast action.  Mine only fit larger bottles.

Well, during the night, Michael was awakened by an explosion and he opened the door of the end room, he noted the hallway was sprinkled with glass shards. Luckily, he or his young son had not been in the hall , they may have even seriously hurt, if not killed, when the gallon of beer exploded due to build up of pressure that had no other way out but to explode.

RELIGION & MYTHS

Since the discovery of  Akadian Clay tablets (Part of the Epic of Gilgamaesh, King of Ashurbanipal , 668 BC) more than a dozen Cuneiform tablets have been discovered, all of which have some version of the FLOOD  MYTH  , some which pre-date the bible  myth by a thousand years. (That would be the Old Testament). 

A LITTLE POETRY INTERLUDE  IS CALLED FOR HERE;

From 'I AM A LOVER'  My favorite book from 1961 (Captions of Photos)

I am a Lover,

But have not found one to love.

How shall I learn, Supreme Mystery?

To know thee, tho I muse continually?

Under what form of thine unnumbered forms Mayst Thou be grasped?       

                             Bhagavad Vita

Winter is icummen in,

 Lhude sing Goddamm,

Raineth drop and staineth slop.

And how the wind doth ramm!

                          Sing: Goddamm.      

                                                Ezra Pound (I never could understand that guy)

In the artists studio all distinctions disappear.

One has neither name nor family;

One is no longer the daughter of one's mother,

one is one's self - an individual -

And one has before one

ART,

And nothing else.

                        Marie Bashkirtself  (Never heard of her)

'Twas brillig,

                        and the smithy troves

Did gyre and gamble in the wabe:

All mimosas were the boron overs. . .

He took his Vorpel sword in hand;

            Long time the manxome foe he sought -

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

            And stood awhile in thought.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

            The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun. . .

...the frumpious Bandersnatch!                Lewis Carroll. (Now that I can understand !).

            Let your life lightly dance

on the edges of Time like dew

On the top of a leaf.

            Rabindranath Tagore

CORDOBA

Distant and alone.

Black pony, great moon,

And olives in my saddle-bag.

Although I know the roads

Never will I reach Córdoba.

By the plain, through the the wind,

Black pony, red moon.

Death is watching me

From the towers of Córdoba.

Ay, the road is long!

Ay, my valorous pony!

Ay, that death should await me

Before I come to Córdoba!

Córdoba.

Distant and alone.

                        Frederico Garcia Lorca

            Lord, I do fear

Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year.

My soul is all but out of me - let fall

No burning leaf, Prithee , let no bird call.

                        Edna St. Vincent Millay

The capacity of the people for error

Is not to be underestimated.

                        Westbrook Pegler

VIDEO ALERT

I've just discovered on YOU TUBE I can pick up short bits of the great movies, like "Blazing Saddles", "Young Frankenstein" & "Little Murders" Even Bob & Ray Radio clips. But my favorite is the Wedding Scene from "Little Murders", one I've always wanted to show my kids. But now you can see it anytime by You Tube , Wedding in "Little Murders". This as written by Jules Fiefer, a fabulous  Political Cartoonist of past days. The movie is probably from the '70's starring Don Sutherland & Elliot Gould, who photographs dog shit.

HISTORY OF THE CAMERA

  Of course the first 'Camera'  was a room with a small hole in one wall that projected an image (upside down, before  Single Lens Reflex Rooms))  discovered by some painter in France or Holland around 1600's .But carrying a room around with you was not practical at the time.. 

And they also had a hard time selling upside-down paintings,

  For those of you who only know that your iPhone is also a camera, It didn't change much the first few decades after it was invented in 1814, but Eastman made it so most of us could take a picture by 1900. Color was not available until 1907, but not for mass consumption. The early photographers of the West needed a whole wagon to carry their own development lab, but by the 1950's serious photogs carried glass plates around and viewed their image upside down, when doing serious work. However, we may have won the war with Japan but their ingenuity was evident in their development of cameras. Before that, if you wanted to view the subject as is, you used one to look down into, or upside down,  but soon, the Japanese invented the Pentra-Prizm, SLR (Single Lens Reflex) that turned it rightside up in your Lens. Even during the 60's I developed my own photos  (we're still in black & white mode) in my bathroom. The Japs eventually excelled and took away the market from the Germans. Prior to this , you had to use a large plate , ergo, a large print in order to get a fine print.

The electronic camera wasn't developed until the late 80's, after the 'Land Camera' was invented in order to get instant photos. It was basically a photo lab in you camera and spit out a complete print 'In Color' in  a few seconds. However, after a few years , the photo could deteriorate, much to the chagrin of us looking thru old photo albums. But the electronic camera changed all that. NO FILM REQUIRED! Even on our initial trips to Europe (1980's) we had to save all the used rolls of film and buy new film in the Farmacia, In France or Italy.  By 1995 we could buy small cheap "Point & Shoot" cameras that stored hundreds of shots on a small chip. The downside of that was when a thief took your camera (and they will!) you lost hundreds of shots of your vacation in Europe. Our  solution was to change the card every week so you wouldn't lose them with you're camera.

But now I could store them on my desktop computer and view them large scale.

  Then apple comes along and adds an excellent camera to your phone. But if you are serious and need telephoto lenses, or other filters, you may still want to buy the $2,100 model from Nikon.    

NOTE: The origin of the  THE VENICE CARNIVALE is  "MEAT IS VALID" Must have something to do with the Catholic "Lent period".

Note #2: The Italian name for Eggplant is 'Melanzanov' which means "Unhealthy Apple" which comes form the mid Eastern 12th century. Don't ask me why.

Note also; The Porcini mushroom means 'Piglet', don't ask me why.

HURRAY! THE WARS’ OVER!   (This from 2003)

Our president (Bush) has  just told us  the war in Iraq is over.  I was wondering how that was  going.  I guess we’ve got all the  nuclear warheads out of. Is  there still a war in Afghanistan?  And remind me what we were doing there. Other than protecting our oil supply.   Do we still believe we are there to help  these poor bastards into Democracy? Don’t any of our advisors read history books? We all know that these Muslims have been killing each other since   Mohammeds brother started an off shoot of Muslim religion .

     I know its’ not PC to question ‘What went wrong?’ but I have to. Just ask anyone from ORHA (Committee to put back the country after we’ve trashed it, or the one’s who were supposed to set up a government when the killing stopped , like we did for Germany and Japan , two years in advance).  In actuality, we began planning for such a thing in Iraq until a couple of months before “Mission Accomplished”.  The ORHA folks were given a bare space without even desks, to say nothing of the telephones. Washington sent recent Grads from Prestige Schools to help run Iraq. One young woman was given the job of all traffic control in the country of millions! Yet she knew nothing of Urban Planning. Worse yet,  in 2003 Paul Brenner was sent in to run the whole crazy deal. He initiated several disastrous programs.

    First, he closed all form of government the Iraqi’s had.

2^nd; He fired all Saddams workers and disbanded the existing Army. That immediately formed a group of 500,000 men who had no jobs & no way to support families & relatives. Oh, and by the way, these men knew where all the arms wore stored. Immediately there was wholesale looting of one of the most historic Museums in the world, as well as their incredible library with thousands of ancient writings, but worse, the U.S. didn’t feel it was necessary to protect theses from looting and destruction.

I forgot to mention he let out 100,000 prisoners to help out the looting.

   3^rd;  And we didn’t see why it was necessary to protect the several large arms dumps.

Have I painted a stupid enough picture yet? 

I’m glad also we got it all sorted out about just who or what was the difference between a Rebel, insurgent, Militant, Shiite and Sunni?

These new wars against a sect of Muslims, fighting them  in the streets doorways with with huge aircraft carrier and supersonic fighter planes.  At least Drones can get in closer than a high altitude bomber at 30,000 feet.  Our politicians still don’t admit to why we were in ‘nam or Iraq, but don’t we all know it’s the Oil?

Destroying expensive equipment (Humvees, helicopters, etc)  so our Military/Industrial folks can keep up their living style? Is that why we keep doing all this?