Through Pain Comes Great Strength

On Sunday morning I wanted to watch something a little longer to  possibly  clear more than 1% disc space on the DVR.  I decided to watch something a little less educational, Dad's in Heaven with Nixon.  Wow.  This was simply put, a great film.  It is the story of a the struggle and survival of the Murray family of New York.   It was advertised as a story about the enduring love of a mother for her autistic child.    It was so much more than that. 

Chris Murray, the filmmaker's youngest brother, suffered oxygen deprivation at birth and did not hit the normal childhood milestones. Born in 1960, the medical world was not friendly to Chris.  As a child, he was not diagnosed with autism.  The doctors and psychiatrists constantly told his mother that he should be in an institution; that he had no hope of a normal life.  The more she was told, the more determined she was to see Chris succeed.

A great deal of the film was spent on the emotional struggles of the grandfather and father.  Both clearly struggled with what we now call bipolar disorder.  The grandfather was an alcoholic who had a very poor relationship with his youngest son, the filmmaker's father.  He felt his father hated him and often felt rejected by him.  In the end, this disorder caused the filmmakers family to lose everything, endure divorce, and even lose their father at an early age. 

Everything that their father was made the family weak, but  Chris' disability made them strong.  Chris has a simple appreciation for life and has taught his family so much about the nature of love, life, and the world around them.  Left confused and empty by their father, I feel Chris filled a void.  Chris could definitely feel that his father could not connect with him.  In his desire for that closeness, he developed an almost mystical ideal of his father after death. 

We often think of things in such a logical, linear, scientific way.  Your son is autistic. Look at the awesome  struggle you will face.  This family used Chris to be closer together. They pooled their energy into making him succeed.  Their father's distress had such a deep impact on all of them, but Chris softened the blow.  Things happen for a reason. 

Chris lives on his own, holds two part time jobs, and became a successful painter after the death of his father.  The Long Island drowning at the spot where the family used to spend summers sparked a desire in Chris to start paining.  Through his art, he has grown.  It seems his father's weakness has always brought him strength, though usually indirectly.  In turn, his strength has held up the family over a dark cloud, allowing them to always see the sun. 

Costume Crazy

There is this new series on Current TV called Amazing Eccentrics.  It looked interesting and they are only 30 minutes. I watched the one on costumes, which had 5 segments. It was all about people that love wearing costumes for various reasons.   I guess I was supposed to think these people were freaks! I didn't! Does that make me one?

 The first was on Jay Maynard, or Tron Guy, as he is known on the internet.  He is famous apparently. I am apparently out of that loop.  Anyway, he apparently made this suit to go to a convention of some kind and everyone fell in love with him.  I didn't think this was very weird.  People dress up to go to Trekkie things and other venues of the like. I think its awesome that this chubby older man has the gall to travel all over the place in that tight outfit.  More power to him! I think it's great!

The next was a guy named Jason Jackson that lives in suburban Sydney, Australia whose whole life revolves around Michael Jackson.  Ok. This one was weird.  But only because I think the whole Michael Jackson phenomenon as a whole is bizarre. I just never appreciated him after he turned into a white woman, I guess.  This guy calls his house Never land. He has a garden full of concrete animals that his father makes. His mother makes all of his costumes.  It is a touching story I guess. He heard an M.J. song when he was in the hospital with cancer as a child and it gave him hope.  So, naturally, he became a Jackson impersonator when he grew up.  One good thing is that probably the real M.J. didnt get to Australia as much as other places, so his fans get an awesome almost Michael show. Hey, its a Jackson performing!

I really loved the next dude.  This guy in Portland, OR wanted to be a real life superhero.  Yes, there is a such thing.  Zetaman and his sidekick Agent Null patrol the streets of Portland and gives to the homeless.  Whatever they need, he tries to give them.  So selfless, he gave his UGGs to someone during the show.  The other impressive thing to me was that he was giving medical supplies to a homeless woman that had one been an EMT, so that she could help her comrades.  This guy deserves a big Kudos.

Kaiju Big Battel was next.  It was "normal" people dressed up in costumes wrestling each other.  Though the costumes were kind of neat, I didn't see how it was all that different from WWF.  Not as expensive to get in? The fighters aren't on steroids? Maybe I just didn't get it. But, it was only a 5 minute segment.

The last part was on LARPing (live action role playing, in case you don't know of it). Well, is this really news? I never was into role-playing games or fantasy or anything like that. But, I am still aware that LARPing exists.  Its like the Renn fair in a way. But.... extended.

I was disappointed.  I expected the show to be about people doing really bizarre things in costumes. Oh well.  I wonder if I should watch or delete the other 6 episodes on my DVR.

Hate is Based on Lies.... and bad ones

Illness has kept me from watching any "serious" TV and admittedly I was avoiding watching Hitler's Blood Oath, part of The History Channel's Nostradamus Effect series.  Now, people often misunderstand my thoughts on Hitler. Honestly, I revere the man in a way.  But, not for his atrocities. Anyone who is THAT messed up in the head and can get the masses to not only believe the lies he preaches, but do whatever he wants, commands a certain degree of respect.  It is amazing to me that perfectly sane people can be ignorant to insanity and worship it.   I wish I could get people to do crazy things on my behalf! Maybe I'm just simply not nuts enough.  I respect the man for his power; but think his followers are a bunch of numb-nuts.

Anyway, there are quite a few shows, especially about Hitler, where I don't learn very much of anything.  I came out of this with maybe 3 new bits of info.  But, I do not like watching the Hitler documentaries that focus on the hatred of the Third Reich and the modern day organizations that follow Hitler's message of hate.  It is one thing if hate is based on even quasi-truths.  But, this whole racial pride thing that Hitler preached is so ridiculous it just makes me irate. I just can't stand hearing about it. The people that believe this craziness are never going to see that it doesn't make sense.

This particular show was about the Nazi religion, which was a "blood cult".  Hitler preached that the German bloodline must be purified; that the Aryan race was superior. Having any physical contact with someone outside of this gene pool would literally contaminate the blood flowing through your veins. The religious cult of the Nazis was very focused on blood.  From this came German Christianity, where Jesus was a Nordic Aryan sent to earth to fight Jewish materialism.

Of course the most obvious is that Hitler hated Jews and had Jewish ancestry.  Well, that says something doesn't it?  If a man wants you to go out and kill people like himself, what bigger sign of self hatred is that? He was a failure at everything prior to being Fuhrer.  The man did not have high self esteem UNTIL he went crazy.

I'm going to try not to go on too much of a rant about this whole thing.   I waited a good 6 hours to even write this so I was adequately calmed.  This Aryan Pride thing....  Hitler said there was a powerful root race, the Aryans. It must be purified.

The "Aryans" were  people from the area that is now India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran. They were called 'aryan' not because of the color of their skin, but because they spoke Indo-Iranian languages (Persian, Sanskrit, Hindu, Urdu, Punjabi, etc.).  The country name Iran actually means 'land of the aryans'.  They did not have blond hair and creamy skin with rosy cheeks though.  They did travel to Europe and are now known by a horribly derogatory term, gypsies. 

The word Aryan was not even used in relation to "white" Europeans until the late 1800's when the base language group that defined Aryans was changed from Indo-Iranian to Indo-European. That still didn't make all Aryans German. But it did make Germans Aryan.

Hitler said that Aryans were the 'Nordic Ideal".  Oh, let's go there. GERMANY IS NOT A NORDIC COUNTRY.  Now, in Nordic countries (Iceland, Norway, Sweden, etc.) they DO speak Germanic languages.  But the history of the Germanic peoples is not congruent with the history of the Nordic folks. Ever heard of the Vikings? Not German.  So, Hitler's "ideal" was completely not German. 

Ok. So now obviously Hitler was just meaning white people right? The white supremacy groups today are equal opportunity haters. If you aren't "white" they hate you. And nowadays, they have expanded to vigorously hate middle eastern people. Well, what does it mean to be "white"? White is a nice little term for Caucasian. What does Caucasian mean? The word came from the Caucasus region, which is between the Black and Caspian seas.  Wait, isn't Iran there? Why yes it is! What Bush loving American would think of an Iranian as white?

Truth be told, there are only three 'races' that have true biological differences, Black, White, and Asian.  It has nothing to do with skin color.  It has to do with bone structure and other genetic features that any forensic anthropologist could describe to you in detail. If your ethnic heritage is not from Africa or Asia, you are white. Sorry white supremacists, many of the darker skinned people you seek out are Caucasian.  Oh, and so are the Jews (the ones that aren't Asian or black anyway). By the way, being Jewish is a religious preference, not an ethnicity. Anyway.....

Hitler was talking about a set of characteristics, the pure race. These characteristics are not German, nor are they Aryan.  Blond haired, blue eyed.  An ideal exactly opposite of Hitler himself.  Who was he kidding?

What is even more comical is the KKK. They say you have to have "pure American blood" running through your veins.  Excuse me? So, you need to be Asian? The Native Americans are Asian.  Oh, you mean white American? A son of a founding father? Well, that makes sense because it seems many of them were also racist.

So, the question is, who in the world of hatred determines who is white? Would anyone of European origin be white? That doesn't seem right because anyone that is of what used to be called the "Mediterranean race"  (Italians, Greeks, etc) is genetically closer to an Arab than to a German.  The "Dark Irish" and other groups that got their dark locks and eyes intermixing with the Romans when they conquered the area, also have Arab blood. 

The truth is, from the beginning of civilization, groups have warred, controlled, and loved one another. Look at the great ancient empires and the large areas they spanned.  Those citizens had access to each other. Plus, leaders cross culturally intermarried. There never can be a pure race. If there was, it sure wouldn't be Caucasian, since mankind originated in Africa.

I want to leave you with one factoid. The show states that the origin of the swastika is a mystery because so many versions of it have been seen throughout history. They say that the closest is a Hindu symbol in the opposite direction that refers to the wheel of fortune and karma. But, they must not have done their research!The Hindus use both clockwise and counterclockwise swastikas, each with a different meaning.  Hitler seems to have screwed up and picked the wrong one.  The clockwise (which is associated with the Nazis) is a symbol of harmony and good luck. The Sanskrit word svastika means "all is well". The left facing swastika  (sauvastika in Sanskrit) is a symbol of the goddess Kali and magic.  Though is does not symbolize anything sinister,  that's probably the one Hitler was looking for.

The Birth of Speaking "Proper"

 I went upstairs and decided to watch something on the old DVR.  Some of the stuff on there was recorded in 2008. No, I'm NOT kidding! I had, in 2008, recorded the whole series "The Adventure of English" on History International.  I remember watching 2 or three episodes and then the others just stayed on there and never got watched.  Very fascinating stuff! The series covers the birth of our language all the way up to current day.

 I put on the episode about changes from the Age of Reason (late 17th century) to the Industrial Revolution.  Before this, English was like a rogue language running a muck. There were no standards at all; no grammar was in place, words had no set meaning, proper pronunciation hadn't been determined. What a mess! I can't imagine communicating like that. We think we have problems understanding each other now!

During the Age of Reason, scholars were insistent on creating standards for the language. Prior to this time, Latin was always used for scholarly writing.  English was not deemed suitable.  John Locke and Isaac Newton were key players in this movement.

In Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, he said that better use of language could end disputes and factionalism. If definitions for words could be agreed upon, peace was sure to follow.  Well Mr. Locke, that was a nice, cuddly thought. But we have agreed upon definitions for most words and peace does not appear to be on the horizon.  It is farther away than ever. Maybe the opposite is true.  We have such distinct specific words for emotions and feelings that by using the correct words, insults and injury are now much worse than they were in the 17th century.  Maybe we need to go back to a state where no one knows what the hell anyone else is talking about!

The first scholarly publication in English according to the show was Optiks by Newton. In this book about the refraction of light, Newton coined many new words such as indistinct and well-defined.  Prior to this book many words had completely different meanings.  Opaque had meant 'unlit' and Newton changed its meaning to "not allowing light to pass". 

During this time newspapers were starting to be circulated and it was popular to hang out in coffee shops and read and discuss them.  For the first time, written English was a part of everyday life.  But, the same thing was written with so many contrasting words that you had to read a few versions of an article to gain its meaning.

Samuel Johnson decided to put an end to this by creating the first English Dictionary. In seven years he plotted out 43,000 words in 2 volumes.  Sounds great, right? Well, lets just say it was a nice first effort.  He left out all proper nouns but put in obsolete words. If he didn't understand a word, he just left it out rather than ask others.  This includes most medical, legal, and trade terms. And of course the definitions provided are pretty useless. Some of the definitions used multiple long and pretentious words that no one understood. Others were ridiculous or just plain wrong.  Of those mentioned in the show my favorite was this:

Tarantula: An insect whose bite can only be cured by music. 

 Besides trying to get definitions in order, the fabulous easy to remember grammar that we all know and love was invented. There was also a big emphasis on vocabulary and standardizing spelling and pronunciation. Seeing that there are 7 ways to spell the sound "ee", they did a FABULOUS job of that!  Many common words were banned such as fib, bigot, flimsy, and nowadays. Don't you wish the word bigot was STILL banned? 

Subscription libraries came on the scene, making reading more accessible, especially to women.  With women reading, the market for novels grew.  Jane Austen came on the scene.  There was such an emphasis on speaking and acting properly.  Talking about the human body was considered very rude.  Thousands of lines of Shakespeare were removed due to their crudeness.  The belief was that if the word was gone, the thought was gone. It was from this that the first English slang was born.  I got quite a laugh out of the list they provided of words for "the male organ":  tailpipe, Captain Standish, Silent flute, pike of pleasure, cupid's torch, nimrod, mighty hunter, his majesty in purple cap, beloved guest, pleasure pivot, Dr. Johnson, and others. Obviously the thought was not gone.  They were clearly thinking about it a lot! 

I think that they did the best they could at the time to make some order out of the mess that English was at the time.  Even though we have great dictionaries, why did other areas stay stagnant? Our grammar is so fraught with inconsistencies and exceptions that it is rare for a native speaker to keep it straight.  Somebody better get on that!  

Where is Alexander?

When I was 12, we studied ancient civilizations in school and I was hooked. I had  a fascination with ancient Egypt and vowed to become an egyptologist when I grew up. Ha! Yea right! I did major in Anthropology and decided that life wasn't going to work out for me.  I still love it though, and was excited to find the Egypt Unwrapped  series on Nat Geo.  I watched the episode today Alexander the Great's Lost Tomb and embarrassed to say I actually learned a lot from it. 

In 332 BC Alexander arrived in Egypt.  At the time, Egypt was controlled by the Persian Empire.  Alexander was able to force out the Persian army and become Pharaoh. Quite an accomplishment. He only spent 6 months there while living, though it is his eternal resting place.

Alexander was very smart in taking control of Egypt. In Karnak, the center of power in Upper Egypt, he restored the Temple of Thuthmosis III.  He claimed him as his spiritual ancestor, a great move as Thuthmosis is known as the Napoleon of Egypt.  He then made the 6 day journey across the Western desert to Siwea.  This desert oasis is the home of Amun, Father of the Pharaohs. After this journey, the future of Egypt was changed forever.

When Alexander died in Babylon, his body made its way back to Egypt for burial.  Everyone wants to find Alexander's body.  There are two known burials, Memphis and later Alexandria.  Alexander's tomb is DEFINITELY in Alexandria somewhere. As a matter of fact, it was a major tourist attraction for a few hundred years. There are many ancient accounts of what this golden shrine looked like and the approximate location within the city.  However, it has never been found.  Those who are on the hunt for the Alexandria tomb are actually known as Fools of Alexander. Since the ancient city is far below current day Alexandria and the area in which this tomb should be is very large, chances are, no one is going to find it. 

The question is, where is the body NOW? Theory holds that if the tomb is found, it would be empty.  Starting in the 4th century, Egypt was in turmoil over religious upheaval.  The religion of the gods was taken underground.  Was his body stolen? Was it taken by his followers to a safe place?

At the time of the religious power control, Alexander's followers supposedly took his body to the Bahariya Oasis.  There is an existing temple to Alexander there with evidence that the cult of Alexander was practicing here until 600AD.  The Valley of the Golden Mummies was found here in 1996.  The mummies all date to the Greco-Roman Period and are from all stations in life......from common people to rulers. Is this the final resting place of Alexander?

It would be awesome if any one of Alexander's tombs were found.  Even better if his body were found.  Since he died mysteriously, it would be great to have some forensic analysis done on his mummy. But, if the tomb is ever found (which it hasn't been), there is no way to know what happened to the body. So, why even speculate on where the body is without a tomb or a missing body for that matter?

Will he know?

It is nagging at me. It just is profound and disturbing that both Hitler and Napoleon knew of Nostradamus' work and saw themselves in it. They recognized themselves as the antichrists mentioned. Do other world leaders, these predecessors of the third antichrist, acknowledge it? I'm sure Bush didn't because his mental capacity isn't exactly profound. But what about everyone's favorite, bin Laden? Will the next antichrist see himself in the writings of Nostradamus and get an emotional power boost like Napoleon and Hitler did?

If there can be forerunners to the Antichrist, why aren't there any mention of predecessors of this "messiah". What about Gandhi? Well Nostradamus was religious and fanatics like to get wrapped up in the negative. Why would God give the power to see positive things? Prophecy just doesn't work that way, I guess. So I guess the Mahatma of India has to be put back on the shelf.