Friday, July 3, 2009

Military Strategy; and Figureheads; Battlefields, Memorabilia

By Dint:

Sassafras and Guantanamo:  explore the relaxers, encourage changes of heart and mind

Genghis Khan, a model for Planning, Timing, and Follow-Up  The virtue of strategic withdrawal. Conquer when ready. See also Liddell Hart: the most effective approach may be the indirect.

Women in War See the warriors of the past. Talent in many forms.
.
Curator, Andrew Gregory, Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps Museum, Montreal.  Those who house memories. Overseer of a learner-friendly militarymuseum: tactics, history, weapons, equipment, strategies of wars. Andrew Gregory: curator,offers personalized interest at the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps Museum, Montreal.

Warriorism; Warrior Skills; Training Does practicing the skills of war deter, or set the stage for, use. Warrior skills as confidence-builders, psychological crutch.

Crusades:  License to Kill Evildoers.  Demonize the enemy.  Use of code words to justify killing, suggest religious approval, even mandate.

Hero Roles:  Messenger. Including Carrier Pigeons American Signal Corps and "Cher Ami" who brought news.

Propaganda:  As the Firing of the First Shots. Then the War.  The role of propaganda in warming up the populace to support what is to come.

PRE-WORLD WAR I

Agincourt, in the Somme Area

1389 Battle of Kosovo  Ottoman Empire advances;  Serbia loses its "heart" - Kosovo.

Myth, and Indigenous Wars Against Incursion.  King Philip, Native American; and His War Against Colonists  Our history's self-serving myths of glory; and the shabby reality. How we got our foothold. New England's battleground, indigenous tribes against settlers. King Philip, local chief.

American Revolution, Fort Ticonderoga, NY


American Revolution, Saratoga.  This is where Benedict Arnold lost his boot.  His case is not a simple one.  Turncoat, yes, but with reason.

Ireland.  Battle of the Boyne Protestant v. Catholic

Austerlitz, The Three Emperors.  Find Napoleon here; the Battle of Slavkov.  You will not see "Austerlitz" on the map, perhaps.  See also Austerlitz and Carl Sandburg's poem, Grass.  It covers all.

WORLD WAR I

Vimy Ridge, France, World War I

Citizen Poets While Fodder in the Trenches, Ypres, Ieper, Belgium  See Canadian War Memorial here.  The Christmas Truce. Poetry.

Vimy Ridge, France; Pegs in the Night.  Soldiers told of pound in painted pegs along the German side, if you could.  Then, later, if a solder passed in front of it, you could see, and the sniper could shoot.  

Flanders Fields, Where Poppies Blow  Belgium, France.

Argonne Forest, World War I, France. The Forgotten Cemetery.  Overshadowed by Verdun, off the beaten track, near Belleau Wood, also forlorn.  Go anyway.  They need you.

Soldiers' Mutiny, Verdun, France WWI,  Issues, Negotiating During Slaughter Poem.  Anthem for Doomed Youth.  Soldiers, passing officers, and saying, "Baaah" like sheep, knowing what was coming.

Verdun, France, WWI, Soldiers' Mutiny Worked  See original postcards of area at end of the war, fort areas, memorials.


WORLD WAR II

The Netherlands, Arnhem, A Bridge Too Far, British Soldier, John Frost

Normandy, Pointe du Hoc, Arromanches, Rangers.  The Rangers scaled these cliffs, but nothing was there of importance.

Unlikely Hartford and Colt Armaments.  World War II,  Assassination of Nazi Reinhard Heydrich, Prague, by Czech Resistance, a Colt used among their weapons.  See film, "Operation Daybreak".

Vietnam Battlefields; US Failure to Encrypt. Inexcusable blunders in war, the conceit, the flawed sense of superiority of the American command, costing thousands of lives. Not even coding messages.The gooks can't read English.  Imagine. The gall of it.

Berlin Wall, Germany  When problems cannot be resolved, wall them away. Then kill whoever tries to pass over.



IDEOLOGICAL BATTLEFIELDS

Ideological Battleground:  Sistine Chapel

Argonne Forest, France, World War I

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Aging

By Dint:

Bremen Town Musicians, Euthanasia Poor, old Ass. Getting too old to be useful. Get rid of him, thinks the farmer. What do to but hasty exit for the poor, old Ass. And, with others, manages on his own, in his way. Useful after all.

Complexities of Stereotype

By Dint:

White Bride and Black One; Racism Amok A Grimm Tale. It is not the color that ends up important, although it started out that way, and highly symbolic; it is the doing of good or evil. Who ends up happy? Black was not always a pejorative. We added that, to a large degree.

Eve's Various Children: Each to His Place Handsomes to idle at the top; uglies to work at the bottom. Plus ca change?

The Jew Among the Thorns Anti-semitism in the tales.

Social and Economic Theory

By Dint:

Who Will Bell the Cat? "Piers Plowman" and 14th Century Social and Economic Theory. William Langland, 1332-1400. Poem: Langland adds to Aesop's Fable about belling the cat. The plan failed because noone would do it. What would have happened if the cat indeed had been belled. Far worse for the community. Find out why.

Rumpelstiltskin  When you don't know the answer, sneak around and cheat. Bartering with the Mannikin? Never a good idea, but here it leads to a Bad End for the Mannikin.

Sassafras:  Industry Opportunity; Social and Economic Uses

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Pruderies, Energy and Piety.

By Dint:

Lange Wapper at Antwerp. By Steen Castle.

Red Riding Hood; and Cake, Wine, Vivisection Read the original. Little Red and Grandma. Be all that you can be.

Rapunzel. Pssst. She Had Twins Honest.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Cultural : Creation Accounts

By Dint:

The Big Birds: The Phoenix, the Turul Russian, Chinese, Japanese, North American, Egyptian, forms of the Phoenix in all. Magyar and the Turul.

Genesis Before Genesis: Transliteration of Genesis 1-4. Surprise How does imposing a narrative, an ideology, change original, word-by-word mechanical meaning. Is the slant of the narrative justified? Does it distort? This excerpt from Genesis from Scripture4All, a favorite transliteration site. Moral. Any ideology. Who sez?

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Themes, Cultural Tales

By Dint:

Ma Liang and his Magic Brush; and The Red Shoes Forced repetition of the desired action: it becomes a punishment for the self-centered person who has the desire. But the West adds darkness to it. A simple, logical and straightforward moral consequence to the East, becomes sin to the West.

Who Will Bell the Cat - Piers Plowman. Ask a question beyond Aesop's tale, where no mouse is man enough to bell the cat. In 1377, William Langtrey's council mouse did. The council mouse suggests this inability to carry out the plan may be just as well. What would have happened if the cat indeed had been belled.... as the mice first wanted. Go read. Watch what you wish for.

Grimm: The Peasant in Heaven. The theme of the perils of riches. Eye of needle, rich man, cultures repeat. But find here that the "needle" is a mistranslation It should read "rope". In this case, the point of the story remains. Where else, however, does a mistranslation skew the result?

The Bawdy vs. Religion. Lange Wapper, Flanders, Antwerp Fear of sexuality. Lop it off. There. That's better, isn't it?

Fitcher's Bird. Grimm Tale. The Clever Girls. Quick. Water them down. They are far too capable.....

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Horsemen, Invaders

By Dint:

Sinj, Croatia: The Six Hundred Horsemen  They rode out and defeated the Ottomans at that battle. 

Hussars, Winged Cavalry, old Poland, Hungary, other Eastern Europe  A/k/a Husaria, Husarz. Peak 17th-18th Centuries. Hussars saved Vienna from the Ottomans. The frames on the shoulders and backs were lined with feathers that made a hmmmmwhrrr sound as they rode. The sound preceded the sight.

Khazars, Hazars, Huns (Attila), Magyars, Ottoman -  Tracking migrations, conquests, cultures

Genghis Khan, on Planning, Timing, and Follow-Up   Mongols. See also Liddell Hart: the most effective approach may be the indirect.

Women and History

By Dint:

Protest Within Convention: Victorian Marriage. Mary H. Seymour, story in Peterson's Ladies National Magazine 1865.

Germaine Tillion: Nazi Resistor, France WWII

Domination by Diminution:  Women Shunted Out of the Loop. Civil War

Monday, June 22, 2009

Individuals - 20th Century to Present

By Dint:

Bronislawa Wajs, Romani poet, singer, inspiration See the novel, "Zoli" for a fictionalized but roughly close (we understand) rendition of the life of Bronislawa Wajs. Gypsy (Roma) traditions.

Rabbi Shmuel ben David of "Isaac's Torah" A friend of one also caught in changing times, including the Holocaust. Concept: the Idea, vs. the later System implementing it, and becoming more focused on its own (the System's) survival than the Idea.

Wintley Phipps, Program on the Black American Slave Baritone, story teller, historian.

Germaine Tillion: Nazi Resistor, France WWII Political resource, intellectual.


Gene Amdahl, IBM's Propaganda Target. See IBM's successful Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) propaganda model, used against a competitor's excellent computer product. Amdahl recently died, 2009 . FUD= this has been the rule for marketing and politics to defeat someone without providing a better alternative.

Linguistics

By Dint:

Cultural puzzles, origins, traces found in language
Vlachs (found in Roman old Romania area) speaking Romani. Not clear if the Vlachs speak Romani, suggesting a connection, or a vernacular form of old Latin. Other Roma customs.

Healthcare, Remedies

By Dint:

Romani Medicine, Remedies, Healthcare. How many of these cross borders into the Roma populations of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria.

Dr. Christianus Christian, caring for 19th C. Swiss cretins

Sassafras and the American Slave Tradition:  remedies, wound healer, gumbo file thickener for stews, poultices, tonics.

Sassafras and remedies:  a matter of dosage and information, not ban

Sassafras pharmacology list






Eyecare
William Horatio Bates, Bane of Vision Industry.  1920's and later, opthalmologist, advocating and developing eye exercises instead of glasses. Died 1931.

Cultures and Enforcement

By Dint:

Minorities
Roma:  The Court (Kris), Expulsion, Shunning  Enforcement of norms, internal controls

"Heretics"
Cathars, Albigensians: Vet the So-Called Heretics.  The Cathars were killed off (so we are told) in the 14th Century.  Were their beliefs closer, in affinity, to the Christian Founder than the Roman Catholic church that killed them off?

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Holocaust

By Dint:

The Roma Experience

Romani and the Holocaust

The Jewish experience
Rabbi Shmuel ben David of "Isaac's Torah"  A friend of the main character in the book, "Isaac's Torah: The Memoirs of Jacob Blumenfeld," transmitter-editor-compiler, Angel Wagenstein; who is also caught in decades changing times, including the Holocaust. Discussions with the Rabbi - includes the Idea, vs. the later System implementing it, and becoming more focused on its own (the System's) survival than the Idea.

The Seventh Well,
by Fred Wander, accounts of life in various concentration camps, including Buchenwald, see ://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/books/review/Hoffman-t.html

The Diary of Petr Ginz 1941-1942, edited by his sister, Chava Pressburger, see ://www.groveatlantic.com/grove/bin/wc.dll?groveproc~genauth~5238~0/ ;  see also site Petr Ginz, Places, Lens and Legacy, Acknowledgement to sister of Petr Ginz, Chava Pressburger;

Surnames, Geneologies

By Dint:

Romney surname, English Gypsies

Romani literature, oral traditions A family with oral traditions to 15th Century

Pantera (Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera), and Religious Tradition  A persistent but speculative secular explanation for events many see as divine.  Keep an open mind, now. Often the simplest is so, rather than the convoluted compled; and need not affect other matters.

Hate Crimes; Persecutions; Genocide;

By Dint:

Cathars, Albigensians: Vet the So-Called Heretics

Roma, History of Persecutions.  Includes concept of Rankism.

Vlachs, Wallachian Gypsies?

"Facing History and Ourselves" - an Online Curriculum to Counter Hate.  Curriculum to focus on the hate crimes of the 20th-21st centuries, including wars, so our children can learn and avoid, we hope. How to apply to urban schools so focused on employment issues.

Bogomils, Deemed "Heretic" and Stamped Out by the Roman Branch of Christianity  But were they? Traces remain. Here, Bosnia, graveyard.

For Foodies

By Dint:

Haluski: Cabbage and Noodles, Roma

Sassafras elixir recipes;  tea from sassafras

Arts, Tales, Music, Authors. References

By Dint:

Theater, film, music
Gypsies: Contemporary performance heritage. Elvis, Charlie Chaplin, Yul Brynner, Michael Caine [ask Mitt - Romney?]

Ballad
Tales, Song. Johnny Faa. Roma. Find Faa also in song (not do re me)

Books
Gypsies, Roma, Contemporary Authors Also books about the groups, "Bury Me Standing" by Isabel Fonseca; "Zoli" by Colum McCann
.
Citizen Questioning Bloodshed:  Isaac Bashevis Singer

Music
Placeholders, Work in Progress, "Buika" and Fusion Music

Gypsy Harps, group and street musicians also from the Zoli book, section "Slovakia 2003" there. The harps were huge - the Roma would bury them in the woods so they would not be confiscated.

Literature
Lady of Cachtice,   The legend/history of the Lady of Cachtice is set out in a small book, that refers to macabre events deep within a Slovakian castle - it is referred to in "Zoli".

Film
Roma, Romani in film

Poetry;  Whole or Bits
Poetry, are these from Papusza or Zoli?
 War Poets.  Poetry from the Trenches.  World War I.

Painting
Artist, Hermann Dahl.  Odessa, DE. Multi-media.1960's-1980's

Ideological Battleground:  Sistine Chapel

Black Madonnas; or Sara la Kali (Gdansk)

By Dint:

Black Madonnas: Possible Roma Origin for Some - or Sara La Kali Patron saint of the Roma, Sara la Kali; or a black madonna. See legend, and painting in Gdansk, Poland, with symbolism

Slavery

By Dint:

Enslavement in Romania, 400 years, Gypsy roots Populations brought in, sold, remain

Wintley Phipps, Baritone and Storyteller, on the Black American Slave. Also a narrative and performance, "Amazing Grace" (context of slavery)

When Profit Turns Malignant

By Dint:

Anti War-Profiteering Act, Blocked Once. Time to resusicate, reshape its still-viable parts. Creative use of Disgorgement, Claw-Backs.

And its foil: When profit is not the focus, rewards come anyway.

The Elves and the Shoemaker, Grimm The elves, newly rewarded with clothes for their work in finishing the shoes of the poor shoemaker, took off out the door and were not seen again. The shoemaker and his wife, who had clothed them in thanks, prospered anyway.

Warfare - Plus ca change.

By Dint:

Persuasion for the cause
War as a Big Game. Condition the Children. Or is it Necessary?.  Personality types, hard-wiring, conditioning, how much is necessary to counter the pathological haters, and how much can be diminished as to conflict, by training.



War Promotion.  Fraud and Deception

Resistance
Czech paratroopers, other resistance, WWII Prague   Assassination of Nazi Reinhard Heydrich.
First French Resistor

Hussars, Winged Cavalry, old Poland, other Eastern Europe  A/k/a Husaria, Husarz.  The frames on the shoulders and backs were lined with feathers that made a hmmmmwhrrr sound as they rode. The sound preceded the sight.

Castles: Warfare Learning Tool. Strategy and Murder Holes  Any castle will do. Defense and offense. Try Blarney. Liddell Hart's WWI work (uses of indirection; upset the enemy's equilibrium); Bunratty's little staircases in reverse.

Otkell, Son of Skarf, Icelandic Saga.  From Burnt Njall's Saga, events 900 AD in Nordic-Viking Iceland, written perhaps 1100 AD.  A man whose greed was simply circumvented by the group's inspired leader, a tactic of indirection leading to a better result than confrontation

Politics

By Dint:

Sotomajority - Escape from the SO Yessir Corral  Privilege Maintainers vs. Secondary Others. Long-corraled Majority for Sotomayor leaps the fence. Reject the new PM pledge.

Arts

By Dint:

Inner Dialogues Re-Joyce Externalized Omphalos nought not won.

Individual Roma poets, composers, musicians

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Lifestyle

By Dint:

IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST

Public Interest Battlegrounds: Combining Common Good with Property Rights. Rights to preserve undeveloped spaces.

THE FEY
The Fey. Willing Suspension of Disbelief.  Seers, prophets, sellers of the unbelievable, and people believe.

COMPASSION
Dr. Christianus Christian, caring for 19th C. Swiss cretins

ROMA, GYPSY, ROMANI
 Roma: Lifestyle defined by the surrounding State, Nation of others.  The role of the State. See life of the Roma under Communism, and, more positively, in Spain.
Romani and Horses: An Ancient Tradition. Halting the caravans, taking away the horses. A lifestyle destroyed.

FINDING EVILDOERS

Same gender, cross-gender
Gender- non-specific lifestyles: marplots, alacrans. Who are the real evildoers  Finding fault. Self-definition, group identification as superior by finding fault with others. Who are the Evildoers. Homosexual, transgender, any value judgments arise in the eye of the beholder. Not the beholded.

Living with other truths subsumed
Livin' A Lie When Appearance is not the reality. Find Lawrence of Arabia.  Others with secrets. How they cope.

What is "ordained" or "revealed"; and what is culture.
God created independent contractors, not groups, not relationships.  Lifestyle as cultural, not necessarily "revealed".  Example - Eden:  no marriage, no vows, no worship, just folks deceiving each other as usual, taking advantage. Groups:  a descent down from original idea.

When "inheritance" and property rights define status:  the "illegitimate"
Shadow Children: Unsung Backgrounds  Find a long list of those originating, as some say, on the wrong side of the sheets. Did it ultimately matter? No sheet?

Philosophies, Criticism Tools

By Dint:

Deconstruction: Finding Evil in Sassafras The process of carving away the extraneous, to test a truth. Deconstruction, Jacques Derrida, to simpler applications.

Concisionism: Finding Evildoers  Beware the concision; the mutilating abbreviation of thought, the trawler category sweeping everything into its maw - note, this is not "circumcision" although the words have similarities

Find the Evildoer and All Will Be Well  Trace the preoccupation with and definitions of evildoing through the centuries , Oh, the marplots! They're everywhere! They're everywhere!

Friday, June 12, 2009

Rankism; other human hard-wirings. Scapegoats, Targets, Outcastes, outcasting

By Dint

Rankism vs. quiet dignity of place, life with choices.

GYPSIES, ROMA, ROMANI

Roma, Forced Settlement Laws halted the caravans, forced settlement, removed vocations, ghettoized.

Gypsies, Roma in Hungary: Still Targeted

Roma in Slovakia

Roma, History of Persecutions  Includes hate crimes, the why. The "justifications"
Poverty. Defenses of Any Underclass.  Here, Roma.  Extenuating circumstances, poverty, not recognized as a defense to crime. System imposing restrictions, fostering prejudice, will not see it. See parallel, American Blacks.

Contemporary Social, Economic Issues, Gypsies: "Bury Me Standing" "Bury me standing, I've spent my whole life on my knees." Book, Isabel Fonseca. Eastern Europe gypsy culture, experience; other references to culture elsewhere

Cycles of Abuse: Migrations of Roma to Ireland Gypsies, Travelers, Romani. Violence in Belfast against Romanian gypsies, or roma. How will traditional Irish Traveler groups respond to new migrations.

Gypsies, Roma: Literary references


JEWS

Games in Analysis

By Dint

Rock, scissors, paper  On terrorism and other issues. Boil down the news.

Tag
Can we monitor children and teach them, as grownups are supposed to, instead of banning their games?

Disclosure, Labeling, Transparency

By Dint:

Labeling, Food Industry, FDA KowTow

Funding Under The Table

By Dint:

Federalist Society Supports Free Legal Work for What Causes?.  Pro bono means legal work without charge for the good of the public. What "public" is the Federalist Society supporting in its alleged pro bono program?  Pro Bono Federalissimo Societassis?

Immigration, Migrations - United States Issues, Groups

By Dint:

Naming. Migration history in names - Romney, Rom'nie, Gypsy

Border Crossing Records Retained in Federal Registries. When does too much record-keeping threaten the individual. How much "record keeping" of past events is really needed for security. Open issue. United States.


Immigration: The Place of the Tishbite Among Us. As with Elijah, the original Tishbite, the foreigner has something of import to tell us. Add equity: other arguments that immigrants can use in favor of remaining, there has been detrimental reliance, where the State has delayed too long, etc.

Federalist Society Proposes Immigrant Testing on "Federalist Papers" Leave no propaganda opportunity unturned. Quick now. Who remembers what that is? Branding here?

Gypsies, Roma, Blacks, "Moors", Whites, Native Americans - Melungeons
Melungeons as a diverse mix, Appalachia, Southern coastal areas

Immigrants Without Documents: Gypsifying. The New "Gypsy" Target Group America creates new group to treat as gypsies

Migrations, more distant past:
Magyars, Khazars (Central Asia Jewish cultures) Hazars - physical characteristic may include epicanthal fold in Norse blonde children, disappears about age 2, traces of past interminglings?

Sunday, May 31, 2009

What War Wrought

 By Dint:

Citizen Questioning Bloodshed:  Isaac Bashevis Singer

Government as Marketer, Taking Over Lilli Marleen.   World War I protest song, "Lilli Marleen", becomes German army marching song, World War II.

Verdun, France, WWI.  Trench of Bayonets.  Accidents, tragedies other than tactics, of history.  A trench collapsed, the line of French soldiers caught in line as they stood, so the story goes, bayonets facing the sky.  Still do.  Americans built memorial, an open-air structure, tips still show. 

Dresden, Germany, and Area Bombing.  Retribution, revenge fire-bombing of an entire city with no military significance.  Just kill and demoralize.  Signs there now:  "Dresden Lives."

Unlikely Hartford and Colt Armaments.  Recycling opportunity.  Old Colt arms factory, and possible reuse as arts colony, studios, residential apartments, other residences.  But its second floor faces the freeway....

Big Black Tatras; Official Cars.  The notoriety of the vehicles used by the oppressor, the secret police, the ones who carried the powerful, or came to take the less powerful away.  The Tatra. World War II. Slovakia. Elsewhere. The Commpany. .

War Poets.  Poetry from the Trenches.  World War I.  See also Ypres, Ieper, Belgium. Soldier poets.

The Enemy Becomes the Economic Desirable.  Boche to Bosche.  The hated soldier in death; to the newest in kitchen appliances.  Cultural short memories. We rely on that? 

Plus ca change: PTSD.  Post traumatic stress disorder.  PTSD.  Here, World War I.  Poem by Wilfred Gibson, with permission of site.  He lived 1872-1962. 

The Concept of Mutiny:  France, Verdun  And other instances, circumstances, surrounding mutiny; 

1915 Battle of Loos;  Missing.  Son of Rudyard Kipling  "*** Have you news of my boy, Jack?  Not this tide. When d'you think that he'll come back?   Not with this wind blowing, And this tide. *** "

Petr Ginz: Places, Lens and Legacy. Places of Petr Ginz. The diary of a boy in Prague during WWII; until his transport to Theresienstadt (Terezin) and then his death at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Studying War: WWI, WWII, Others - Hub site for the concept. Nature and origins of warfare, other conflict. Roles, hardwired? Is it possible to tame demagoguery and violence, and survive, without becoming a demagogue and violent.

Studying Wars: Mindset, Place and Manner Specific battlegrounds, examples of patterns, aggression and agenda vs. common good, history's unfoldings, internal conflicts. Territory, culture, character.

Wars ongoing, conflict, marginalization

Warfare Against Children  What are the roots of such disregard.  How we transmit the "glory" of war.

"Facing History and Ourselves" - an Online Curriculum to Counter Hate.  Curriculum to focus on the hate crimes of the 20th-21st centuries, including wars, so our children can learn and avoid, we hope. How to apply to urban schools so focused on employment issues.
.
Czechoslovakia in the 1930's - Roma. Through a Novel's Eyes ("Zoli") Picture the big black Tatras. This section refers to a portion of the book with this section heading: Czechoslovakia in the 1930's.

Roma: Czechoslovakia under Fascism; also part of the Zoli book section Czechoslovakia 1930's to 1949. The Hlinka Guards.

Mouquet Farm, Somme Area, France  Military as fodder, consumer humor - Mouquet Farm became Mucky Farm, the front barely moved for years, tunnels and tunnels. Australian troops.

Travels: Fruits and Follies

 By Dint:

Europe Road Ways - Hub for trips, Dan and sidekick. Background to our ventures. Esssentially, improvised on-the-cheap road trips, 14-17 days each, cross borders often, no reservations, just a rental car and two backpacks. And a few maps and guidebooks. No tours. Always a clean, safe place to stay.  Plan B:  If we get stuck at 8 at night and no place, we plan to go to the nearest police station, introduce ourselves, and ask if we can sleep in the parking lot, and do that.  Haven't had to yet, but everybody needs a Plan B. Dan has Down syndrome, is a fine, interesting and fun adult, an adventurous eater, and a great travel boss. When lost, he decides the direction. One parent, one child - try it. Egg each other on. Hope to resume depending on economies, budgets.

Europe Road Ways: Themes - Recurrent ideas and topics that cross boundaries - Black Madonnas, migrations, human coping, The Plague, decorative arts

Austria Road Ways - Vienna So Far - Suddenly, from Croatia heading for Slovakia, the highway sign read, Vienna - 70 km.  Who can resist? Just go.

Belgium Road Ways - Any country is worth its own trip, but here we saw Belgium as part of a larger venture that started in the Netherlands, then looped down into Belgium and Luxembourg, and back.

Bosnia Road Ways - Bosnia-Herzegovina - Driving in the Herzegovina section is dicey, such as in the return from Montenegro - the Cyrillic alphabet is a huge hurdle. Drive by ouija. It worked. Just took a little longer. In other words, aim for the road looking downhill when there is a choice, if you are heading generally back to Croatia and the coast.
 
Croatia Road Ways  We started at Zagreb, the capital, then went on a series of loops - 1) up to Istria and Trieste, then 2) down the Dalmatian Coast to Bosnia and Montenegro, and back, 3) with another loop to Slovenia, and 4) the west of Croatia and back to Zagreb.

Czech Republic Road Ways - A start at Prague, then south Bratislava, Slovakia; Vienna and Budapest; then more Slovakia and Poland, and back to Czech Republic. We do keep moving here. Hit the bricks, as Dan says.

England Road Ways - Part of larger trip including Wales. Follow King Arthur, Robin Hood, Peter Pan, King Harold, and castles, castles

France Road Ways - Northern half, Somme area, Normandy, Loire, down to Dijon or so, Paris.  Follow Joan of Arc

Hebrides Road Ways -  A ferry ride from Skye to Lewes and Harris, and ferry back farther north back to mainland Scotland.  There is a bridge now from Scotland to Skye.

Germany Road Ways
We aimed especially for what used to be East Germany - Wittenberg, Berlin, Dresden. Then looped south and back through Bavaria to Frankfurt.

Greece Road Ways - Just keep the back of the guidebook open to the driving signs and you'll do fine. When in doubt, keep in the same direction. No fast turns to get what you see too late is your exit. Magnificent country. Menus: order the fourth thing down. In each category. All delicious. 

Hungary Road Ways - Mostly Budapest, So Far Suddenly, from Slovakia, the highway sign read, Budapest, 100 km. Who can resist? Just go. Notify your credit card peeps first so they will accept the bankomats.

Ireland Road Ways - Any country:  find a relative who hailed from there, or is buried there, and go find the place. Great goal. See whatever you see on the way. Eat local. Fast food: fries, peas, gravy, in a paper cone.

Italy Road Ways - Long, thin country. Hard to plan a driving loop. Land at Venice, take train (get on and off) to Rome, then to Naples and pick up your rental car there. Then take ferry to Sicily, back to Naples and up the coast looping back to Rome. 

Luxembourg Road Ways - Get there from Belgium, from the Bulge area, for example. General Patton is buried here.

Montenegro Road Ways - Had been part of the former Yugoslavia, and then part of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, now independent. Mountains, skiing, fjords.

The Netherlands Road Ways Plan for tulips. Do a figure 8 - A Bridge Too Far area, then loop south (Belgium, Luxembourg if you have time) then bbe sure to go north across the Alfluitsdyke and back.

Orkney Road Ways - A convenient ferry ride from northeastern Scotland

Poland Road Ways - Part of our Czech Republic, Slovakia trip. We did a horseshoe, right side first going up, round north all the way to Malbork and Gdansk, on the Baltic Sea. The middle area will be a flat  "run" but a lovely drive. Back down the left side and cross into Poland near Zakopane from Levoca, Slovakia.. We re-entered the Czech Republic at Kudowa Zdroj.

Romania Road Ways II, Vlad Tepes  - This is one of two Romania sites.  This one focuses on the Vlad the Impaler sites in Romania.  Trip was a circle.

Romania Road Ways I -Distinct regions, as in many countries, so do go north east and northwest, Bucovina and Maramures areas. We did not go over the border to Ukraine. Carpathian Mountains - watch the weather, as the Transfagarasan Pass may be closed for snow, storms. Postings on signs before you get near the mountains.

Scotland  Road Ways - With those wonderful full Scots breakfasts (as in Ireland and England), why are people not obese like we are. Glasgow, Campbelltown then loop up and around with Hebrides, Highlands, and Orkey areas; and back to Glasgow. Circle trip. Nessie was to be there at 5 but was a no-show.

Sicily Road Ways  Easy to visit as part of a trip to Italy - take the ferry from Naples, for example, to Palermo. Greek temples at Agrigento. Stay at the top of Mt. Etna. Don't miss Erice, on a mountaintop near Trapani. Circle trip, but missed the eastern part. Have to go back. Loved the east-central-northeastern.

Slovakia Road Ways This once was part of the former Czechoslovakia.  Plan to see the festival at Bojnice Castle - theater by the young people every year for a week, great food. Go east to Banska Bistrica, Kosice, then loop up east to Spis and Levoca, then cross into Poland to Zakopane (beautiful ski area, year-round mountain hiking resort)

Also find the cities mentioned in the "Zoli" book, at Slovakia, Gypsies: "Zoli" (based on life of singer, Papusza)
Slovenia Road Ways This once was part of the former Yugoslavia.  Strong Austrian influence. Alpine looking homes, neat and tidy. Lake Bled.

Spain Road Ways - And Gibraltar Gibraltar is British, but convenient to visit as part of a trip to Spain. Figure 8. Madrid to Pamplona for the bulls, then loop back through La Mancha and Estremadura, south and around to Seville, Ronda, Gibraltar, Cordoba, and up again to Madrid.

Trieste Road Ways - Italian since WWII  Convenient to visit as part of a trip to Croatia.  Kayaks downtown.

Wales Road Ways
Castles, castles. Go from Cornwall, England, area, drive north and loop back to England at Manchester in time for the races. Do not mark your parking place by the half-timbered houses nearby.  The whole town is.

Ironies; Government Branch Functioning

By Dint:

Federalist Society: Activist judges no; activist presidents, yes.  Use of "white papers" (aptly named) to promote positions, where taking positions in their tax status is supposedly verboten. White gets around anything.

Federalist Society and Judicial Commentary - Garden Variety Dicta becomes Anathema.  We expect judges to explain their views in non-binding ways.  How else to move forward with the next case?

Chester A. Arthur, a president who improved in office  From patronage to reformer. He set aside his prior history of nepotism and did the right thing.

Molding: Organizations, Tales, Techniques. Cultures, Sub-Cultures, Shaping People

Uncle Remus Tales, Translations - Informal translations of the stories into more traditional spoken English, with references and footnotes. No substitute for dialect. Go back to it and read it aloud. Get the sound in your ear.

Migratory Patterns of Cultural Tales - Stories change change over time, pulled by cultural values. Where did the strong little girls go, until Disneyed to death. Fairy tales, Faerie Tales. The Fey. Archetypes. Meet them again. Red Riding Hood the vivisectionist? Mostly secular, some religious stories.

Vetting Roots. By the Heater. Martin Luther's Stove. Find original texts in transliterations. Mythological roots. Or ambiguity, inconsistency. Close readings. Then see ideologies get to work: add this, omit that, downplay the other thing, change meaning. Ideas squashed by systems. Sausage into casings.

Heaters in Intellectual Life - Individuals and Groups, Some Forgotten

Bogomilia, Site for the Unsung  Because we forget.

Vetting Roots, By the Heater. Martin Luther's Stove  Early post look-ups about use of the heater, the stove, the fire pit, as references in religious and other stories.  Transmitting tales. Without a place for warm gathering, how could stories be passed on, memorized.  Did the Renaissance really bloom when it did, because somebody spread the idea of central heating?  Ducts, pipes, big tiled stoves in the rooms. How creative can you be when you are fed and warm?

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Trompe News

By Dint:

DSM IV. Aggression as Mental Disorder Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders now includes Aggression.  Marketing opportunities for antidotes to its behaviorally addictive qualities.

Need to Know

By Dint:

How to Cook Two Turkeys in One Ordinary Oven.  This Thanksgiving is stacked.

Family Planning

By Dint:

How does evildoing figure with sassafras?.  Sassafras as a family planning tool. Nemenhah. Poem by Marge Piercy, a tribute.

Is Safrole Banned Because It Could Be Used as an Abortifacient?  Has been for centuries.

Religious Text Analysis, Tools

By Dint:

Creation

Creation: How did Evil originate? Not with Eve A small play that Eden as spun did not see play, but you may.

Translation

Transliteration

Context
Mithraism, Religion of Rome and Paul And roots of the Roman Catholic branch of Christianity.

Characters: Tracing Fact from Elaboration
Sara la Kali, Sara the Black, Roma Saint

Explanations, file under Other
Pantera (Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera), and Religious Tradition  A persistent but speculative secular explanation for events many see as divine.  Keep an open mind, now. Often the simplest is so, rather than the convoluted compled; and need not affect other matters.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Migrations, Immigration, Emigration. Europe. Global issues, newcomers

By Dint:

Current issues, Migrations: Economic Conditions Follow gypsy migrations from the east to the British Isles, to the US and elsewhere; ongoing; reasons.

Roma groups in Europe: self-identifications, languages, subgroups, specific skill groups, niche

Monday, May 25, 2009

Governments; Governing

 By Dint:

NATURE OF GOVERNMENTS

Similarity: Sassafras and Governments: Varied at the bottom, sameness at the top. Those who rise to the top get to look alike. Like dog owners.

SKILLS FOR DECENT GOVERNING

Uses of Reverse. Can We Teach It? Governing skills. People who govern need to know how to drive in reverse sometimes

Who Will Bell the Cat - Piers Plowman.  In the 1377 English poetry version by William Langtrey, the council mouse found that no mouse was man enough to bell the cat, as Aesop had originally told.  However, Piers goes further:  What would have happened if the cat indeed had been belled.... as the mice first wanted. Would it have been worse? Watch what you seek.



FOOLING THE PEOPLE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE

Propaganda in governing: euphemism, unwarranted extrapolation

FOSTERING PATRIOTISM

Child's Tale: Pledge of Allegiance and the Common Good  We knew a piece had been left out.

NEED FOR SUNSET LAWS; ACCOUNTABILITY

Group formation; sunset laws, foundationalism
Political Parties: Who Needs Them After They Calcify.  Sunset out the names every 16 years. Everybody rethink who to vote for. Platforms may grab planks from prior party designation.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Justice

By Dint:

Oaths. Worth Anything? What Else?

Religious and other oaths; Holocausts, Bad Actors. Do Oaths alter behavior; or does self-interest, institutional interest, prevail.

Leadership - Qualities

CHANGE YOUR MIND. GO AHEAD.
Uses of Reverse. How to Teach It. Can We?.  If you can't shift into reverse, don't drive.

Chester A. Arthur, a president who improved in office  From patronage to reformer. He set aside his prior history of nepotism and did the right thing.

Nature,

By Dint:

Allelopathy as a Defense, and Offense.  Some plants prevent others from thriving in their shadow; make potential diners on their root, bark, leaf, sicken. Allelopathy.

Why did the Sassafras Survive - usefulness, fits the food chain, venerated

Cultures, Religions. Cross-Pollinating.

By Dint:

NATIONAL

Afghanistan: How to Learn. Self-Help

ETHNIC

Andaman Water Gypsies "Sea gypsies", Myanmar

"Gyptians" as Gypsies, origins Historical and legendary John Faa, origin of Samoyed dog, migrating groups, steppes; cultural-ethnic mix with indo-gypsies? "Golden Compass" film cultural references, pop culture.

Magyars, Khazars (Central Asia Jewish cultures) Hazars - physical characteristic may include epicanthal fold in Norse blonde children, disappears about age 2, traces of past interminglings?


RELIGIOUS

PROTESTANT

EASTERN ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN

ROMAN CATHOLIC CHRISTIAN

JUDAISM


ISLAM - a best effort at learning more here. Did we get it right?

Historical Islam, Pre-Islam, Women and Roles Hind bint Rabi'a, others. The Historian vs. the Persuader.

DRUIDISM

Sassafras - Widespread Use, Veneration: Druids, Native Americans

GYPSY, ROMA, ROMANI

Roma, popular culture vs. cultural belief Find universal concepts such as shamans, daemons, other guides. Reference: Hollywood picks up some at "Golden Compass" film. This site also references Native American, Judeo-Christian, Greek and other demons ideas in other belief systems.

MITHRAISM
Mithraism, Religion of Rome and Paul

Journalism -

By Dint:

PAPER MEDIA TROUBLES

Outing the Stealth Persuaders: Subscribe Elsewhere Paper journalism financial problems as largely self-inflicted; increased ideology promotion (by the profit-focused), diminished news promotion in the public interest, separating neutral, more comprehensive news from opinion.

Newspapers as Educators: Common Law Justice, Terminology.

FACTLESS OPINION SUBSTITUTING FOR "NEWS"

Opinion Implants in News Slots : Tainted "journalism". Fact-less media news, focuses on churning opinions without laying out what facts are relied upon. Weasel words about "some people think...."

Commerce, Role of Profit

By Dint:

War Profiteering - Resuscitate the blocked legislation against?

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Education

By Dint:

Jan Amos Komensky, The Teacher of Nations Czech philosopher, educator, 18th Century. Roots for Montessori - teach so children have fun. Make it natural. A/k/a Comenius. Check different Czech spellings for any name.

Public and Consumer Education Shall Include Propaganda Analysis. See 1937 Institute for Propaganda Analysis, see www.propagandacritic.com.

National Endowment for the Humanities resource

Facing History and Ourselves, Curriculum Developers for a "humane, informed citizenry"

Montessori for Grown-Ups. The Absorbent Mind.

"Facing History and Ourselves" - an Online Curriculum to Counter Hate.  Curriculum to focus on the hate crimes of the 20th-21st centuries, including wars, so our children can learn and avoid, we hope. How to apply to urban schools so focused on employment issues.

Tax - Issues

Primary Residence To Be Exempt from Property Tax to Assessed Value $350,000.

Science , Food Supply, Health - Issues

LABELING

Sassafras, Modern Casualty of Labeling  Evildoing as a label varies with the centuries.  Sometimes, like an old lighthouse, the old purpose of the thing is long gone.  See Urk.

FOOD SAFETY

Bee Sniff Test To Determine Marketability of Genetically Modified Crops.  If bees won't pollinate, the stuff stays off the shelves.

Allelopathy. Concept Gap in the Lab. Sassafras.   Rats. Rodents. "Allergic" to sassafras anyway. The Sassafras Defense against being eaten. Why use rats to test safety of sassafras as to humans? A root beer site.

Thanksgiving Dinner With Featured Carcinogens.  All that we eat that also contains safrole, and the FDA just leans back and burps.

TESTING PROCEDURES

FDA, Flawed Testing, Sassafras, Allelopathy
FDA uses flawed carcinogen testing procedures: ignores the science of allelopathy in coming to conclusions

Fear of Fair Testing. Safrole and Industry Marketing Interests. FDA use of rats to test safrole, where safrole is a rodent-repellent to begin with, plus the overdosing of it, skews results. Creates the crime. Like "entrapment", perhaps. Whose interests are served if safrole is banned? Industry substitute-makers?

FDA - Abuse of Process Unwarranted extrapolation.

FDA Permits No Appeal; Ask Politely. Without an appeal process, we are left with the polite request to reconsider.

FDA used selected anecdotal evidence.  No human testing at all? Just somebody's anecdotes and then the ban? Fie. Glittering generalities make propaganda, not science.

FDA misuse of doses, solubility, nature of test animal, questionable jurisdiction of FDA and gossip as to sassafras  Are we serious about taking the FDA seriously?

NUTRITION, HEALING

Natural or Synthetic; Six of One?. Without equal testing, who is to say that the injected or pilled lab variety equals the outdoors grown plant extract?

National Interest - Issues

By Dint:

RECORDS RETENTION
Government to retain records for 40 years.  Fine. Who has access during that time, for what purposes, how to monitor, prevent abuse - can't even keep social security records out of prying eyes.

UNLIMITED SURVEILLANCE
Playing at Colisseum: All Aspects of Every Life On View. Cameras, required hard-drive sign-ins. Then isolate something, blow it up, and see the person shrivel, rightfully or not. True or false?

Library Exposure Week: No Privacy in Some Libraries. Pick your library with care. Some don't care about you. How can you be an eloper if your disgruntled ex-boyfriend can track the plans you are making with the elopee?

IMMIGRATION - IMMIGRANTS - REFUGEES.  Understanding of

Immigration History in Mortar

PATRIOTISM

Phrygian Cap to symbolize the Five Freedoms  Franklin D. Roosevelt's original 4 Freedoms: to speech and expression, to worship, from want, from fear [Is Mr. Cheney paying attention?].  Add 5th - freedom from secrecy, misstatement, deception or exploitation for the profit of another

ENVIRONMENT

Resident Dumping Banned from PublicTrailside View.

Seven Hardwoods Per Acre Real Estate Development Act

FDA Bans Vitriol; Nation in Withdrawal.  The national climate is at stake.

IMMIGRATION

Red Card Shall Establish Interim Temporary Residence Authorization, For Otherwise Undocumented Immigrants Pending Resolution of Immigration Status, Issuance of Green Card.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Foreign Relations - Process - Index

By Dint:

Preconditions for Mediation in dispute resolution. Recommendation for mediation - require absolute disclosure of relevant facts, and restoration of status quo ante before process begins

Rights - Personal and Governmental; Corporate, Constitutional - Index

By Dint:

SPEECH
Political Speech Shall Be Deemed Equivalent to Commercial Speech  This establishes that politics is sales, and provides some protection for the purchaser.  Where there is a conflict between interpretation of speech in politics as commercial or subject to fiduciary duty, see Fiduciary Standard of Care Applicable in All Consumer, Voter, Investor Relationships, the fiduciary standard, as providing more protection, shall control.

CORPORATE
The Bill of Rights Shall Protect Only Human Persons; Not Corporations.  A corporation may only enjoy Bill of Rights protection if the Board of Directors, shareholders, and all employed by the corporation assume personal responsibility (no "corporate veil") as to acts of the Corporation. See also Bill of Rights (including free speech) applies to We The People.


PERSONAL
Family Matters Privacy

COMMERCIAL, POLITICAL
An Act Establishing the Fiduciary Standard, Governmental, Private, Commercial, All Contractual Obligations.

Cultural, Relationship, Morality, Child-Rearing Issues - Index

By Dint:

ABORTION

Primacy of Law over Any Group's Claimed Revelation Source: Proposed Legislation

CHILD-REARING

Car Seat Abuse: Overuse of Child Restraints Outside the Car.

Jan Amos Komensky, The Teacher of Nations Czech philosopher, educator, 18th Century. Roots for Montessori - teach so children have fun. Make it natural. A/k/a Comenius. Check different Czech spellings for any name.

MARRIAGE, CIVIL UNION, HOOKING UP

Definitions: Civil Marriage, Religious Marriage

Uncondomized Activities Prevention Act

UNDERSTANDING KINDS OF PEOPLE
Good Group Dies for Inefficiency: Web vs. Linear Thought. The Selfish Gene, book by Richard Dawkins 1989 - there is altruism hard-wired, would you believe.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Communications, Persuasion, Propaganda, Disinformaton; and Information

By Dint:

GROUP COMMUNICATIONS

Gypsies, Roma: Use of Runes in the Woods. Finding your way, who else was there. Look to the trees.

MEDIA "FREE" REPETITION OF CANDIDATE ADS TO BE CONSIDERED A POLITICAL CONTRIBUTION

Media Shall Not Proliferate Candidate Advertising as "News". Media repetition of candidate ads, without contractual purchase of time as an ad, shall be deemed to be a political gift where the exposure exceeds a single still-frame or a single 5 second snippet.

PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUES

Government as Marketer, German WWII, Nuremberg Stadium  Hitler's presentations before the crowds. The spectacles.  

Edward Bernays and the Engineering of Consent. Three ways to persuade: technique in delivery, spin in interpretation, and persistence.

Edward Bernays, "The Science of Ballyhoo" Focus attention and then shape behavior. Get their attention, readied, primed for persuasion, focused. Second zoom in with your great logical explanation! Repeat! Emote! There! Got 'em. Woodrow Wilson's Committee on Public Information (WWI)

Edward Bernays: Persuasion as to the Distasteful (theories in practice) The chaos of public opinion is to be scientifically manipulated.

Mother of All Labeling Matches: Civil and Military Iraq. Labeling as propaganda. Convince as to a label, and the consequences flow, regardless of truth. Institute for Propaganda Analysis.

Hyper-Negative Labeling: Gingrich, GOPAC Even you can memorize the spin words, the positive and the negative, to show off to your friends and beat up on your enemies. GOPAC. List here.

Rovism: Persuasion Focusing Techniques. Fact-Avoidance

FUD as propaganda technique

FUD and Gene Amdahl, IBM's Propaganda Target. See IBM's successful Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) propaganda model, used against a competitor's excellent computer product. Amdahl recently died, 2009 . FUD= this has been the rule for marketing and politics to defeat someone without providing a better alternative.

DISTRACTION AND DISPLACEMENT

Jack the Giant Killer on St. Michael's Mount Distract, divert, overcome the old tradition with the Christian overlay. Presto conversion.

OTHER PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUES

Euphemism, Unwarranted Extrapolation: Food Insecurity instead of Hunger. Agriculture Dept. use of propaganda techniques, euphemism, unwarranted extrapolation

Federalist Society, Use of White Papers to Persuade under Guise of Issue Education Propaganda: persuasion unawares; malicious use of "authority"

DISINFORMATION as PROPAGANDA

Theft of Consent, an Impeachable Offense. Proposed legislation

Navigation, Scope of Cultural Tales Site: Cultural Filters Distort

PERPETUATING PROPAGANDA

The Big Grip: Sunset Provisions vs. Group Perpetuation, Edwin Bernays' propaganda techniques, developed and applied for emergency (WWI), become our national handbook for marketing anything. Need sunset provisions to rein in groups using it.

DEFINITIONS OF TERMS
Glossary: Terms Terms appearing herein with an asterisk * signifies a definition at this location.

NEWS DISCLOSURES

Required Fact Disclosures by Purveyors of News Products

Requirement for Fact Disclosure Shall Not Violate First Amendment, Prior Restraint.

Force - Uses and Abuses; Torture

By Dint:

TORTURE

Petr Ginz, Heightened Awareness of Torture
Value of reading a WWII Prague child's diary prior to his transport to Terezin (Theresienstadt) and then Auschwitz-Birkenau

Roles:  Punisher, Enforcer, Harpy  Could we have wars if there were not people willing to take on the role of forcer, enforcer.  What is the draw.  Are we they.

ALTERNATIVES TO PAIN INFLICTION

Narcoanalysis as truth serum: MDMA or traditional hospitable sassafras?
Sassafras - direct use or derivatives; use as truth serum? See also MDMA, Safrole as Nature's Truth Serum

FACILITATORS
Testosterone Marching.  Steroids. Brain death with excess testosterone (study), other sources. Addictive?

ENTITLEMENTS
Ethics in Pain Infliction, Animals.  Who is entitled to inflict pain and death on others for other than getting needed food? On what ground?

Books - Index

WORLD WAR II

The Holocaust:

Rabbi Shmuel ben David of "Isaac's Torah"  A friend of the main character in the book, who is also caught in decades changing times, including the Holocaust. Discussions with the Rabbi - includes the Idea, vs. the later System implementing it, and becoming more focused on its own (the System's) survival than the Idea.



The Seventh Well,
by Fred Wander, accounts of life in various concentration camps, including Buchenwald, see ://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/books/review/Hoffman-t.html

The Diary of Petr Ginz 1941-1942, edited by his sister, Chava Pressburger, see ://www.groveatlantic.com/grove/bin/wc.dll?groveproc~genauth~5238~0/ and Petr Ginz, Places, Lens and Legacy, Acknowledgement; Petr Ginz, Places, Lens and Legacy.

HUMANS

The Selfish Gene, book by Richard Dawkins 1989 - See ://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/WorldOfDawkins-archive/Dawkins/Work/Books/selfish.shtml/ There is altruism hard-wired, would you believe.

GYPSIES, ROMA

John Updike, "Drawn to Gypsies: Six Years in the South of France"

"Zoli" by Colum McCann, Random House 2007; based loosely on the life of Papusza, a gypsy singer who was shunned by the community for her work, and lived in Slovakia, before and during the time of the Fascists. See Reviews of "Zoli"

Jewish History - Index

By Dint:

DISRAELI - Benjamin Disraeli, 19th Century Twice Prime Minister, Britain; and Dark Horse Family migrated probably from Spain, Jewish heritage, Mr. Disraeli became Episcopalian. Diaspora roots.

Petr Ginz, Prague, Jewish Quarter

Petr Ginz, When Your Roots are Mischling

Films - Index

By Dint:

Petr Ginz, "Operation Daybreak" - assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, Prague, WWII;
event referenced in the child's diary;  see also Unlikely Hartford and Colt Armaments.  World War II,  Assassination of Nazi Reinhard Heydrich, Prague, by Czech Resistance, a Colt used among their weapons.  See film, "Operation Daybreak".

Government as Marketer, German WWII, Nuremberg Stadium  Hitler's presentations before the crowds. The spectacles.  Film:  "Triumph of the Will" by Leni Riefenstahl.  See Hitler's effect, the display, the heils, in the stadium right here.

World War II, Concentration Camps, Diarists

By Dint:

Theresienstadt, Terezin
Petr Ginz, Theresienstadt, or Terezin, CZ
Petr Ginz, Terezin, Stage Play, "Way to Heaven" 

Petr Ginz,  Auschwitz - Birkenau (Osweicim) Poland

DIARISTS  Diarists, WWII

Petr Ginz, Finding Others Who Wrote
Petr Ginz and Anne Frank, Emoting in Diaries

BOOKS - The Seventh Well, by Fred Wander

Religious - Multi - Index

By Dint:

THEORY
Foundationalism: A Backup. Test Belief. Searching For Some Reality At the Inception

FAQ. Who Took Christ Out Of Christian. Original inspired Idea, vs; later System.

BASIC WESTERN CHRISTIANITY-TYPE OR SPINS

Proposed Legislation for Primacy of Law over Revelation
Definitions: Civil Marriage, Religious Marriage

TEXT CRITICISM TOOLS

WESTERN CREATION ISSUES

Seven-Day Edenism Frees Lilith. Genesis I idea of a chronology underlying Creation supersedes Genesis II idea of cultural narrative incorporated in Creation.

MULTI-DEITY RELIGIONS AND WHAT THEY OFFER US

Mithraism: Religion of Rome and Paul's Early Years Exposure


Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Individuals - Index, History (Pre-20th Century)

By Dint:

Domestic
Protest Within Convention: Victorian Marriage. Mary H. Seymour, story in Peterson's Ladies National Magazine 1865.

Politics
Chester A. Arthur, a President Who Changed in Office: From Patronage, to Reformer

Benjamin Disraeli, More to be Known For The dark horse.

Born out of wedlock
Shadow Children - The "Illegitimate"

Health
William Horation Bates, Ophthalmologist, bane of the vision industry

Compassion
Dr. Christianus Christian, caring for 19th C. Swiss cretins

Pre-Christian, Sagas
Otkell, Son of Skarf, Icelandic Saga. From Burnt Njall's Saga, events 900 AD, written perhaps 1100 AD. A man whose greed was simply circumvented by the group's inspired leader, a tactic of indirection leading to a better result than confrontation. Pre-Christian morality

Beowulf: Hwaet! Power of the Written Word
Beowulf, figure in a culture without writing: how much is lost until someone records; how much is lost, changed, when someone does record. Beowulf, Scandinavian, recorded centuries later by proto-Saxon.

BURNT NJALL - Otkell, Son of Skarf, Skarphedinn, Burnt NjalI - Icelandic saga on greed, leadership, human relations before Christianity

Education, Philosophy
COMENIUS - Jan Amos Komensky (Comenius): Educator Valuing, Harnessing Student Enjoyment, "Teacher of Nations"

Religion
Sara la Kali, Sara the Black, Roma Saint









GUGGENBUHL - Dr. Louis Guggenbuhl, Befriender of Cretins, Switzerland

KOMENSKY - Jan Amos Komensky (Comenius): Educator Valuing, Harnessing Student Enjoyment, "Teacher of Nations"



PANTERA - Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera. Pantera, Speculative Pater of the Son - Traditions that do not go away


PHIPPS - Wintley Phipps, Conjuror of Black Slave Experience through Song, Story behind "Amazing Grace"


SALOME - Beowulf, Alaskans, Salome: Power of the Later Written Word, to Augment, or Distort

SARAH - Sara la Kali, Sarah the Black, Gypsy Patron. And Mithra?


SEYMOUR - Mary H. Seymour, Protester, Victorian Marriage









TILLION - Germaine Tillion, French Sage, Nazi Resistor, Anthropologist, Intellectual




Hermann Dah, Artist, Delaware. Attention deserved




Religion, including speculation
Pantera (Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera), and Religious Tradition  A persistent but speculative secular explanation for events many see as divine.  Keep an open mind, now. Often the simplest is so, rather than the convoluted complex; and need not affect other matters.

Education
Jan Amos Komensky, The Teacher of Nations Czech philosopher, educator, 18th Century. Roots for Montessori - teach so children have fun. Make it natural. A/k/a Comenius. Check different Czech spellings for any name.

Political Issues - Index; Political Proces

By Dint:

PARTIES
Political Parties: Who Needs Them, or These A brief history of R's and D's.

PATRONAGE
Chester A. Arthur, a president who improved in office  From patronage to reformer. He set aside his prior history of nepotism and did the right thing.

PHILOSOPHIES
Pragmatism: If It Works, Keep It Up  A natural, evolution-based concept: sound policies can be properly fluid over time.

TACTICS
Earmarks, Replevin and Trover.  Special interest inroads under the fence? Try Trover. Below the radar? Bonus excesses? Clawback time. Old equity theories: Replevin (for wrongful takings, get it back); or trover (for rightful taking, but wrongfrul conversion to one's own use),

INFORMED LEGISLATURES

Legislation Literacy Requirement for Legislators

FINANCING

Standing to Vote Required for Standing to Contribute. No Contribution Shall Be Made by any entity not qualified to vote, to Any Candidate, Political Party, or Candidate or Party Promotional Group.

Campaign Contributions By Candidate to His or Her Campaign Shall be Deemed "Irrevocable Gifts" and not Loans; and
Candidate Gifts to Own Campaign to be Taxed As Such

Candidates Receiving Public Funds And Who Are Subjected to Swiftboat Tactics [as defined] May Use Private Funds For Countering Such Tactics.  

ACCESSIBILITY, ACCOUNTABILITY, DISCLOSURE

Candidate Financial Disclosure To Occur Simultaneous With Declaration of Candidacy

Candidate Accountability, Accessibility Requirements Candidates must be accessible to voters and news media by means of unscripted news conferences and similar means

Pre-emptive Laundry Disclosure Week.  Candidates to disclose all personal linen issues in timely and complete manner.

POLITICAL PROCESS
Super-Delegates Shall Be Financially and Beneficially Independent of Any Candidate

GOVERNING

Lobbying Activities Shall Be Conducted Publicly

ACCOUNTABILITY AND FAIR DEALING; ACCOUNTING PRACTICES
Economic Fraud Prevention
Uniform Accountability, Fair Standards Act. Shipwreck Prevention.  Too late for this one.
"Welfare" concept to expand to include whatever someone receives free from the government, in any form
Failure to Vet Credentials, Political Felony
Need for Factfinders in Committee

Government as Fiduciary for Taxpayer

Moderation of Presidential Rules-Making Power, "Midnight Regulations" Before Leaving Office

"Welfare" Redefined; Perspectives on American Ubiquitous Giveaways

Cultures, Groups, Western, Central Europe

By Dint:

CULTURES WITHOUT WRITING
(until outsiders wrote)
Hwaet! Power of the Written Word. Beowulf; saved by the ABC's Value of cultures who did not, or could not, create their own writing system; how much lost. Aleut, Eskimo, Celts, even Vikings, women's histories

VLACHS - CROSS BORDER, GREECE, EASTERN EUROPE
Vlachs: Gypsy Roots? Or earlier - areas of Roman influence Linguistic roots to Latin, some say. Romania area?

Vlachs: Nomads, Shepherds Gypsy roots; Greek tradition; Romania; enslavement


GYPSY, ROMA

Survey Sites, Roma
Romani law, culture, religion; includes references to Vlachs, as a separate people; and Vlachs (found in Roman old Romania area) speaking Romani. Not clear if the Vlachs speak Romani, suggesting a connection, or a vernacular form of old Latin. Other Roma customs.

Origins, Romani; Myths, Linguistics
Genius of the Survivor - Gypsies, Itinerant, Un-Propertied Rome fell; Gypsies survive. The genius of a targeted culture.
Romney or Cant, Gypsy Language
Bogomils, Deemed "Heretic" and persecuted, thought killed off, by Roman branch of Christianity, Balkans, Bosnia
This group was persecuted by the Roman branch of Christianity, thought killed off. Some traditions remain, it is said, despite the assimilations

POLAND
Hussars, Winged Cavalry, Poland

Khazars, or Hazars, Central, Eastern European Culture

CROATIA
Sinj, Croatia: The 600 Horsemen
Uskoks, Croatia

ASIA, EUROPE, UNITED STATES

Gypsies, Roma, Romani
Includes the "Travelers" of Great Britain, different heritage, language, but similar roots?

Melungeons Cultural, ethnic mix, Appalachia, Southern coastal areas, US



Women's Role, Western Culture
Women Restricted in Civil War to "grieving" Death of Abraham Lincoln - participation of women limited to grieving, see Godey's Lady Book, no discussion of policy, impact.


RESISTANCE - The First French Resistor, An Ordinary Man, On His Own

RESISTANCE - Czech Republic Paratrooper Resistance WWII; assassination of Reynhard Heydrich, Prague


THE IGNORED - Women - Roles Left Out of the Civil War



CULTURES - Gypsies, Roma, Romani








    Tuesday, July 29, 2008

    New URL at Petr Ginz: Places, Lens, Legacy.

    Please click to the new and combined URL, Petr Ginz: Places, Lens and Legacy.

    This step combines two previously separate sites related to Petr Ginz:  We are simplifying life.
    • One, entitled Petr Ginz, Lens and Legacy; the legacy of this short life;
    • Two, The Places of Petr Ginz; photographs of places mentioned in his Diary, research and commentary, or as to places we know were familiar to him.
    At the new URL, the posts are easily found for each topic, if you want to focus on one or the other.
    • The label "legacy" will lead to all the "lens and legacy" posts; and
    • The label "places" will lead to all the "places" posts. It is easy to focus on your interest.

    Tuesday, October 16, 2007

    Post Forwarded: When your Roots are Mischling. Labeled as Target.

    See this post at new URL, Petr Ginz: Lens and Legacy; Places: When Your Roots are Mischling.


    Post forwarded: The Instability of Barriers - "Something doesn't love a wall...."

    See new URL at Petr Ginz: Places and Legacy. Instability of Barriers.

    Monday, October 8, 2007

    Post Forwarded: The Lens of Architecture and Immigration. Critical mass, cultural ladders, ethnic cleansing

    See new URL at Petr Ginz, Places and Legacy, Immigration History in Mortar.

    Thursday, October 4, 2007

    Post forwarded: The legacy of heightened awareness of torture

    URL moved to Petr Ginz, Legacy, Places: Legacy of Heightened Awareness of Torture.

    Wednesday, October 3, 2007

    Post Forwarded: The legacy of heightened awareness to preconditions: Ethnic cleansing; genocide; Mischlings to Mudbloods, Muggles, Darfur

    Mass murder.

    Individuals living it until they die; or manage to survive. Example. Here is a scene at the forced-labor camp at Buchenwald, Germany. See post at Germany Road Ways.
    How to get the horror across, when events occurred over half a century ago. How to keep alert to conditions that fostered those mindsets then, so we can control them if and as they erupt.

    From Holocaust to individual experiences of violence and deprivation leading to it. Read Petr Ginz' diary 1941-1942, overview at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petr_Ginz, and find the roots of the death of this Prague child.

    The world of Petr Ginz is not just a matter of history. One of the themes he represents is the fate of designated inferiors. Corrupted power. Killing and force to further someone else's social or political or religious or other goals. Like inquisitions. Ethnic cleansing. These killed Petr Ginz, and will that ever change.

    2. Petr Ginz. The power of a word: Mischling. A key to understanding what happened is looking at the use of words to categorize and dismiss people. For Petr, he was designated a "Mischling", and so became mere fodder. Petr Ginz' sister, in her introduction to his diary, notes that she and Petr were categorized as "Mischlings," by the Nazi regime. They had parents of mixed "blood"- Roman Catholic/Aryan/ and Jewish. See post on the Nazi Mischling status at Petr Ginz as Mischling, Places of Petr Ginz. Mischling children had some privileges over those with no Aryan "blood" in that their deportation to concentration camps could be delayed, but their fate remained the same. Likely death. And while living in ghettoes, the deprivations and abuse were horrendous. See the current TV film series, PBS, Ken Burns, "The War." See thewartapes.com/trailer/. See also Studying World War; and World Wars: Sites.

    3. Harry Potter. The power of a word: Mudblood. What happens in that series of books that demonstrates the same mindset: Uses of categories to dismiss and then easily dispose of people. There, not "Mischlings," but mudbloods as fodder. See "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the most recent, by J.K. Rowling, illustrations by Mary Grandpre, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (Britain), Scholastic Press (US), 2007. With the label firmly in place, the following follow easily: Persecutions. Purges. Ethnic cleansing.

    In the "Deathly Hallows" book, the mischling-types are also mixed bloods, not Christian and Jewish mix, but mix between wizards and nonwizards, called muggles, and conflict is peaking.

    Those children are called mudbloods. Mudbloods may well have wizarding powers, just as much as other wizards, but they are still looked down upon by the purists. For more parallels to our religious and political worlds, Look at the branches of mainstream wizardry represented by the Houses at Hogwarts - purists, authoritarians in Slytherin; and those protective of all wizards, including mudbloods, and even muggles, in Gryffindor, etc. Go on: what marginalized groups are represented by the goblins and their philosophy or the squibs (nonmagical children of wizard parents), on and on.

    Categories, slots, roles. Even saying the name of the one who must not be named will bring on the hunters.

    4. The reaction: Ethnic cleansing. Historical and current events. Throughout, find virtual Mishlings and virtual mudbloods, squibs, goblins and Slytherins. And ethnic/cultural/religious/political cleansings. Here is an example from older, inquisition-era, Thirty-Years'War type Europe: Apply the category "witch," and caging and even death becomes simple. Here is the cage in which women were put, for example as witches or ladies who did not stay home and spin, supposedly, in the seventeenth century, Levoca, Slovakia. See post at Slovakia Road Ways. Label it and you can do what you want with it.

    Like our own religious/political/social history - splits and schisms, those with some characteristics clumping together to dominate.

    Persecution theme. This recurs in the Deathly Hallows, see www.hp-lexicon.org/about/books/dh/book_dh for its details. The mudblood wizards - are being persecuted, tortured, chased, devalued, purged, by the purist wizards, and with no concern for what happens to the collateral damage of the muggles, people with no magical powers at all; or, worse, the wizard children with no magical powers. Ministries are being taken over, invaded by the purists, and dark forces take over authority and spin-manipulate the propaganda machines of the land. The hero is designated as Undesirable, and the hunt is on.

    4. Parent interest. The themes are current. The point is that your children are reading about the great themes of human conflict and supremacism: How To Get Power and Keep It, in the Harry Potter series- and you thought they were just amusing themselves. Talk to them about it all. Now, introduce them to Petr Ginz, who was killed because of those things. He is probably their age.

    5. Parent hurdles. The fantasy setting; the ambiguities.

    5.1 Too much fantasy. If you have avoided reading these Potter books, you have company. Many think the books are for children and fanciful only and have no constructive relation to rearing children who will get ahead (and they never liked fantasy anyway). Think again. Better yet, get back in touch as an adult with worlds down rabbit holes, or through looking glasses. Reference here: become familiar with your children's world. Go yourself to www.jkrowling.com, or this fanclub-type site with lots of info at www.mugglenet.com/. We are not talking fantasy, really. The themes are real.

    5.2 Discomfort with ambiguity. Harry Potter does not fit neatly in our world. Some people find that disquieting to their other beliefs.

    That is predictable. We differ in how we prefer to learn. See, for example, www.mtsu.edu/~studskl/hd/learn. Some people want to know where everything is in a hierarchy or line, and what each word means, and for someone else to tell them those things so they can memorize it, and once a judgment is made, it might never change, regardless of new information. These folks will not like this sculpture, somewhere in Croatia, and I cannot locate it to find what it means.

    Folks that do not like the Harry Potter series;: it may be because they don't know where it fits in their scheme of things. Power is not fixed there. Is it disquieting to find who has power to accomplish things, even lowly house elves, and what if people have it, that you don't think should have; and what if this or that. What if, what if.

    Try this: look at the book as a way to teach about supremacism and the road to ethnic cleansings. Then it might fit in their scheme after all, unless they are the ones benefiting from the control position.

    Rorschach. What we project. See www.crystalinks.com/rorschach.

    6. Why read Petr Ginz, and Harry Potter:

    6.1 To stay alert
    . If we don't keep an independent eye on who, including ourselves, is projecting and doing what and for what ends, we are opening up Petr's path again.

    8.2 To be reminded that walls fall down. Grass grows over.

    "I am the grass. I cover all." American poet Carl Sandburg, see "Grass," his poem, at www.bartleby.com/104/78.

    Here is the grass at work at Theresienstadt, where Petr Ginz was, so you can hardly see the garrison-prison-ghetto walls beneath the benign-looking humps of turf and little flowers.

    6.3 To set antenna to Propaganda.
    What we are told to call people can define how we react to them. Pick an example: Illegal immigrants? Off with their heads, although we have permitted entry for years and we delayed ourselves beyond a time for reasonable mass processings? Or, as Emma Lazarus, the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free. See www.libertystatepark.com/emma. How you call people makes a difference. Maybe capitalism and the free market doesn't like competition after all, if position is jeopardized.

    Tuesday, September 4, 2007

    Post Forwarded: Petr Ginz - Overview. The Lens, Places, and Legacy

    URL changed to Petr Ginz, Places, Legacy, Overview.

    Monday, September 3, 2007

    Post Forwarded: Comparing - Anne Frank: Emoting in Diaries

    URL moved to Petr Ginz: Places, Legacy, Comparing Anne Frank - Emoting in Diaries

    Sunday, September 2, 2007

    Post Forwarded: Finding Others who Wrote - War and Occupation Diaries; Other Works

    URL moved to Petr Ginz, Places, Legacy: Finding Others Who Wrote

    Saturday, September 1, 2007

    Post forwarded: Whose view of history is history?

    URL changed to Petr Ginz, Places and Legacy




    Thursday, August 16, 2007

    Links, copyright, posting

    Links here are written out, rather than fast-linking by the underlining speedway. Please copy as much of the address as needed to get you to the home page, then add and add until you match.

    Post dates reflect organization, not the actual date a post is published. The effort is to provide a smooth read, less jumping about.

    All and any rights reserved.

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