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Murdered Bog Men Found With Hair Gel, Manicured Nails
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Affectionately known as my ex-wife :grin:
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Infertility link in iceman's DNA
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Grauballe Man
Grauballe Man, found in 1952 ... had his throat cut from ear to ear and his skull cracked. His body concealed another mystery: Researchers found that his gut contained traces of ergot fungus, which produces an effect similar to that of LSD. Was Grauballe Man deliberately drugged? Or was he killed because he was believed to be bewitched or possessed when he displayed convulsions and hallucinations?
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:grin::grin::grin:Quote:
Originally Posted by MobilePCPhysician
http://www.amerigo.nl/auteur/jung/jungb.jpg
C.J. Jung
Jung was a bit of a mystical dingbat, brilliant but a dingbat nonetheless.
Always liked this quote:
"One cannot be too cautious in these matters, for what with the imitative urge and a positively morbid avidity to possess themselves of outlandish feathers and deck themselves out in this exotic plumage, far too many people are misled into snatching at such "magical" ideas and applying them externally, like an ointment. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. They will practise Indian yoga and all its exercises, observe a strict regimen of diet, learn theosophy by heart, or mechanically repeat mystic texts from the literature of the whole world -- all because they cannot get on with themselves and have not the slightest faith that anything useful could ever come out of their own souls."
C.G. Jung
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Lise Meitner
Female and Jewish: Two Strkes and You're Out -- No Prize for You!
"[Otto] Hahn believed nuclear fission was impossible until [Lise] Meitner demonstrated to him that it had happened. She was the first person to realize that the nucleus of an atom could be split into smaller parts. .... It was politically impossible for the exiled Meitner to publish jointly with Hahn in 1939. Hahn published the chemical findings in January 1939 and Meitner published the physical explanation the following month with her nephew, physicist Otto Robert Frisch, and named the process 'nuclear fission'. Meitner recognized the possibility for a chain reaction of enormous explosive potential. .... In 1944, Hahn received a solo Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the discovery of nuclear fission. In the opinion of many scientists, Meitner should have shared the prize."
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Harald Hardråda
Harald Sigurdson / King Harald Hardråda
When the Norwegian King was killed in battle in 1015, Harald Sigurdson, one of the King's half brothers, was forced to flee Norway. Harald was only fifteen, and he was wounded.
He made his way to Russia and eventually to Constantinople, where he became the leader of the Varangian Guard, an elite mercenary unit which served as the Byzantine Emperor’s personal bodyguard. Harald became wealthy.
In 1045 he returned to Norway and became King.
In 1066 he invaded England. He was killed at the battle of Stamford Bridge on September 25. The Norwegian defeat was the end of the Viking era: it is estimated that of the 300 ships which brought Scandinavian troops to England only 30 were required in the escape of the battle survivors; a substantial portion of the adult male population of Scandinavia died at Stamford Bridge.
Harold Godwinson, the English King, had force marched his troops north to meet the Norwegian invaders. His army also suffered heavy losses. Four days after the battle, William of Normandy landed his troops in the south of England and was, not surprisingly, completely unopposed. Harold had to march his battle weary troops south again. On October 14, the English army was defeated at Hastings.
Timing is everything. Had Harald Sigurdson waited a couple of weeks, we might all be speaking Norwegian.
Heimskringla
Stamford Bridge
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Juanita
Juanita, a 12- to14-year-old girl, had been the victim of the capa cocha, the Inca's child sacrifice ceremony to mountain gods. The Incas, one of the most powerful civilizations of the western world before Spanish invaders destroyed it in 1532, believed that the Ampato god supplied water and withheld avalanches in return for human sacrifices.
Juanita at Wikipedia
Inca at National Geographic
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Ben Jonson
If it were not for the misfortune of having lived at the same time as William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson would have been famous, his name recognized in every English-speaking household. As a poet and playwright, he was brilliant, and with the possible exception of Chaucer, he dwarfs most other literary figures before and after his time. But then there is Shakespeare..., and history is not always kind to second bananas.
Jonson was a self-made man from a menial background. He was the stepson of a bricklayer, and he was educated on a scholarship to a charity school. He was a large, fearless man with a quick temper, and he had a large appetite for alcohol and women. He served as a soldier and is reported to have killed in battle. He also once killed a fellow actor in duel. He eventually received direct patronage from King James I, the highest of literary honours and a large accomplishment for someone of his social background, a man who had worked at a trade.
His work was complex, intellectual, political, and controversial. He was often in trouble with "the powers that be" and risked imprisonment, execution or disfigurement. His satire was savage and brutal. By comparison, the episodes of social justice portrayed in Shakespeare's comedies are relatively gentle, and they usually end in reconciliation. In Jonson's plays the social justice meted out to fools is cruelly harsh, and the very real humour in it all is disturbing as one finds oneself enjoying Jonson's knife work, laughing as the knife is twisted again and again. And there is, of course, no reconciliation.
Jonson's tragedy, Sejanus, His Fall (1603), should be required reading for any political science course. It is possible to read it as an allegory for almost any period of political intrigue -- there are things in it eerily reminiscent of McCarthy era politics and perhaps even of current politics.
Ben at Wikipedia
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Please feel free to jump in and post an interesting dead person of your own. :)
The field is wide open -- no shortage of subjects.
A true humanitarian and scholar. "He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world." - Epitaph on the grave of George Washington Carver.
Cool. Carver was on my mental list. Everyone in North America who stayed awake in elementary school should know of him -- he was certainly part of the British Columbia shcool curriculum.Quote:
Originally Posted by Guts3d
http://www.archaeology.org/9701/etc/jpegs/skull.jpeg
Kennewick Man
This one is an odd choice for Interesting Dead Person of the Day -- Kennewick Man, deceased now some 8,400 years, is most definitely dead -- there is no denying this -- and thus he qualifies on this point. But he is not particularly interesting in and of himself -- we know next to nothing about him. However, the modern political controversy he has sparked is of great interest.
In 1996, his skeletal remains were found in the bank of the Kennewick river in Washington State. He was problematic right from the start. Anthropologist James Chatters, who looked at the skeleton initially thought, "I've got a white guy with a stone point in him.... That's pretty exciting. I thought we had a pioneer." The skeleton was of the Caucasoid type, and it had a stone point embedded in its pelvis. The problem was with dating. Both radio carbon dating of the skeleton and stylistic dating of the stone point indicated a date way too early for the bones to be those of a white pioneer.
The skeleton opens up many issues. There is the Clovis/Folsom technology debate. There are the arguments about migration of first peoples to the Americas -- some theorists hold that Europeans, using Clovis point technology, were the first humans in North America -- see Wickipedia. Washington State First Nations peoples, who, like aboriginal peoples everywhere, have no good reason to trust anything that white (or other foreign colonizing) people do or say, have stopped the investigation of Kennewick Man by claiming him as an ancestor -- even though it is patently obvious that his remains are completely dissimilar to their physiology. It is all too touchy. If Kennewick Man were a "white guy," there are probably people who would use him in an attempt at discrediting aboriginal land claims, etc. So once again the pursuit of "truth" is perceived as a threat, and it is sacrificed to preserve an ethnocentric "Political/Mythological Truth." It is disappointing, but in the end humans are humans, and aren't we all highly skilled at self-deception and self-rationalization, especially when feeling threatened?
We may never know "the truth" about Kennewick Man. He is Caucasoid, but this does not necessarily mean he was a white European Caucasian. There are Asian Caucasoid peoples.
Further Reading
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http://www.youtube.com/results.php?search=skeleton
Little Richard in 50 years.
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Egil at Wikipedia
910-990 AD -- Egil Skallagrimson was one of Iceland's more interesting historical characters. In addition to being a farmer and a lawyer, he was a highly skilled and fearless killer, one who had started young, performing his first axe murder at the age of six. He was also an extremely talented skaldic poet. Both his poetic and murderous talents found service with English kings -- poetry in court -- berserk fierce killing on the battlefield. He was in many ways the archetypal Viking adventurer.
His story is told in Egil's Saga.
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The Execution of Tupac Amaru
If you wish to have some understanding of current events in South America (as in Bolivia for example), it is helpful to have an understanding of the past.
The story of Tupac Amaru is most enlightening. See:
Tupac Amaru, The Life, Times, and Execution of the Last Inca by James Q. Jacobs
The story explains much about the resentment felt by the aboriginal peoples of the Andes. Tupac Amaru led the last Inca revolt against the Spanish during the early years of occupation. He was captured in 1572 and executed. Some two hundred years later, his great-grandson led another rebellion against colonial authorities. He too was captured and executed.
The situation for native people was bad.
From Wikipedia:
"In Cuzco in 1589, the last survivor of the original conquerors of Peru, Don Mancio Serra de Leguisamo, wrote in the preamble of his will the following in parts:
'We found these kingdoms in such good order, and the said Incas governed them in such wise [manner] that throughout them there was not a thief, nor a vicious man, nor an adulteress, nor was a bad woman admitted among them, nor were there immoral people. The men had honest and useful occupations. The lands, forests, mines, pastures, houses and all kinds of products were regulated and distributed in such sort that each one knew his property without any other person seizing it or occupying it, nor were there law suits respecting it...the motive which obliges me to make this statement is the discharge of my conscience, as I find myself guilty. For we have destroyed by our evil example, the people who had such a government as was enjoyed by these natives. They were so free from the committal of crimes or excesses, as well men as women, that the Indian who had 100,000 pesos worth of gold or silver in his house, left it open merely placing a small stick against the door, as a sign that its master was out. With that, according to their custom, no one could enter or take anything that was there. When they saw that we put locks and keys on our doors, they supposed that it was from fear of them, that they might not kill us, but not because they believed that anyone would steal the property of another. So that when they found that we had thieves among us, and men who sought to make their daughters commit sin, they despised us.' (Markham 300)"
As bad as things had been for native people under colonial rule, they only got worse with independence from Spain.
It was not until the liberal/leftist military juntas of the late 1960s that any attempt at redress was made.
The weight of history on the land is oppressive.
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Ah, how we do love to romanticize our native cultures! Not defending the Spaniards in any way. They were brutal, greedy, lying, back-stabbing conquerors. But, the Incas, Aztecs, etc. were not quite as innocent as we would like to believe. I refer you to your #9 entry on this thread, Juanita the human sacrifice, for example. The native peoples of America were simply the victims of superior technology and politics, wielded by the Europeans. (That, and horses.)
No Empire was ever built by a peaceful people. The Incas, Aztecs, Olmecs, Mayas all built their Empires on the blood and bodies of other tribes, whom history has forgotten. Who knows what really went down back in those pre-Columbian days, when those cultures got their start?
Was the great Quetzal, in reality, a lost, wandering Viking? Will the rest of the North American tribes ever get a chance to stomp the hell out of the Crow? Are puppies really tasty? I don't know; go ask Stalemate.
You gotta love Rasputin! Drugged, poisoned, strangled, shot and stabbed, but dies due to drowning when they try to dispose of the body in the Neva river. Illiterate, hard-drinking womanizer, who claims to have faith healing powers and visions from God, he is like Pat Robertson, Ted Kennedy and Larry, the Cable Guy, all rolled into one! :)
Rasputin
What a guy! (in my best Yakov Smirnoff voice)
Indeed. Indeed. That fact that you are right doesn't make Tupac Amaru any less interesting, though. Nor does it deny him the status of being dead. Nor does it dismiss his iconic status. Nor does it diminish the illumination his story provides on the discontent of Quechua and Aymara peoples.Quote:
Originally Posted by El_Squid
The Incas governed like the king in Monty Python's Happy Valley where everyone was happy because all the malcontents had been put to death years ago.
There are documented acts of genocide in North America that on a relative scale make the actions of Hitler and his minions seem like the innocent pranks of high-spirited boy scouts.
The sacredness of nature? Well... where are all the wooly mamoths, giant ground sloths, and giant land tortises that once inhabited North America? Hunted into extinction?... No! Say it ain't so!
If I go on, NooNoo will move this thread into politicos.
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You missed Charlie Manson in your list. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by El_Squid
I wouldn't associate Rasputin with that scuzz bag. Rasputin didn't kill anyone, or have any of his minions kill anyone. He was just out to have a really good time. I mean, how often does a peasant get a chance to party with the elitest of the aristocrats? :pQuote:
Originally Posted by houseisland
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Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battuta at Wikipedia
"Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battuta (Arabic: أبو عبد الله محمد ابن بطوطة) (born February 24, 1304; year of death uncertain, possibly 1368 or 1377) was born in Tangier, Morocco during the time of Merinid Sultanate rule in the Islamic calendar year 703, into a Berber family. He was a Sunni Islamic scholar and jurisprudent from the Maliki Madhhab (a school of Fiqh, or Sunni Islamic law), and at times a Qadi or judge. However, he is best known as an extensive traveller or explorer, whose account documents his travels and side-excursions over a period of almost thirty years, covering some 73,000 miles (117,000 km). This journeying covered almost the entirety of the known Islamic world, extending also to present-day India, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia and China, a distance readily surpassing that of his prior, near-contemporary and traveller Marco Polo."
Further Reading:
http://www.sfusd.k12.ca.us/schwww/sc...uta_Rihla.html
http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/ibn-battuta/
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sourc...bnbattuta.html
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Emilie du Châtelet (1706-1749)
Emilie du Châtelet was a beautiful, vivacious woman.
She was also brilliant.
Perhaps most importantly she was a "big picture" visionary in Physics, one who could pull together the research and theories of others and then synthesize them into something larger. She formalized the understanding of the relationship between engery and mass and velocity thus laying important ground work for Albert Einstein's big equation, E=MC2.
Her lover, Voltaire, said with some irony that she would have been "the greatest of men."
From PBS: "Du Châtelet was one of the leading interpreters of modern physics in Europe as well as a master of mathematics, linguistics, and the art of courtship. But there was one thing she couldn't control. In April of 1749, she wrote to Voltaire, 'I am pregnant and you can imagine ... how much I fear for my health, even for my life ... giving birth at the age of forty.' She didn't rage at the clear incompetence of her era's doctors; she just said to Voltaire that it was sad leaving before she was ready.
She survived the birth the next fall, but infection set in, and within a week she died. Voltaire was beside himself: 'I have lost the half of myself—a soul for which mine was made.'"
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Hildegard of Bingen
at Wikipedia
September 16, 1098 – September 17, 1179
Hilegard was a woman of noble background. Her family gave her to the church as a tithe at the age of 8.
As a nun, she was noted as a mystic visionary. She was a prolific author, writing on subjects ranging from theology to natural history. She was also musically gifted and her surviving compositions form the largest body of mediaeval music from a single composer.
Feminist scholarship has increased her fame and popularity in recent years. In addition to the note of her many accomplishments, Hildegard provides "the earliest description of sexual pleasure from the point of view of a woman."
Further reading
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Snorri Sturluson at Wikipedia
1178 – September 23, 1241
Iceland was the last European country to convert to Christianity, which it did in about 1000. The conversion was largely diplomatic and in actual practice was only partial.
Iceland was physically distant and isolated from Rome and thus did not fall under the same clerical scrutiny as did more readily accessible countries. Even two centuries after conversion, it was possible to have an antiquarian interest in pagan religion and mythology without risking being burned at the stake. As a result of this all, Iceland became the repository for pretty much everything that we know about the pre-Christian belief systems and (non-physical) culture of Germanic peoples.
The person responsible for documenting much of what we know was Snorri Sturluson. He was twice the Law Speaker at the Icelandic Parliament -- the Law Speaker was the living repository of common law, a person trained to memorize the judicial history of the people. He was also the author of the Prose Edda which is a rationalized narrative of Norse (Germanic) mythology. He also wrote a history of Norse kings, and he may have written Egil's Saga.
Snorri was also a politician, and his involvement in a rebellion against the King of Norway led to his assasination in 1241.
Further reading
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Quote:
Originally Posted by El_Squid
Ew. :rolleyes:
Maybe we need to ask an Arapaho, then? :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Stalemate
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...d/Socrates.png
Socates at Wikipedia
June 4, ca. 469 BC – May 7, 399 BC
What we know of Socrates is from second hand sources, mostly from the writings of his pupil, Plato. Socrates was physically tough, and he was fearless; stories of his service in the Athenian army and the manner in which he faced his death bear this out. He was homo- or bi-sexual, which may have been either a natural or a cultural inclination; he was married and fathered three children, but also appeared to have a large appetite for young men. He was also fond of alcohol, which again may have either a natural or a cultural inclination. The imprint of his thought on Western culture is broad and deep -- Socratic dialectics, for example, provide the basis for methods of critical thought such as "the scientific method." He is also the corner stone of western education: he was mentor to Plato, who in turn was the mentor of Aristotle and so on; and Plato's school, the Academy, was the model upon which western universities were based as they developed from the middle ages onward.
Further reading
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No time for a dead person tomorrow. So I'll do tomorrow's today. :)
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Bede at Wikipedia
ca. 672 or 673 – May 27, 735
Bede entered a monestary at Wearmouth at the age of seven. He lead a productive scholarly life writing on a wide variety of subjects, theology, music, science, chronology, linguistics, and history. He was also a textual scholar, and his edition of the Vulgate Bible was used by the Catholic Church until the 1960s. He is credited with with devising the BC/AD system of dating and with improving the accuracy of the Gregorian calendar. He also argued that the earth was round.
His history of the English people, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, is one of the few existing primary sources for Anglo Saxon history.
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Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
One of the more interesting passages from this work is "The Conversion of Edwin."
From: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/bede1.html
[Edwin, the king of Northumbria, urged by his Christian wife Ethelberga, and by the bishop Paulinus,] answered that he was both willing and bound to receive the new faith which the bishop taught, but that he wished, nevertheless, to confer about it with his principal friends and counselors, to the end that, if they also were of his opinion, they might all be cleansed together in Christ, the Fount of Life. Paulinus consenting, the king did as he said; for holding a council with the wise men, he asked of every one in particular what he thought of the new doctrine and the new worship that was preached.
To which the chief of his priests, Coifi, immediately answered: "O king, consider what this is which is now preached to us; for verily I declare to you that the religion which we have hitherto professed has, as far as I can learn, no virtue in it. For none of your people has applied himself more diligently to the worship of our gods than I; and yet there are many who receive greater favors from you, and are more preferred than I, and who are more prosperous in all their undertakings. Now if the gods were good for anything, they would rather forward me who has been more careful to serve them. It follows, therefore, that if upon examination you find those new doctrines which are now preached to us better and more efficacious, we should immediately receive them without any delay' "
Another of the king's chief men, approving of Coifi's words and exhortations, presently added: " The present life man, O king, seems to me, in comparison with that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter amid your officers and ministers, with a good fire in the midst whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door and immediately another, whilst he is within is safe from the wintry but after a short space of fair weather he immediately vanishes out of your sight into the dark winter from which he has emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space but of what went before or what is to follow we are ignorant. If, therefore, this new doctrine contains something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed.'
The other elders and king's counselors, by divine inspiration, spoke to the same effect., But Coifi added that he, wished more attentively to hear Paulinus' discourse concerning the God whom he preached. So the bishop having spoken by the king's command at greater length, Coifi, hearing his words,- cried out: "I have long since been sensible that there was nothing in that which we worshiped, because the more diligently I sought after truth in that worship the less I found it. But now I freely confess that such evident, truth appears in this preaching as can confer on us the gifts of life, of salvation, and of eternal happiness. For which reason I advise, O king, that we instantly abjure and set fire to those temples and altars which we have consecrated out reaping any benefits from them."
In short, the king publicly gave his permission to Paulinus to preach the gospel, and, renouncing idolatry, declare he received the faith of Christ: and when he inquired high priest who should first profane the altars and temples of their idols, with the enclosures that were about them, the high priest answered, ,I; for who can more properly than myself destroy those things which I worshiped through ignorance, for an example to all others, through the wisdom which been given me by the true God ? "
Then immediately, in contempt of his former superstitions, desired the king to furnish him with arms and a stallion, and mounting the latter, he set out to destroy the idols ; for it was not lawful before for the high priest either to carry arms or to ride on any beast but a mare. Having, therefore, girt on a sword and carrying a spear in his hand, he mounted the king's stallion and proceeded to the idols. The multitude, beholding him, concluded he was distracted; but he lost no time, for as soon as he drew near the temple he profaned the same, casting into it the spear which he held. And rejoicing in the knowledge of the worship of the true God, he commanded his companions to destroy the temple, with all its enclosures, by fire.
This place where the idols were is still shown, not far from York, to the eastward, beyond the river Derwent, and is now called Godmundingham; where the high priest, by the inspiration of the true God, profaned and destroyed the altars which he had himself consecrated.
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Sigurdsristning (The Sigurd Carving) or Ramsund Stone
See also: http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=12675
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...0px-Sigurd.jpg
See Wikipedia for Numeric Key
Sigurd or Sigurðr at Wikipedia
Sigurd is interesting. It is not certain that he is dead, though. He may be entirely mythological. He is the archetypal Germanic uber-hero, Sigurd the dragon slayer. His story and his geneology are told most interestingly in the Old Norse (12th Century?) Volsung Saga.
The Volsung Saga has some basis in fact. There are recognizable historical figures in it such as Attila the Hun ca. 406–453 AD. The story is probably the vestiges of an oral history from the period of the Germanic migrations AD 300 and 500. See also: maps. During this time Germanic tribes (Goths, Vandals, Franks, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Burgundians, Alans, Langobards, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Suebi, and Alamanni) poured out of northern Europe, spreading over the south, Russia, the Middle East, and North Africa. Oral histories tend to become garbled over time and they develop mythic character. The author of the Volsung Saga made little or no attempt at rationalizing his much older source material. Geography and chronology are completely skewed. The saga's "story grammar" is extremely alien to modern sensibilities. Imagine playing Dungeon Siege with a projector so that the characters are larger than life; you have consumed a full sheet of blotter acid, and just as you are peaking, the earth crosses the event horizon of a black hole -- concepts of space and time become meaningless. This situation is not entirely dissimilar to reading the Volsung Saga.
By contrast the author of the Middle High German Nibelungenlied presents Sigurd/Siegfried's story in a highly rationalized manner.
The story of Sigurd/Siegfried is found in Wagner's Ring Cycle. There are reflections of it in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. As a part of German Romanticism, it also contributed to the deluded Aryan Race wetdreams of Hitler and his cronies -- not Sigurd's fault.
Interesting. Maybe not dead, though.
(edit: There are also echos in the plot of Dungeon Siege II, that is if it can be said to have a plot.)
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John Harrison at Wikipedia
March 24, 1693 - March 24 1776
John Harrison was a Yorkshire lad. He was initially a carpenter. He eventually became one of England's foremost horologists (clockmakers). He introduced many improvements to clock technology, but most notably, he made the first chronometer, a clock accurate enough that it could be used to overcome the problem of calculating longitude in marine navigation. There was substantial prize money posted for solving the problem of longitude calculation, a sum of £20,000. Harrison had friends and supporters, such as the astronomer Edmund Halley, but it took him almost forty years after the first successful demonstration of his chronometer to collect the money. There were egos, rivalries and class prejudice involved in the delay -- Harrison was after all a mere commoner from Yorkshire, a man of menial background and not a gentleman scientist of quality. In the end, it took the personal intervention of King George III before the then very elderly Harrison received his proper reward and recognition.
Further reading:
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/server/show/con...355/viewPage/2
http://www.solarnavigator.net/history/john_harrison.htm
http://telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jht...13/ixhome.html
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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!
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How about an old friend, I have recently rediscovered: Sir Francis Bacon.
http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/bacon/
Quite a fascinating fellow, even if he was a lawyer.
Cool. I like him, too.Quote:
Originally Posted by El_Squid
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Joan of Arc at Wikipedia
From Wikipedia:
"Joan of Arc, also Jeanne d'Arc (1412[2] – 30 May 1431) is a national heroine of France and a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. She believed she had visions from God that told her to recover her homeland from English domination late in the Hundred Years' War. The uncrowned King Charles VII sent her to the siege at Orléans as part of a relief mission. She gained prominence when she overcame the light regard of veteran commanders and lifted the siege in only nine days. Several more swift victories led to Charles VII's coronation at Rheims and settled the disputed succession to the throne.
The renewed French confidence outlasted her own brief career. Court intrigues slowed further offensive action. Her leg was wounded during an unsuccessful attempt to recover Paris and she was captured the following spring during a battle near Compiègne. A politically motivated trial convicted her of heresy. The English regent John, duke of Bedford had her burnt at the stake in Rouen. She had been the heroine of her country at the age of seventeen and died at just nineteen. Some twenty-four years later Pope Callixtus III reopened the case and a new finding overturned the original conviction. Her piety to the end impressed the retrial court. Pope Benedict XV canonized her on 16 May 1920.
Joan of Arc has remained an important figure in Western culture. From Napoleon to the present, French politicians of all leanings have invoked her memory. Major writers and composers who created works about her include Shakespeare, Voltaire, Schiller, Verdi, Tchaikovsky, Twain, Shaw, and Brecht. Depictions of her continue in film, television, and song."
Leonard Cohen's song, Joan of Arc, an examination of female passion, has long been one of my favs.
Recent news: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4711784.stm
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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
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Sir John Harington at the National Portrait Gallery
Sir John at Wikipedia
Sir John Harington (1561 – November 20, 1612), a Godchild of Elizabeth I, was the (re)inventor of the flushable toilet. Toilets are known to have existed as early as 2500 BC, but the technology has appeared and disappeared with the rise and fall of various societies over time. Sir John's was probably the first flushable English toilet. The euphemism, the john, is thought to be taken from Harington's name.
Harington had studied law but became a courtier poet. His writing was often satirical, and as a result he was often in disfavour and banished from court.
A publication about his toilet in 1596, A New Discourse upon a Stale Subject: The Metamorphosis of Ajax, was both technical and satirical. "This was published under the author's pseudonym of Misacmos. There were in fact three sections to this dissertation, but the real point of the publication was that Harrington described in detail and with diagrams, and with a good many none too savoury digressions, often aimed at particular and well-known men at Court, his invention of the water-closet, on which John Harrington's chief claim to fame ought to rely. (Ajax was a pun on the words 'a jakes', jakes being the Elizabethan word for a privy). The work was issued under the initials T.C., which stood for T. C. Traveller. He explained 'how unsavoury places may be made sweet, noisome places made wholesome, filthy places made cleanly', at a cost of thirty shillings and eightpence. The Queen was much displeased, not with the indecorous passages in the book, but with veiled allusions to the Earl of Leicester. At one moment Harrington was in great danger of facing Star Chamber: it is almost certain that Elizabeth's affection for him saved him from that process. But the edict went forth that that he leave the Court. By 1598 the Queen had forgiven her godson and commanded that a Harrington water-closet be installed at Richmond Palace."
Below is an early water closet, probably not one of Harington's.
http://www.muswell-hill.com/foxandco...atercloset.jpg
A rambling and coprophillic letter by the writer Thomas Nashe would seem to indicate that some of Harington's jakes were set up for public use in St. Pauls churchyard with somewhat unpleasant results:
Only mr Harrington {of} late hath sett up sutch filthy stinking iakes in pouls churchyard, that the stationers wold giue any mony for a couer [fo]r it. what shold moue him to it I know not, except he [m]eant to bid a turd in all gentle readers teeth, or whereas [D]on Diego & Brokkenbury be****t pouls, to prevent the like incon- [u]enience, he hath reuiued an old innes a court tricke of turning [ ]out in a paper, & framed close stools for them t[o] carry [in] there pockets as gentlewomen do there spuges th[ ] [ ] O it is detestable and abhominable, farre worse then [Mu]nday[s] ballet of vntruesse, or Gillian a Braynfords [Wi]ll in which she bequeathed a score of farts amongst her frends [&] able to make any man haue a stinking breath that lookes [b]ut on the outstide of it. Sure had I beene of his cousayle he shold haue sett for ye mott or word before it Fah, & dedicated it to the house of the shakerlies that giue for there armes thre doggs turds reaking, For my paarte I pitty him & pray for him that he may haue many good stooles to his last ending, & so I wold wish all his frends to pray, for otherwise it is to be feared yt according as Seneca reports the last words Claudiius Ces was hard to speake were Hei mihi vereor concacaui me so he will die with a turd in his mouth at his last gaspe & bee coffind vp in a iakes farmer tunne no other nosewise christian, for his horrible pfume being able to come nere him.
Normalized letter text
Further reading
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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
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http://www.trama.com.br/elis/elis1_800x600.jpg
Elis Regina (March 17, 1945 - January 19, 1982)
Elis was an amzing singer. "She was nicknamed Furacao (hurricane) and Pimentinha (little pepper) because of her seemingly boundless energy." She had mind-blowing timing and phrasing.
Her 1974 album with Antino Carlos Jobim, "Elis & Tom, is often cited as one of the greatest bossa nova albums of all time."
http://www.southamericanway.com/covers/lg/acder74br.jpg
She takes my breath away. Listen! Watch!
From WFMU: http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/KF/2006/02/elis_regina.mov (Right click. Save as. 11 MB. Requires Quicktime.)
Her death was stupid. She succumbed to a bad combination of Cinzano and cocaine, during a night that she spent up alone in her bedroom, making plans for the future and listening to tapes for her new record. An accident and a senseless waste. This was on January 19, 1982. She was not yet 37 years old. Brazil was shocked and shattered by the news.
Further reading (pics and discography)
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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
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Monk Zone: the Official Site
Wikipedia says that "Thelonious Sphere Monk (October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was a jazz pianist and composer."
True but inadequate.
It is hard to explain just how cool Monk is/was. He was eccentric, and his music was brilliant because of it. He composed/improvised strangely angular, strangely syncopated melodies with notes often so outrageously wrong that they were brilliantly right and beautiful. I have loved him since I was a little kid. Words cannot express how much I miss him.
:sad:
Wikipedia: "Monk's manner was idiosyncratic. It is said that he would rarely speak to anyone other than his beloved wife Nellie, and certainly in later years it was reported that he would go through an entire tour without speaking to the other members of his group. Visually, he was renowned for his distinctively "hip" sartorial style in suits, hats and sunglasses, and he developed an unusual, highly syncopated and percussive manner of playing piano. He was also noted for the fact that, at times, he would stop playing, stand up from the keyboard and dance while the other musicians in the combo played. There has been speculation that some of Monk's quirky behaviour was due to mental illness."
Indeed, his mannerisms were suggestive of high functioning autism or Asperger's Syndrome.
If he had been normal, whatever that may be, what a loss it would have been.
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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
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http://w00.middlebury.edu/ID085A/gal...r/Iwasdead.jpg
Yokoo Tadanori (1936-1965 vendre un canard Ã* moitié?)
"Yokoo Tadanori, "Tadanori Yokoo." Client: Matsuya Department Store. 72.8 x 103 cm. This was a poster for the "Persona Exhibition," a group exhibition by 16 designers held at the Matsuya Department Store in the Ginza, Tokyo, in 1965. The legend at the bottom reads (in English) Having reached a climax at the age of 29, I was dead. A handsign signifying sex, a photo of the artist at age 1 1/2, and two erupting Mt. Fuji's are placed in the poster's four corners. In front of one of the Mt. Fuji's is a bullet train, a symbol of "reborn" postwar Japan just as hackneyed as Mt. Fuji, a symbol of old (or changeless) Japan."
Yokoo is the Andy Warhol of Japan but without Warhol's affectations. The hand symbol can also represent death -- remember "the Paul is dead" nonsense. A number of ironies at work here.
Mouse Pad
Yokoo San at Wikipedia France
Well, he said he was dead.
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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...hn_Wilmot2.jpg
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester
at Wikipedia
April 1, 1647–July 26, 1680
John Wilmot was born 300 years too soon. He was a self-destructive, hedonistic libertine, given to excesses of debauchery. He was also brilliant, regarded as one of the greatest literary wits of his day. He would have made a great sixties rock star -- sex, drugs, and rock and roll would have been very much to his taste. He would have very quickly got the hang of trashing hotel rooms.
He was a well-educated poet and satirist of the first order. He was also a pornographer, although there are arguments that his pornography was a lampooning of the excesses of his age -- an explosion of sexuality and drunkenness after years of Puritanism. He was also a con-artist: in a period of banishment from court, he set him self up as a quack/snake-oil doctor, one Dr. Bendo, and was apparently quite successful at fleecing the public.
His friendship with King Charles II probably saved him from being beheaded, although Charles must have been very sorely tempted on many occasions.
He died at the age of 33 probably from the complications of multiple STDs, syphilis most likely being the primary cause.
It is difficult to separate myth from reality. Over the years Wilmot has been used both by puritans and libertines, an object lesson of the evils of excess on the one hand, and a model of free-spirited life without the imprisonment of morality on the other. Both uses have helped to obscure the truth.
There is a recent movie, The Libertine, about his life. Johnny Depp puts in an amazing performance as Wilmot.
Further reading.
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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!