Netflix's Queen Cleopatra

I saw this article in Al Jazeera about Netflix Queen Cleopatra by Islam Issa and it resonated with me for a few reasons.

 As I detail in my book, DNA samples recovered in Egypt from the New Kingdom to the Roman Period reveal that Egyptians had predominantly southern European and Near Eastern ancestry; sub-Saharan African ancestry didn’t exceed 15 percent in the ancient times and doesn’t exceed 21 percent in Egypt today. So it’s safe to say that even with some Egyptian heritage, in today’s terms she wouldn’t have been Black but biracial.

There are quite a few important things to keep in mind here since the Mediterranean is surrounded by three continents: Europe, Africa, and Asia and there was trade between those continents from pre-historic times (yes). OK, this map is modern, but the geography is pretty much timeless.

You might be able to try and waffle that sub-Saharan Africa wasn't part of the trade, but the Gahanian and Malian Empires pretty much refute that: toss in the Kerma culture of Nubia for good measure.

It's simplistic to think of Europe as being this island in the upper  parts of the Eastern (and some Western) Hemisphere isolated from the rest of the "known world": especially when you think of "here be monsters" on old maps. But the Hereford Mappa Mundi includes India.

I have no problem with the actress playing Cleopatra since she pretty much looks like what I would expect a Cleopatra to look like, instead of Elizabeth Taylor. Biracial and lighter complected.

Just because I identify with the Eastern Hemisphere, and Europe, doesn't mean I don't acknowledge that other cultures haven't been influential in Europe. It's hard to deny when Africa is touching Iberia at the west.

Religion, History, and the United States

Wisconsin's Modern Labor Struggles and International Working Women's Day 100th anniversary

Observed by:

Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Ecuador, Estonia, Dominican Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Italy, Israel, Laos, Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Malta, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Nepal, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Philippines, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Seychelles, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Sweden, Spain, Syria, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, United States, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Zambia

The original premise back in 1910-11 was :

"The idea of having an international women's day was first put forward at the turn of the 20th century amid rapid world industrialization and economic expansion that led to protests over working conditions. In the West, International Women's Day was first observed as a popular event after 1977 when the United Nations General Assembly invited member states to proclaim March 8 as the UN Day for Women's Rights and International Peace"

The first countries to celebrate : 

"The first International Women's Day was observed on March 19, 1911, in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland, where more than 1 million people attended rallies calling for women to be given the right to work, vote, and hold public office."

Early American women's activist
Rose Schneiderman speaks at a union rally
around 1910.  Courtesy Radio Free Europe,
and Radio Liberty

There is also an International Men's Day, November 19th.

There should be no question that the history of this specific date, which was later celebrated as a week, and now as an entire month, has close ties to the earlier struggle of labor to organize.

As such, it is an important context to the struggles in Wisconsin and a number of other states are in essence re-fighting these battles, per Daisy Sindelar at Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty:

Rosalind Rosenberg, a professor of history at New York's Barnard College, says the holiday was created as the country's workers, including large numbers of women, were losing patience with poor labor conditions.

Early American women's activist Rose Schneiderman speaks at a union rally around 1910. "I would date it back to 1908 and the strike of some 15,000 women in the garment industry on the Lower East Side who were suffering low pay and terrible working conditions, and who walked off the job and protested," Rosenberg says.

Women in Combat: the January Pentagon Report and Women Revolutionary Soldiers - Real Molly Pitchers, for Women's History Month, March 4th

A January 2011 Pentagon report recommended allowing women in combat.  Allowing women to serve in combat positions in our military is one alternative to privatizing the army through the use of private contractors for a variety of military services, or alternatively if we discontinue private contractors, to a return to the draft to meet the needed numbers of personnel doing these jobs.  Knowing this history has a very real impact on our modern military and policy decisions, including our international policy.

Molly Pitcher is the legendary wife who replaced her fallen husband at the battle of Monmouth, sometimes thought to be the real woman, Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley.

According to historians like Dr. Linda Grant DePaw, President of the Minerva Center:

"The MINERVA Center, Inc. is a nonprofit 501(c)3 educational foundation. Since 1983 it has provided information and inspiration to military women and women veterans and supported scholars, journalists, filmmakers, public policy activists and others engaged in the study of women and war."

quoted here:

"Molly Pitcher is the name of a legendary figure of the American Revolution. She is associated with the Battle of Monmouth and since 1876 has been identified with a woman veteran of the war, Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley, who lived in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. As part of the centenary events of that year, an unmarked grave believed to be hers was opened and the remains were reburied with honors under a plaque declaring her to have been the real embodiment of the famous Molly Pitcher.

March is Women's History Month - March 1st: Abigail Adams

Abigail Adams, circa 1776
portrait by Benjamin Blythe
courtesy Wikipedia

Having mentioned her husband John Adams, and the Sedition Act of 1798 in a previous post today, it seemed only fair to give consideration at the beginning of Women's History Month to his wife Abigail Adams.

Abigail Adams, later in life
portrait by Gilbert Stuart
courtesy of Wikipedia



As our first 'second lady', the wife of Adams when he was our first vice president, and second 'first lady' when Adams followed George Washington in that honor (1797 - 1801, Abigail Adams was a powerful influence in her own right, on behalf of women.  Her own words on the subject of women in our early history, taken from letters to her husband over the years of their marriage, are more eloquent than anything I could provide on her behalf:

Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.

Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could.

Lying about WMD - the Curveball Admissions and How it Relates to Current Events in the Middle East

I read, see and hear claims that 'liberals' and 'lefties' like to make use of crises for their agendas all the time.  Realistically, right or left or center, tumultuous public events do provide occasions for more dramatic, less incrementally small changes, for the better or for the worse.  This is a lesson of history, and it is not unique to any segment of the political spectrum.  That it is practiced and endorsed by the Right is evidenced by Iraq and 9/11.

Well, it turns out that with this most recent recanting of claims of WMD, along with admissions by former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld which contradict his previous public denials that Bush was interested in going after Sadam Hussein even before the events of 9/11, and used the terrorist tragedy to promote that agenda over the protests of the military.

Fact Checking Fun Sports Trivia; or "And Now for Something Completely Different"

"The first testicular guard, the "Cup," was used in Hockey in 1874 and the first helmet was used in 1974. That means it only took 100 years for men to realize that their brain is also important."

The above quote is from an amusing 'adult truths' email that was sent to me by one of the Affinity Scam investors (male), in a flurry of exchanging end of the year emails.  It intrigued me sufficiently to fact check it; and I had so  much fun  fact  checking it that it seemed to merit a post  of its own.  (This is for you JH, something different as requested - we aim to please).
 
As always, the devil is in the details.  The most significant devils in this round of fact checking surprised me.  It relates to the reason for wearing a helmet, and the reasons for wearing a cup (no, it is less obvious  than you might suppose) and it took me on a virtual cyber tour of the history of hockey equipment, and the history of the game of hockey.  Here is just one of the sources I came across while researching the topic of cups and hockey helmets; you should scroll down to the comments exchange for some of the more pertinent details:

"The dates are very believable especially when you research “first helmet in Hockey”…”first game in hockey” and so on…. and these dates fall close to the first OFFICIALLY RECORDED dates. For example. Hockey is known to have begun in the year 1800 with the first officially organized indoor game played March 3, 1875 at the Victoria Skating Rink in Montreal. Prior to playing hockey indoors, it was played outdoors first. Hence the date difference (before it was officially recorded which happened after it was played indoors) Due to flying pucks, and sticks that did not have a length mandate, men were very much aware of what a puck in the genitals or a stick between the legs could do to a player, creating an advantage for the opposing team. They were more in tune with gaining an advantage then safety. Another vulnerable spot was the back of the heal of the foot, which was later solved by requiring a hardened protective/metal piece placed in the skate boot and now is apart of the boot itself. A helmet did not become a serious consideration until after Jan 15 1968 when the NHL had its first fatality due to a head injury. In 1970 it was still voted down to have a mandatory helmet rule even after the fatality. In 1975 there was an average of only 5 players who wore them in the NHL,. And finally, John Zeigler, President of the hockey league, I believe it was, mandated in August 1979, that anyone signing a contract after a particular date, it would be mandatory that all players in the NHL wear helmets on their heads. Prior to that date few protected their heads…it was not considered to be manly and was blamed for vision impairment.These dates do not mean #1, no games were played before 1875 nor does it mean that it wasn’t until 1979 that players did not try the helmet out (especially leather or early plastic ones that basically protected an existing injury ,but did not necessarily prevent any.) Anyone in Hockey can attest to seeing what ancient protective gear looked like for the genitals and that there were not protective helmets for the head before a particular point in time. One did come before the other. when you consider when the recorded history occurred..... It is, in fact, a “glimpse” of real history. And I repeat a “glimpse”. I did share it with the public because it had some merit, and I found it somewhat humorous when you consider which one became standard equipment before the other."

I hope I have not offended the delicate sensibilities of our Penigma readers (regular or occasional), and I hope that this provides a little levity to the discussion of politics.  Lastly, I hope this adds a certain humor to my usual fact checking obsession.  Enjoy! and in the words of the fictional Canadian character Red Green, "keep your stick on the ice".  Or, if you prefer, the words of my mom "don't lose your mittens, it's cold out there!".

Happy Holidays - fact checking Christmas

This is a holiday post from me (DG) offered as a sort of gift, a token of appreciation, first and foremost to my colleague and 'boss', Penigma (an inside joke - hope you are laughing, Pen).  Pen is the best possible blogging partner one could hope for; I am particularly grateful for his help to me with computer difficulties during this past year.  So - thank you Pen; this is especially for you.  But it is also offered with appreciation to our other contributors during this past year, and to our readers.

What do I do that is uniquely 'me', what is my 'bete noir'? Fact checking!  So, in selecting a topic around which to write a holiday post, I turned to - what else? - fact checking Christmas, including drawing on some experiences out of my own past, for a holiday perspective.

Certain Eastern Orthodox Christian Churches celebrate Christ's birth on January 7th, not December 25th - specifically, the Russian, Georgian, Egyptian, Ukrainian, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Serbian, and Greek Patriarchate of Jerusalem churches.  It was an interesting experience to visit sites in Bethlehem in early January when a tourist in Israel some years ago, including viewing the image of a very western Santa Claus on a billboard, expecting Christmas to be over, other than possibly the feast of Epiphany on January 6th.  Some Armenian churches don't celebrate Christmas until January 18th for Christmas eve, and the 19th for Christmas Day.  So.......Christmas can quite literally be a celebration that keeps on giving well beyond the traditional 12 days of Christmas, into January, at the very least.

I want to focus specifically on the gospel of Matthew 2:1-12, referencing the astronomy and astrology of the Star of Bethlehem, and the visit of the wise men, or magi from the 'east'.  The offering of the gifts of the magi, the gold, frankincense, and myrrh, are at least part of the basis of our sometimes manic,  sometimes all too commercial tradition of gift giving, and therefore is very much at the heart of our seasonal celebration, whether we embrace the religious reasons for it, or only the secular traditions.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell; Don't Look Back

“It is time to close this chapter in our history.
It is time to recognize that sacrifice, valor and integrity are no more defined by sexual orientation than they are by race or gender, religion or creed.
It is time to allow gay and lesbian Americans to serve their country openly.” - President Barack Obama

This afternoon, Saturday, December 18, 2010 marked the end of the 1993 law, with a vote in the Senate that included votes in support of the end of DADT by eight Republicans as well as a majority of Democrats.

The honor roll of those Republicans are:
Senator Scott Brown, Massachusetts
Senator Richard Burr, North Carolina
Senator Susan Collins, Maine

Senator John Ensign, Nevada
Senator Mark Kirk, Illinois

Senator Lisa Murkowski. Alaska
Senator Olympia Snowe, Maine

Senator George Voinovich, Ohio

The House of Representatives passed the bill on Wednesday, December 15, 2010.  Thank you, members of Congress for righting this wrong.  Thank you for voting for our armed forces to be able to serve with dignity and integrity on our behalf.  This will mark a similar turning point in our history to the end of segregation in the armed forces.

General Amos, Commandant of the Marine Corps, if you cannot in good conscience continue in your position, now would be a good time to pack your bags, and leave your position for a more open minded man or woman.  There is no going back.  So, either look forward, move forward, with honor, or sir, please, with respect for your years of service, leave now.

General Amos made the comment that he felt allowing people to admit they were gay would present a distraction.  Apparently not allowing them to admit they were gay avoids that distraction for General Amos; I doubt the general cares if living a lie distracts gay soldiers or otherwise disturbs them.  General Amos made the statement that the distraction of someone admitting what in fact their comrades often know anyway and don't care about, would distract soldiers, and might get the straight soldier killed.  Amos doesn't appear to care about those who aren't heterosexual, but serve their country in the armed forces.  Soldiers like Marine staff sgt. Eric Alva, the first soldier seriously wounded in Iraq, who lost a leg after being injured by an IED.

Amos must not have been thinking of Alva, or the men and women like Alva, when he said he

"I don't want to have any Marines that I'm visiting at Bethesda [National Naval Medical Center, in Maryland] with no legs be the result of any type of distraction."

General Amos's solution was to simply kick those distractions out of the military, at the rate of two soldiers a day who are separated from the service.  Good thing General Amos didn't happen to visit Sgt. Alva when he was a patient; the general might have been distracted by the ill timing and offensiveness of his own comments in the presence of Alva's sacrifice for his country; or maybe just embarrassed at his faux pas.  Good thing General Amos can no longer exercise his prejudice, although his freedom of speech, defended by soldiers like Alva, still permit him to express it.  We can only hope he might think better of it, and honor real warriors, instead of conforming to the false ideals and ignorance of the conservative 'culture warriors'.

Senator John McCain, your position on this issue has been a disgrace, and dishonor, sir.  It has saddened me to see someone I once admired betray his prior position on this issue, and it is tragic that you have so little regard for the many members of our armed forces, in all branches, both men and women, who are homosexual or bisexual, who have made tremendous sacrifices in order to serve and defend this country or who will do so in the future.

Senator McCain, shame on you, and shame on those who supported your backwards, ignoble, ignorant and intolerant position on this issue. Pretty much every modern nation allows people to serve in their armed forces, without respect to any other criteria than that they do so with competence and integrity. 

Thank you, Congress, especially you Democrats who didn't have to be bribed with political advantage to do the right thing for the sake of doing it.  Thank you Mr. President.  Thank you members of our armed forces, in all branches, for your sacrifice and your courage, like you Sgt. Alva.  Thank God we finally have reordered our priorities to reflect a more worthwhile set of values.

Celebrate World AIDS Day Today, December 1, 2010 - Part I

Obviously we do not exactly celebrate the existence of this terrible viral disease.  What we celebrate is an awareness of this pandemic, a pandemic that is our closest modern equivalent to the black death, the bubonic plague of the 14th century in Europe.  Following the premise that when we don't learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it, I would like to share with you a brief overview of other pandemics, (as distinct from epidemics) before focusing on ours. The purpose of the historic overview is to establish common patterns in the past as a foundation, a frame, a focus for looking at our approach to AIDS, in the hope of finding greater insight and understanding for our response to it.

He's A NERD, Not a Nazi, Damn It! In Defense of Rich Iott's Historic Reenactment Hobby

UPDATE:  Criticism of candidate Iott has continued, most recently with Glenn Beck being designated as Keith Olbermann's 'worst person' for supporting Richard Iott's choice of hobby.

There has been far too fast and loose Nazi name calling; in this campaign, and regarding previous politicl figures.  Sadly, far too few of the name callers seem to be conversant with WW II history; they don't actually know very much other than Hitler equates to generic 'bad', and is vaguely despotic. 

I give credit to Iott for taking a hard look at who the Nazis really were, actual individual people, not simply relying on vague and largely erroneous notions about Nazis and Hitler that appears to be the case with those most recently carrying Tea Party signs portraying Obama as Hitler.  It was equally wrong to portray other American political figures as Hitler.

Why believe that the choices of individuals who were grouped under the heading of being Nazis is more nuanced, more complex, more appropriately a subject for closer scrutiny and study?

The best example I can offer is the current Pope.  John Ratzinger was conscripted into the Hitler Youth movement when he was 14.  He was technically a Nazi; when he was older, he was in the anti-aircraft Luftwaffenhelfer corps.  He was a real Nazi, not a pretend Nazi.  I doubt that anyone reasonably believes that he embraced the Nazi cause, at any time.  Particularly in view of his cousin with Down's Syndrome having been taken by the Nazis, and killed, as part of the Nazi eugenics program.

Many of those who did at one time embrace and support Hitler changed their allegiance.  I would remind readers that there was a conspiracy of Hitler's generals to assassinate him, at great personal risk.  They were Nazis too.  To fail to understand and acknowledge the strengths of the opposition, the instances of courage, or even gallantry, simply because those others are the opposition is stupid, small minded, and ignorant of the reality of history.  Likewise, anyone who refuses to acknowledge what we did on the allies side  that was less than wonderful is failing to understand history.  I applaud Iott's interest in complexities, and the realities of WW II history, instead of stupid oversimplification.

For people to continue to try to extrapolate an interest, a curiosity, about this era of world history is wrong.  Just plain wrong, the worst kind of well-meaning ignorant wrong that has, unfortunately, so characterized the entire 2010 election cycle.
___________________________
Candidate for Congress in Ohio Richard Iott is being badly treated by the left for having participated in the very legitimate history reenactment hobby.  To play the role of one of the participants in this era of history does not automatically equate to supporting what those participants did.  There is not necessarily any identification with their politics, there is not necessarily any support or approval of their actions by the participating reenacters, aka re-creators.

Possibly the very worst example of the ignorant statements that have been made - so far (they could get worse) - has been Chris Matthews on his MSNBC cable show Hardball. Matthews asked if dressing up in WWII Nazi Germany clothing was some kind of homoerotic behavior,wondering if it involved 'dancing  around'. Ed Shultz,on the same network, claimed this was a 'big deal' to some Americans.

It shouldn't be.

Because Sometimes Fact IS Stranger Than Fiction, and Sadly Sometimes Fact is Missing from the Resulting Discussions

The September 2, 2010 edition of Stars and Stripes, the official newspaper of the United States Armed Forces, carried one of the strangest true stories I have ever read, written by Travis J. Tritten, from the Sasebo Naval Base in Japan.

I'm an avid fan of history, all periods and places.  So, I have at least a passing familiarity with World War II history in the Pacific.  In World War II, the Japanese captured and occupied the island of Guam, along with many other islands in that part of the Pacific.  Prior to the fighting on Guam to end the Japanese occupation,  the island was subjected to a tremendous naval bombardment.   For nearly two weeks before the land battle, the navy shelled the island; nearly every building was destroyed.  To give you an idea of how intense the jungle warfare was in World War II, before this story, I thought the account - which I remember from the time - of WWII Japanese Sergeant Shoichi Yokoi finally surrendering in 1972, all those years after the war was over for everyone else, was the strangest military story that could come out of Guam.

Fast forward from July, 1944 to September 2010.  Guam has not only rebuilt, it is an unincorporated organized territory of the United States, with a representative to Congress (who cannot vote - currently, a Democrat); they cannot vote in Presidential elections, and they have no electoral votes either.  The biggest single segment of their economy is the tourist industry, ironically mostly Japanese. The second largest component of the economy is the U.S. military, which takes up almost a third of the island of Guam.
The military population will grow even more between 2010 and 2015, when U.S. forces leave Japan, moving to Guam.

With that background, imagine my surprise at finding there was another more recent military bombardment of Guam, by our navy, reported widely..........a bombardment of dead rodents instead of shells, rodents 'weaponized' with acetaminophen as deadly ammo.  The invaders this time have been nocturnal arboreal venomous snakes, instead of soldiers. 

Moral Panic, and the Right's Culture Wars

Moral Panic is a term used in sociology, coined by Stanley Cohen and Jock Young back in the early 1970s.  I'm going to be really lazy here and deviate from my usual research, and just give you the definition from wikipedia.org. Their article on moral panic is a pretty good one, and tracks with what I know from other sources. The wikipedia article opens with a definition of moral panic that sums it up nicely:

"A moral panic is the intensity of feeling
expressed in a population about an issue that
appears to threaten the social order."

Moral panic, in sociology lingo, occurs per Cohen, when a

 "condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges
to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests." 

Today I Am Sad

My wife left for three days, and I'm sad enough for that, but I just learned that one of my boy-hood heroes has died.

George Blanda was the NFL's all-time leading scorer when he retired, which isn't too surprising for a kicker who played 26 years (until he was 49 years old!) - but what most folks don't know or remember, was the season which made me a Raider's fan. In 1970, as a 43 year-old, with a body beaten up by 21 prior seasons playing quarterback, Blanda brought the Raiders back from defeat 5 times late in the season, coming in as a replacement and rallying the team each time - they went 4-0-1 during those final games.

He was a warrior, persevering, affable, amiable and humble, and while it isn't something which most people will remark upon, I will. I truly admired his will and grit. Rest In Peace, George.

September 11th in History

Take It on Faith

Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be a spirit of tolerance in the entire population.
- Albert Einstein

Every religion is good that teaches man to be good; and I know of none that instructs him to be bad. (and)

Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.
- Thomas Paine

It is in the continuing controversy over the 'ground zero' mosque-that-is-not-a-mosque being exploited by the right, by the likes of Newt Gingrich and and his Islamophobic ideologues;

in the horror of Koran burning by the unpatriotic, Unchristian, UnAmerican, ignorant bigots in Florida;

in the intensity of the emotions that accompany the anniversary of the 9/11 tragedies, that we discover who we are.

September 10th in History

September 9th in History

September 8th in History

September 7th in history