Of course, today is the Thirteenth!

 Sunday went well. There was church. St. Barnabas of Indiana is attracting members - I did not know there were so many Orthodox Christians in the areal. It is complicating my plans - do I stay here after I finish my business n Kokomo or go to Bloomington? Back home, I fixed lunch, which also turned out to be dinner. I did some reading before taking a trip to the conveninece store for supplies. I finished watching My Name is Dolemite - Eddie Murphy finally seems adjusted to his age. I tried scanning documents and I am finding the HP Envy 5530 to be inadequate. It scans to .jpg, not to pdf, and the conversions are fragments of the actual documents. I spent too long looking for a replacement that I cannot afford. Then it was time to sleep.

Monday is already a disaster. The back locked up this morning. I called into work and let them know I am going to be late. Right now it looks more like 8 am than 7. When I could finally get out of bed, I was walking around like Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein. The worry I have is whether I will be able to work. I am in a lot more pain than I like. It is not so much a cramp as a full-body contraction. I have already spent time with the heating pad, and taken two ibuprofen. Now, I merely hurt.

Sunday afternoon reading.

Most of the following came from The Unruly History newsletter, put out by the Unruly Figures substack. I strongly recommend subscribing to this newsletter if you have any interest in history.

Unsolvable Megalithic Mystery of ancient Greek “Dragon Houses”

These megalithic houses are mortar-free constructions that resemble the stepped pyramid of Djoser in Pre-Dynastic Egypt and the pre-Columbian Teotihuacan temple complexes. They are constructed of stones, mostly square or rectangular.

The majority of the time, huge monolithic stones are employed. Another noteworthy feature is that they lack foundations.  Their roofs are skillfully built with enormous plates stacked one on top of the other in a pyramidal pattern.

Does This Peculiar Statue Found at an Ancient Egyptian Temple Really Depict Cleopatra? 

"I looked at the bust carefully. It is not Cleopatra at all; it is Roman," Hawass tells Live Science’s Owen Jarus. As Jarus explains, pharaohs were portrayed in Egyptian art styles during the Ptolemaic dynasty, not Roman. The Roman period in Egypt began in 30 B.C.E. after Cleopatra's death.

The Fool Has Appeared in Art for Centuries. What Do These Portrayals of the Complex Character Say About Us? 

Great art is represented along with some ideas that might not come to all of our minds, but I quibble a bit at part of the following:

“The figure of the fool walked off the margins of medieval manuscripts into the unholy courts of the Renaissance, then returned to the page as Hamlet’s Yorick,” writes the Wall Street Journal’s Dominic Green. “Later, in the age of reason and democracy, the parodist of royal dignity became a mirror of the universal condition: Dostoevsky’s ‘holy fool’ and Picasso’s grubby clowns; Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.”

 Dostoevsky’s ‘holy fool’ does not seem to me as belonging in company with Yorick. The following is from Why did Russian tsars love ‘holy fools’?

Hence the difference between holy fools and jesters: the latter behave comically and provocatively only during festivities, whereas the former remain in an ecstatic, loony state their whole life. 

The concept of foolishness for Christ came to Russia from Byzantium. The earliest known holy fool in Russia was Isidore, who lived in Rostov in the second half of the 15th century. His nickname was Tverdislov: most likely, in reference to the fact that he constantly repeated the same word or phrase. Isidore lived on a swamp and wore brushwood for clothes. It was said that he exposed princely power. In the 16th century,  he was posthumously pronounced a saint.

Back after my two-hour nap to catch up on what I read between coming home and nap. These came from Englesberg Ideas.

Paul Lay's The long struggle for Greenland gives some rationality to Trump's buffoonery. I remain convinced our president-elect thinks he is still developing real estate in New York.

Given the US’s propensity to purchase extensive territories from others – think of Manhattan, Alaska, and Louisiana – it should come as no surprise that the US has had its eyes on Greenland, the purchase of which from Denmark for whatever sum – $1 trillion has been mooted – would make the US the second largest country on earth after Russia. And, more importantly, it would offer strategic advantage in the North Atlantic and the Arctic, as well as access to the largest deposits of rare earth minerals outside China, and huge offshore oil and gas fields. What’s not to like from a Trumpian perspective?

The problem is Denmark, fellow NATO member, as well as EU country, which has been explicit in its opposition to such a deal, though there is precedent: in 1917, prompted by the Monroe Doctrine, Denmark sold the Danish West Indies – what is now the US Virgin Islands – which became an unincorporated territory of the United States.

There is a precedent, too, in US involvement – or interference  – in Greenland, militarily, scientifically and economically. In 1931, Denmark came into dispute with Norway – who called Greenland ‘Erik the Red’s Land’ – over possession of the island. The Permanent Court of Justice ruled in Denmark’s favour, citing the Treaty of Kiel. The German invasion of Denmark, which took place in April 1940, complicated matters. The US, then still neutral, sent members of the Coast Guard in the guise of ‘volunteers’ to secure the island, applying the Monroe Doctrine to European colonies in the North Atlantic. Once the US declared war on Germany and Japan at the end of 1941, it proceeded to occupy Greenland. Immediately after the war, with Denmark liberated, it offered $1.6 billion for its possession, which was turned down.

I read. My mother once thought I read too much, and embargoed my books for a short time. The embargo ended when she found I had hidden several from her. I think I was around 10.

Nor do I have any uses for vibes.

What I do have a use for is Alastair Benn's Literacy’s declining empire:

In a powerful piece by Ian Leslie on his Substack, The Ruffian, titled ‘How – and Why – To Read… in a World That’s Giving Up On It’, Leslie reflects on the coming of a visual post-literate society, in which ‘the vibe is king’. Globally, literacy is in retreat, as text-based media is supplanted by ‘a realm of video and audio’. ‘Literacy,’ he writes, ‘inculcates particular habits of thought and discourse that orality does not.’ Those ‘particular habits of thought’ are, as he notes, hard-won and counter-intuitive – but they are also self-evidently one of the most powerful coping mechanisms human beings have developed over the past couple of thousand years.

‘Particular habits of thought’ get Clarissa through unimaginable familial pressure, draw Proust back into the mysteries of childhood, and found me, last night, half-asleep, imagining myself in a bigger, broader, more beautiful reality than my own.

A future of dull, unimaginative thumbsuckers awaits Home sapiens. 

Now for some economic news!

Used to be, I read Krugman on the NY Times site. He explains things well, doesn't let the numbers get in the way of his humanity, and he can be funny.

Wow, a TV presenter who actually explains things!

About the latter, if we got rid of our need for oil, we would no longer have a trade imbalance with Canada. Will Trump become a Green New Dealer?

KH sent me his opinion on my latest opening for "Chasing Ashes". He said it reminded him of Citizen Kane. I take that as being a good thing.

Also, another rejection for "Problem Solving":

Thanks for sending us this. We have to pass on it but appreciate the commitment and endeavour involved to create and submit your work. We're glad to have considered it.

Dinu, Velarde, Readers

StreetLit

I believe that is the kindest thing said about this story. 

This is all I can type right now.

sch