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20:56 EDT
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20:44 EDT
Still, like so many things, it got filed somewhere in the back of my mind. And there it lay, undisturbed, safely tucked away on the Bigfoot-n-Nessie shelf until I heard Gunnar Heinsohn explaining some things about the Roman 3rd century crisis that I either hadn't heard before, or had somehow failed to register. Among these was that the aqueducts I'd seen in Europe were not the originals. None of them. Not one. All currently standing 'Roman' aqueducts are more recent (than 955 CE) reconstructions. Why? Because all ... ALL ... Roman aqueducts were destroyed at the same time, in fact, as far as anyone can tell, all on the same day.
Ok. He had my attention. I'd have to verify that, of course, in as much as I could. Now I have.
Ok. Now I'm really listening. And Gunnar isn't the only one talking, but he's done the best research, as far as I can tell, and he's narrowed his focus to about the 222 CE - 945 CE range, 722 years which he says have been mistakenly inserted into our history books.
Among his research is not only some very technical data gleaned from the global dendrochronology project (heard about that?), but also some very remarkable accusations of corruption among the ancient monestaries. It seem, according to Heinsohn, that the Catholic church was the only entity left to step into the vacuum opened by the sudden and mysterious disappearance of the Roman empire. (Betcha didn't know that!) (Neither did I!) And that Catholic church was more the outlying parishes than the Vatican, because it, too, was just not there. But the effort to reassemble the church, the lines of communication, even the scriptures, more or less created the Vatican, and recreated Rome in the form of the Catholic church, and the Catholic church, in turn, set about reuniting the empire.
One of their earliest tasks was to send out experts in language and writing to copy/take any surviving manuscripts back to Rome for evaluation and cataloging. In order to motivate cooperation, treasure would be traded for manuscripts, the unintended consequence of which appears to have been varying types and degrees of fraud. According to Heinsohn, for example, entire historians, along with their works, were fabricated out of whole cloth, foremost among these being one Bede, a scholar who unfailingly, though very curiously, acquires ever more titles and honors, all in an apparent effort to lend ever more credence to the manuscripts a certain monestary kept 'finding', but which, even back in the day, were beginning to be eyed with some suspicion.
It's all very fascinating and enlightening, and, as with a couple of other things I was originally skeptical of, I've gradually come to view it far less incredulously than at first. I've found many sources of information, but, as I say elsewhere, I usually have to rely on the access and interpretation of others. Probably the best I've found so far is Malaga Bay.
Now, as a bonus, this all has a very unexpected, and very, very surprising impact on my religious beliefs. But I'll save that for another day. Or maybe for one-on-one questions from you all.
20:31 EDT
This has always been, and will always be, the gulf between management (sales, marketing, forecasting, etc.) and creativity (designers, inventors, programmers, etc.).
16:31 EDT
Do NOT vote for anyone you know nothing about! Do your homework before the election. Save your research. Hold them accountable after the election.
15:33 EDT
Oouch!
Wwhat I have to do instead is find other people who have subscriptions, and can give me insights into the articles. So, you have to remember that, when I write, I, too, am forced to take someone else's word for much of what I'm relaying to you.
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12:54 EDT
You can bet I went back to the drawing board after experiences like that. And I learned a lot. The first thing I learned was to be skeptical even of my own imagination.
I don't care how much TV you watch, or how many movies you've seen, when you grew up like that, you just laugh at things like this.
And the first thing you think of when you hear about Space Elevators is, "Oh, look! A mega lightning-rod!"
So whenever I took my kids to one of their super-hero movies, and we saw some 5-foot-3, 90-pound waif holding her own against a 220-pound, 6-foot-3 bruiser, I was quick to remind them that this is fantasy. In real life, that girl would need at least a gun, and should use it before that gorilla got within arm's length of her, or there would be no fight at all. And, moreover, that, even though their sister was oldest, they would always have to protect her. (You should have seen their little chests puff up at that.)
But let us speak no more of the vain imagination our modern media has scrambled our daughters' brains with.
00:46 EDT
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