Friday, August 23, 2013

8:39 AM News – I have just read several of the Internet spots on Nancy Kerrigan. She has appeared on the Today Show this morning and it has been twenty years since her attack. A number of the comments I found are scornful of Kerrigan, especially the photograph of her crying after being hit. I don't see how anyone could fail to be sympathetic with her. She pursued her career with honesty and hard work, and deserved to get the Gold in 1994. Harding took the low road, and shouldn't have won. She was later blamed for the attack, of course, so she was disqualified from skating for life. I see nothing but justice there. I'm not much into sports, but I do enjoy watching the figure skaters. It is a beautiful sport, and should remain pure and free from cheating. To me, sports are a waste of time if they aren't the result of an honest and true effort. What else is there about it to be uplifting?

12:51 news – There is a 91 year old man in California who is working his way up in school. It seems he never was able to go to school as a child. He is now in the 5th grade. It gives me faith that we who are older citizens can still achieve things.

5:35 PM I have finished the novel by Dan Brown. I did guess the identity of the criminal, but not until very near the end. The many turns and twists in the plot line kept me interested, and I looked up a number of mystical references and a couple of scientific concepts that I thought he made up, to find that they are real. He really did a lot of research to write this. I think he may be a Mason himself. The last chapter was like an argument for the existence of God, though it was presented as God within each person. I wonder if Brown is religious – Catholic, maybe? I think I'll look up any biographies I can find about him. Looking now. According to a direct quotation from Brown when someone asked him whether or not he is religious, he said he was brought up in the Episcopalian church and as a child was very religious, but in the eight and ninth grade he studied astronomy and cosmology and lost his faith in the traditions of the church. He said, however, that he is a student of religions and continues to explore spirituality. That's about what I would have expected of him from his writings. Clearly he is deeply interested in religion. My turn of mind is similar to that. Different religious beliefs interest me, but I don't hold a strong religious belief. I go to a Unitarian Universalist Church which has no dogmas, but believes in a Higher Power. I get thoughtful moral and socially conscious talks on Sunday and spiritual participation. All faiths are welcome to attend.


Saturday, August 24, 2013

News – A couple in Las Vegas, identified as being members of the “Sovereign Citizens” movement, were arrested for planning to kidnap, torture and kill police officers, after a swat team captured them. They didn't know that an undercover police officer had befriended them and was following their plan. They had found an empty house and modified it to hold the police officers captive, so they were stopped in the nick of time. I looked up “Sovereign Citizens” and found a great article on Wikipedia, showing their link to “Posse Comitatus”, plus their official website and handbook. Briefly, they are an anti-government group with ties to white supremacy. They are known for filing false liens against government officials whom they oppose, and they don't recognize government above the local level. The Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that there are 100,000 committed Sovereign Citizens in the US, and 200,000 who are showing interest in the group. It didn't say whether they are concentrated in isolated and rural areas, but the list of criminals in the article ranged throughout the United States in location. Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols was a member of the group and had claimed sovereign status in several court cases prior to the bombing. Not all the members are poor or ignorant; one case listed of a dentist and another an accountant. There are many cases listed in the article of the white collar crimes or worse that the members had used to enrich themselves. They especially avoid paying income tax, but are involved also in cases of conspiracy to launder money, commit murder, place bombs, not to mention various petty crimes and generally “acting out” and disregard for the law. I'd like to read their handbook. I'd like to know what it says that convinces its members to be so rebellious and destructive. Maybe they are all sociopaths to begin with, and therefore drawn to a philosophy that says the individual should not be subject to any authority. In looking this up I found links to several other fringe groups – several of which were familiar to me. This group is listed as being domestic terrorists by the FBI. Interested readers might look at the articles by the Southern Poverty Law Center and Wikipedia. The Poverty Law article goes into the philosophy and history of the movement in greater detail. The complexity and bizarre nature of their beliefs is amazing. I said earlier that they aren't concentrated among the poor or in isolated rural areas, based on the Wikipedia article, but the Poverty Law article said that the Sovereign theories are spreading in the prison systems and among the unemployed and desperate. Many of the Sovereigns are black, the article said, and unaware of the racist origins of the beliefs. That was interesting reading, and makes me feel lucky to have been born to the particular family and time period that I was, though I wasn't “privileged” at all, but reasonably comfortable and basically morally trained.

11:21 I'm starting a new novel, called The Jester by James Patterson and Andrew gross. I have read five or six Patterson novels, and they are all good. To the reading now. 1:10 This is the story of a relic. So far the author is telling the story of how the relic came to be brought back to France, and the young man who found it. It is set in 1096 AD. What a nice surprise!

Constantinople – founded in 660 BC as Byzantium by Greeks from Megara in Attica, reestablished as Constantinople in 330 AD under Constantine The Great, capitol of four empires (330 -395 Roman, 395 – 1204 and 1261-1453 Eastern Roman Empire Eastern Orthodox, 1204 – 1261 Latin, 1453 – 1922 Ottoman renamed Istanbul in 1930); located on the Silk Road; now the second largest city in the world; neolithic remains from as early as 7th millennium BC; the term Latin Empire refers to an empire created by Catholic Crusaders to replace the Eastern Orthodox Empire; Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, succeeded Rome and survived the fall of the Western Roman Empire,continuing until 1453 when the Ottoman Turks conquered it.

So in this book, the Crusader group that the hero Hugh de Luc joined reaches Constantinople in 1098 or so, and is waiting to cross the Bosporus and attack the Turks. They reach Antioch and are under fierce assault by the Muslims. Finally Antioch falls. Hugh has seen so much gore and lost all his friends, so he turns around and starts back to France alone.

Tafurs – Followers of Tafur, the military commander of Peter the Hermit, who became known for cannibalizing the Muslims they killed. Also called King Tafur, he was chosen to crown Godefroid de Bouillon as King of Jerusalem because of his power.

Hugh reaches France and finds his wife kidnapped by a local lord who is a brutal man. Hugh sets off toward his castle on foot. He is injured and found by a lady and her guard who put him on a horse and carry him to another castle, where a doctor is brought to care for him. He tells the Lady Emillie his adventures and it appears that she is going to help him now. That's as far as I've gotten in the reading. Back to it.