I just bought a book I’d been wanting for a while. It’s about the West Coast during the Civil War – how often do you hear _anything_ about that?! More specifically, the book focuses on the Russian fleet sent to San Francisco Bay during the Civil War and stayed there for a year, implicitly to support the Union. The Russian fleet was incredibly popular in San Francisco, and parades, dinners, etc. were held in their honor. Everyone here was worried about Confederate raiders and British and French ships attacking targets along the West Coast, but the Union had almost no naval presence here, so the Russian presence was very much appreciated. The cover blurb notes that Russia was the only major European power that didn’t support the Confederacy; I gather the Russians felt the Union was a major bulwark against British power, hence the Russian fleet hanging out in San Francisco for a year for moral support.

It’s always interesting to read about unexplored aspects of history. It's also interesting to read more about the international backdrop to the Civil War, another thing that is largely skimmed over in textbooks. I can remember one teacher saying that the British and French nobly restrained themselves from interfering in the Civil War, which is flat-out untrue. They didn’t send troops, but they did send aid and such to the Confederate side.

Or, what about the US and Canada engaging in skirmishes and spats well into the mid-1800’s, e.g., the Aroostoock War? Speaking of odd stuff no one has ever heard about, did you know about the time France invaded Mexico? Neither did I, in any detail, until I happened to read about it a few months back. Anyway, this all happened around the time of the US Civil War and definitely tied to colonial powers trying to influence the New World. While the French and British and others might not have landed troops in US during the Civil War, but they did right next door in Mexico, a not very subtle message to the US (or, obviously, to Mexico). After the Civil War, the US sent troops and eventually established a naval blockade to prevent French reinforcements from landing and so on. “Get the hell off our continent” or some such (only WE can exert influence over our neighbors, thank you very much). I suppose this all goes to show the colonial powers were right that the US was going to be an incredible pain in their collective asses (except perhaps Russia, which I imagine was happy to see another power annoying the British and French and etc....although, in the longer view, the Soviet Union certainly came to resent American interference in their sphere of influence, and vice versa. Thus go international affairs.).

It’s starting to make me a bit annoyed, though, because the history we Americans are taught in school is biased towards the East Coast and occasionally South; the West Coast gets a brief mention during the Gold Rush and not much else. California apparently started to exist in 1849 and ceased to exist sometime around 1850. What about the Bear Flag Republic, from which our state flag derives? I suppose it could be worst: the rest of the world barely warrants a mention at all in US history textbook, as if everything happens in a tidy little vacuum where nothing has any influence on anything else. “Lies to children” as Terry Pratchett and co-authors phrased it in one of his non-fiction books. By this, they meant drastic oversimplifications that are supposed to make it easy for children to “learn” something devoid of complications and details. The problem is most people don’t go on to learn the full stories behind the “lies to children” they learned in school. As a result, we all have an incomplete and simplified understanding of so many things. History and science are especially impacted because they involve such complex, intertwined systems. It’s a bit scary…no, actually, it’s a lot scary.

Okay, I finally got around to getting my blog up and running again...It's been over a year since I've posted any of my thoughts and musings, or even a nice, long rant. I've been putting more things on Facebook, but still not quite the same. So, here is a random musing on a Russian movie, _The Captivating Star of Happiness_, about the Decembrist revolt of 1825-1826.

I love that the Russians are pretty scrupulous about correct period in their historical dramas, even if they overplay their hand a bit when it comes to, e.g., our brave, noble revolutionary brothers who suffered for the cause, and the women who loved them. Of course, stories are always reinterpreted through the lens of the current age, but it's not as if these particular brave, aristocratic revolutionaries whose activities were based largely on Enlightenment political theory wouldn’t have been absolutely horrified - although the brighter ones probably not horribly surprised - by the people who actually succeeded in bringing about revolution in Russia. Without delving too deeply into the schools of philosophical thought in Russia at the time, the Decembrists and other Western-oriented Enlightenment sortswere diametrically opposed in their reasoning and their aspirations to the Slavic-oriented revolutionaries who focused more on a return to a purer form of Slavic culture. The Slavic-oriented sorts were the closer ancestors of the Communists, but somehow (to stereotype rather broadly and take some historical liberties of my own), I gather that skulking, nihilist, bohemian proto-communists don’t cut the brave, dashing, idealistic figure of the Decembrist officers. At least, not when you're making a movie that focuses on the women who love said officers and give up their status and privilege to accompany them in exile in Sibera.

The movie's execution scene emphasizes the epic theme of Russian history. What has always fascinated me about Russia is the truly epic scale of their history. They don't deal in small change (I find French history alluring for somewhat similar reasons, but even the French never worked on quite the same scale...the Romans and Greeks perhaps a bit more so, maybe a reason I also enjoy Classical history). When the Decembrists fail in their uprising, a few of them are sentenced to death, the rest for exile. The tsar and others had to wait around several hours while the gallows were built, then the gallows collapsed before the hanging, then the ropes were too short so the condemned had to stand on benches, then the ropes broke before they died, then a couple of the semi-hanged ex-officers took advantage of their extra moments of life to tell off their old buddy the tsar before being hanged with stronger rope. They should have been pardoned after the failed execution, but weren’t; so much for tradition.

But perhaps that's not an entirely bad thing. A Russian professor later told me the traditional punishment was being drawn and quartered.

For those of you keeping score, the literary tie-ins are that Pushkin was friends with a number of the Decembrists and wrote poems about them. Tolstoy was the grandson of one of the rebels who was exiled; I've read that War and Peace started as a novel about this revolt, although Tolstoy shifted to the Napoleonic wars. Prince Bolkonsky in W&P has a suspiciously similar name to Tolstoy’s exiled gpa, Volkonsky.

Tipping points reach a tipping point.

I was just reading an article about the current financial woes. The article mentioned that things have reached a tipping point, and it occurred to me that the phrase "tipping point" has reached a tipping point. It's become a buzzword for any sort of major change. I see it in articles all the time, but didn't really think about it until a few weeks back when I was moderating a discussion on the decline and failure of civilizations. Of course, we ended up talking about Jared Diamond. I said something along the lines of "I don't think we've reached a tipping point - speaking of another buzzword" and everyone in the audience laughed in recognition of the overuse of the word.

A tipping point is a useful concept. At first I thought it was frivolous to apply them to every possible situation, but now that's what I think I'll do. My hair just reached a bad hair day tipping point, I need to find a brush. I've reached a hunger tipping point, so I think I'll have some lunch. And so on.

A new odd insect today. The name that springs to mind is leaf bug, but I'm sure that's entirely descriptive. Any idea what it is? I still get stick insects - the little cat went crazy over one last night as the insect ambled its way along the patio screen door - but this type of bug is new. I find its red fringe especially stylish. It was standing in the kitchen in a bit of water (perhaps the little cat had something to do with this, as the little cat went crazy when she saw me with the bug), now it's in a terrarium with a small African Violet. Maybe I'll try to keep a stick insect as well.

My grunion greeter appreciation certificate. I'm quite taken with it. Check out the fine print.

Went grunion greeting last night. I posted several pictures on a separate webpage - http://www.twilight-storm.com/Grunion.html - but here is one of my favorites:

Flower-eating cat.

Global warming has been receiving an incredible amount of press coverage here the last year. That's encouraging, I suppose. It gets much more in some countries like the Netherlands that are already directly feeling the negative impacts... Like most things in business and in politics, problems tend to get ignored until they become an immediate crisis. Which always struck me as ironic given how often businessfolk and politicians talk about being "proactive" (confession: "proactive is" enemy #1 on my Vocabulary Enemies List).

It's a tough call. Serious reform would probably force the global economy to scale back, at least for a time, but environmental degradation will gradually devastate the global economy, too. Which one is preferable: do WE pay, or do we just hope _really hard_ for a technological miracle that prevents our grandchildren from paying with interest? "Consume with abandon→ miracle happens here→ great-grandchildren will know what a tree is."

One problem with current society is our over-reliance on technology to solve problems without being willing to make any personal sacrifices to achieve a goal. We see it everywhere: shock and awe bombing campaigns, plastic surgery, pill popping, increased fuel efficiency that offsets driving ever larger cars, etc. To go off on a tangent for a moment, this is a problem with all living creatures, not just humanity. Humanity simply has more more means at our disposal...there is a tendency to use up every available resource unless checked by some external force...extrapolating loosely from population biology, we'll keep going until we reach the limits of our ecosystem...technology just keeps expanding the limits and carrying capacity. Eventually, we'll hit a wall, and the population will contract at that point (mass starvation, pandemic, ecological disasters, things like that - we examples on smaller scales in both human populations and natural ecosystems). That's what populations do (not just humans). Let's hope global culture can evolve to a point where legitimate self-sacrifice and self-control is rewarded. Otherwise, I start to wonder if we will keep repeating the following pattern over and over: decline, collapse, primitive existence for a while, the environment will recover, society will rebuild, population will expand beyond carrying capacity, decline, collapse, repeat ad nauseum. (I'm thinking _Canticle for Leibowitz_)

Yeah, it bothers me, but I've come to terms with it (see: Gen X escapism, reasons for). I'm not a social idealist in that I do not expect the majority of people to sacrifice without _some_ reward....I'd just tweak the underlying system of rewards and penalties to achieve social good. Hopefully, we'll all learn to scale back our consumption-oriented lifestyles a bit and find some workable alternate forms of energy.

Which brings me to a neat idea for a story, well, neat if one likes dark post-apocalyptic stories of environmental disaster. Have you heard about that mega seed bank in the Arctic? It's planned for a place that'll still be above sea level and still cold even if the ice caps completely melted...I can see writing a dark, post-apocalyptic story about the struggles of a few people to track down the legendary place where many, many seeds are kept in order to feed the starving remnants of some distant subsistent society that has only distant memories of the past advanced culture (i.e., the coming Dark Ages, with the sort of knowledge the average person in that period had of Rome or Greece). That'd be cool, if somewhat heavy handed. Upside is that I'd been seen as a visionary when society collapses, not that I'd really care, being be too busy gathering my forces to make sure I come out on top of the new feudal system. After all, the best way to be seen as a visionary is to implement one's vision.

Saw a neat lecture on Afghan archaeology last night, had all sorts of neat tidbits and some pics. Turns out that there are ruins of several Buddhist monasteries in Bamiyan, right near where those big Buddhas used to be. The lecturer, Dr. Tarzai (three Ph.D.s from the University of Strasbourg; he gave his lecture in French, and his adult daughter translated), has been working in the area for some time. There was some discussion about the Greek influence in the region, which I found that very interesting. E.g., there are “Buddhist” statues that are clearly Herakles or Alexander, but holding some Buddhist implement. Some of the pilasters had Corinthian leaves, etc. Some heads clearly resembled that sort of standardized Roman consul head form, which Tarzai also noted, although I didn’t get a chance to ask whether that was due to later cultural influence from Rome or something both cultures got from the Greeks. He observed that Kandahar and Jalalabad (sister city to San Diego, if you’re curious), among other cities, were named Alexandria for a time, and apparently a local alternate name for Kandahar retains some obvious root of “Alexander.” There was also a great deal of influence from the East, e.g., India.

It's absolutely fascinating to see how the artwork incorporates elements from so many cultures. It’s also incredibly tragic, though, because so many of the sites have been destroyed or looted. For instance, Hadda was an open-air museum/excavation of sorts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadda has some details and pics, including some demonstrating very strong Hellenistic influences)…during the Soviet era, the communists lost control of the site for *two* days and, during that time, the site was stripped of most of its valuable statuary, gems, etc. Even large features like giant stupas have been obliterated and recycled for building material. I gather similar things have happened at most other sites. To add insult to injury, although Tarzai has cataloged and published his finds, many identifiable antiquities he's cataloged were subsequently looted and have ended up in museums and collections everywhere from NY (the Met has at least one piece for which Tarzai claims to have proof that it legally belongs to the Kabul Museum), Japan, Saigon, France, Pakistan (sounds like most of the antiquities flow through there, unsurprisingly).

The saddest bit, I thought, was that the museum in Kabul was destroyed, and so they had to excavate the remains of the museum itself then reassemble the broken bits of pottery and statuary they were able to salvage. I gather, the best stuff already gone. Imagine the horrors of seeing all that work lost.

I guess the last season at Bamiyan was pretty much a loss because, after arriving, they discovered the entire site had been mined. Heavily mined – we saw a picture of the site with all the cleared mine flags, and there must have been dozens or hundreds in a fairly small area. It took a while before the UN could hire companies to remove the mines; the odd thing is, apparently no one knows how the mines got there, because the site is reasonably secure, and there weren’t any mines in 2004-2005.

Starts to make Indiana Jones seem staid and dull, no? One good sign, however, is that it sounds like the archaeological community is very supportive of archaeological efforts in Afghanistan, and the Japanese, French, etc. have all been leading expeditions there as well. Here's to hope for the future.

Finally managed to get a shot of the highlight of the baby cat's day, a hummingbird. Mally comes running when she hears the whirr of hummingbird wings. Occasionally, I'll her crouched in front of the patio door, waiting hopefully for a hummingbird to come. Sometimes I see her there at midnight, eagerly awaiting the next flyby (one never knows, after all).

The baby cat on her Christmas present:

Just went to try to pick up a Nintendo Wii for a little cousin. Her mom is kicking herself for not pre-ordering from Amazon, but who knew to expect this artificially-induced Wii insanity, inanity. I drove by several local retail stores, and you can imagine what the scene was like: gamer upon gamer in camp chairs and tents. Gamers were camped outside Target and playing baseball in the parking lot outside Best Buy. The guys at Fry's actually looked a bit like the evil undead; Fry's had the shortest line, but I assume this was because of some sort of Darwinian struggle in which the weakest were quite possibly eaten. Or perhaps sacrificed to dark gods, uncertain. Even Amazon is sold out, and disgruntled and frustrated people are writing negative reviews of the Wii to blow off steam after several hours of refreshing their browsers to see if Amazon miraculously had more Wii in stock. I wasn't interested in waiting in line, but it was intriguing to see the frenzy in action. I'm curious to see how much Nintendo is going to try to manipulate the market and how long before they ship additional units. The La Mesa Walmart had only 20, which seems a small number for a major retail outlet. Someone was reselling a Wii on Amazon for $800 and it's already been purchased. Sheer madness.

Some days, it seems that my inbox fills itself...

Have been doing some hiking and walking, quite often with Gosia, we went to law school together. Today, we went to Mission trails, and I took a photo of the Mission Dam:



The Mission dam is California historical landmark #52, see http://ohp.parks.ca.gov/default.asp?page_id=21478 for details.

Found some Halloween merchandise on sale today. Ended up getting a foam pumpkin, so that I could finally use a pumpkin carving design I found last year. I'm pleased with the result, although it needs some smoothing work on the edges (the foam crumbles a bit).

A few weeks back, I received a postcard from a very old and dear friend. We knew each other when I lived in Mastershausen, Germany. He sent me a postcard celebrating the town's 950th Anniversary. I used to live very close to the church shown on the right. What memories it brings back!

Visited the Stephen Birch Aquarium. Ended up becoming a member. Here are some pics.

Leafy Seadragon




Weedy Seadragon


Misc Fish

Inspired by an online contest to "interpret" the name of an epiphyllum hybrid, I used Djali as a model...his entry is going to represent either "Buccaneer," "Pirate" or "Ostrich Feather."

Just saw the Da Vinci Code. Cheesy, but enjoyable on a very basic level. This is a movie that will make you feel really smart, as the movie presupposes the audience has the knowledge of a bunch of inbred three year olds raised by gazelles. The characters’ amazement when these puzzles are figured out is pretty entertaining. It seems I’m smarter than a cryptologist, a British scholar, a Harvard professor and scores of law enforcement officers – they all missed those websites, video games, books and TV shows about the sangreal, I guess.

For instance, they surely did not see websites such as the one belonging to Roslyn Chapel (it has cheery Scottish music on its main page: http://www.rosslynchapel.org.uk/), which contains a link to a website about Templars in Scotland. As if that weren't amusing enough, that link leads to the international Templar website: http://www.osmth.org/ At least they admit they’re not directly descended from the original, simply stating that their organization is based on shared values with the original Templars (taking Jerusalem?).

Looking at the website, the organization does indeed promote Christianity in the Holy Land: their goals are “to improve the Christian presence in the Holy Land…and perpetuation the Christian spirit and ideals that impelled the early Templar Knights to dedicate their lives to similar causes.” Uh…yeah…”similar.”

Have you ever noticed that EVERY decent and lengthy conspiracy theory involves the Templars at some level? Not just the Masons or other ostensibly secret societies, but the _Knights Templar_ themselves, if only you dig deep enough.

Okay, here is the take home lesson: It AIN’T a secret organization if it has a website talking about it...linked from a website for a chapel well known in grail mythology. They’ve even trademarked their logo! Although, of course, if one were so minded, I suppose one could argue that such a commonplace exterior would be the perfect cover...sigh, now I'll have to keep watch for the black helicopters.

Here is the list of membership requirements: http://us.osmth.org/ I can see the posters: “Are you ecumenical in thought? Do you deport yourself in an honorable and chivalrous matter? If so, we need you!” I'm intrigued by the thought of "secret" society that wants a copy of one’s resume to determine if one qualifies. What should it list? Prioress, secret society (name withheld), 1977-Present? At least they apparently accept women. Maybe I should submit a resume...

To quote Father Ted's standard answer to visiting bishops on any questions involving faith, "That would be an ecumenical matter."