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"Perhaps death represents the severing of the living organism's connections with the orderly quantum realm , laving it powerless to resist the randomizing forces of thermodynamics". Jim Al-Khalili
Ok I'm done feeling like a fake reader. My friends were reading heavy duty stuff like Five T'ang Poets and The Living Mountain and all I was doing was reading a page a week of Count Zero and calling myself a book lover! I should be a book liker. A book glancer maybe.
Now I realize, I HAVE been reading books but at a slower pace, and I've been reading selectively and now I'm making lot of time for other things in life (real people, omg!) and it's not a bad thing. So no book pictures with big posts of the interesting bits but I look back, and I see I have finished Echopraxia, Dune, Neuromancer, some good sci-fi progress, started some manga exploration yay, and so I ain't no poser. And, I still have a backlog of Crichton to go through. I need to hunt down my copy of Dragon Teeth next.
Timeline was a really great fun read, that was a given since I love time travel stuff. Especially medieval time travel :P.
Some good bits from the book:
--
He had a term for people like this: temporal provincials - people who were ignorant of the past, and proud of it. Temporal provincials were convinced that the present was the only time that mattered, and that anything that had occurred earlier could be safely ignored. The modern world was compelling and new, and the past had no bearing on it. Studying history was as pointless as learning Morse code, or how to drive a horse-drawn wagon. And the medieval period - all those knights in clanking armor and ladies in gowns and pointy hats - was so obviously irrelevant as to be beneath consideration. Yet the truth was that the modern world was invented in the Middle Ages. Everything from the legal system, to nation-states, to reliance on technology, to the concept of romantic love had first been established in medieval times. These stockbrokers owed the very notion of a market economy to the Middle Ages. And if they didn't know that, then they didn't know the basic facts of who they were. Why they did what they did. Where they had come from.
Professor Johnston often said that if you didn't know history, you didn't know anything. You were a leaf that didn't know it was part of a tree.
"Now, two things happen to quantum theory. The first is that it gets confirmed, over and over. It's the most proven theory in the history of science. Supermarket scanners, lasers and computer chips all rely on quantum mechanics. So there is absolutely no doubt that quantum theory is the correct mathematical description of the universe. "But the problem is, it's only a mathematical description. It's just a set of equations. And physicists couldn't visualize the world that was implied by those equations - it was too weird, too contradictory. Einstein, for one, didn't like that. He felt it meant the theory was flawed. But the theory kept getting confirmed, and the situation got worse and worse. Eventually, even scientists who won the Nobel Prize for contributions to quantum theory had to admit they didn't understand it.
"So, this made a very odd situation. For most of the twentieth century, there's a theory of the universe that everyone uses, and everyone agrees is correct - but nobody can tell you what it is saying about the world."
"Eh?" Oliver said. "Wit? My Lady Claire, what wit is here?"
The woman shrugged. "Only the witless, my Lord, see wit where none is writ."
In the field below them, archers in maroon and gray were practicing. Ignoring the excitement of the nearby tournament, they patiently fired at targets, moved backward, fired again. It was just as the old texts said: the English archers were highly disciplined, and they practiced every day.
"Those men are the new military power," Marek said. "They decide battles now. Look at them."
Chris propped himself on his elbow. "You're kidding," he said. The archers were now more than two hundred yards from their circular targets - the length of two football fields. So far away, they were small figures, and yet they were confidently drawing their bows toward the sky. "Are they serious?"
The sky was black with whistling arrows. They struck the targets, or landed close by, sticking up in the grass.
"No kidding," Chris said.
Almost immediately, another thick volley filled the air. And another, and another. Marek was counting to himself. Three seconds between volleys. So it was true, he thought: English archers really could fire twenty rounds a minute. By now, the targets bristled with arrows. "Charging knights can't stand up under that kind of attack," Marek said. "It kills the riders, and it kills the horses. That's why the English knights dismount to fight. The French still charge in the traditional way - and they're just slaughtered, before they ever get close to the English. Four thousand knights dead at Crécy, even more in Poitiers. Large numbers for this time."
"Why don't the French change tactics? Can't they see what's happening?"
"They do, but it means the end of a whole way of life - a whole culture, really," Marek said. "Knights are all nobility; their way of life is too expensive for commoners. A knight has to buy his armor and at least three war- horses, and he has to support his retinue of pages and aides. And these noble knights have been the determining factor in warfare, until now. Now it's over."
He pointed to the archers in the field. "Those men are commoners. They win by coordination and discipline. There's no personal valor. They're paid a wage; they do a job. But they're the future of warfare - paid, disciplined, faceless troops. The knights are finished."
"And now the latest king, Edward III, has learned the lesson of his forebears - that he must perpetually lead a war, or risk death at the hands of his own subjects. Thus he and his dastard son, the Prince of Wales, bring their barbarian ways to France, a country that knew not savage war until they came to our soil with their chevauchées, murdered our commoners, raped our women, slaughtered our animals, ruined our crops, destroyed our cities and ended our trade. For what? So that bloodthirsty English spirits may be occupied abroad. So that they can steal fortunes from a more honorable land. So that every English Lady can serve her guests from French plates. So that they can claim to be honorable knights, when they do nothing more valiant than hack children to death."
It was, Stern thought, a classic real-world scientific problem. Weighing risks, weighing uncertainties. Most people never understood that the majority of scientific problems took this form. Acid rain, global warming, environmental cleanup, cancer risks - these complex questions were always a balancing act, a judgment call. How good was the research data? How trustworthy were the scientists who had done the work? How reliable was the computer simulation? How significant were the future projections? These questions arose again and again. Certainly the media never bothered with the complexities, since they made bad headlines. As a result, people thought science was cut and dried, in a way that it ever was. Even the most established concepts - like the idea that germs cause disease - were not as thoroughly proven as people believed.
"Today, everybody expects to be entertained, and they expect to be entertained all the time. Business meetings must be snappy, with bullet lists and animated graphics, so executives aren't bored. Malls and stores must be engaging, so they amuse as well as sell us.
Politicians must have pleasing video personalities and tell us only what we want to hear. Schools must be careful not to bore young minds that expect the speed and complexity of television. Students must be amused - everyone must be amused, or they will switch: switch brands, switch channels, switch parties, switch loyalties. This is the intellectual reality of Western society at the end of the century.
"In other centuries, human beings wanted to be saved, or improved, or freed, or educated. But in our century, they want to be entertained. The great fear is not of disease or death, but of boredom. A sense of time on our hands, a sense of nothing to do. A sense that we are not amused.
"But where will this mania for entertainment end? What will people do when they get tired of television? When they get tired of movies? We already know the answer - they go into participatory activities: sports, theme parks, amusement rides, roller coasters. Structured fun, planned thrills. And what will they do when they tire of theme parks and planned thrills? Sooner or later, the artifice becomes too noticeable. They begin to realize that an amusement park is really a kind of jail, in which you pay to be an inmate.
"This artifice will drive them to seek authenticity. Authenticity will be the buzzword of the twenty-first century. And what is authentic? Anything that is not devised and structured to make a profit. Anything that is not controlled by corporations. Anything that exists for its own sake, that assumes its own shape. But of course, nothing in the modern world is allowed to assume its own shape. The modern world is the corporate equivalent of a formal garden, where everything is planted and arranged for effect. Where nothing is untouched, where nothing is authentic.
...history is the most powerful intellectual tool society possesses. Let us be clear. History is not a dispassionate record of dead events. Nor is it a playground for scholars to
indulge their trivial disputes."The purpose of history is to explain the present - to say why the world around
us is the way it is. History tells us what is important in our world, and how it came to be. It tells us why the things we value are the things we should value. And it tells us what is to be ignored, or discarded. That is true power - profound power. The power to define a whole society. "The future lies in the past - in whoever controls the past.
--
Main Topic: Silence Quotes
Related Topics: Life, Experience
Let silence take you to the core of life.
Author : Rumi
Quotation Reference:
www.goodreads.com/quotes/395586-let-silence-take-you-to-t...
www.braintrainingtools.org/skills/let-silence-take-you-to...
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Wednesday 19 June 2024: To understand Israeli society today, you have to know about both the fascist ideology of Zionism and it’s present-day blend with extreme jewish religious fundamentalism.
There is a lot that has been written about Zionism; but personally I feel there is not so much knowledge in the West - or in the World as a whole, really - about jewish religion in general and jewish fundamentalism in particular. However, if as a Westerner you visit Israel you will pretty soon be subject to a plethora of quite insane and weird archaic jewish religious kookery (I speak from personal experience). Having knowledge about jewish culture, their religious traditions, historical background and past and present-day religious practices is essential if you want to understand how and why the already quite fascist Zionist military State of Israel has become such a totally religiously unhinged, irrational and all-out genocidal society in the past few decades since 1967.
Therefore, today I will present to you the final note on bibliographies from the 2004 edition of the book «Jewish fundamentalism in Israel», which is, in essence, a condensed summary of the book; originally published in 1998 and written by the well-known Israeli human rights advocate and activist Israel Shahak (1933-2001) together with American historian Norton Mezvinsky (1932-2022):
Note on Bibliography and Related Matters
Serious books describing a social phenomenon usually contain a bibliographical listing or essay, detailing and perhaps briefly discussing the primary and secondary sources consulted by the authors. For some years we have read a significant number of books in English and Hebrew that are concerned with Judaism and the State of Israel. In our book we decided to refer only minimally to those books in English; we relied primarily upon the Israeli Hebrew press, basic Jewish religious (and in a few cases literary) texts and some learned Hebrew articles, published in Israeli journals and magazines. We identified these in our text. Our first reason for doing this is that Hebrew sources are, with few exceptions, the most pertinent in dealing with Jewish fundamentalism in Israel. We are nevertheless aware that the number of books that focus on aspects of or background to our topic, published in English and languages other than Hebrew, is large. We wish to offer an explanation about why we did not cite, and most often ignored, much of this voluminous literature.
We believe that the great majority of the books on Judaism and Israel, published in English especially, falsify their subject matter. The falsification is sometimes a result of explicit lying but is mostly the result of omission of major facts that may create what the authors consider to be an adverse view of their subjects. Many of the books that fit into this category are comparable to much of the literature produced in totalitarian systems, whether religious or secular and whether or not embodied in a state. We do not deny that books on Israel and Judaism published in English have value; they may, and often do, contain correct and valuable information. Books about the USSR under Stalin or his successors written by Stalinists, books about Iran written by followers of Khomeini, books on Christian fundamentalism written by its adherents often contain correct and valuable information. Many other analagous examples exist. What usually makes such books unreliable are not so much the lies but rather the purposeful omissions. Regarding Judaism and Israel, the omissions are more blatant and numerous in books published in English outside of Israel than they are in Israel’s Hebrew literature. The omissions pertinent to our subject of Jewish fundamentalism exist for the same apologetic reasons as do the literary omissions in any totalitarian system. The information freely available in Hebrew can and should be used to redress apologia by omissions in English. The coverage in Hebrew of Jewish fundamentalism is more complete and is not riddled with omissions, because, as our book shows, Jewish fundamentalism poses an immediate threat to the beliefs and style of life of a majority of Israeli Jews. Jewish fundamentalism, if it increases in strength, could destroy Israeli democracy; this danger does not exist in the diaspora where Jews, even when supporting the worst aspects of Jewish fundamentalism, benefit from democracy and pluralism. In our view the State of Israel has faults that have been and still are caused by the nature of Zionism and by the open and hidden influences of Jewish fundamentalism. To exchange the present reality of the State of Israel for a Jewish fundamentalist state of either the Haredi or messianic variety would create a far worse situation for Jews, Palestinians and perhaps the entire Middle East. We believe that our book, based primarily upon Hebrew sources, correctly points out this danger for the first time in English.
To document our above comments, we shall present a short list of important issues in Israel and in Jewish history of the diaspora before the modern period, which are relevant for Jewish fundamentalism but are nevertheless omitted from the literature in English about Israel and Judaism. We shall first consider two issues, closely connected to Jewish fundamentalism, that are not specifically mentioned in our book. We shall thereafter present some issues that, although discussed in our book, are not mentioned in the voluminous literature in English. During the Labor Party primaries of the 1999 Israeli election campaigns, accusations appeared in the Hebrew press claiming that fraud in the vote counts occurred in Druze and Arab sectors of the party. The use of such expressions should raise concern. Political parties in the United States and Britain do not specify Jewish, non-Jewish or similar sectors. Readers of the Israeli Hebrew press know that an Arab or Druze, that is, a non-Jew who is an Israeli citizen, even if living in Tel-Aviv or Haifa, cannot belong to the Labor Party branch of her or his neighborhood; that person must belong to one of the two sectors that exist for Druze and Arabs respectively. Jews cannot belong to one of those sectors. Consequently, an Arab living in Tel-Aviv votes in the primaries of the Israeli Labor Party only as a member of the Arab sector and not together with her or his neighbors. Other types of sectors also exist, based upon social structure in the Labor Party. The kibbutzim sector is one example. In these other sectors membership fluctuates according to the natural movements of population, not according to racist criteria. A kibbutz member of the Labor Party who leaves the Kibbutz to settle in Tel-Aviv becomes a member of the party branch of that person’s new neighborhood; conversely, a Tel-Aviv member of the Labor Party who joins a kibbutz automatically becomes a member of the kibbutz sector. In contrast, an Arab member of the Labor Party remains an Arab wherever that person lives, confined ethnically or more precisely religiously. Such a proposal for the operation of political parties in the United States or Great Britain would be quickly labeled and condemned correctly as anti-Semitic. Such a proposal would be roundly discussed in the press and in other literature concerned with the United States and/or Great Britain. In the voluminous descriptions in English of Israel, this phenomenon, although known in Israel, is almost never mentioned.
The probable reasons for the above omission are most likely the same as those for other similar omissions. The first and most important probable reason is that many Jews and those who sympathize with them wish to avoid comparisons between what rights Jews as a minority in the diaspora demand for themselves and what rights Jews deny to non-Jews in those areas where Jews are a majority and wield the power. We believe that Jewish fundamentalism justifies, explicitly and unconsciously as a believed survival tactic, both the discrimination and its cover-up. As noted in our book, Jewish fundamentalism in Israel influences most of society. Its influence is especially significant in regard to the principles of Israeli state policies, but its hidden and often clear-cut influence upon a majority of Jews in the diaspora is strong. Two additional reasons in our view account for omissions of vital facts in the English discussion of phenomena in Israel that could be disturbing to many people. A hidden, and sometimes not so hidden, assumption made in much of the English literature about Judaism and about Israel as a Jewish state is that Jews are morally superior to all other nations. This is the most important belief of Jewish fundamentalists who condemn almost everything “not Jewish” mostly because it is non-Jewish. Any discussion of the fact that many Jews, when they are able, practice the same kind of discrimination against non-Jews that some non-Jews practice against Jews could be detrimental to the theory of Jewish moral superiority. Although we believe this is part of racist theory, which we oppose, we understand that unfortunately human beings, including Jews, often have xenophobic tendencies influenced by historical circumstances. Thus, Jews can and should be viewed within the same context as other human beings and should in this regard work to eradicate Jewish xenophobia by exposing it in its present and past forms. The second reason emanates from writers who are apologists for and from other advocates of the Israeli political left. The Labor Party in Israel has consistently practiced blatant racism. Likud, the most important party of the Israeli right, has not practiced racism so severely and generally as has the Labor Party. As opposed to the Labor Party situation, Arabs have been, and still are, able to be members of Likud in their own neighborhood branches. The idea that the Israeli right wing is in this particular case better than the Labor Party is abhorrent to the dogmatists of and apologists for the left just as in the 1930s the idea that many practices in Great Britain were better than those of Stalin was abhorrent to fellow travelers. The refuge in both cases was and is a consistent omission of facts that do not fit into the dogma.
A similar case in point is kibbutz membership in Israel. The kibbutz is one of the most admired, especially by leftist apologists, Israeli phenomena. It is a fact, widely known and discussed in Israel, that only Jews can be kibbutz members. Non-Jews who wish to become kibbutz members must not only acquire the approval of the kibbutz members; they must, as a condition of joining, convert to Judaism. The Israeli Chief Rabbinate has established conversion schools for non-Jews who wish to join kibbutzim. One of the conditions for conversion to Judaism of women in this as in other situations is that the female convert must be observed naked in a purification bath by three rabbis. Some of the other conditions for conversion of those non-Jews desirous of joining kibbutzim are lighter than are conditions for other potential converts. The Israeli Hebrew press has often focused upon the degree of difference in conversion procedures and has also mentioned repeatedly that to date not one Palestinian has become a kibbutz member. This specific, clearly influenced by Jewish fundamentalism, is almost always omitted in English language books published about and media coverage of Israel. We need not emphasize the wide discussion that would ensue if a British or American institution allowed Jews to become members only if they converted to Christianity.
Scholars and news media people who purport to describe Israel authoritatively have, as previously indicated, systematically ignored by omission critical phenomena, discussed in our book. Some examples of this follow. In Chapter 1 of our book we mentioned that the concept of Jewish blood bound together the Israeli secular right wing and religious Jews. This concept, which deems the blood of a killed or wounded Jew to be infinitely greater in value than the blood of a killed or wounded non-Jew, is of supreme importance in Israeli politics. The Netanyahu government in 1998 refused, even when pushed by the United States government, to release Palestinian prisoners who had killed Jews, whether they were soldiers killed in a clash or civilians murdered in a terrorist attack. The Jewish blood concept was the only possible reason. The same Netanyahu government, as well as some previous Israeli governments, have not objected to freeing Palestinian prisoners who had killed other Palestinians. The Palestinians killed were usually presumed to be agents of the Israeli secret police. The same situation has existed in regard to the Israeli security zone in southern Lebanon and to the South Lebanese Army. The main reason for creating those entities, which have prevented a cease-fire occurring between Israel and Lebanon, was the Israeli desire, influenced by Jewish fundamentalism, to save “Jewish blood.” A majority of Israeli Jews have paid little attention to Lebanese, who have been killed, whether they were members of the South Lebanese Army or simply inhabitants of this zone. Bursts of anguish and even protests, on the other hand, have accompanied almost every Jewish casualty. Israeli protesters demanding that Israel leave Lebanon have mentioned only the Israeli casualties. Usually, only those Israeli Jews who have openly opposed Jewish fundamentalism in all its aspects, such as Israel Shahak, one of the authors of this book, have mentioned the Lebanese casualties. The politically important distinction between Jewish blood and non-Jewish blood is well-known to most Israelis but is ignored by almost all those who write about Israel and its policies.
As also noted in Chapter 1, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (1920-2013), who commands the unquestioned allegiance of ten Shas members of the Knesset, argued in a published article that Israel is not sufficiently strong to destroy Christian churches on its territory and should therefore return some of the occupied territory to the Palestinians. Otherwise, Rabbi Yosef contended, Jews might be killed in a war that could erupt. We pointed out that most writers who discussed Rabbi Yosef’s alleged dovish leanings falsified by omitting his reasons for advocating concessions. In addition to emphasizing Israeli weakness, Rabbi Yosef expressed willingness to command the destruction of idolatrous, Christian churches if Israel and the Jews were sufficiently strong to do this without serious damage to Jews. Rabbi Yosef thus illustrated the fierce and visible hatred of Christianity and Christians so evident among fundamentalists Jews and, to a lesser extent, among many other Israeli Jews of the political right. Although discrimination against and persecution of Jews in Christian countries has helped to persuade some secular Jews to accept this fundamentalist attitude, it is not the sole explanation. Oriental Jewish rabbis, and to a lesser extent their followers who came from Muslim countries wherein they were generally not persecuted by Christians, have expressed more hate of Christianity and its symbols than the fundamentalist European rabbis and their followers who were persecuted by Christians. In dealing with political factors in our book, we did not specify many of the often petty forms of hatred of Christianity that are officially approved.
[Note: See 'Spitting on Christians is a Jewish tradition' (Publ. 4 Oct. 2023) - Maybe you don't remember; but this was all over international news 3 days before October 7 2023.]
One case in point is that Israeli educational authorities removed the international plus sign from the textbooks of elementary arithmetic used in the first grades of Israeli schools. Allegedly, this plus sign, which is a cross, could religiously corrupt little Jewish children. Instead of the offending cross, the authorities substituted a capital “T.” This substitution was made some years after Israel became a state; the influence of Jewish fundamentalism was responsible. If this substitution had been made by the Taliban in Afghanistan, by the Iranian regime or by China during the cultural revolution, it would probably have been discussed at length. In contrast, this easily discoverable fact has been omitted in English-language articles and books concerned with Israeli Jewish society and Judaism. This omission is but one piece of the existent evidence that most books of this genre are unreliable.
In Chapter 2 we pointed to specific acts of discrimination against and abuse of women perpetrated by Jewish fundamentalists. Seemingly unimpressed by the Israeli Hebrew discussion of and the Israeli Jewish feminist criticism of this discrimination and abuse, writers of English-language books and articles about Israel have rarely mentioned this phenomenon. They have not acknowledged that until modern times most Jewish women were kept illiterate and denied education by command of the rabbis. They and others have condemned abuses of women in Iran and other countries but have refused to specify the even more abusive acts against women in Israel. Jewish feminists have instead celebrated in their writings the few important Jewish women mentioned in the Bible and the one woman mentioned in the Talmud, Bruriah, the wife of the second-century AD sage, Rabbi Meir. The diaspora Jewish feminists and other English-language writers have neglected any reference to the disparaging stories about women in talmudic literature; they have also failed to admit that from the time of Bruriah until the advent of modern influences upon Jews in western Europe in the seventeenth century not one Jewish woman was sufficiently important to be emphasized as a leading figure in Jewish history. (This can be compared to the numerous women who became leading figures in many areas, including religion, in Western Christendom in the same time period, in spite of Christianity’s well-known discrimination against women.) The inescapable conclusion is that English-language sources are unreliable, not only in the study of the Jewish fundamentalist attitude towards women but also in the more general study of the status of women in historical Judaism.
In discussing the topic of Jewish blood in Chapter 2, we quoted both the previously mentioned Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (1920-2013) and the former chief rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu (1929-2010), both of whom ordered pious Jews not to accept blood donations from non-Jews unless their lives were at risk. These two eminent rabbis, as well as others inside and outside of Israel who agree with this view did not invent this opinion. This and other similar opinions, existent from the beginning of blood transfusions, are based upon a talmudic prohibition that does not allow a non-Jewish nurse to breast feed a Jewish child. The cited reason for this prohibition is that the milk from a non-Jewish woman would have an adverse effect upon a Jewish child. In Chapter 2 we quoted the discussion of the Jewish blood topic that was published in 1995 not only in Israel’s most widely read daily Hebrew newspaper but in other Hebrew newspapers as well. We can assume that readers of this book who are not literate in Hebrew and who were not previously told about such discussion in the Hebrew press would be unaware of this prohibition of pious Jews accepting blood transfusions from non-Jews and sometimes even from secular Jews. This prohibition is not to be found in English-language articles or books about Judaism or Israeli Jewish society. (Some fundamentalist Jews may discuss this topic among themselves, but they limit that discussion to their own groupings and do not write about it for publication in English.) It would be absurd to suggest that in the last years of the twentieth century scholars, writers and others from around the world would not discuss and attack an analogous edict, issued by highest ranking Christian Church leaders, prohibiting Christians from accepting blood transfusions from Jews. The prohibition is not a secret; it has been openly discussed in the Israeli Hebrew press. This is yet another example of distortion by omission, which makes English-language coverage of various aspects of Israeli Jewish society unreliable.
In Chapter 3 we briefly discussed how followers of Rabbis Ovadia Yosef (1920-2013) and Elazar Shach (1899-2001) attempted to use magic against one another. This occurred after the struggle between these two leading rabbis became intense. The political significance here transcended the Yosef–Shach disputation; the alleged use of magic is part of the deep division between Israel A and Israel B, which are defined previously in both our text and glossary. Members of Israel B, following some historic Jewish customs, believe in magic and witchcraft; they often practice it themselves or follow directives supposedly derived from it by rabbis and kabbalists. (Books in Hebrew detailing instructions for spells and witchcraft recipes have been best sellers in Israel for many years.) Individuals who are reputed to achieve success by use of magic frequently obtain political power in Israel. Most Israeli political pundits are agreed that one of the important reasons for Benjamin Netanyahu’s victory in the 1996 election was the exclusive blessing he received during the campaign from the kabbalist Rabbi Yitzhak Kadouri (1898-2006), and the firm refusals of many Jewish magicians and kabbalists to bless Shimon Peres (1923-2016). (Only the Hassidic Belzer rabbi said that he was neutral regarding Peres.) Rabbi Kadouri has remained to date a widely reported, highly visible Hollywood type star in the Israeli Hebrew press. He was at the center of media attention when he descended below the surface of the sea in Eilat in a device, usually used to allow tourists to see underwater sea life, and supposedly instituted spells in order to avert an earthquake that was predicted by scientists. He claimed to have diverted the earthquake from Jews to non-Jews. Many Israeli Jews believed this claim, because the predicted earthquake was light in Eilat but was much more severe in upper Egypt.
Another example of the popularity in Israel of magic was evident in the circumstances surrounding the 1999 trial in the District Court of Jerusalem of a major Shas Party politician, Aryeh Deri (b. 1959). Deri was convicted and sentenced for taking bribes in spite of tens of amulets hung on his body and blessed by the most outstanding kabbalists, who additionally engaged in other magic ceremonies on Deri’s behalf. At the same time of this trial a scientific congress on the use of magic and witchcraft in Judaism was held in Jerusalem. Tom Segev (b. 1945), a columnist for Haaretz and one of Israel’s best known authors, wrote that the use of magic by Jews was nothing new in Judaism. In his March 26, 1999, Hebrew-language Haaretz article, Segev transcribed a magical recipe found in a book, composed in talmudic times (AD 200–500) but still popular in the Diaspora in the eighteenth century. This recipe, which was devised to confuse a judge and cause him to acquit unjustly a person who used magic, called for the following: “Slaughter a lion cub with a copper knife. Gather its blood; tear out its heart and put the blood into it. Then, write the names of angels on the cub’s face, and wipe the names with three year-old wine. Mix the wine with the blood. Next, take three heaps of perfume (names omitted). After purifying yourself, stand before the planet Venus at night with the perfume and the blood, which must be put on fire.” This act would supposedly compel the bewitched judge to acquit. Segev reported that the Israeli scientists participating in this Congress believed magic to be “an inseparable part of Judaism – used in past intrigues involving rabbis.” To support this view, Segev quoted a saying in the Palestinian Talmud attributing the large number of High Priests during the Second Temple period to the fact that High Priests often killed one another by using witchcraft. This opinion expressed in the Palestinian Talmud is probably incorrect; the large number of High Priests during this period should most likely be attributed to bribery and other political actions of secular (mostly Jewish) authorities of time connected with making appointments. This opinion, which is not quoted in English-language writings on Judaism, nevertheless indicates the wide use of witchcraft by Jews’ attempting to kill one another in this time period. The typical picture, presented in English-language works, of the pious Jews of the third period of Jewish history is on balance invalid. The picture of the pious Jew of talmudic times, standing at night before a planet and attempting to perform magic rites, is more accurate and can help us understand the reality of Israeli Jewish society better than the fictional description offered by apologists. The use of magic in everyday life is also common in certain Jewish neighborhoods of New York, London, Paris and other cities.
In spite of its obvious political importance and social significance, this aspect of Judaism in modern times remains as widely unreported in English, and thus as unknown to those who do not read Hebrew, as the past use of magic and witchcraft. In all known societies some individuals have indulged, and still do indulge, in magic. The misguided attempt to hide this past and present tendency, which is widespread in Israel, has infested the English-language histories of the Jews. The substitution of apologetics for historical fact renders these history texts at least unreliable and perhaps unfit for study.
In Chapters 4 and 5 we dealt with the religious Jewish settlers in territories occupied by Israel since 1967 and with Gush Emunim, the movement that produced the settlers. Despite the attention given to the issues of Israeli settlements in the territories, English-language coverage has almost totally neglected the two major considerations, without which proper understanding of this overall topic is impossible. The first consideration is that the urge to settle has been theologically motivated and is a manifestation of Jewish fundamentalism. In discussions of the obligations that people must obey in countries ruled or influenced by Muslim fundamentalists the religious reasons are highlighted. In most English-language discussions of Jewish religious settlements, however, the religious reasons are usually either totally missing or are replaced with biblical quotations, uttered by the settlers. In our text we showed that the real motivating factors for the religious settlers, some of whom have moved to improbable sites, have minimal connections to the Bible. The real reasons emanate instead from a special idea of Jewish fundamentalism. This idea asserts that the messiah will arrive soon and postulates that the world is already in the messianic age.
We began Chapter 4 by asserting that messianic ideology, as a radical part of Jewish fundamentalism, is based upon the differences and opposition between Jews and non-Jews rather than simply between Jews and Arabs (or Muslims). Writers of English-language books, articles and book reviews have rarely mentioned this basic tenet, the major exceptions being those writers who have composed the invalid, out-of-context, virulent and poisonous anti-Semitic literature. The published reviews of Yehoshafat Harkabi's (1921-1994) book, Israel’s Fateful Hour, provide a good illustration of this point. The original Hebrew edition of this book was first published in Israel; the English edition was published thereafter in the United States in 1988. Harkabi’s book received wide attention in the United States because of its analysis of Israeli politics in the 1980s and its emphasis upon differences between the Labor Party and Likud in foreign politics. In one crucial chapter, from which we quoted and paraphrased in our text, Harkabi analyzed some major issues of Jewish fundamentalism and stressed the importance of messianic ideology within that context. Harkabi’s book was extensively reviewed in American publications, but only one reviewer in a small circulation progressive publication referred to this crucial chapter. The other reviewers in American publications avoided any mention of this chapter and/or its substance. Reviewers in Israel emphasized this chapter in their comments. The difference in reviewing between the United States and Israel is telling.
In maintaining that differences and opposition exist between Jews and non-Jews, messianic ideology continues to be the primary motivating factor for Gush Emunim and its major supporter, the National Religious Party. Those who have written about Israeli Jewish society and about Judaism but have avoided mention of this have distorted understanding. The significance here is most striking when the broad support, both direct and indirect, for Gush Emunim is considered. About one-half of Israel’s Jewish population supports Gush Emunim. The support, especially monetary, from Jews in the diaspora is also of great importance. Many Orthodox and other Jews as well in New York City and elsewhere have been and are encouraged to assist Gush Emunim by what they read in the largest circulation American Jewish weekly newspaper, the Jewish Press. Published in Brooklyn, the Jewish Press has been and continues to be an editorial advocate of Gush Emunim, often presenting op-ed articles written by leading Gush Emunim spokesmen. New York City and New York State politicians regularly seek backing of the Jewish Press during electoral campaigns. Not only have Jewish Press editorial writers advocated messianic ideology; they have also expressed admiration of Yigal Amir (b. 1970), the assassin of Yitzhak Rabin (1922-1995). The New York Times, which is read and probably influences many American Jews, has published in-depth analyses of Christian and Muslim fundamentalism but has refrained from presenting similar articles describing Jewish fundamentalism or even advocacies printed in the Jewish Press. Even so-called liberal American periodicals, such as the Nation and the New York Review of Books, which have published editorial comments and articles upholding and advocating Palestinian rights, have neglected to present analyses of Jewish fundamentalism in their own country. Readers of these and most other periodicals in the United States, and in other countries as well, would not know, unless they read books and articles published in Hebrew in Israel, that Gush Emunim’s goal is to build a “sacred society” whose nuclei are the Jewish settlements in the occupied territories. It is insufficient, if not folly, to advocate Palestinian rights without understanding and referring to the principal cause of the denial of those rights: Jewish fundamentalism in general and the messianic variety in particular.
The Goldstein massacre (1994), discussed in Chapter 6, was inadequately covered in the English press. That Israeli Jewish society was divided in its attitude towards the massacre was evident in the Hebrew but not in the English press and literature. Before the massacre, Goldstein’s (1956-1994) refusal as a doctor on religious grounds to treat non-Jewish patients, including soldiers serving with him in the army, was, although mentioned briefly, treated lightly in the English coverage. Baruch Goldstein (1956-1994) clearly derived his views from fundamentalist interpretations of sacred Hebrew texts. The English coverage indicated that he merely followed the teachings of Rabbi Meir Kahane (1932-1990), a whipping boy of the American press. In reality, Goldstein’s views were more broadly based and centered in Jewish fundamentalism. Having immigrated to Israel as an adult, Goldstein, prior to his arrival in Israel, had been influenced by the “Lubovitcher Rebbe” [Menachem Schneerson (1902-1994)] and his influential disciple, Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburgh (b. 1944). His attitude, moreover, was condoned by important, Israeli politicians and the Minister of Defense. Articles in the Hebrew press, to which we referred in our text, discussed these points in depth; the English coverage avoided mention of much of this.
In Chapter 7 we showed how well-documented features of Jewish fundamentalism during the past 800 years, the third and longest period of Jewish history, have influenced and continue to influence contemporary Jews in the state of Israel and in the diaspora as well. Both the popular and more scholarly and renowned, standard Jewish histories, written in English, omit most of these features. The historic features of Jewish fundamentalism were manifest in the Rabin assassination and in the reactions to it. Because of omission, distortion and lack of criticism of Jewish fundamentalism, the English-language coverage could not and did not put the Rabin assassination in the correct context and thus was misleading.
Important issues are involved here, all of which are omitted in the standard Jewish histories. The first of these, well-known to serious students of the third period of Jewish history and especially to those who have knowledge of Jewish religious law and Orthodoxy, is that, before being affected by outside modern influences, Jewish society was not tolerant. On the contrary, autonomous Jewish authorities persecuted deviants, perhaps more than did Christian and Muslim authorities in their respective religions and certainly more than did pagan, Buddhist and Hindu authorities. The intolerant attitudes and activities, enshrined in the sacred texts of Jewish fundamentalism in all its varieties, influenced the behavior and politics of Jews, especially when they had autonomous power. To oppose the current dangers posed by Jewish fundamentalism, it is first necessary to expose its historical basis. As we have repeatedly stated, most writers of books on Judaism in English have not done this. Influenced by their heritage, many Jews have unfortunately either remained indifferent to the oppression of Palestinians in and by the State of Israel or have at times criticized acts of oppression as posing possible danger to Jews. Some of these individuals, for example, condemn the use of torture as being unconditionally inhumane when used by states other than Israel, but they argue pragmatically that its use by Israeli authorities is not in Israel’s best interest because of worldwide public opinion. Many of these same people in the United States are zealous in advocating and fighting for the separation of religion and state in their own country, but they react differently in regard to Israel. They do not criticize, indeed they most often support, the Israeli Ministry of Religion, which is almost always controlled by Jewish religious parties influenced by Jewish fundamentalism, for allotting only 2 per cent of its budget to non-Jews when nearly 20 per cent of Israel’s citizenry consists of Muslims and Christians. Both in Israel and in the diaspora the relatively few Jews who have attempted to defend non-Jews against discrimination and oppression by Jews have been those who have been influenced by modern theories of justice. The fact that the majority of Jews do not protest against, but actually support, Jewish discrimination against non-Jews, especially in the Jewish state, indicates, at least to some extent, the conscious and unconscious influence of Jewish fundamentalism. We believe that attempts to hide historical reality in Judaism and Jewish societies were wrong when Jews were discriminated against and persecuted in most countries. By the end of the twentieth century, when Jews have achieved greater power in many societies than any minority group of comparable numbers and when a Jewish state with nuclear weapons is protected by the United States, falsification by omission of Jewish history is purely adverse and totally unacceptable. The nearly total absence of discussion of the above intolerant aspects of the Jewish past and present in English-language books caused us to dispense with a traditional bibliographical listing or essay.
The issue of Jewish normalcy and the exceptions to it require examination. Jews in many instances oppressed their own people as other people did. During the same time period, for example, that rabbis ordered the hands of Jewish offenders to be cut, Spanish judges, as well as judges in most Christian and Muslim courts, did likewise. Rabbis ordered Jewish offenders put into stocks in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569-1795) just as non-Jewish authorities used the stock as a feature of regular punishment throughout Europe and in the American colonies. The systematic killing of informers, enjoined by eminent rabbis as a religious duty, has no parallel in other societies. Killing of informers has nevertheless occurred and still occurs in other societies and, as is the case in Sicilian society, is often well known. Scholarly historical works, historical novels and the classical literature in general of many countries and societies depict the sometimes-employed punishment of killing informers. In contrary fashion, the major Jewish historians who have written about the third period of Jewish history, for example, Salo W. Baron (1895-1989), Simon Dubnow (1860-1941) and Yitzhak Baer (1888-1980), have omitted such references in their works. Other highly regarded Jewish historians who have focused upon the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Christian Spain and Germany have done likewise. Numerous Israeli scholars, who have written in Hebrew and from whom we quoted and paraphrased in our text, have in contrast displayed more honesty in their scholarship by including examples of the systematic killing by Jews of Jewish informers. Consequently, those readers who are not literate in Hebrew (or have not been told in detail about books in Hebrew about Jewish history) must have distorted perceptions of this aspect of Jewish history. This reflection solidified our resolve not to include a traditional bibliographical listing or essay.
The distortions, largely by omission, in the English-language histories of the third period of Jewish history are greater and more severe than are those of the first and second periods. The reason for this is obvious. Because Judaism and Jewish history are so important for the history and theology of Christianity until and shortly after the time of Jesus, Christian historians and biblical scholars, often critical in their writings, dealt with Jewish history and Israelite society during the first two periods. The better Jewish historians of those two periods have felt obligated to follow trends established in scholarship in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; they have engaged in critical discussion, even while complaining about what they regarded as hostile tendencies of Christians who wrote about Jewish history. Few Christian or Muslim scholars have been or are interested in Jewish history between AD 70 and modern times, the third period. Apologetic writing of Jewish history is not unique. Most national histories include apologetic writings. The writing in English by Jews of Jewish history has remained far more retarded than have the writings of other national histories. A comparison that illustrates this point is the difference between the development of historical writing by American historians of United States history and the lack of development in the writing of Jewish history, especially of the third period. In recent decades standard United States history textbooks have included numerous negative features, previously omitted, of past discrimination and oppression of African Americans, Native Americans, women and other disadvantaged minority groups. As previously reiterated, most books in English of Jewish history, especially of the third period, continue to omit negative features of discrimination and oppression of both Jews and non-Jews by Jews. The harmful effects of these omissions remain.
We are finally troubled by the near unanimity in standard English- language Jewish histories regarding issues involving “Jewish interest.” Whereas the Israeli new historians of the 1980s and 1990s have sparked fruitful debate about basic issues not only of the past century in regard to Palestine but of the entire course of Jewish history, previous historians who wrote in English have omitted facts and disputations over interpretations of sensitive items. Having already detailed much of this in our bibliographical note, we, in attempting to illustrate our point, shall here present only one additional example. The famous scholar Gershom Scholem (1897-1982), early in his career raised an important intellectual issue about the nature of Judaism; soon thereafter he, together with numerous other scholars, dropped it. This issue then became virtually unknown to people who did not know Hebrew. In his first book in English about Jewish mysticism, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, based upon a previous set of lectures delivered in New York City, first published in 1941 and reprinted many times, Scholem questioned whether Jews who believed in Kabbalah had preserved the belief in monotheism that had been previously so characteristic of Judaism. In his seventh lecture towards the end of section five of the book, Scholem, after describing the process, which according to the Lurianic Kabbalah takes place by Jewish initiative within God, wrote: “To reconcile this process with the monotheistic doctrine, which was dear to the Kabbalists as it was to every Jew, became the task of the theorists of Kabbalistic theosophy. Although they applied themselves bravely to it, it cannot be said that they were completely successful.” These two convoluted sentences implied that the most popular form of Kabbalah, still believed by many Jews in Israel and in the diaspora, is not monotheistic. Actually, Scholem refrained from mentioning that many Jewish opponents of Kabbalah, before it became dominant around 1550 and during the Jewish Enlightenment, asked the same question more clearly and expressed more sharply their opposition to the predominant Lurianic form on the ground that it denied monotheism. Since then, scholars who have written in English about Judaism, including Scholem himself in later books, have not, with few exceptions, questioned whether Judaism in all its forms and all times was monotheistic and/or whether many pious Jews were believers in monotheism. (Raphael Patai (1910-1996) was one exception. In Chapters 5 to 8 of his book, The Hebrew Goddess, published in 1967, Patai raised this question. Israel Shahak (1933-2001), another exception, did likewise in his more recent book, Jewish History, Jewish Religion.) The scholars who have written in English about Judaism have, again with few exceptions, not considered in their books the even more important question of whether Judaism throughout its entire history has had fixed tenets.
We are aware that the books we have not put into a bibliography contain useful data. We nevertheless believe that these books are guilty of purposeful omission resulting in grave distortion and do not necessarily deserve to be listed in a bibliography. These books anyway can be easily found in other bibliographies. We append this note in lieu of a traditional bibliography in protest against what too often happens in Jewish studies outside Israel.
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The End! -------- An organized collection of very best quotes of all time in very systematic way as an interactive PDF. Customized according to alphabetical order & Contains quotes of Great legends & some top most categories as books, music, A.I, movies, teamwork, Business etc. An organized collections of 200+ pages & 2000+ quotes. The great book of best quotes of all time.
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An organized collection of very best quotes of all time in very systematic way as an interactive PDF. Customized according to alphabetical order & Contains quotes of Great legends & some top most categories as books, music, A.I, movies, teamwork, Business etc. An organized collections of 200+ pages & 2000+ quotes. The great book of best quotes of all time.
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Sworn to Silence (Kate Burkholder #1)(Goodreads) - In the sleepy rural town of Painters Mill, Ohio, the Amish and “English” residents have lived side by side for two centuries. But sixteen years ago, a series of brutal murders shattered the peaceful farming community. In the aftermath of the violence, the town was left with a sense of fragility, a loss of innocence. Kate Burkholder, a young Amish girl, survived the terror of the Slaughterhouse Killer but came away from its brutality with the realization that she no longer belonged with the Amish.
Now, a wealth of experience later, Kate has been asked to return to Painters Mill as Chief of Police. Her Amish roots and big city law enforcement background make her the perfect candidate. She’s certain she’s come to terms with her past—until the first body is discovered in a snowy field. Kate vows to stop the killer before he strikes again. But to do so, she must betray both her family and her Amish past—and expose a dark secret that could destroy her.
MY REVIEW - I really love the writing in this book. It's incredibly fast paced, interesting, and a bit scary. The subject matter is absolutely fantastic.
Kate Burkholder is The Police Chief in a town called Painters Mills in Ohio. The town is mostly made up of The Amish and English. Kate grew up Amish, but gave it up after an incident happened to her when she was a teenager. She left the town, but eventually she came back and is now the Police Chief. I was concerned because she seems to be a rather young and inexperienced in the chief department. I can see how it could be possible since the town is so small and the worse that usually happens is some cows get out and get in the road. However Kate ability is about to be tested in a way that she never thought would happen.
I have to agree with the town council when they claimed that Kate was mishandling the case. She was mishandling it and in a way I think she screwed up big time. She was so desperate to keep a secret buried that she chose to not have any outside agencies help with the murder case.
This is one character who could defiantly learn from her past mistakes. This huge character flaw is what I think makes the book and lets it play out so perfectly.
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Pray for Silence (Kate Burkholder #2) ( Goodreads ) - New York Times bestselling author Linda Castillo delivers an electrifying thriller in which Chief of Police Kate Burkholder must confront a dark evil to solve the mysterious murders of an entire Amish family.
The Plank family moved from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to join the small Amish community of Painters Mill less than a year ago and seemed the model of the Plain Life—until on a cold October night, the entire family of seven was found slaughtered on their farm. Police Chief Kate Burkholder and her small force have few clues, no motive, and no suspect. Formerly Amish herself, Kate is no stranger to the secrets the Amish keep from the English—and each other—but this crime is horribly out of the ordinary.
State agent John Tomasetti arrives on the scene to assist. He and Kate worked together on a previous case during which they began a volatile relationship. They soon realize the disturbing details of this case will test their emotional limits and force them to face demons from their own troubled pasts—and for Kate, a personal connection that is particularly hard to bear.
When she discovers a diary that belonged to one of the teenaged daughters, Kate is shocked to learn the girl kept some very dark secrets and may have been living a lurid double life. Who is the charismatic stranger who stole the young Amish girl’s heart? Could the brother—a man with a violent past, rejected and shunned by his family and the Amish community, have come to seek out revenge? As Kate’s outrage grows so does her resolve to find the killer and bring him to justice—even if it means putting herself in the line of fire.
Topping her own bestselling debut, Linda Castillo once again immerses us in the world of the Amish with a chilling story that is both a fast-paced thriller and intriguing psychological puzzle
MY REVIEW - In the back of the book is a photograph of the author, Linda Castillo. She is such a beautiful lady that I find it hard to believe that her mind is what created this book..lol. When they say looks can be deceiving they were not kidding.
Once again Painters Mills is the scene of another gristly murder. I'm not sure if I would call this just a murder. It seemed to be more of a very gruesome slaughter of an entire Amish Family. Even I cringed when the scene was described. Kate Burkholder, the chief of police here, is once again hip deep in mystery that brings up the terrible incident she suffered in her childhood. She begins to draw parallels between herself as a teen and one of the murder victims.
Kate is once again carrying way too much baggage to be as useful as she should be. It's a good thing she has the help she is getting or else I believe this woman would thoroughly screw up her police career.
Kate's character flaws is why I gave the first book 5 stars. It was a way to start introducing the character into the series. Usually when we make a mistake and let down people we try and learn from our mistakes and not to repeat them. If you can't grow as a person then you become dull and just annoying. Kate does not seem to be working on her flaws in this book. In fact she seems to be making worse mistakes. At this rate the woman will be dead by book three.
I am looking forward to the 3rd book which I hold in my hands right now. I am hoping to see her grow and learn in this next book or else book three will just be redundant
Vicksburg, Mississippi est. 1825, pop. (2013) 23,542 • MS Delta
Patent Mark: Dec 9th, 1862
Marker:
U.S. Three-Inch Ordnance Rifle,
Made in 1863 by the Phoenix Iron Company, Phoenixville, Penn.
The original carriages were made of white oak and iron.
These, made around 1915, are of iron and concrete.
• site crowns the highest hill in Vicksburg • land donated by the family of the city's founder, Newitt Vick • built by the Weldon Brothers, immigrants from County Antrim, Ireland • Greek Revival design attributed to William Weldon in collaboration with slave John Jackson, a noted draftsman & artist who "drew the plans for many of the public buildings erected by [the Weldon's], including the courthouses still standing at Raymond and Vicksburg." —"The Emergence of the Cotton Kingdom in the Old Southwest: Mississippi, 1770--1860," John Hebron Moore, 1988
"The Weldon Brothers... Well known in Mississippi as large building and bridge contractors, owned and educated to mechanic pursuits, 100 slaves, many of whom are now residing in the river counties of the State, and most of them are well-to-do. Their draughtsman, John Jackson, a natural genius in that line, lives now at Port Gibson, the scene of much of the work of the Weldons. He painted the handsome drop curtain at Odd Fellow’s Hall, Port Gibson, and assisted in drawing the plans of the handsome Court house at Vicksburg, which the Weldons built in 1858.
"The writer had large dealings with these brothers in the days of their activity, and knows that while they were strict and exacting with their slaves, they were yet kind in their treatment; feeding and clothing them well; and they were not unmindful of their proper enjoyment; the suppers and music at their Christmas balls costing sometimes as much as $600. Tom Weldon was a very passionate man, as well as powerful and brave. Sometimes he would strike the negroes with his fist, and if they showed fight, it was his boast that he always gave them a white man’s chance, and fought fairly with them to the end. He had a fine mind, and but for his profanity was an eloquent talker.
"He equipped a company for the war at Natchez – the Weldon rebels [Co. L, 44th Mississippi Reg., C.S.A.] – but was employed, himself, chiefly in the secret service of the Confederate Government. George, the oldest of the three brothers, was very loquacious, and a great reader. William was a milder mannered man than the others, and very intelligent." —"Random Recollections of Early Days in Mississippi", Horace Smith Fulkerson, 1885
• Thomas Weldon (1816-1865) is said to have been instrumental in developing an electric spark underwater torpedo (naval mine) • on 12 Dec, 1862 it sank the USS Cairo, the first US warship ever destroyed by this type of weapon • "USS Cairo gunboat sunk by an IED" —Standing Well Back
• the Weldons utilized ~100 highly skilled slave artisans at the job site to burn brick & erect the $100K courthouse • the Ionic capitals were cast by Baker Iron Company, Cincinnati & transported to the site by river boat • stucco finish applied to exterior, 1907 • bldg. retains original iron doors & shutters
• Jefferson Davis (1808-1889), a local planter who became president of the Confederacy, launched his political career on these grounds • bldg. targeted by Union warships on Mississippi River during the American Civil War's 47-day Siege of Vicksburg • became the symbol of Confederate resistance • following the city's surrender, 4 July, 1863, Union soldiers under Maj. Gen. U. S. Grant replaced the Confederate flag with the Union flag on the Courthouse cupola [photo]
• U.S. Presidents Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, William McKinley & Theodore Roosevelt spoke here, as did woman's suffrage leader Carrie Chapman Catt & black American icon Booker T. Washington
• bldg. was neglected after the completion of the New Warren County Courthouse (1940) • damaged by the 1953 Vicksburg Tornado • demolition considered • aware of the building's historical significance, Eva ("Miss Eva") Whitaker Davis (1892-1974) established the Vicksburg & Warren County Historical Society in order to to preserve it • on 3 June, 1948, the courthouse reopened as the Old Courthouse Museum • exhibits reflect the heritage of the area from pre-historic Indians through the present day • has one of the largest Civil War collections in the U.S.A.
• named one of the 20 most outstanding courthouses in America by the American Institute of Architects • Old Courthouse History • Court House Lagniappe Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
• Historic Vicksburg District • HABS MS-119 • designated Mississippi Landmark, 1986 • National Register 68000029, 1968 • designated National Landmark, 1968
...has little to do with euphoria and everything to do with patience. It is not about feeling good. It is about endurance. Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer.”
- Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves -
www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/passion
Colour my week: Lavender, post it then Tag it with #TP706
A brief interruption to my Glasgow uploads ; It's been a while since I uploaded any of my photos being used in print, 'In the King's Arms' by Sonia Taitz was published a couple of years back and features on of my photos of South Park in Oxford on it's cover. I must admit I've not gotten around to reading it yet but I can tell you my wife enjoyed it.
Some reviews can be found here for those interested : www.goodreads.com/book/show/11286838-in-the-king-s-arms
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Book description
David Lapp (from Promised to Another) survived a “code blue” when he was in a buggy/semi truck accident in Seymour, Missouri. Now after extensive therapy he has lingering mobility problems and is still struggling to find his place in the world. Lured away from Webster County by thoughts of closed buggies and a postcard friendship he’s developed with an Amish girl in Jamesport, he moves north, hoping for a fresh start. He finds work in the area tying flies and basket weaving, selling his products in the Amish markets in the Jamesport area. Rachel Miller dreams of travel, but feels tied to her Amish life. She is being courted by Obadiah Graber, but wonders if there’s more to life. When she sees David’s name mentioned in The Budget, she strikes up a pen pal friendship with David while he’s in the hospital and in therapy, consoling him when he and his girlfriend part ways. She never dreams that David will come north and move into her community. David is still fearful in the buggy, especially in high traffic areas. Feeling he’s called by God to preach, David spends hours in the Bible, but the Amish discourage him, believing their ministers should be drawn by lot. Will David follow his call, even if it takes him out of the Amish church? Will Rachel realize her dream to travel?
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"In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine."
— Milan Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being)
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A crime thriller written from the first-person point of view of five different characters, including the killer. Fredric Brown rocks as a mystery writer and why he isn't better known today is the greatest mystery.
The following is from the Goodreads website (at www.goodreads.com/author/show/51503.Fredric_Brown):
"Fredric Brown was an American science fiction and mystery writer. He was one of the boldest early writers in genre fiction in his use of narrative experimentation. While never in the front rank of popularity in his lifetime, Brown has developed a considerable cult following in the almost half century since he last wrote. His works have been periodically reprinted and he has a worldwide fan base, most notably in the U.S. and Europe, and especially in France, where there have been several recent movie adaptations of his work. He also remains popular in Japan.
"Never financially secure, Brown - like many other pulp writers - often wrote at a furious pace in order to pay bills. This accounts, at least in part, for the uneven quality of his work. A newspaperman by profession, Brown was only able to devote 14 years of his life as a full-time fiction writer. Brown was also a heavy drinker, and this at times doubtless affected his productivity. A cultured man and omnivorous reader whose interests ranged far beyond those of most pulp writers, Brown had a lifelong interest in the flute, chess, poker, and the works of Lewis Carroll. Brown married twice and was the father of two sons."
From Goodreads:
Anna Dressed in Blood - Cas Lowood, armed with his late father's athame knife, kills ghosts. In Thunder Bay, Anna, forever 16, drips blood on her white dress from throat slit in 1958, and rips apart anyone who enters her house - except Cas. He makes new friends - high school queen Carmel, jock Will, admiring nerd Thomas and Tom's voodoo grandpa Morfran - to fight this demon.
My Review: I found Anna in Blood to have a very interesting plot. I like the idea of a ghost slayer and I like it being told from a male POV. However I was not entirely convinced that Cas was written like he could have been. I sometimes get all up in arms when a male author tries to write a female character and fails miserably. I get the same way when a female author tries to write a male character and either fails or is not entirely convincing. In my opinion Cas should have been a bit more of a bad ass considering what he was. Instead I think he was a bit too soft around the edges.
I like the fact that a 2nd book was written to explore more of Anna and Cas's "relationship". I'm curious if it's possible for them to have one and if so how the author is going to play it out.
As for the other characters I really do like them and how they are written. I hope the 2nd book explores more of Gideon and what role he plays.
All in all it's a fun read and it's quick.
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From Goodreads Girl of Nighmares: It's been months since the ghost of Anna Korlov opened a door to Hell in her basement and disappeared into it, but ghost-hunter Cas Lowood can't move on.
His friends remind him that Anna sacrificed herself so that Cas could live—not walk around half dead. He knows they're right, but in Cas's eyes, no living girl he meets can compare to the dead girl he fell in love with.
Now he's seeing Anna everywhere: sometimes when he's asleep and sometimes in waking nightmares. But something is very wrong...these aren't just daydreams. Anna seems tortured, torn apart in new and ever more gruesome ways every time she appears.
Cas doesn't know what happened to Anna when she disappeared into Hell, but he knows she doesn't deserve whatever is happening to her now. Anna saved Cas more than once, and it's time for him to return the favor.
My Review: I like this one much better than the first book. I swear if they made this a movie it would be downright creepy and I would be watching from behind a movie seat. Anything Voodoo related scares the bejebus out of me. Whether it's real or not I personally don't want to hang around and find out. Yes, I am just that paranoid.
On that note, In this book we find Cas and his friends trying to find a way to get Anna out of hell. In the previous book Anna saved Cas and his friends by dragging the Voodoo man down into what one could call a hell realm. While down there the Voodoo man tortures Anna on a regular basis. Cas, who strangely is very much in love with Anna, is trying to find a way to get her out of there. In the process of doing this Cas learns some interesting history in regards to his athame and how it's connected to a Secret Order located in the Highlands of Scotland. He then travels to Scotland to try and save Anna.
In this book I think Cas was written much better than the first book. In fact all the characters were expanded on and more fully explained. My favorite is Thomas. He seems to have grown the most. He started out as shy and kind of hidden behind Cas, but in this book he shows how strong he really can be.
I would love to see a 3rd book written
The following is a brief biography of Fredric Brown (1906-1972) from the Goodreads website (at www.goodreads.com/author/show/51503.Fredric_Brown):
"Fredric Brown was an American science fiction and mystery writer. He was one of the boldest early writers in genre fiction in his use of narrative experimentation. While never in the front rank of popularity in his lifetime, Brown has developed a considerable cult following in the almost half century since he last wrote. His works have been periodically reprinted and he has a worldwide fan base, most notably in the U.S. and Europe, and especially in France, where there have been several recent movie adaptations of his work. He also remains popular in Japan.
"Never financially secure, Brown - like many other pulp writers - often wrote at a furious pace in order to pay bills. This accounts, at least in part, for the uneven quality of his work. A newspaperman by profession, Brown was only able to devote 14 years of his life as a full-time fiction writer. Brown was also a heavy drinker, and this at times doubtless affected his productivity. A cultured man and omnivorous reader whose interests ranged far beyond those of most pulp writers, Brown had a lifelong interest in the flute, chess, poker, and the works of Lewis Carroll. Brown married twice and was the father of two sons."
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No American president has been closer to the working life of the West than Theodore Roosevelt. From 1884 to 1886 he built up his ranch on the Little Missouri in Dakota Territory, accepting the inevitable toil and hardships. He met the unique characters of the Bad Lands—mountain men, degenerate buffalo hunters, Indians, and cowboys—and observed their changes as the West became more populated. "Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail" describes Roosevelt's routine labor and extraordinary adventures, including a stint as a deputy sheriff pursuing three horse thieves through the cold of winter. Whether recounting stories of cowboy fights or describing his hunting of elk, antelope, and bear, the book expresses his lifelong delight in physical hardihood and tests of nerve. [Source: Goodreads website at www.goodreads.com/book/show/1737273.Ranch_Life_and_the_Hu...]
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If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?
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All the way from Australia! I read all of the time and to help keep track of everything I have read I am a member of goodreads.com. They have book giveaways every single day and I always enter to win them and never do. However within two weeks I won two books. This was one of them. Ghosts by Tess McLennan. It came all the way from Australia, I don't think I have ever got anything in the mail from there before. I'm excited to read his book very soon so I can review it.
The following is a brief biography of Fredric Brown (1906-1972) from the Goodreads website (at www.goodreads.com/author/show/51503.Fredric_Brown):
"Fredric Brown was an American science fiction and mystery writer. He was one of the boldest early writers in genre fiction in his use of narrative experimentation. While never in the front rank of popularity in his lifetime, Brown has developed a considerable cult following in the almost half century since he last wrote. His works have been periodically reprinted and he has a worldwide fan base, most notably in the U.S. and Europe, and especially in France, where there have been several recent movie adaptations of his work. He also remains popular in Japan.
"Never financially secure, Brown - like many other pulp writers - often wrote at a furious pace in order to pay bills. This accounts, at least in part, for the uneven quality of his work. A newspaperman by profession, Brown was only able to devote 14 years of his life as a full-time fiction writer. Brown was also a heavy drinker, and this at times doubtless affected his productivity. A cultured man and omnivorous reader whose interests ranged far beyond those of most pulp writers, Brown had a lifelong interest in the flute, chess, poker, and the works of Lewis Carroll. Brown married twice and was the father of two sons."