history mystery

WHERE did humankind come from?

If you’re going to ask Zecharia Sitchin, be ready for a “Planet of the Apes” scenario: spaceships and hieroglyphics, genetic mutations and mutinous space aliens in gold mines.

It sounds like science fiction, but Mr. Sitchin is sure this is how it all went down hundreds of thousands of years ago in Mesopotamia. Humans were genetically engineered by extraterrestrials, he said, pointing to ancient texts to prove it.

In Mr. Sitchin’s Upper West Side kitchen, evolution and creationism collide. He is an apparently sane, sharp, University of London-educated 89-year-old who has spent his life arguing that people evolved with a little genetic intervention from ancient astronauts who came to Earth.

Born in Russia and raised in Israel, Mr. Sitchin studied economics in London and worked as a journalist and editor in Israel before moving to New York in 1952. Here, he was an executive at a shipping company and, with his wife of 66 years (she died in 2007), raised two daughters. He spent his free time studying, leading archaeological tours to ancient sites and spreading his unusual gospel.

Starting in childhood, he has studied ancient Hebrew, Akkadian and Sumerian, the language of the ancient Mesopotamians, who brought you geometry, astronomy, the chariot and the lunar calendar. And in the etchings of Sumerian pre-cuneiform script — the oldest example of writing — are stories of creation and the cosmos that most consider myth and allegory, but that Mr. Sitchin takes literally. (nytimes.com) (sitchin.com)

Lord of the Earth

"Oh my son, arise from thy bed, from thy slumber, work what is wise,
Fashion servants for the Gods, may they produce their bread.
Oh my mother, the creature whose name thou has uttered, it exists,
Bind upon it the will of the Gods;
Mix the heart of clay that is over the Abyss,
The good and princely fashioners will thicken the clay
Thou, do thou bring the limbs into existence;
Ninmah will work above thee
Nintu will stand by thy fashioning;
Oh my mother, decree thou its fate."

Lord of the Earth

Leda and the Swan

Leda and the Swan

copy by Cesare Sesto after a
lost original by Leonardo da Vinci.

Leda and the Swan is a motif from Greek mythology in which Zeus came to Leda in the form of a swan. According to later Greek mythology, Leda bore Helen and Polydeuces, children of Zeus, while at the same time bearing Castor and Clytemnestra, children of her husband Tyndareus, the King of Sparta. In the W.B. Yeats version, it is subtly suggested that Clytemnestra, although being the daughter of Tyndareus, has somehow been traumatised by what the swan has done to her mother. As the story goes, Zeus took the form of a swan and raped or seduced Leda on the same night she slept with her husband King Tyndareus. In some versions, she laid two eggs from which the children hatched. In other versions, Helen is a daughter of Nemesis, the goddess who personified the disaster that awaited those suffering from the pride of Hubris.

Leonardo da Vinci began making studies in 1504 for a painting, apparently never executed, of Leda seated on the ground with her children. In 1508 he painted a different composition of the subject, with a nude standing Leda cuddling the Swan, with the two sets of infant twins, and their huge broken egg-shells. The original of this is lost, probably deliberately destroyed, and was last recorded in the French royal Château de Fontainebleau in 1625 by Cassiano dal Pozzo. (read more)

Curt's Page

In a society which is predicated on competition,

and really often the ruthless exploitation of

one human being by another, the profiteering

of other peoples problems, and very often

the creation of problems for the sole

purpose of profiteering, the ruling

ideology will very often justify

that behavior by appeals to some

fundamental and unalterable

human nature. So the myth

in our society is that

people are competitive

by nature and that they

are individualistic

and that they

are selfish.

follow your bliss

Joseph John Campbell (March 26, 1904 – October 30, 1987) was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience. His philosophy is often summarized by his phrase: "Follow your bliss."(read more)

watch "the power of myth with joseph campbell and bill moyers"

"Spider Man"

"Spider Man"

Frank Frazetta 1966

signs of life

The Mowing - Devil
Or, Strange NEWS out of
Hartford - shire

Being a True Relation of a Farmer, who Bargaining
with a Poor Mower, about the Cutting down Three Half
Acres of Oats: upon the Mower's asking too much, the Farmer
swore That the Devil should Mow it rather than He.
And so it fell out, that very Night, the Crop of Oat
shew'd as if it had been all of a flame: but next Morning
appear'd so neatly mow'd by the Devil or some Infernal Spirit,
that no Mortal Man was able to do the like.
Also, How the said Oats ly now in the Field, and the Owner
has not Power to fetch them away.

Liscensed, August 22nd, 1678.

Joseph Smith Meets An Extraterrestrial

Joseph Smith, Jr. (December 23, 1805 – June 27, 1844) was the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, a group of churches whose adherents regard him as a prophet.

In the late 1820s, Smith announced that an angel had given him a book of golden plates, containing a religious history of ancient American peoples. Smith claimed the book was written in an unknown language, which he translated by use of seer stones given with the plates. In 1830, Smith published this translation as the Book of Mormon and organized what he claimed was a restoration of the early Christian church.

Moving the church in 1831 from western New York to Kirtland, Ohio, Smith attracted hundreds of converts, who came to be called Latter Day Saints. Some of these he sent to establish a holy city of "Zion" in Jackson County, Missouri. In 1833, Missouri settlers expelled the Saints from Zion, and Smith led an unsuccessful paramilitary expedition to recover the land. Fleeing an arrest warrant in the aftermath of a Kirtland financial crisis, Smith joined the remaining Saints in Far West, Missouri. However, tensions escalated into a violent conflict in 1838 with some hostile Missourians. Believing the Saints to be in insurrection, the governor ordered their expulsion from Missouri, and Smith was imprisoned on capital charges.

After escaping state custody in 1839, Smith led the Saints to build Nauvoo, Illinois on Mississippi River swampland, where he became mayor and commanded a large militia. In early 1844, he announced his candidacy for President of the United States. That summer, after the Nauvoo Expositor criticized Smith's teachings, the Nauvoo city council, headed by Smith, ordered the paper's destruction. In a futile attempt to check public outrage, Smith first declared martial law, then surrendered to the governor of Illinois. He was killed by a mob while awaiting trial in Carthage, Illinois.

Smith's followers believe he saw God and regard his revelations as scripture. His teachings include unique views on the nature of godhood, cosmology, family structures, political organization, and religious collectivism. His legacy includes a number of religious denominations, which collectively claim a growing membership of nearly 14 million worldwide.

Elohim (אֱלהִים) is a plural formation of eloah, an expanded form of the Northwest Semitic noun il (אֱל, ēl). It is the usual word for "god" in the Hebrew Bible, referring both to pagan deities and to the God of Israel, usually with a singular meaning despite its plural form, but is also used as a true plural with the meanings "spirits, angels, demons," and the like. The singular forms eloah (אלוה) and el (אֱל) are used as proper names or as generics, in which case they are interchangeable with elohim. Gods can be referred to collectively as bene elim, bene elyon, or bene elohim.

The notion of divinity underwent radical changes throughout the period of early Israelite identity. The ambiguity of the term Elohim is the result of such changes, cast in terms of "vertical translatability" by Smith (2008), i.e. the re-interpretation of the gods of the earliest recalled period as the national god of the monolatrism as it emerged in the 7th to 6th century BC in the Kingdom of Judah and during the Babylonian captivity, and further in terms of monotheism by the emergence of Rabbinical Judaism in the 2nd century AD.

In the Levantine pantheon, the Elohim are the 70 sons of El the Ancient of Days (Olam) assembled on the divine holy place, Mount Zephon (Jebel Aqra). This mountain, which lies in Syria, was regarded as a portal to its heavenly counterpart. The Elohim were originally ruled by El Elyon (God Most High), but He later hands His rule down to the god called Hadad who was known among the common people as "the master" ("Baal"). Assembled on the holy mountain of heaven and ruled by one, the pantheon (Elohim) acts as one. The enemy of the Elohim is Yam ("the sea"), a chaos monster slain by Baal. Each son was allocated to a specific people (e.g. Yahweh to Israel, Milcom to Moab etc.).

The word occurs more than 2500 times in the Hebrew bible, with meanings ranging from "god" in a general sense (as in Exodus 12:12, where it describes "the gods of Egypt"), to a specific god (e.g., 1 Kings 11:33, where it describes Chemosh "the god of Moab", or the frequent references to Yahweh as the "elohim" of Israel), to demons, seraphim and other supernatural beings, to the spirits of the dead brought up by the prophet Samuel in 1 Samuel 28:13, and even to kings and prophets (e.g., Exodus 4:16) The phrase bene elohim, usually translated "sons of God", has an exact parallel in Ugaritic and Phoenician texts, referring to the council of the gods.

Temptation

Salvator Rosa
"Tentazione di Sant'Antonio Abate"
(Temptation of abbot Saint Anthony)
1645 ca.

The Great Pyramid

The Great Pyramid of Giza is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis. It is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain largely intact. It is believed the pyramid was built over a 20-year period concluding around 2560 BC. Khufu's Great Pyramid originally rose 479 feet but has been reduced to 449 feet with the loss of its limestone casing.

The mass of the pyramid is estimated at 5.9 million tonnes. The volume, including an internal hillock, is roughly 2,500,000 cubic meters. Based on these estimates, building this in 20 years would involve installing approximately 800 tonnes of stone every day. Alternatively looking at the construction from another angle, since the Great Pyramid consists of an estimated 2.3 million blocks, completing the building in 20 years would involve moving little more than 12 of the blocks in place each hour, day and night, during the 20 year period.

The accuracy of the pyramid's workmanship is such that the four sides of the base have an average error of only 58 millimeters in length. The base is horizontal and flat to within 21 mm. The sides of the square base are closely aligned to the four cardinal compass points (within 4 minutes of arc) based on true north, not magnetic north, and the finished base was squared to a mean corner error of only 12 seconds of arc. The completed design dimensions equate to π/2 to an accuracy of better than 0.05% (corresponding to the approximation of π as 22/7).

Based on measurements taken on the north eastern casing stones, the mean opening of the joints are only 0.5 millimeters wide (1/50th of an inch). The largest granite stones in the pyramid, found in the "King's" chamber, weigh 25 to 80 tonnes and were transported more than 500 miles away from Aswan. The Great Pyramid was the tallest man-made structure in the world for over 3,800 years.
(read more)

Revelation of the Pyramids

Space Odyssey

Master of the Universe

"A Fighting Man of Mars"
Frank Frazetta

Happy Love Day

"Venus disarming Cupid"

François Boucher

1751

All Along The Watchtower

The Original Sin

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of
every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die.

The Temptation of Adam and

Expulsion from the Garden of Eden

Michelangelo Buonarroti

Sistine Chapel

Oral transmission in post-apocalypse sects

Savannah ..! Finn ..! look.
It's him. I finded him ..It's Captain Walker.

-What's his talk?
-He ain't made any wordstuff.
-It's a long track. Maybe he's burned out.
-Maybe.
-Maybe he's just listening.
Walker? Hello?
Maybe he's talking, but we ain't hearing.
You see ..his lips ain't moving.
Not with wordstuff, but maybe with sonic.
This is Delta-Fox-X-Ray. Can you hear me? Delta-Fox-X-Ray. Come in. Is anybody out there? Can you read me, Walker? What's up, Doc? Can you hear me,

Yeah, I can hear your ..who are you

-Quiet!
-Shut up!
-Enough!

Who are you?

We are the waiting ones.

Waiting for what?

Waiting for you.

And who am I?

I think he be testing us .. this a testing, Walker? …you reckon we been slack?

I don't know ..maybe you've been slack.

We ain't ..we kept it straight. It's all there. Everything marked ..everything 'membered. You wait, you'll see. This you knows. I be First Tracker. Times past count I done the Tell. But it weren't me that tumbled Walker. It was Savannah. So it's only right that she tell the Tell.

This ain't one body's story. It's the story of us all. We got it mouth-to-mouth. You got to listen it and 'member. 'Cause what you hears today ..you got to tell the birthed tomorrow.

I'm looking behind us now. ..across the count of time . .down the long haul, into history back. In the end what were the start. It's Pox-Eclipse, full of pain! And out of it we were birthed ..from crackling dust and fearsome time. It were full-on winter ..and Mr. Dead chasing them all. But one he couldn't catch. That were Captain Walker.

He gathers up a gang, takes to the air and flies to the sky! So they left their homes,said bidey-bye to the high-scrapers . .and what were left of the knowing, they left behind. Some say the wind just stoppered. Others reckon it were a gang called Turbulence. And after the wreck, some had been jumped by Mr. Dead . .but some had got the luck,and it leads them here.

One look and they's got the hots for it. They word it "Planet Earth. " "We don't need the knowing.We can live here. "

Time counts and keeps counting.They gets missing what they had. They get so lonely for the high-scrapers and the video. And they does the pictures so they'd 'member all the knowing that they lost.

'Member this?
-Tomorrow-morrow Land!
'Member this?
-The River of Light!
'Member this?
-Skyraft!
'Member this?
-Captain Walker!
'Member this?
-Mrs. Walker!

Then Captain Walker picked them of an age and good for a long haul. They counted twenty, and that were them. The great leaving. The rescue party departed at first light ..led by Flight Captain. Walker. "May God have mercy on our souls. " They said bidey-bye to them what they'd birthed.And from the nothing ..they looked back ..and Captain Walker hollered:

"Wait, one of us will come."
"Wait, one of us will come."

And somebody did come. .Walker! We's heartful to you, Captain Walker. We's ready now. Take us home. We kept it straight! Everything marked, everything 'membered!

You kept it real good. You ain't been slack.

Why are we waiting?

That ain't me ..you got the wrong guy.

-Quit joshing!
-Catch the wind.
-We got to see Tomorrow-morrow Land!
-Home! Tomorrow-morrow Land!

There were places like these.Cities. They were called cities.They had lots of knowing. They had skyscrapers ..videos and they had the sonic.Then this happened. This Pox-Eclipse happened, and it's finished. It isn't there anymore. You got to understand that this is home.And there ain’t no tomorrow Land ..and I ain't Captain Walker.

This is it!We's loaded and waiting, Captain. We got the wind up our arse, Captain. Let's go!Who's coming? We's pulling a leaving.

There ain't gonna be no leavings. All that's just jerking time.We's working it different. Ain't you seen nothing? He couldn't catch the wind. There weren't no skyrafting. There won't be no salvage-shun. This is our Tomorrow-morrow Land. He's proof of that.

Programmed! All of you programmed. If he ain't Captain Walker, who is he? He ain't no different to us. He slogged it on foot. If he can get here, we can get back.He ain't much bigger than us. Copilot did it. So why can't we? That's the trick of it. Who's coming? Across the nothing? Don't you 'member? When you finded him, he were half jumped by Mr. Dead. Nobody's saying it ain't a hard slog. If we wants the knowing, it ain't an easy ride.

Look ..! There ain't no knowing! There ain't no skyraft and no sonic. You slog out there to nothing! Worse than nothing. The first place you'll find is a sleaze pit called Bartertown. If the earth doesn't swallow you up,that place will.

Don't listen to im ..! He's got wordstuff out his ass! Whoever's got the juice, track with us.

Now listen good! I'm not Captain Walker. I'm the guy who keeps Mr. Dead in his pocket. I say we're gonna stay here. And we'll live a long time and we'll be thankful. Right?

Yeah right .. whoever's got the juice, track with us.

5 Myths About Health Care Around the World

By T.R. Reid
Sunday, August 23, 2009

As Americans search for the cure to what ails our health-care system, we've overlooked an invaluable source of ideas and solutions: the rest of the world. All the other industrialized democracies have faced problems like ours, yet they've found ways to cover everybody -- and still spend far less than we do.

I've traveled the world from Oslo to Osaka to see how other developed democracies provide health care. Instead of dismissing these models as "socialist," we could adapt their solutions to fix our problems. To do that, we first have to dispel a few myths about health care abroad:

1. It's all socialized medicine out there.

Not so. Some countries, such as Britain, New Zealand and Cuba, do provide health care in government hospitals, with the government paying the bills. Others -- for instance, Canada and Taiwan -- rely on private-sector providers, paid for by government-run insurance. But many wealthy countries -- including Germany, the Netherlands, Japan and Switzerland -- provide universal coverage using private doctors, private hospitals and private insurance plans.

In some ways, health care is less "socialized" overseas than in the United States. Almost all Americans sign up for government insurance (Medicare) at age 65. In Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, seniors stick with private insurance plans for life. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is one of the planet's purest examples of government-run health care.

2. Overseas, care is rationed through limited choices or long lines.

Generally, no. Germans can sign up for any of the nation's 200 private health insurance plans -- a broader choice than any American has. If a German doesn't like her insurance company, she can switch to another, with no increase in premium. The Swiss, too, can choose any insurance plan in the country.

In France and Japan, you don't get a choice of insurance provider; you have to use the one designated for your company or your industry. But patients can go to any doctor, any hospital, any traditional healer. There are no U.S.-style limits such as "in-network" lists of doctors or "pre-authorization" for surgery. You pick any doctor, you get treatment -- and insurance has to pay.

Canadians have their choice of providers. In Austria and Germany, if a doctor diagnoses a person as "stressed," medical insurance pays for weekends at a health spa.

As for those notorious waiting lists, some countries are indeed plagued by them. Canada makes patients wait weeks or months for nonemergency care, as a way to keep costs down. But studies by the Commonwealth Fund and others report that many nations -- Germany, Britain, Austria -- outperform the United States on measures such as waiting times for appointments and for elective surgeries.

In Japan, waiting times are so short that most patients don't bother to make an appointment. One Thursday morning in Tokyo, I called the prestigious orthopedic clinic at Keio University Hospital to schedule a consultation about my aching shoulder. "Why don't you just drop by?" the receptionist said. That same afternoon, I was in the surgeon's office. Dr. Nakamichi recommended an operation. "When could we do it?" I asked. The doctor checked his computer and said, "Tomorrow would be pretty difficult. Perhaps some day next week?"

3. Foreign health-care systems are inefficient, bloated bureaucracies.

Much less so than here. It may seem to Americans that U.S.-style free enterprise -- private-sector, for-profit health insurance -- is naturally the most cost-effective way to pay for health care. But in fact, all the other payment systems are more efficient than ours.

U.S. health insurance companies have the highest administrative costs in the world; they spend roughly 20 cents of every dollar for nonmedical costs, such as paperwork, reviewing claims and marketing. France's health insurance industry, in contrast, covers everybody and spends about 4 percent on administration. Canada's universal insurance system, run by government bureaucrats, spends 6 percent on administration. In Taiwan, a leaner version of the Canadian model has administrative costs of 1.5 percent; one year, this figure ballooned to 2 percent, and the opposition parties savaged the government for wasting money.

The world champion at controlling medical costs is Japan, even though its aging population is a profligate consumer of medical care. On average, the Japanese go to the doctor 15 times a year, three times the U.S. rate. They have twice as many MRI scans and X-rays. Quality is high; life expectancy and recovery rates for major diseases are better than in the United States. And yet Japan spends about $3,400 per person annually on health care; the United States spends more than $7,000.

4. Cost controls stifle innovation.

False. The United States is home to groundbreaking medical research, but so are other countries with much lower cost structures. Any American who's had a hip or knee replacement is standing on French innovation. Deep-brain stimulation to treat depression is a Canadian breakthrough. Many of the wonder drugs promoted endlessly on American television, including Viagra, come from British, Swiss or Japanese labs.

Overseas, strict cost controls actually drive innovation. In the United States, an MRI scan of the neck region costs about $1,500. In Japan, the identical scan costs $98. Under the pressure of cost controls, Japanese researchers found ways to perform the same diagnostic technique for one-fifteenth the American price. (And Japanese labs still make a profit.)

5. Health insurance has to be cruel.

Not really. American health insurance companies routinely reject applicants with a "preexisting condition" -- precisely the people most likely to need the insurers' service. They employ armies of adjusters to deny claims. If a customer is hit by a truck and faces big medical bills, the insurer's "rescission department" digs through the records looking for grounds to cancel the policy, often while the victim is still in the hospital. The companies say they have to do this stuff to survive in a tough business.

Foreign health insurance companies, in contrast, must accept all applicants, and they can't cancel as long as you pay your premiums. The plans are required to pay any claim submitted by a doctor or hospital (or health spa), usually within tight time limits. The big Swiss insurer Groupe Mutuel promises to pay all claims within five days. "Our customers love it," the group's chief executive told me. The corollary is that everyone is mandated to buy insurance, to give the plans an adequate pool of rate-payers.

The key difference is that foreign health insurance plans exist only to pay people's medical bills, not to make a profit. The United States is the only developed country that lets insurance companies profit from basic health coverage.

In many ways, foreign health-care models are not really "foreign" to America, because our crazy-quilt health-care system uses elements of all of them. For Native Americans or veterans, we're Britain: The government provides health care, funding it through general taxes, and patients get no bills. For people who get insurance through their jobs, we're Germany: Premiums are split between workers and employers, and private insurance plans pay private doctors and hospitals. For people over 65, we're Canada: Everyone pays premiums for an insurance plan run by the government, and the public plan pays private doctors and hospitals according to a set fee schedule. And for the tens of millions without insurance coverage, we're Burundi or Burma: In the world's poor nations, sick people pay out of pocket for medical care; those who can't pay stay sick or die.

This fragmentation is another reason that we spend more than anybody else and still leave millions without coverage. All the other developed countries have settled on one model for health-care delivery and finance; we've blended them all into a costly, confusing bureaucratic mess.

Which, in turn, punctures the most persistent myth of all: that America has "the finest health care" in the world. We don't. In terms of results, almost all advanced countries have better national health statistics than the United States does. In terms of finance, we force 700,000 Americans into bankruptcy each year because of medical bills. In France, the number of medical bankruptcies is zero. Britain: zero. Japan: zero. Germany: zero.

Given our remarkable medical assets -- the best-educated doctors and nurses, the most advanced hospitals, world-class research -- the United States could be, and should be, the best in the world. To get there, though, we have to be willing to learn some lessons about health-care administration from the other industrialized democracies.

T.R. Reid, a former Washington Post reporter, is the author of "The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care."