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Distant Origins

/ cigarman501 / 7 Comments

“It’s Earth Day. I wonder if we can plant more trees than people for a change?”
― Stanley Victor Paskavich

And a pig trail beckoned to me, and I followed it right down Alice’s rabbit hole.  Hello Mad Hatter.

I just watched a rerun of Star Trek Voyager and found myself sitting quietly…pondering.  I like that word…pondering.  Sounds as if I might be intelligent…many times I’ve proven differently.

The episode triggering my pondering was” Distant Origin” about a lizard resembling alien race, the Voth, and a scientist who believes his species originated from a distant planet.  Long story short, he involves a crew member of Voyager in his attempt to prove his origins theory and ends up standing trial for heresy, accused by his religious elders…led by the menacing, Minister Odala.  Shades of Fred Phelps, Sr. (See Below)

This most respected scientist is forced to recant his findings to save Voyager from being destroyed and the crew and himself put into prison.  A choice between truth or evil masquerading as truth.  That is where my pig trail became a rabbit hole.  The scientist chooses evil masquerading as the truth to save his new friend, loses his position and is forced into a job equivalent of counting paper clips.

As the program closes, his partner in crime, the Voyager character Chakotay, gives the scientist, Gegen, an Earth globe as a gift before he transports up and Voyager leaves. All is well in the Delta Quadrant except for the Voth who don’t know, save the scientist, they are really descendants of dinosaurs from Planet Earth.  Nice yarn…sounded familiar.

The episode is an allegory and drew heavily from the relationship between Galileo Galilee of telescope fame, the Catholic Church in general and Pope Urban VIII specifically.  The story leading to Galileo’s trial for heresy before The Inquisition is much more involved than the Star Trek episode or for me to write about.  Is that applause I hear?

In the condensed version, Galileo made the mistake of agreeing with Copernicus that the Earth orbited the Sun rather than the Church’s belief of an Earth-centered universe…everything in the universe orbiting the earth.

Galileo further complicated his life by publishing his studies in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, a work which poked fun at the Pope as it laid out Galileo’s findings using a protagonist named “Simplicio”, which connotes simpleton in Italian.  Unjustly, some folks drew the conclusion Simplicio might be a metaphor for Pope Urban VIII.  Unintended consequences? One person drawing the conclusion was Pope Urban himself.

Again, long story short, Galileo was put on trial before The Inquisition for voicing opinions contrary to the Holy Scriptures and forced to recant under threat of excommunication although he was never formally charged. According to popular legend, after recanting his theory that the Earth moved around the Sun, Galileo allegedly muttered the rebellious phrase “And yet it moves.”

He spent the rest of his life under virtual house arrest which was better than being slowly roasted at a stake like a Boston butt.  He was still quite prolific with his writings and despite being banned, published many scientific works. Galileo is considered the father of classical physics.

I’m a bit of a “quare” duck for myriads of reasons but a couple of the more benign ones are that I hold degrees in both history and science education and at one time considered the ministry as a calling.  Boy, I fell off that wagon.  Between having to learn Greek and an overzealous youth minister who told me my mother would survive ALS if she believed hard enough, I turned to a life of cussin’, women and drink…well up to a point.  I still cuss too much and honestly; it was more drink than women.

When I said I had two degrees I wasn’t bragging…well, a little but was giving an example of why I get confused sometimes about the religious acceptance of science and historical perspective.  Modern folk might not understand why the Catholic Church held so much power and desired to keep scientific discoveries secret.  It was about maintained power, some of which the Church had lost having battled with Martin Luther’s protestants during the previous century.  Excommunication was and is a powerful deterrent for a Catholic.  Without the sacraments, one can’t get to heaven.  Power over the masses.

Some folks still discount science when it disagrees with the Holy Scriptures.  Considering ninety-seven percent of climatologist believing climate change is real and man fueled, I don’t understand why SOME, I said some, not all, not even most…maybe.  I don’t understand why some Bible believers have a problem with science as it relates to climate change.  I have heard said it doesn’t matter, God won’t allow climate, or anything else, to destroy the Earth.  I have a particularly good friend, and a true man of God tell me that.  Maybe he is correct, but I wager we can destroy all humanity, and the Earth will continue its annual trip around the Sun until the sun expands into a red giant before collapsing into itself as a white dwarf…if you believe Galileo and Copernicus and other astronomers.

I attempt to follow the teachings of Jesus and for some reason don’t have a problem believing that climate change is real, and that man is the primary culprit.  What I have trouble with is believing a pair of Platypus Duckbills trekked from Mt. Ararat in Turkey to Australia, multiplying as they went but we find no Platypus Duckbills anywhere else…alive or fossil remains.  I know.  God works in mysterious ways…so does science but the mysteries of science usually can be explained.

There are many Bible verses commanding good stewardship of our earth, in fact, a moral obligation to preserve and sustain our earth.  One comes quite early in the Bible, Genesis 1:26-31.  I’ll let you look it up.  The KJV version uses the words “dominion over”.  Other translations use the word stewardship.  Dominion does not mean free to use as we wish, dominion means stewardship…to maintain…to control…not to destroy if we so desire.

Many of our leaders, many who profess their religious beliefs quite loudly, or have their minions profess them, seem to be worried that trying to solve the problem of, or even uttering the words, climate change, might slow our economy.  We certainly don’t want to hurt our GDP for something as unimportant as sustaining our planet…or worse having it interfere with their potential candidacy for higher office.  I honestly believe their distant origin might be somewhere south of heaven.

Others believe until the “entire world” gets involved, for instance, the Indians and Chinese, we are pissing up a rope.  Folks…someone’s got to lead and there was a time when the United States led in categories other than bombs dropped, civilians killed and mass murders.  Realizing this is not Biblical, but it should be, “God helps those who help themselves.”

We are not helping ourselves and before I “throw stones”, I admit I am not without the sin of not doing enough…but I am trying…if I could just get rid of that gas-guzzling, carbon dioxide spewing truck.  I can trade it for a horse and wagon.

Well, it is time to bid the Mad Hatter adieu and crawl back out of Alice’s rabbit hole.  It is the day I walk with my best friend.  We usually cure all the world’s ills while we walk or if not, over the cup of coffee we consume at the local coffee shop and art café afterward.  Hmm, that’s the distant origins of my leftist ideas…nope, Hawk still has rightist ideas and that helps balance me.

From above: Fred Waldron Phelps Sr. (November 13, 1929 – March 19, 2014) was an American minister and disbarred attorney who served as pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church and became known for his homophobic views and protests near the funerals of gay people, military veterans, and disaster victims who he believed were killed as a result of God punishing the U.S. for having “bankrupt values” and tolerating homosexuality. From Wikipedia

Don Miller has released a new book under the pen, Lena Christenson.  Dark Tempest and others may be accessed at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM or at Lena’s site https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B07B6BDD19

Twitter Storm: 1776 

/ cigarman501 / 6 Comments

“If Paul Revere had been a modern-day citizen, he wouldn’t have ridden down Main Street. He would have tweeted.” — @AlecJRoss

Dateline Philadelphia July 5th, 1776.  Lester Holt’s great, great, great, great grandpa dressed in colonial garb, including powder wig and tricornered hat, is reporting live from outside of the Pennsylvania State House.  “Since learning that twelve of the thirteen British colonies have declared their independence from the English crown, King George III has erupted in a storm of angry twitter posts directed at the Second Continental Congress in general and specifically outspoken members such as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, his brother Samuel along with Ben Franklin.  The last exchange was just minutes ago with the king tweeting, “I dare you!” and Tom Jefferson responding, “Yo Mama!”  (New York did not sign the original document until later.)

A former student sent me down that pig trail which led me to Alice’s rabbit hole. Tom Meilinger posted, “What would it be like if there were social media in 1776? Would King George and Thomas Jefferson be in a Twitter war? Would British citizens be commenting on how the colonists should find a new colony to move to if they didn’t like the British empire? Would they hope their British nine pin team might lose to another country because someone on it wasn’t a loyalist?”  I wondered too and Tom and I don’t usually agree on much.

Tom triggered a mental vision of King George III sitting on a porcelain throne, his considerable girth covered by a gold, terry cloth robe, hammering out angry tweet after angry tweet.  There are some things that can’t be unseen…the mental vision will haunt me for a while.

Image result for George the Third

Understand, there was plenty of propaganda that flowed from both sides of the Atlantic during the lead up to our revolutionary war.  I say our revolutionary war because our little skirmish was just a small part of what became a larger conflict, The Anglo-French War.  The difference with propaganda then was that correspondence was considerably slower than our current form.  A month or more to get the news out as opposed to instantaneous.

Benjamin Franklin drew this now-famous cartoon of a disjointed snake in 1754 — telling fragmented colonies that if they didn't join the fight, they would perish.

Patriots such as Ben Franklin and Paul Revere created stunning propaganda art including Revere’s copper engraving depicting a highly sensationalized version of the 1770 “Boston Massacre.”  Newspapers, pamphlets, and periodicals on both sides were guilty of sensationalizing any and everything.  Kind of like today only not at light speed.

This copper engraving by Paul Revere is a sensationalized depiction of the

Can you imagine the meme’s that could have been created over the Boston Massacre?  Jackbooted English lobster backs firing on innocent colonists throwing snowballs.  “Just boys liquored up and having a bit of fun.”  Or from the other side, Crispus Attucks dressed in a hoody and portrayed as an “Antifa Thug!”

Image result for Cyprus Attucks

I doubt King George would be tweeting that there were fine people on both sides and please realize, the Patriots were the Antifa of 1776 or at least the Anti-monarchy…Antima?  See…that could have sparked a heated social media argument…and may still.

Three years later drunken members of the Sons of Liberty would badly disguise themselves as Native Americans and dump chests of “cheap” British Tea into Boston Harbor.  Were they really upset over the Tea Tax or was it that, even with the tax, Britain had undercut the black marketeers?  “How can an honest criminal make a living?”  Tweets would fly.  “How dare they dress as Native Americans?  Racist liberal scum.”  Tweets from loyalists, Royalists, King’s Men, or Tories would fly, only to be returned by patriots, revolutionaries, continentals, colonials, rebels, Yankees, or Whigs.  Pick a name…any name.

Image result for Boston Tea Party

On April 19,1775, Emerson’s “Shot heard ‘round the world” would find its way onto a million Facebook memes as Minute Men sent British Troops packing back to Boston from Concord and Lexington.  King George would tweet, “Bunch of chickens!  Very bad, hiding behind trees.  Real men fight out in the open.”  Thomas Jefferson would counter with “Yo Mama wears combat boots!”

The next eight years would give ample fodder for tweets, Instagram posts and of course Facebook.  Most non-combatants viewed the war as a football game between rivals…except football hadn’t been invented.  It’s okay, neither had social media.

Early on it didn’t go well for the colonists and loyalists could post hateful GIFs, Thomas Jefferson being hung while the loyalists chanted “Shimmy up a toothpick, slide down a pine, look on the scoreboard and see who’s behind”.

Later as the winds of fortune shifted to the continentals, tweets about Patrick Ferguson, the only British soldier killed at the Battle of Kings Mountain, would erupt along with chants like “Chewing tobacco, chewing tobacco, spit, spit, spit, Exlax, Exlax, go team go” or “Don’t come round these here hills stirring up trouble.”

Related image

In October of 1783, an end run by the French fleet and Washington’s Continental Army supported by the French under Comte de Rochambeau caught Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown and led to hundreds of tweets about how unfair it was.  “Battles should be fought one on one.”  “Cheaters, cheaters, cheaters.”   “We were having to play against the officials too.”

George the Third was beside himself as he tweeted, “I should have fired Cornwallis after Guilford Courthouse.  He couldn’t find his butt with both hands.  So very sad.”

Image result for cornwallis leaves yorktown

Yes, Tom, it would be interesting if social media existed in 1776…well…as interesting as it is today.

Don Miller’s author’s page may be found at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM.  Stop by and give him a little love.

Image 1:  George the Third of Great Britain  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_III_of_the_United_Kingdom

Image 2:   Ben Franklin’s cartoon of a disjointed snake https://www.businessinsider.com/pro-independence-propaganda-from-the-american-revolution-2015-7#this-parchment-was-used-to-call-american-patriots-to-arms-as-the-war-heated-up-1

Image 3:  Paul Revere’s copper engraving of the Boston Massacre https://www.businessinsider.com/pro-independence-propaganda-from-the-american-revolution-2015-7#this-parchment-was-used-to-call-american-patriots-to-arms-as-the-war-heated-up-1

Image 4:  Crispus Attucks, one of five killed by British fire during the Boston Massacre http://crispusattucks.org/about/who-was-crispus-attucks/

Image 5:  Sons of Liberty at the Boston Tea Party.  They weren’t that well disguised.  https://chapinus.fandom.com/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party_(Final_Draft)

Image 6:  Patrick Ferguson, the only Briton killed at the Battle of Kings Mountain.  The rest were Loyalist or “Over the Mountain Boys.”  https://www.knowitall.org/photo/major-patrick-ferguson-kings-mountain

Image 7: Cornwallis’s surrender.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornwallis_in_North_America

Featured Image: Some of the signers, https://www.historyextra.com/period/georgian/why-does-united-states-america-celebrate-independence-day-4th-fourth-july-declaration-holiday/

INDEPENDENCE DAY AND BARBEQUE

/ cigarman501 / 7 Comments

My introduction to BBQ came in the early Fifties during Independence Day celebrations held at my school. As a family, we would load up the car and go to the school for an afternoon of celebrating our independence from Great Britain, fun, games and, most importantly, BBQ. I cannot remember if there were decorations, I am sure there were, but I remember going to the field behind the school and seeing the pole that had been set up for the greased pole climb and a small cage with a greased pig. Hum, greased pig, greased pole, and BBQ sounds like we have a trend going. No, that statement is not true – there was nothing greasy about our BBQ.

I have no idea who had cooked the pigs, but I do know my Uncle James had donated them and had overseen the night-long festivities and I was too young to know what that might have entailed. All I know is that you could smell those hogs cooking and see the smoke rising out of the soil that covered the pit. The smell was too, too, too… I am at a loss for words, but it was as close to heaven as I want to get without dying.

Besides eating the BBQ there were patriotic stories to be told, games to be played and winners to be awarded. There might have been a softball game before the older boys attempted to climb the greased pole. And then there was the contest to catch a greased pig – a contest in which I once excelled and won. That year it wasn’t much of a chase. As I started toward him to make my grab, the little porker ran right at me and rolled ove4r. What a bummer, I didn’t even get my clothes dirty. It was like a “tag you’re it” scenario. We also ran sack races and three-legged races. For the less mobile athletes, pie-eating or watermelon-seed-spitting contests were enjoyed. After all of that excitement it was finally time to eat.

We sat down to succulent pulled-pork BBQ served with Dutch Fork mustard sauce, hash (not to be confused with Brunswick Stew) served over long grain WHITE rice (not the healthy brown stuff), Cole slaw, white bread and, what I guess, was a pickled “bread and butter style” cauliflower medley on the side.

Yes sir! It was truly heaven-on-a-plate and an argument for why immigration is a good thing. Also, it was a time that you could thank God for having a belt buckle that would allow you to ease the pressure on a BBQ-stuffed stomach. Thinking it couldn’t get any better, I finally reached the age where I was old enough to participate in the festivities associated with the production of hardwood coal – drinking and storytelling.

During my college days, a group of us “summer schoolers” decided that a pulled-pork BBQ party might be in order for those of us not going home for the Independence Day break. Several of us who had experience in this Southern tradition and were tabbed to prepare the feast.

One of my jobs that night was to stir a big iron kettle full of hash. For the uninformed, and you may want to remain that way, hash is all the “lesser” or unrecognizable parts of the pig, coarsely shredded and cooked with potatoes, onions, spices, and cider vinegar until it all falls apart into an unrecognizable hash. I’ll never forget as I stirred the hash that night with a boat oar, I saw something white roll to the top. What the…? As I kept stirring, it turned over and I saw …an eyeball staring back at me! Gulp. As I said earlier, stay misinformed.

After such a hard night of stirring, drinking, and lying, I mean storytelling, it did not take long after dawn for someone to point out the need for breakfast. Several of my fraternity brothers went to Winn Dixie and came back with enough chicken halves to feed us all. Winn Dixie donated them. Those roasted chickens may have been the best breakfast that I have ever eaten. All the great chefs say that tasty food is first about taste and then about presentation. I think they should have added that it is all about the company you are sharing it with. Good friends will even make bad food better.

Hours later the BBQ was finished, and it was time for the decisive moment. I got my plate with the hash and rice, and for the first time ever concerning BBQ I hesitated a bit before my first bite. Remembering that white thing floating in the hash, I had a little moment of contemplation along with a big hunger for that BBQ. It was then that I made the decision that if I had liked hash before I knew there might be an eyeball in it then I could still like it after… and I did! Eyeball and all!

Independence Day is about much more than BBQ, bottle rockets and patriotic music despite being a terrific way to celebrate it…if you remember sacrifices Americans have made to maintain it. From George Washington and his troops at Valley Forge, to the 54th Massachusetts attack on Battery Wagner, Marines at Iwo Jima, the Chosin Reservoir or Que Son, the Freedom Riders, and Civil Rights Marchers, all have made sacrifices, some ultimate, to insure our continued independence. We don’t need to forget that fact and allow it to get lost in mounds of BBQ, especially, this year.

I do not believe we can continue our divisiveness and maintain our independence. We are STILL the greatest country in the world despite the many issues facing us that must be worked out. Maybe if our leaders sat down together with a mound of BBQ compromise might be reached. It is hard to yell at each other with a mouthful of pig.

A portion of this came from Don Miller’s book PATHWAYS, stories from his
youth, which can be purchased at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM