BoNZoZ

OLD WINE

2011-12-30T03:26:00.000-08:00

Fossicking about in old abandoned inscriptions (and many of them are located at and in old mines, and one from Sinai actually speaks of using a pickax to inscribe its words) I frequently strike gold. It has suddenly hit me that I seem to have discovered the earliest-known instance of the word "wine"; it occurs in a proto-alphabetic graffito from the Wadi el-Hol in the western desert of Egypt, near ancient Thebes. It is written simply with the letters WN (no vowels are supplied) but it would have been pronounced the same as English wine (wayn). The inscription dates from the 19th century BCE. It is on a rockface, and it indicates where the West Semitic goddess `Anat was worshiped with eating and drinking. The language is Canaanian (Proto-Hebrew) and eventually the W became Y in Hebrew (yayin); an example of it from later times is found in a riddle on an ostracon from Beth-Shemesh (Wine Whine, Carousing in the wine bar with a maid).

DIVINE EARACHE

2011-12-16T03:44:00.000-08:00

Lately I have been reading for the second time one of the two books I have on cryptcracking (the other is by Simon Singh, see code cracking): Richard Belfield, Can you crack the Enigma Code? (Orion pb 2007). It describes many unsolved cases of encryption: the Voynich manuscript (possibly a work of Roger Bacon the 13th-century Franciscan scientist and cryptographer?); the 18th-century Shugborough monument (imitating Poussin's shepherds of Arcady, without the motto ET IN ARCADIA EGO, but with the enigmatic inscription
D     O.U.O.S.V.A.V    M); the Beale papers (19th century, there's gold in them thar hills in Virginia) possibly devised by Edgar Allan Poe, whose story The Gold Bug is one that I struggled with when I was very young, but it must have set me on this "cryptcracking" path (though I have never coveted gold).
   The title suggests that Belfield will talk about the World War II German Enigma Machine, but it is only mentioned in a sentence on page 17, depicted on a colour plate between pages 84 and 85, and this would be because the Enigma code was broken by the tireless workers at Bletchley Park (p. 16), and this book is "a celebration of those codes that have defeated human ingenuity" , even though Poe had declared in 1841 that "human ingenuity cannot concoct a cipher which human ingenuity cannot resolve".
   The Enigma that Belfield does examine is Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations (the underlying theme is still a mystery, though my proposed solution is presented here, as The Elgar regal enigma).
Note that as I write this I am listening to Bach's Mass in B Minor, for inspiration, since it is now known that this opus has a numerological and cryptographical system running through it.
   In my capacity as Cryptcracker, I receive mysterious inscriptions from interested readers of my site, and I trust that they have not forged them. But now a brand-new enigma book has been sent to me by its author (not an alleged medieval manuscript, as in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose):
even gods ears ache: poems by john patterson
(steel roberts aotearoa 2011).
John Patterson (patto@inspire.net.nz)
   This particular John Patterson describes himself as a "retired philosophy lecturer", and he reminds us about his books on Maori/ Chinese/ environmental philosophy (all of which I possess and have studied). We were in the same department at Massey University in Palmerston North; his teaching-subject (in case you skipped over that bit) was philosophy (including logic and critical thinking) and mine was religion (illogical and uncritical). And here he is speaking in the name of god/ God! We shared a lot of laughter, and I remember one of his significant and quite innocent pronouncements intending no offence (made after reading the Qur'an from cover to cover): In the Bible the wages of sin is death, in the Koran the wages of death is sin [so to speak, alcohol is not forbidden in Paradise, and there are other seductive delights].
   When the little volume arrived, I was going to a funeral, so I took it along and recited aloud some choice verses from it, to my driver, my wife Helen.
   Let's start our analysis of the work with the sample on the back cover [51.4]:
take your time jack
dont read this poem
till your eyes find
some hint some clue
   So, no capitals, no punctuation, and at the heart of the text its form is revealed as "this four word four line grid" [29.4]. And we are invited to look for clues to solve the mystery. Is this a cryptic clue: "code name zero zero four" [59.2].
   Incidentally, it is branded as an "anti poem poem book" [31.3]. The last words are: "stay here poet last time your feet went down that road they came back very sore" [64.4]. Curiouser and curiouser. Well we are curious to know whether "last time" refers to his previous poetry book: cant find rest room (nagare press 1991), since he tells us this new one may be regarded as the second edition of that one (see 15.3 for that rest room).
   Each verse seems unrelated to the others in its set. One wonders whether each stanza was originally on a separate slip, in order, but a rogue wind blew them into an entirely new (and not logical) sequence. Perhaps it is the reader's task to reconstruct this great edifice as an orderly pack of cards (though not a house of cards). He seems to say so: "card game pick card" [60.2].
   Anyway, the pattern of the poems is outlined thus:
lamp post poem went
down page like that
with each word over
last word then stop [54.4]
   There are 56 poems in the collection, each having four verses comprising four lines with four words.
   Probe deeper and you will find that the 56 x 4 verses (total 224, and 2+2=4) and the 224 x 4 lines (total 896) have 896 x 4 words (total 3584) and all 3584 of them are (by hook or by crook [400m, hada, itll] and forget apostrophes) four-letter words. However, the most notorious word in that category (which begins with the same letter as four) never comes up; sex only rears its head as make love [64.3].
    John was/is a mathematician, but his numerical system is here strictly limited: four and five and nine are the only permitted factors:
"shes bout five foot / four five five slim / deep blue eyes long / dark hair good legs" [12.2]; "nine mile" [14.20]; "back then when four plus four made nine folk took life easy they were only kids" [55.1]. However, nought (0) makes an appearance in a profound problem: "zero over zero does that make more than zero dont know less than zero dont know" [33.1].
   Mystic: from his Taoist practice (txting, txting): "mpty your head mpty your mind each idea will seep away sink down past your toes" [33.2].
   Prophet: Not always with keen clarity: "mine eyes have seen know that song mine eyes have seen seen what what came next" [42.1]. Sometimes lacks certainty: 'will that chap they call lord come back will that chap they call king ever rule" [58.4]. However, there is certainty with regard to ecology: "axes bite thud sink deep into soft wood this tree will fall tiny eggs will drop" [55.4]; "when that acid rain gets here your skin will burn away even your soul will peel" [59.1]
Theòlogist: deity is mentioned often, in a polytheistic fashion: "they have many gods demi gods semi gods hemi semi demi gods many many many gods" [43.3]. On holy war: "army wins wars with gods help plus guns" [12.3]; but "gods side lost this time" [25.4].
   John Patterson the practical person shines here: "your left foot goes into your left sock your left sock goes into your left shoe" [61.2]. This great sage taught me how to tie up my shoelaces; my mother had ingrained a slippery granny-knot into my subconscious mind; John made me think what I was doing and I changed to a solid reef-knot (as I had learned in the Balmain Boy Scout brigade), and now I don't need to put another knot on top to keep the main one from untying itself.
   Boating: always one for "messing about in boats": "wide days warm days sail boat days with sara" [52.1]; "boat plan nine foot long four foot wide tiny gaff sail uses oars when wind dies" [21.1]; "fold that edge back over this bolt rope then hold them down sail will stay flat" [36.2]; "head sail ties onto fore stay main sail ties onto boom then that ties onto mast" [22.3]. You can put these bits into the correct order yourself.
   Moviegoer: I have met John at the cinema at times, even at an opera movie: "seen that marx bros film yeah well when shes hada skin full pams just like that" [56.4]; an allusion to A Night at the Opera? or the woman in the bath with Harpo in the first one I ever saw (Duck Soup?).
   There is a soap opera running through it all: "some half wits told anna that kens been seen with mary reid poor kens real wild" [33.3]. It is a love story: "love your legs love your arms love your ears love your eyes even love your nose" [17.4]
   Music: the title of the collection is found in the first poem [9.4]; I sing in a five-part choir, and the extra unwritten part is often unwittingly provided by me: "when they yell that five part hymn with loud bass drum beat even gods ears ache".
   Maaoritanga: as noted already, John ("Hone") has a deep appreciation of Maaori culture. His namesake in history is apostrophized: "chop down that flag pole hone heke" [58.1]. He mentions moko (tatoo) [64.2], and a playful "mock moko mark" [9.1, the first stanza in the book].
   Chinese: I will simply say that his every word is like a Chinese character, square script, and his syntax is simple, as in Chinese.
   Artist: "He also tries to paint". A striking example of his art is a large painting made up of little coloured squares (pixels); being a proper work of art it is meaningless viewed up close; but from the other end of the long corridor of our university department (now called the School of Etc Etc) the philosopher Bernard Russell meets our gaze (he is still there, John, and the colours have not faded). As an art critic, he opines: "paul klee ... cant even draw" [63.2]. The only illustration (a miniature on the back cover) is a cunningly constructed photographic portrait of the artist as a visionary poet (looking sideways into the future) and a pensive philosopher (with his thinking cap on) in an ecological setting (green grow the rushes).
   Let's try this hypothesis: John's poetry is created in the same way as his pictures, from small squares, which taken together give a complete view of life on Earth.
   The author is momentarily despondent: "they wont read this dont even hope they will itll fall upon shut eyes dead eyes" [33.4]. I trust this reader has shown that his eyes have not been closed in the process. But I should have given a health warning at the outset: I could write a book about this book.
E Hone, kia kaha, kia ora.

ELECTION QUESTIONS

2011-11-24T21:21:00.000-08:00

Who put the Epsom Salts in the sugar bowl at the absolutely private but wholly public unholy tea-party, and caused them to get runs rather than win votes? ("It's not cricket!")
    Whose silly idea was it to have a tea-party when the term brings to mind the American extremist Tea Party (who have caused all the problems of the world), and also Wonderland's tea-party, which Alice (representing the populace) attended though uninvited? ("No room, no room!" "It's the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!")
    The Mad Hatter and the Mad March Hare talked about inconsequential matters, like ravens (portenders of doom) and writing desks (read: computers and blogs), twinkling bats (again, it's not cricket), but did the two Aucks discuss the future of the BANKS (such as the Kiwi Bank) and the KEY to winning power by selling power companies (any advance on 49%? 99%? Going, going, gone!) and dividing the wealth among the deserving poor, such as plutocrats and politicians, but not proletarians and poverty-stricken people (defrauded by finance companies), who would only squander it? ("How I wonder what you're at.")
   Was the subject of exchanging seats (which was basic to this and the Mad Hatter's party) even mentioned at all? (All move up one, but the person at the head of the table always gets the clean cup.)
   Was it necessary to summon the police force to apprehend the eavesdroppers at the open but shut conversation, starting with the sleepy and forgetful dormouse? ( 'I wasn't asleep,' he said in a hoarse, feeble voice: `I heard every word you fellows were saying.' "Off with their heads!")
    What are we to think about the motives and motions of those who would rule over us? ("You're nothing but a pack of cards!")
    Does the "first past the post" election system provide (as in Rob Muldoon's glorious reign, and Roger Douglas's regime of terror, not to mention Ruth's ruthless period of slashing and burning) strong government or dictatorial tyranny? (`Let the jury consider their verdict,' the King said.`No, no!' said the Queen. `Sentence first--verdict afterwards.' 'How dreadfully savage!' exclaimed Alice.)
     Can the Australian system for the lower house (the upper house is chosen proportionally), whereby preferences are counted if the first candidate past the post has not attained at least half of the votes, bring stable government? ('I vote the young lady tells us a story.' ) Well the lady who leads the Labor government in Australia has a coalition government, with the balance of power held by an independent dormouse; and the Liberal Party has usually needed the Country Party (now the National Party) to form an alliance government. And it would be illegal here but every party in every electorate has a member standing outside each polling booth handing out cards giving instructions on which numbers to put in the boxes, because you have to rank the candidates, or your voting paper is invàlid.

    `And they drew all manner of things--everything that begins with an M--' (such as memory and "muchness", including MMP?)
Does the "mixed member proportional" system give everyone a fair go, and make them feel that at least one of their two votes has not only been counted but has actually counted? (`Why not?' said the March Hare. Alice was silent.)
    But MMP has some little anomalies, and the Epsom Salts tea-party has highlighted them.

   Well, now, I trust that has made things clearer. (Alice sighed wearily. `I think you might do something better with the time,' she said, `than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.' )

ELECTION 2011

2011-11-19T17:33:00.001-08:00

ELECTION IN NEW WONDERLAND

Before the previous NZ election in 2008 I commented on the promise made by the National Party that they would not sell public assets in the first term (political manifesto). I asked whether this meant the first school term, or university semester, or three-year term of government. Well, it turns out that the pragmatic John Key has kept his word and not interfered with Kiwi Bank (he did not buy it with his own fortune and call it the Key Wee Bank, as I had suggested) or sold the power companies.

However, despite assurances that taxes would not rise, there was an increase to 15% in the only tax that everyone pays (GST, the Goods and Services, the one that is often double taxation, when it is added to local council rates, for example). For some of the wealthy individuals this is the only tax they ever pay (they have diabolically clever accountants who show them how to avoid all the other taxes). Unfortunately it is a heavier burden for those who are not rich than for those who have heaps of money with which to make necessary purchases, particularly food and clothing.

Now, at the 2011 election, the subject of asset sales is on the agenda ("things to be done"), but it will only be "partial"; only a part of each power company will be sold, a mere 49%, and the proceeds will be used to fund the education and health systems, so that we can ease up on borrowing from foreign sources and reduce our deplorable debt. However, the deal is said to be that ordinary New Zealanders (who certainly need to save more) will be the investors who will purchase the shares, and Mâori are already lining up at the counter (but they would rather see the assets remain in public ownership). It sounds reasonable, but a majority of citizens oppose the idea; it seems like selling half your house to pay off the mortgage, and then having the buyers live in that part of your home without paying rent, or watching them rent it out to others, who would not take proper care of it. We have not forgotten the mess that was made when the railways were sold.

On the other hand, there are some good reasons for selling the power corporations off completely and quickly, and both are related to the sun. First, solar flares are threatening to damage power lines (as they did to telegraph lines and machines in the middle of the 19th century), plunging the world into darkness and frigidity, and general powerlessness. Second, householders should be making their own arrangements and drawing on the solar energy that is poured forth every day from that great nuclear powerhouse in the sky. Smart people in Australia are able to sell their surplus of home-made electricity to the power corporations, feeding it into the national grid.

After the previous election, I wrote about John Key being another public figure in NZ history who is Jewish, and I wished him well as prime minister. He has impressed us as a leader. I have just seen him being interviewed about the National government's work for Pasifika people. He knew what the facts are and he presented them lucidly and caringly. But the irony is that he was doing it on TVNZ7, which he is going to close down shortly and abruptly. He is the smiling human face for the National Party, but behind him atrocities are being committed.

The Mad Hatter's tea party has not helped the campaign, with the Hatter and the mad March Hare talking nonsense in a public place, and expecting privacy ("No room!" they said to Alice), and an eavesdropping device disguised as a dormouse was shoved into the teapot. Remember, the original hatter's tea party also involved an exchange of seats! Worse, this Alice in Wonderland scenario (Off with their heads, the Queen said to her police force) will associate the National Party in voters' minds with the crazy American extremists of the Tea Party.

We thought we were heading for good strong government under genial John Key, such as we enjoyed in Rob Muldoon's glorious reign. The National Party, like the All Blacks in the Rugby Cup competition, has been ahead on the points table all the way, but the fear is spreading that they will "choke" in the final test.

So then, we might have a coalition government, and the best alliance would surely be the two large parties, National and Labour together. When it came to the point of selling some assets, because food is not involved Labour would allow National to impose 15% G&S Tax (where have we seen that combination G&S before?). Labour would also insist that a 15% capital gains tax (or similar) should be paid by the buyers. Imagine all those billions of dollars going into consolidated revenue, and all the wonderful services the government could provide with them. The great majority of the people would be pleased with their politicians. It would truly be one of those win-win situations, if both Labour and National win the election together.

DATING

2011-11-17T19:48:00.000-08:00

If that headline has led you to think you can find the great love of your life here, I am sorry to say that you are tuned to the wrong channel. I am sure that the photograph beside this essay will convince you that there is nothing for you here, unless you are interested in the way we measure time on calendars; that is what I mean by dating. But reading what follows will be like being on a "date"; you will need to keep your wits about you and concentrate hard on what is being said (though there will be no body language or subliminal signals to distract you).

In November it is customary to observe Armistice Day on the 11th of this month; it now goes by the name Remembrance Day (since 1946); in North America (since 1954) it is a holiday and it is known as Veterans' Day (on 11/11, and as in the USA's 9/11 for the eleventh of September, the month is the first figure, which is quite illogical). All these names indicate that it commemorates war and fallen soldiers; in fact it stems from the signing of the armistice (armistitium, "arms standstill") at the end of World War I, at 11 a.m. (ante meridiem, "before midday") on the 11th day of November 1918. An annual silence of II minutes should occur (that's two in Roman numerals, not eleven, 11 or XI). In 2011, the 11 o'clock national news on Radio New Zealand was preceded by a moment of quietness, but the vehicular traffic roared on out in the streets. By contrast, on the first Tuesday in November, everything stops in Australasia for the running and broadcasting of the Melbourne Cup horse-race; my bike and I then have the road to ourselves, as I do not gamble.

The 11th of November has even more significance for me, as it is the anniversary of the birth of my Kiwi granddaughter Amanda Colless (her elder brother Adam was born on Waitangi Day, 6th of February, so it is easy for me to remember their birthdays; for the record, Nigel and Dawn are her devoted parents). A machine which thinks it can think (it is in America on the other side of the date line) has put the wrong day and date on this message; I am actually writing this on the 18th of November in the year 2011 A.D. (that is, "in the year [anno] of the Lord [Domini] two thousand and eleven", or "twenty-eleven", short for twenty hundred and eleven). Amanda has had her 15th birthday celebrations (spread over a dozen days, as with Jesus and the twelve days of Christmas) and right now she is undergoing a surgical operation. Some other person will be having their birthday today, so my best wishes go out to them.

This year, Amanda's birthday could be codified neatly as 11/11/11, to be deciphered as "the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year of the twenty-first century, which is the first century of the third millennium of the current era". I refrain from saying "the 21st century A.D.", which makes no sense if anno Domini really means "in the year of the Lord"; but if it could be construed as "from the Lord's year" (from the year in which Jesus of Nazareth was born) it might work. The opposite of A.D. is B.C., which is not Latin but English, an abbreviation of "before Christ". However, there is now an international and inter-religion convention whereby we write CE (not Church of England but "Common Era") instead of A.D., and B.C.E. (before the Common Era") in place of "Before Christ" (which is not acceptable to Jews). Christians could still read it as "Christian Era", if they like. "Common Era" means "according to the dating system held in common". I prefer to say "current era".

Traditionally, on Remembrance Day, the silence descends in the first two minutes of "the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month". That is a logical progression, and that is why I say the American way (which converts 11th of September into 9/11) is perverse and confusing. Nevertheless, one of the three items in that sequence of elevens is incorrect: "the eleventh hour". November is certainly the eleventh month of the year, which has twelve months; the eleventh day is straightforward, but "the 11th hour" is backward, or not forward enough. Can you see what is wrong with it?

A similar confusion hangs around the ominous "11th hour", which is commonly supposed to mean the short time available before high noon arrives or doomsday begins. But stop to think about it: between the start of the 11th hour and 12 o'clock there is a total of 120 minutes, two whole hours. Can you grasp it? The 11th hour begins at 10 o'clock (this is undeniably true); and so at 11 o'clock which hour begins? The 12th hour, of course. The 12th hour, not the 11th hour, is when time is running out. When the clock strikes 11, it is signalling the end of the eleventh hour, not its beginning; 11.01 is the start of the twelfth hour, whether a.m. or p.m. Similarly, "23.00 hours"is the dividing line between the 23rd hour and the 24th hour of the day, which ends at midnight, which is not 24.00 but 00.00. When the big hand of the clock is on 12 and the little hand is on 1, it is showing us that the first hour has ended (all 60 minutes of it), and the second hour is beginning. Got it? (By the way, when I was a wee wee tot, and they would take me from my warm warm cot, to sit me on a cold cold pot, to make me do what I could not, namely weewee, I was in Balmain hospital for a tonsillectomy operation, that is how I relayed the time of day to an older boy in another bed; he could not see the clock, and although I knew my numbers I could not "tell" the time as he could, but that is how I could tell the time to him, by saying "the big hand is on ...".)

Do you remember the fuss about the millennium? I don't mean the vain hoping that this would be a century and even a thousand years of peace and prosperity, or the fear that our computers would not crash heavily on the first day of January 2000. I am thinking about the silly argument over when the 21st century and the 3rd millennium of the current era actually began.

Well, it was not a problem; there was no contest; the people (that is, everybody but me and a few fellow-pedants) who celebrated the arrival of three noughts, when 2000 came up, were toasting nothing, nought in triplicate, in reality. They had been accustomed to watching mile-ometers (and kilometer-ometers) and when 1999 changes to 2000 it's "jackpot!" and 2000 miles have actually been traversed.

However, with years on calendars it is different. The 10 years of a decade have not been fulfilled till year 11 starts, and year ten, the tenth year of the decade, has ended.

It is the same with birthdays. There is no year 0 (zero) in a person's life; the day of birth is 1/1/1, the first year of the first month of the first year. And so (without bringing in the date of birth of Jesus of Nazareth, which is not known, actually, not yet) the 20th century ended when the numbers 1/1/2001 came up, and the 21st Century and the 3rd Millennium began. (Incidentally, "20th Century Fox" then had a big problem with updating their title.)

Here are a few footnotes to the discussion. They could be brain-teazers

1 CE = ‘the first year of the current era’
1 BCE = the first year before the current era
but it is also the last year of the 1st Century BCE and of the 1st Millennium BCE
2 BCE = the second year before the CE
The 2nd century BCE begins in 100 BCE
The first day of 1 BCE is 1 January (1.1.1), not 31 December!
Only the years go backwards, not the dates within the years.

2001 CE is the first year of the 21st Century
and of the 3rd Millennium CE.
2001 BCE is the last year of the 21st Century
and of the 3rd Millennium BCE
2000 BCE is the first year of the 20th Century BCE.
The second year is 1999 BCE.

CE years:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 | >>>>>
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 | 21 >>>> 1999 2000 | 2001
BCE years:
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 | 21 <<<< 2000
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 | <<<<<<
Count by decades, also, to see the principle; centuries likewise.
BCE: the first year of the decade/century/millennium ends in 0 (zero)
CE: the last year of the decade/century/millennium ends in 0 (zero)

In 2007 I wrote another account of ancient dates, which says the same thing only different.

TRUMPETING

2011-11-17T02:32:00.000-08:00

I am speaking as a trumpeter who started as a bugler, but did once have a turn at playing what we called a trumpet-bugle (simply because it did not have valves, and you know that the valves add extra lengths of tubing when you press the pistons down singly or in combinations, turning it into an instrument that can produce all the notes between C G C E G, and above and below those basics).

Peter Daniels has given us succinctly the correct technical distinction:

"A bugle has a conical bore, a trumpet a cylindrical bore."
"There are keyed bugles, and valveless trumpets."

The point is: the bugle belongs to the horn family, not the trumpet family (trumpets and trombones).

I won't say that a person who gives the word "bore" in their definition without defining it (not in the Oxon lexicon, except with reference to guns and engines and calibre) is worthy of another usage of that word (or rather a homophone) which Oxford recognizes; but having had this answer given to me politely for fifty years, with the expectation that I know precisely what the difference is, I suppose it is about time I could distinguish cylindrical and conical bores (and it is not the shape of their hat which does it). (-;

I see the Oxford lexicon gives *bugle-horn as a synonym; and *clarion is another word, but having a narrow tube and a warlike shrill tone it must be that "trumpet-bugle" I mentioned (which is really a valveless trumpet).

What have we got in the Bible?

Daniel 3:5, at the court of King Nabu-kudurrru-us.ur (pronounced Caractacus, or Nebukadnessar),
Aramaic QARN 'horn' or 'cornet' (King James version)

Joshua 6:5-6, at the battle of Jericho, Hebrew QEREN 'horn' or trumpet' (KJV) together with SHOFAR, 'ram's horn)
It seems that here the words refer to the same object, the horn of a ram used like a conch shell or Siegfried's bovine (I presume) horn for getting attention.

H.aS.oS.eRa (passim): reed, tube, trumpet.
This sounds nicely onomatopoeic to me: KH introduces the breath; TS, TS the tonguing behind the teeth and the spittle that accompanies the breath (a good argument for TS as the ancient pronunciation, it occurs to me right now!); and the tongued or trilled R is part of the mix that goes into the mouthpiece and is amplified in the metal tubing.

Now, in brass bands and orchestras two similar instruments are the *cornet and the trumpet.
The cornet is squatter but they both have the same length of metal, wound around so that it is not disturbing the player in front of you (prodding his back or blasting right in his ear). The cornet is sweet-singing the trumpet is brassy brash.

And whether it is a conical horn or a cylindrical/tubular trumpet it has a bell (they all open out like a cornucopia).

So the ancient Israelite metal instruments were 'trumpets', and the others were animal 'horns'. The word 'cornet' does not apply, nor 'bugle', I would think.

Recently, after an early music concert I was allowed to hold a bent wooden (!) 'trumpet' (as used by Monteverdi and Gabrieli).

Still, someone could clarify conical and cylindrical for us. Does it mean that the bugle and the cornet and the French horn are widening their hole all the way to the bell, while the trumpet keeps the same width most of the distance?

Some time ago, Helen and I, and our grand-daughters Olivia and Julia, with their mother Laurel Colless of Virginia Tech, and their father Pekka Lintu the Finnish ambassador to Washington, marched round our house each with a percussion instrument, while I used a trumpet as a valve-trumpet to play the Grand March from Aida, but also playing bugle calls, which did not need any fingerwork, only tongue and lips and spit. Then they went back to D.C. for the Presidential Inauguration, and the Ball. Did you see them there? They have now moved to the Finnish embassy in Athens, to ask the Greeks why they can not live within their means as the Finns do.

fff >ppp

Brian Colless

RUGBY HEAVIN'

2011-10-23T19:30:00.000-07:00

In recent weeks, here in Aotearoa alias New Zealand (Mâori name Niu Tireni, as in New Tyranny) we have been invited to believe that we are in RUGBY HEAVEN, as that heading was affixed to a supplement published in the newspapers every day.
    We have always known that we live in Paradise, with the whole country being a scenic garden, though the forces of Hades sometimes cause the earth to HEAVE (a geological term for "a sideways displacement in a fault", but generally meaning "rise and fall rhythmically or spasmodically"). Such ground-shaking has made life Hell for the citizens of Christchurch (incidentally, or digressively, the churches of Christ have not been immune to damage there, and the centres of Catholicism and Protestantism have been equally laid low and waste). Cantabrians (denizens of the province Canterbury) were not able to take part in the Rugby World Cup tournament, because their most sacred edifice of all (their stadium in Christchurch) had been wrecked in the upHEAVals. However, their Rugby football team (the Canterbury Crusaders) had been winners all the way in the competitions.
    While I am in digression mode, but actually in the throes of getting to the point (who scored the most points in the World Cup series?) I will reminisce about my five years at Fort Street High School (Faber est quisque suae fortunae, Maker is each of his fortune, but since that seemed to refer to making money, it is translated as Everyone is the architect of his or her own destiny).
    My chosen winter sport for Wedensday{spellchecker, I am not going to alter that to your nonsensical orthography}) was softball (rounders), which eventually became the lunchtime game, after diminutive Headmaster Mearns reared up on his hindlegs and roared at the assembly: Every boy will play rugby, and learn to give a a knock and take a knock. This was an open admission that we are dealing with a violent recreation here, involving frequent re-creation of body parts, such as noses and knees. At Balmain primary school I had been coached in Rugby League by a famous player named Duckworth (right?), but this was Rugby Union, which only toffs engaged in. My most vivid memory is being in a match and seeing the ball on the ground, unguarded, and snatching it up and running with it, doing my hundred-yard sprint and scoring a try. (I once did it in 13 seconds at the athletics day, in the novice section, but then it was discovered that the finishing tape was 10 yards short of 100 yards; and some spoilsport is going to tell me now that I was off side when I scored.) The only other time I ran towards the try-line two burly chaps gently directed me over the sideline. (Where are you now Wilson? So many of my friends are not in the list of active alumni.)
    In my first year I scored almost 100% in the final examination in Latin (and I was in the 1B class not 1A). Our teacher required that our workbooks should contribute to our final mark, and I was downgraded for deficiency in neatness. In 1951, at the end my year in 3B, he said to me in the presence of my peers that he hoped I would not be in his fourth-year class. I turned up there (my home class was 4C), smirking in all humility, and earned Honours 1 for him at the Leaving Certificate (Matriculation). You may know that my dear friends Taylor and Willis and I kept in contact with him afterwards, and I often think of him, especially with regard to his love of music (Britten's opera Peter Grimes, for example, and Schumann's piano concerto). The Old Boys' Union prize for Latin came my way; I bought Knaurs Lexicon (in German) and it is autographed by Headmaster Shaw (14-12-54); I still keep it handy and use it as my basic encyclopedia.
     The moral ("lesson at the end of a fable") of that ramble is that I had a strong dislike of the year's work counting towards the final mark. The idea made me want to HEAVE (call for Herb or cry Wretch, in Oz-speak). At Sydney University you were expected to do all the assignments throughout the three trimesters, but they did not contribute to the final grade. By the way in my long vacations, I did a lot of HEAVING, of barrels of beer and bags of oysters, loading and unloading trains for the NSW railways. Though I began as a high-school teacher of languages, I eventually became a university teacher of Religious Studies (history of and phenomenology of and sociology of religions) at Massey University in Palmerston North in New Zealand. That institution manages to fit three separate semesters into one academic year! The students there had insisted that their labours in each course should be included in the final summation. I tend to agree, because I did much better in degrees where I had to write a thesis, which I could ponder over for a long time, not regurgitate in a three-hour exam. (I failed M.Th because it was solely by examination.)
    The climax is starting to HEAVE in sight (nautically and naughtily speaking). The New Zealand All Blacks (who really know how to HEAVE a haka war-cry) have triumphed. And NZers have LABOUR DAY to celebrate, while I put my thoughts on record.
If we scrutinize the whole gamut of the games, Aotearoa had beaten Australia even before they met in the semi-final. There was no need for all these quarter- and semi- and grand finals.
   Add up the scores and the points of the three medal-holders.
    NZ: 41 83 37 79 = 240; 20/20
    Oz : 32 6 67 68 = 173; 15/20
    France: 47 46 17 14 = 124; 11/20
If France had managed to score more than 7 against the surprisingly meagre 8 of the NZ All Blacks, they would have been the winners of the World Cup, and that would have been a HEAVING travesty of justice, a HEAVY blow of fate.
   Never mind! Niuzilderz have moved HEAVEN and earth to achieve this goal (a different kind of home goal, including a field goal against the Wallabies by our local boy Aaron Cruden before the Frogs pounced on him and wrecked his kicking leg) and now they can HEAVE to. They have capitalized on this HEAVEN-sent opportunity, and they are in seventh HEAVEN (Saint Paul only attained third heaven, 2 Corinthians 12:2-3).
    We NZ Collesses have the name Australia on our passports, and we still call Australia 'ome, but we know how to pick winners.
    HEAVE-HO!

GOLIATH RISETH

2011-05-31T04:23:00.000-07:00

Goliath of Gath lieth down and dieth,
but now riseth again

Lately (indeed, constantly) I have been spending a lot of time on attempting to decipher ancient Semitic inscriptions (Canaanite and Hebrew). Because I am known through my CRYPTCRACKER website, people send me pictures of their prized antiquities, hoping I will be able to read the writing on them. One example is a bronze cup (apparently from the Bronze Age, before 1200 BCE) with a Canaanite inscription, which I see as including the words "bronze cup"; it was found in Jamaica, and this would put the Phoenicians (= Canaanites) in America more than 2000 years before Columbus, and long before the Vikings. Two inscriptions from a silver mine at Kongsberg in Norway (Viking country!) are also possibly Canaanite. The Phoenicians eventually circumnavigated Africa around 600 BCE.

But I am supposed to be talking about Philistines, the people who came from the Aegean Sea and settled on the coast of Canaan, and this territory eventually became known as Palestine (named after them by the Romans).

Two inscribed pottery shards from archeological sites in Israel have been published in recent years, and various scholars have been trying to interpret the texts on them. It has occurred to me that both of them might refer to the giant Goliath, and this is not impossible, since one comes from the Philistine town Gath (the hometown of Goliath the Gittite) and the other from Khirbet Qeiyafa (apparently the place called Sha`arayim in the Bible), a fortress overlooking the valley of Elah, where David confronted Goliath.

One day, as I was leaving Steve's bulk foods barn on Albert Street in my little city, I met for the first time a man whose story I have been following for many years, namely Ahmed Zaoui (alias Ahmad Zawi). I gave him a Salaam greeting, and in the course of our friendly conversation I told him I was working on ancient documents mentioning Goliath. He has had a David versus Goliath experience in taking on the New Zealand security and immigration authorities (remember, David always wins); if he had been carrying a million dollars to invest in the country he might have been welcomed (truly), but he was put in prison; eventually he was committed to the care of Catholic Christians (and I remember that the Prophet Muhammad enjoyed the hospitality of monks on his caravan expeditions for his employer, his beloved wife Khadijah). Ahmed reminded me that Goliath, as Jâlût, is known in the Islamic tradition.

Goliath appears in the Qur'an (Surah 2:249-251). So I opened up my big edition of the Arabic Scripture, with translation and notes by `Abdullah Yusuf `Ali, and here is my abridged rendering of the passage (as I was typing this out, by chance two women were singing in Arabic on the radio, from WOMAD in Taranaki):

"When they (the Israelites) advanced to meet Jâlût and his forces ... they routed them, by the will of God; and Daud (David) slew Jâlût; and God gave him the kingship and wisdom."

My interpretation of the text on the ostracon from Khirbet Qeiyafa shows similarities with this:

(1) The cursing of the `Anak against the servant of God:
(2) The servant of God has judged the warrior; Yah has judged
(3) Goliath; David is the master [evermore?].
(4) I rise up and together we raise up the king;
(5) I raise up the people of my servant for his righteousness.

That is my drawing of it; photographs of the original can be viewed here.

Note carefully that there is quite a lot of guesswork in reading the faded ink, and deciding which letters are which; thus there are five examples of 'Aleph (Greek Alpha) with three different shapes or stances. Also, even if my reading of the Hebrew letters is correct, the words are not separated by spaces but run along breathlessly. Various interpretations are possible: the first word could be 'L "god" or "unto " or "not"; if it is 'LT it could mean "goddess" not "cursing" (my choice).

In December 2011, after studying this text for a couple of years, and wondering why the divine name YHWH was missing, I finally realized that the name of God was hiding in the top right corner. My drawing shows a simple cross (+ = T) but it has more strokes to it (it is a reversed E, the sign for the sound /h/, originally representing the head and arms of a person celebrating, and eventually becoming E in the Greek and Roman alphabets). So we have YH, as in Hallelu-Yah, "Celebrate Yah(weh)".

The Anaks (`Anaqim) were a 'tribe' of giants in ancient Canaan/Palestine; Joshua had largely exterminated them when the Israelites took over the Promised Land, but some survived in Ashdod, Gaza, and Gath (Joshua 11:21-22), and it has been assumed that Goliath of Gath was one of them.

Here we seem to have (according to my interpretation) a record of a message from God (an oracle) through an unnamed prophet.

The first line is the title of the piece, referring to the cursing of the `Anaq; Goliath did curse David, when they met (1 Samuel 17:43); and David was known as "my servant" who saved his people from the Philistines and their other enemies (2 Samuel 3:18). Line 2 states that this servant has "judged' someone (meaning that he has caused God's punishment to strike that person), and God himself (YH, in the top right corner) has also judged this Anak. Line 3 shows that this was Goliath (GLYT), and David (DWD) is the servant of God who has defeated him. God speaks in the first person in lines 4 and 5, promising to work together with his servant.

The king who is mentioned but not named would be Saul, who was afraid to go out and face Goliath, but here he is raised up and his morale is restored, together with the army of Israel, who pursued the Philistines back to Gath (1 Samuel 17:50-58). Saul became envious of the popularity that David acquired, and made attempts on his life. Psalm 18 is attributed to David, "the servant of the Lord", and said to have been composed at the time "when the Lord delivered him from all his enemies and from Saul".

THIS IS THE ONLY MENTION OF DAVID FROM HIS OWN TIME, OUTSIDE THE BIBLE, AND SO IT IS AN IMPORTANT DISCOVERY, ESTABLISHING HIS EXISTENCE, AND ALSO CONFIRMING THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE STORY ABOUT DAVID AND GOLIATH.

The Gath ostracon seems to record a lament for the fallen hero of the Philistines (called GLWT in their dialect of Canaanite, apparently):

"Woe, GLWT; and you have perished.
'YGLWT / WSPT

Note this curious detail: the head of Goliath is separated from his body; the G (a boomerang) stands above the L ('supralinear'), not preceding it on the line of script, keeping his head apart from his body, so that they might not be reunited, with the headbone connected to the neckbone, and the giant rearing up on his hindlegs again. Just a thought.

However, the archaeologists who discovered the document reject the W and the Y as not part of the inscription; they are not actually 'inscribed'; they are accidental marks (made by plant roots, or the excavater's tools) not intentional letters; and the proposed SP is more likely to be another L, and not to be broken up into two parts.

The inscription thus seems to give two words or names (reading from right to left):
'ALWT / WLT
The first of these could be, nevertheless, an original form of the name which came out in Hebrew as Goliath. The second might be the name of his father.

For my fuller account of the scholarship that has been applied to these documents, go to:

http://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/ Two Goliath Ostraca, and Qeiyafa Ostracon

And most recently and thoroughly:

https://sites.google.com/site/collesseum/qeiyafa-ostracon-1

See Michelangelo's painting of David beheading Goliath, in the Sistine Chapel.

Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784) an African American poet (the first to be published) composed a heroic poem entitled Goliath of Gath.

In Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess, the spiv known as Sportin' Life exclaims in a parody of the Afro-American 'spiritual' song:
De t'ings dat yo' li'ble to read in de Bible, it ain't necessarily so. Li'l David was small, but oh my! he fought big Goliath who lay down an' dieth....

Then there was the irreverent NZ camp song of the 1950s:
"Goliath of Garth with his helmet of brass (braath)...
and all Israel shouted: Goliath is dead."

U3A KANGGA FEST

2010-06-16T04:11:00.000-07:00

On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Manawatu University of the Third Age

An old Australian member of the University of the Third Age was
lying (through his teeth)
dying (the ground red with blood from his haemorrhaging haemorrhoids; he loved big words and technical terms)
worrying about the future for his pet kangaroo named TED;
he gathered all his fellow-students around him and affirmed:
We all know that the purpose of our venerable institution is learning;
it is about discipline and edification, not pleasure and entertainment;
and so I have an educational task for you all; it will involve allocation of much of your time and energy to studying the habits of an exotic marsupial, a creature ruled by its natural instincts; all animals make messes, so be ready for the clean-up afterwards, and try not to be embarrassed by its crude behaviour, as this is Australia, where crudity and rudity reign. And with regard to the presentation of your results, I am not offended by paronomasia and rhymistics (punning does not merit punishment, and sublime rhyme, be it simple or complex rhyme, black or white rime, deserves better than a frosty reception).

FREDA LARSEN
You get mentioned first, but only in PASSIN’, Mrs LARSEN,
but you always were a model student and a LEADER, FREDA;
unfortunately Ted is often guilty of LARCENy,
but you can handle him like a stern Anglican PARSON;
put the fear of God into him and make him quake,
you can FREE DA beast of all his hangups and make him a Quaker,
and write a thesis on the phenomenology of kangaroo religion.
And you must have it bound, as in: Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport ....

EDNA DOWNEY
Well now, you would not call TED A TOWNY, EDNA DOWNEY,
he wants to be in a natural native bush setting;
so when the sun goes DOWN HE would like to go to your pit park,
if you can get him past the Rottweiler guard HOUND EEEEE;
if you put TED IN A BED IN THE GROUND HE would be glad;
GET DOWN on one KNEE (on two, you might not get up again)
and tuck him in, so he learns respect for the U3A FOUNDER,
because he is all leaps and bounds, a regular BOUNDER;
give him a play-reading: tales of Winnie the Pooh, Kangga, and Roo;
and for a lullaby, some of your Hell’s bells,
to make him keep his HEAD IN A DOWN ON KNEE position all night.
Nevertheless, you might need to: Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport ....

ROLF PANNY
Ted needs someone to be his NANNY, Herr PANNY,
to empty his bed PAN EEEEE, for good SANItation, Mister PANNY.
No! You are clearly over-qualified for that position.
However, it really is un-CANNY, Monsieur PANNY,
that you can speak three languages at once,
they just roll on your tongue and ROLL OFF, ROLF,
and you philosophize in every one of them;
but philosophy is not for a kangaroo,
though perhaps suitable for a cunning dingo or a wiley WOLF, ROLF;
still, a KANGGA might take to KAFKA,
to help him hop over the Great WALL OF China, ROLF.
So that’s why it would be best to: Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport ....

JOHN GARNER
John, you could GARNER in some bonza tucker for Ted,
there’s nothing he likes more than a beaut BANANA, JOHN GARNER;
what will you do when he wants to skip to the loo,
when he gets his mind set on hopping to the JOHN, JOHN?
Turn a blind eye? Being tied up having to mind a roo can be a bind;
I dunno about this book-binding stuff suiting kangaroo paws;
but give him a big book to squat ON, JOHN,
like the dog that sits on the tucker box, five miles fro GANAdagai.
At bedtime you could tell him some of your tall tales,
because you have always been a très BON YARNER, JOHN GARNER.
And for safety’s sake: Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport ....

CHRIS PHILLIPS
Still needing someone to help with his toileting, President PHILLIPS,
so perhaps you could give him some FILLIPS, incentives,
to be hygienic, CHRIS, when he wants to ... FILL UP Some holes.
He is itching to get his paws on your computer keyboard,
and show you his pictures on the screen; but be careful,
for a reward he likes to KISS FULL LIPS, CHRIS PHILLIPS.
So if you want to give that a MISS, CHRIS, you had better:
Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport ....

DAPHNE KYNE
You could invite him to HAVE TEA or DINE, DAPHNE KYNE,
(So KIND of you to come)
but not like the statue in Mozart’s Don GioVANNI, DAPHNE,
who wreaked havoc in the power LINE, and raised Hell;
to keep him occupied you could play him an opera, or NINE
(he likes Wagner’s one about the gold of the RHINE)
and revel in ecstasy till the cows, the erstwhile KINE, come home.
But when the time arrives: Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport ....

ALEC RAINBOW
I have heard you say you have plenty of empty hours to spare,
in your retirement, so caring for a kangaroo is just the thing for you;
but you need to KNOW, Alec RainBOW, Ted is a smart ALEC, too;
sometimes I wish I could send him somewhere over the RAINBOW,
though not to the land of Oz, coz he’s there already;
but if you could fly him through time to Dr Who,
you could scare him into submission with a DALEK or two.
By the way, if you are an expert on the RAINBOW,
maybe you know how to make the RAIN GO away.
In any case, be on guard: Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport ....

DAPHNE STEELE
Your grandchildren would like him, GRANNY DAPHNE;
actually this job is a bit of a STEAL, though sometimes he gets DAFFY
and it requires nerves of STEEL, to REEL him in;
he has been known to STEAL grub, for his next MEAL,
but he draws the line at witchety grub;
so, keep the walking stick handy, Daphne, and give him a quick flick
to bring him to HEEL, Mrs STEELE.
Sometimes he needs to be restrained: Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport ....

DIANNE AND LARRY HAIST
Larry Haist, you gave us our logo of three or more people at a table,
and whatever you are having, Ted will be in a HURRY and in HASTE
to join in and have a TASTE, leaving no WASTE.
You know that good-looking sheila you were glad to MARRY, LARRY,
well Ted is DYIN’ to get his arms round her in a wed-lock, too,
he wants to carry her around his WAIST;
but he’s the kind that MARRY and don’t TARRY;
no problem, though, because he is easily distracted,
with anything you can BUY AN’ CARRY, DI AN’ LARRY,
from a Chinese department store or takeaway food shop.
Pourtant, Cependant, Néanmoins, you might need to take out a restraining order against him and thus: Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport

MARGARET CANNON
It’s no SECRET, MARGARET,Ted needs your loving psychiatric care, but not too loving, as he’s likely to get amorous and voluptuous,
like the randy kangaroo in the news, accosting a woman with a view to contracting a temporary marriage; they put a BAN ON him.
Don’t let yourself be Ted’s TARGET, MARGARET,
he’ll be at you like a shot out of a gun, or a CANNON,
hopping into your CAR TA GET a ride, MARGARET;
and AFTER IT, MARGARET, he’ll want to have a CIGARETTE;
phew! it’s getting hot and steamy, you’ll need to turn the FAN ON.
And fasten his seatbelt securely : Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport ....

BRYAN IBELL
Brother Bryan Ibell, you are diVINEly reLIABLE, and you are aware
that the things that you’re LIABLE to read in the BIBLE
are not necessarily so, but open to discussion, everyone having a say;
accordingly, I trust there will be no grounds for a LIBEL suit here;
I have to tell you, without a word of LYIN’, BRIAN,
this lowdown marsupial of mine is LIABLE to follow his base instincts
(E flat bass, like you and me) and engage in current affairs,
involving seminal issues with infantile outcomes (joeys in the pouch);
don’t think about FRYIN’ his bacon, BRYAN (but it’s cholesterol-free)
just confront him EYEBALL to EYEBALL, and keep on TYIN’ him;
tether him to HIGH HELL, or make him wear a HIGH BELL.
The best way to keep track of him is: Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport ....

EUGENIE WALDTEUFEL
You wood-devil (Wald-Teufel), from the wild dark woods,
I’ve seen you lurking around the redwood forest on the hill;
YOU ‘wicked’ GENIE (not one that comes out of a bottle),
in nature’s realm you could teach him to do what comes naturally, waltzing, to the music of WALDTEUFEL, not as in ‘Waltzing Matilda’ (carrying a swag, also ‘humping Matilda’, and ‘being on the wallaby’); and also, naturally, drawing; he could hold a pencil in his little paw,
but if he starts to paw you with his TEENY WEENY claws, Eugenie,
it will definitely be time for a pause : Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport ....

FRED SYMES
Mate, you have dallied so long in Australian CLIMES,
and been such a good sport in the land of the mozzie,
that Ted might even accept you as a dinkum Ozzie,
and it will be just like old GLAD TIMES, Fred Symes;
now there’s a philosophcal question: TIME.
with that you could have the TIME of your life, and you did.
Creative writing would not be for Ted, Fred
(after all, how many RHYMES can you find for SYMES?);
Combative fighting is more his style, boxing with the gloves on;
but when into the ring with you he CLIMBS,
he could knock you DEAD, FRED SYMES;
so watch miy wallaby’s feet, as Rolf Harris SAID, FRED,
and for the very last TIME: Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport ....

MARGARET HAZELTON
Ted would not wish to FORGET, MARGARET, to say to you:
This was one of those great DAYS : WELL DONE;
and he wants you to write his biography;
that will be fine, provided you can Tie miy kangaroo down, Sport ....

SPRING BULL FALL

2010-04-11T17:53:00.000-07:00

On 2/04/2010, at 5:17 AM (though it was still the 1st day of April in the US of A) James Spinti wrote:

Spring is finally here, and the many avid gardeners among us are turning over a new leaf - quite literally, in the case of our compost piles. With that in mind, we bring you four new products from partner Winged Bull Press on the themes of "green" and "compost." Happy digging!

Find ... all the latest Winged Bull Press titles here:
https://www.eisenbrauns.com/ECOM/_2WR17OVB9.HTM

Regarding the Winged Bull Press, it brought to mind a pseudo-documentary that our celebrated Peter Jackson made, named FORGOTTEN SILVER, about an early film-maker in NZ; a Biblical epic (and moving pictures of the NZ aviator who actually got off the ground before the Wright brothers) was found in a chest with a magnificent bull pictured on its lid; it was a hoax that fooled us all; but in the subsequent public analysis nobody but myself, it seems, picked up his bull-reference. So I was ready for this winged bull of James Spinti.

Movie-critic Leonard Maltin was included as an authenticating witness; and when it was later shown on Australian television, I happened to be there; advertisements for its coming had NZ prime minister David Lange (he was always a good joker) urging people not to watch it! At that time my son Michael and I went to an Australian film commission building (or whatever) in Canberra, and we discovered that the name of an Australian prominently on show was the same as the name PJ has chosen for his fictional NZ film-maker. Not many people know that. Somebody might like to tell Peter that his secret is out.

The 1st of April was the date on which Helen and I had our first conversation and our first misunderstanding, at a Methodist youth camp, in 1956.

This year, on the 2nd of April, Good Friday, I did a church crawl (analogous to a pub crawl, which I have never done) involving 9 church services (9.30 -5.00); I sang Isaac Wattsisname's "When I survey the wondrous cross" four times, and at the first one (at Wesley Broadway ... that leads to destruction) I declaimed my own translation of The Servant Song (Isaiah/ Yesha`yahu 52-53) in which I boldly changed 'They made his grave with the wicked and a rich man in his death' (which some Xns take as meaning Joseph of Arimathea; but the parallelism seems wrong, unless we allow that the wealthy are villains, and there have been plenty of them robbing me of my savings in recent years) to "He was given a grave with the wicked, a burial place with evil-doers" (turning `$yr into `sy r`).

I gave my black compost boxes an autumn (or 'fall') shake-up, and scattered the results on the garden, on Saturday 9th of April.

There was a farmer who was showing off his bumper crops to some visitors, and repeatedly attributing his success to 'manure'. One sensitive soul asked his wife if she could persuade him to use the term 'fertilizer' instead. Her retort was: It has taken me 30 years to get him to say 'manure'.

Brian Colless

NAZARETH

2009-12-21T15:33:00.000-08:00

Just in time for Christmas, the Israel Antiquities Authority has announced that a house from the time of Jesus of Nazareth has been uncovered on the site of the ancient Jewish village of Nazareth. This is the first of its kind (hitherto, denialists have had a merry time with the lack of archaeological evidence from this area and era). It was discovered right next to the Church of the Annunciation (where Gabriel told young Mary a secret). That church was erected in 1969, on the site of a Crusader church, and an even earlier Byzantine building of the 4th century CE; all were supposed to mark the home in which Mary/ Maryam lived. There is a cave underneath the church, which has traditionally been identified as the dwelling of Joseph and Mary, and Jesus (till he moved to his mission-base in Capernaum, in the home of Peter).

It has been estimated that the village at that time would have had about fifty people in it. But if you are wondering what Joseph and Jesus did for a living, I would suggest that there was plenty of building work available for carpenters in the nearby city of Sepphoris.

So, all that nihilistic discussion we hear about no inhabitants in Nazareth at that time has been nullified. (That makes 3 negatives, so they produce a positive result, right?)

The sceptics will simply dismiss it (60 CE not 20 CE); the simple will septicly break out in pious stigmata, rejoicing because this house is right next to the Church of the Annunciation, and the original Christmas Mother might have lived there.

When I did the grand tour of the Holy Family's movements (Bethlehem, Cairo, Egyptian Desert, Nazareth) I was taken to a cave in each case, so I started to think they were troglodytes.

Still, (as in Stille Nacht) it all adds up to a verily verily merry Mary Christmas to all.

http://www.antiquities.org.il/about_eng.asp?Modul_id=14

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1136599.html?

GENESIS

2009-09-23T16:30:00.000-07:00

CREATION

Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the universe.

You fashion light and you create darkness,

you make peace and create all things.

You mercifully give light to the earth and to those who dwell on it,

and in your goodness you continually renew the creation day by day.

How manifold are your works, O Lord,

in wisdom you have made them all . . . .

Cause a new light to shine on Sion;

may we all be worthy to behold its radiance soon .

Blessed are you, O Lord, Creator of the heavenly luminaries.

Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the universe.

Your word brings on the evening twilight,

your wisdom opens the gates of heaven; (a new day)

your foresight ordains the passing of time

and the succession of seasons.

You arrange the stars in their courses in the sky according to your will.

You create day and you create night,

rolling the light away before the darkness

and the darkness before the light. . . .

May the ever-living and eternal God reign over us for ever and ever.

With deep love you have loved us, O Lord our God,
with great and overflowing compassion you have taken pity on us.

You taught our forefathers the laws of life,

and they trusted in you, our Father, our King.

For their sake be gracious to us also, and teach us.

Our Father, merciful and compassionate Father, have mercy on us. . . .

Enlighten our eyes in your Torah,

open our hearts to your commandments. . . .

Blessed are you, O Lord, in your love you have chosen your people Israel.

These are selections from Jewish daily prayers, namely the Shema‘ and its Benedictions:

(1) first morning benediction, (2) first evening benediction, (3) second morning benediction.

The third of these shows that Jews (as well as Christians) address God as "Our Father", and rejoice in the love of God. Notice the epithets merciful and compassionate, also applied to Allah in Islam. Here we see two aspects of the Fatherhood of God: Father (progenitor) and Creator (generater of life); this divine role of creation (genesis) is described. in Genesis, which is the first book in the Jewish Bible, where it is entitled Bereshith ("In the beginning").

THE COSMOGONY OF JERUSALEM

Genesis 1-3

THE CREATION OF THE WORLD

1:1 In the beginning God created heaven and earth.

1:2 The earth was then barren and bare1, with darkness over the face of the deep, and the spirit of God2 moving over the surface of the waters.

1 tohu wa bohu, in utter chaos 2 or: a mighty wind

1:3 Then God said: Let there be light. And light came into being.

1:4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.

1:5 God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. So evening came and morning came, the first day.

1:6 God now said: Let there be a vault in between the waters, and let it separate water from water.

1:7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above the vault. That is what happened.

1:8 God called the vault heaven. So evening came and morning came, a second day.

1:9 God then said: Let the waters under heaven be gathered into one place and let the dry ground appear. And that is what happened.

1:10 God called the dry ground earth, and the gathered waters he called seas. And God saw that it was good.

1:11 God also said: Let the earth produce green growth, with plants bearing seed; and also on the earth, fruit trees bearing fruit with their own kind of seed in it. And that is what happened.

1:12 The earth brought forth green growth, with plants bearing their own kind of seed, and trees bearing fruit with their own kind of seed in it. And God saw that it was good.

1:13 So evening came and morning came, a third day.

1:14 Next God said: Let there be lights in the vault of heaven to separate the day from the night, and let them be signs for set times and for days and years.

1:15 Let them be luminaries in the vault of heaven to shine upon the earth. And that is what happened.

1:16 God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night, and also the stars.

1:17 God put these in the vault of heaven to shine upon the earth.

1:18 They were also to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.

1:19 So evening came and morning came, a fourth day.

1:20 Then God said: Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let winged creatures fly above the earth across the vault of heaven.

1:21 So God created great sea monsters and every kind of living creature that moves and swarms in the waters, and every kind of flying creature with wings. And God saw that it was good.

1:22 God blessed them, saying: Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas; and let the winged creatures multiply on the earth.

1:23 So evening came and morning came, a fifth day.

1:24 God now said: Let the earth bring forth every kind of living creature, cattle and reptiles and beasts of the earth. And that is what happened.

1:25 God made all the different kinds of beasts of the earth, of cattle, and of reptiles that crawl on the ground. And God saw that it was good.

1:26 God then said: Let us make humankind (adam) in our own image and likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the flying creatures of the sky, and over the cattle and over all (the beasts of) the earth, and over all the reptiles that crawl upon the earth.

1:27 So God created humankind in his own image; in the image of God he created humankind; male and female he created them.

1:28 So God blessed them, and said to them: Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea, and over the flying creatures of the sky, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.

1:29 God also said: I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the whole face of the earth, and every tree with seed-bearing fruit; they shall be food for you.

1:30 To all the beasts of the earth, to all the flying creatures of the sky, to all the living things moving upon the earth, I have given all the green plants for food. And that is what happened.

1:31 God then looked at all that he had made and saw that it was very good. Evening came and morning came, a sixth day.

2:1 Thus heaven and earth and their whole host were completed.

2:2 On the sixth day3 God had completed all the work he had been doing, and on the seventh day he rested from all his work.

2:3 So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on that day God rested from all the work of creation that he had done.

2:4 Such was the genesis of heaven and earth ...

NOTES

The first chapter of The Bible describes the origins of the world in terms of a divine week of work at the beginning of time. Throughout this account God the Creator is called Elohim, (literally ‘gods’ in Hebrew; this is to be understood as a royal plural, or plural of majesty). Creation is accomplished simply by divine decree: it is the Word of God which creates (God said: Let there be ...).

The account of creation is rounded off in 2:1-4. The origin of the seventh day as a day of rest, the Sabbath, is there traced to God’s cessation of work after his six days of activity (as in ‘the ten commandments’, Exodus 20:11, though not in Deuteronomy 5:15, as a reminder that they had been slaves in Egypt with not many holidays).

When God says ‘Let us make’ (1:26) is he talking to himself, to his heavenly host of angels, or, as some Christians would take it, to the other two members of the Trinity (namely the Word, 1:3, and the Spirit, 1:2)? Incidentally, ‘the spirit of elohim’ (in 1:2) might simply be ‘an almighty wind’ or ‘divine breath’. Another agent of creation was Wisdom (Proverbs 8:22-31). Note that in Hebrew ‘Spirit’ and ‘Wisdom’ are of feminine gender.

It is often claimed that Genesis Chapter 1 is a demythologized version of the Babylonian myth of creation (Enuma elish). Certainly, the Hebrew word for 'the deep' (1.2) is tehom, cognate with the name Ti'amat, applied to the dragon-like goddess of the ocean in the Babylonian story, who is killed by the young god Marduk. The Bible does have allusions to battles between Yahweh and sea-monsters, though these are to be compared with the struggle between Ba‘al and Yam in Canaanite mythology, but Ba'al is not the creator of the world.

Are there any echoes from Egyptian mythology? Where do we see a battle between a god and a sea-monster, together with a characterization of humans as images of God, issuing from his body? (Instruction for Merikare) That humans (adam, humankind) were created in the divine image (1:26-27), male and female, suggests an androgynous image of Deity, like Hapy, the god of the Nile; but in any case it shows that both sexes have equal dignity before God (1:27; 5:1-3). The idea that the dry ground emerged from the universal water has an Egyptian parallel in the primeval hill. Creation by the word of God, divine decree, has a counterpart in the theology of Memphis, where the 'heart' (mind) of Ptah conceives and his 'tongue' (speech, word, command) creates, brings into existence, without the use of hands. In Genesis 2:7, Yahweh fashions a human, like Khnum the potter god.

This ancient picture of creation bears a marked resemblance to the modern scientific view of the genesis of life on planet Earth. But if ‘day’ is taken literally, the two accounts will be completely at variance. (And dinosaurs seem to be missing). Perhaps the writer was simply directing the readers’ gaze to the world around them and inviting them to appreciate that God was the maker of it all, and that when it was first created it was perfect and good (1:4, 12, 18, 21, 31). It was also orderly, with all the species separated (1:21, 24, 25, where ‘every kind of’ is often interpreted as meaning that they will go on to reproduce ‘after their own kind’, as the plants and trees do in 1:12). Humans and animals alike were vegetarian in the beginning (1:29-30; contrast 2:9, 16; 3:18; 4:3; 9:3; Leviticus 11). How sea creatures were nourished is not stated here, but the principle of ‘big fish eat little fish’ was probably meant to be excluded in this paradisical view of the world in its pristine purity.

THE CREATION OF HUMANKIND

2:4 On the day that YHWH God made earth and heaven,

2:5 there was then no plant of the field in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up, for YHWH God had sent no rain upon the earth, and there was no human to till the ground.

2:6 A stream (or mist) was coming up out of the earth and watering the entire surface of the ground.

2:7 Then YHWH God formed a human (adam) from the dust of the ground (adamah), and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils. Thus the human became a living being*.. *nephesh, 'soul'

2:8 Next YHWH God planted a garden in ‘Eden, over in the east, and there he placed the human that he had fashioned.

2:9 And out of the ground YHWH God brought forth every tree that is pleasant to look at and good to eat, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden, and also the tree of knowledge of good and evil . . . .

2:15 YHWH God took the human and settled him in the garden of Eden to till it and tend it.

2:16 YHWH God directed the human thus: You may eat freely from every tree in the garden.

2:17 But you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for on the day that you eat from it you shall certainly die.

2:18 Then YHWH God said: It is not good for the human to be alone; I will provide him with a suitable partner*. *or: a counterpart helper

2:19 So out of the ground YHWH God formed every animal of the field and every flying creature of the sky; he brought them to the human to see what he would call them, and whatever the human called each living creature, that was its name.

2:20 The human gave names to all the cattle, to the flying creatures of the sky and to all the animals of the field; but for the human himself no suitable partner was found.

2:21 And so YHWH God caused a deep sleep to fall over the human, and while he slept God took one of his ribs * and closed the flesh over the place. *or: sides

2:22 And YHWH God turned this rib, taken from the human, into a woman; and he brought her to the human.

2:23 Whereupon the human (ha-adam) declared: This time it is someone of my own bone and flesh; she shall be called a woman (ishshah) because she was taken from a man (ish).

2:24 Hence a man (ish) leaves his father and mother and unites with his wife (ishshah), and they both become one flesh.

2:25 Now, the human and his wife were both naked (‘arom) but not ashamed.

3:1 The serpent was the most cunning (‘arum) of all the wild animals that YHWH God had made. He said to the woman: So God has told you both that you must not eat from any tree in the garden?

3:2 The woman replied to the serpent: No, we may eat from any tree in the garden.

3:3 But God has told us that we must not eat fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden, nor even touch it, or else we will die.

3:4 But the serpent said to the woman: You will not really die.

3:5 God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God*, knowing good and evil. *or: gods

3:6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for eating and pleasing to the eye and desirable to contemplate*, she took some of the fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband3, and he ate it with her.

3.:7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked (‘erom); so they stitched fig leaves together and made loin-coverings for themselves.

3:8 When the man (ha-'adam) and his wife heard the sound of YHWH God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, they hid themselves from YHWH God among the trees of the garden.

3:9 But YHWH God called out to the human and said to him: Where are you?

3:10 He answered: I heard you walking in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and so I hid myself.

3:11 He replied: Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from he tree I ordered you not to eat from?

3:12 The human said: It was the woman you gave me as my companion; she gave me some of the fruit of the tree and I ate it.

3:13 Then YHWH God asked the woman: What is this that you have done?

The woman replied: The serpent tricked me and I ate.

3:14 So YHWH God said to the serpent: Because you have done this you are accursed above all cattle and above all wild animals.

On your belly you shall crawl, and dust you shall eat, all the days of your life.

3:15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring*. *seed

They will strike you on the head, and you will strike them on the heel.

3:16 To the woman he said: I will make your labour pains very severe; you shall suffer pain when you bring forth children.

Yet you will have a desire for your husband, and he will rule over you.

3:17 And to the human (or: Adam) he said: Because you have listened to your wife’s voice, and have eaten from the tree that I ordered you not to eat from, the ground shall be cursed on your account.

You shall suffer pain when you eat from it, all the days of your life.

3:18 It will grow thorns and thistles for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field.

3:19 In the sweat of your brow you will eat bread, until you return to the ground from which you were taken; for you are dust and to dust you shall return.

3:20 The human called his wife by the name Hawwah (Life), because she was the mother of all who live.

3:21 And YHWH God made garments of skin for the human (or Adam) and his wife, and he clothed them.

3:22 Then YHWH God said: The human has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. If he also reaches out his hand and takes fruit from the tree of life and eats it, he will live for ever.

3:23 So YHWH God drove him out of the garden of ‘Eden, to till the ground from which he had been taken.

3:24 He cast the human out, and to the east of the garden of ‘Eden he stationed kerubim3 and a blazing sword whirling around, to guard the way to the tree of life.

NOTES

In Genesis 2 we find a reiteration of God’s creation of the world. The focus here is on individuals rather than on species. And God’s personal name ‘Yahweh’ is used. The narrator calls God ‘YHWH Elohim’ (which English versions usually render as ‘the LORD God’, following the Jewish practice of refraining from pronouncing the sacred name ‘YHWH’). This personalising procedure continues in Genesis 3, though earthly creatures there refer to God simply as ‘God’ (Elohim) rather than ‘YHWH God’. And the human characters, namely the man and the woman do not receive personal names till late in the piece.

‘The woman’ is eventually given the name Hawwah by ‘the human’ (3.20), because she is ‘the mother of all living’. The name Hawwah is difficult to explain: commentators ancient and modern have noticed its similarity to the Aramaic word for ‘serpent’ (she too acted as a temptress); but the best view is probably that it means what the added explanation says in (3:20, perhaps ‘female giving birth and bringing to life’, or something like that, as also implied in the curse, 3:16). The English form ‘Eve’ comes through Latin ‘Eva’ as a transcription of Hawwah. The ancient Greek version has ‘Eua’ in 4:1, but chooses to translate the name here (3:20) as ‘Zoe’, (‘Life’), a name also found in English usage. ‘The man’, ha-’adam, is properly ‘the human’, a creature assembled from components taken out of the ground (Hebrew ’adamah; the root ’dm means ‘be red’). The picture here is of a potter-sculptor moulding brownish-red terracotta clay (‘dust’) and imparting the breath of life to his creation (2:7). But ‘the human’ is not named Adam (‘Human’ or ‘Man’) until 4:1 and 5:1-3. Even in the latter case there is an ambivalence: ‘God created them male and female ... and called their name Adam ... When Adam had lived 130 years he procreated a son in his own image and likeness and called his name Seth’. Such apparent confusion leads modern scholars to assume that two or three different documents have been combined in Genesis by a final editor.

It is thus assumed that the two accounts of creation in Genesis 1 and 2 are from different sources. For one thing they seem to have creation in opposite chronological order: in the first, ‘humankind’ is the last creation of the word of ‘Elohim’; in the second, ‘the human’ is the first living creature put on the earth by the hand of ‘YHWH Elohim’ (2:7-8). The two accounts could be harmonized by accepting the order of the first, and interpreting the second in accord with it. Generally speaking, this would mean using pluperfect tenses at the critical points (2:19, for example, ‘YHWH God had formed every animal of the field ... and now he brought them to the man’). It has to be admitted however, that this procedure is very forced, since the Hebrew verbs are really describing consecutive actions, just as they do throughout the first chapter. The first account describes creation in six days; the second has everything created in one day (the evening of that day comes in 3:8). It might be better to ignore chronology in both accounts and see them as set in mythical time beyond history, or in divine eternity. They would thus be parables to illustrate the place of humankind in God’s world. In both cases humans are at the apex of creation, and they have the God-given task of tending the earth. The second account is more anthropomorphic than the first, in that God appears to possess hands with which to create, (2:7) and feet on which to walk (3:8). Nevertheless, if the idea of ‘image and likeness’ (Adam as the image of God in 1:27, ‘Seth’ as the image of Adam in 5:3) were taken literally and logically (as by Mormon theologians) then God would be the possessor of a body. (In this connection note that there is no Hebrew term for ‘body’ in the Bible; the word ‘flesh’ is used where necessary, but not with reference to God.)

The origins of various aspects of the human condition are presented in Genesis 3: toil and travail in work, labour in childbirth, sexual attraction, sense of shame over nakedness and need to wear clothing, antipathy between humans and snakes (and a reason for snakes not having legs whereas other animals do). The concept of sin (which means breaking one’s covenant with God through disobedience to God’s commands) is introduced in a story which is mythical or allegorical rather than historical. A doctrine of ‘original sin’ (inborn depravity, innate propensity towards sinning) does not have to be extracted from this, though many Christian theologians have done so. It is also inappropriate to characterise ‘womankind’ as the cause of all human troubles on the basis of this story. Furthermore, the snake is not identified as Satan, the adversary of humans (Job 1-2; 1 Chronicles 21:1; Zechariah 3:1), until Revelation 12:9 in the New Testament.

However, fundamentalist Jewish and Christian exegesis (scriptural exposition) will take most details of these chapters literally (including six days for creation, the first woman created from one of the man’s ribs [or: sides], a talking serpent, and a paradise garden somewhere on the earth guarded by angelic creatures with a fiery sword). But a new sophisticated interpretation of the story has it describing the socio-political situation in the kingdom of David (10th century BCE): the peasants were rebelling against the nobility.

Incidentally, a kerub (plural: kerubim) is not a winged infant angel (the cherubs or cherubim of European art) but a winged sphinx (an animal, usually a lion, with a human head).

Translations from Hebrew are my own.

GREENING

2009-07-27T17:55:00.000-07:00

Why do we need a green revolution?
Talking with Tom Friedman: by Laurel Colless

Virginia Issues & Answers | Summer 2009 (21 - 25)
Tom Friedman, a New York Times columnist and author of the new bestseller, Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution—And How it Can Renew America, tells Laurel Colless of Virginia Tech, National Capital Region, why America needs a Green Revolution and how it will renew this country.

Some think Tom Friedman is out on a limb with his new Code Green strategy for fixing the world; others think he is completely out of his tree. With his new book’s call to action, Friedman lays out a strategy for America’s next big thing—a green revolution.

“It will be like no revolution the world has seen. It will be the biggest innovation project in American history. It will be hard, not easy, and it will change everything from what you put in your car to what you see in your electric bill.”

Speaking at his office in Washington, D.C., the three-time Pulitzer prize-winner asserts that America is ready for this and that, if it is a question of resources, then “we’ll just have to find them.” “Energy technology,” says Friedman “is the next great global industry. The country that owns it will have security and global respect. That country has to be the United States of America. There’s nothing bigger than energy technology.”

The top five most pressing challenges on Friedman’s list are [1] energy and natural resources supply and demand, [2] climate change, [3] petro-dictatorships,[4] energy poverty, and [5] biodiversity loss. “But what’s cool about this list is that all the problems have the same solution: abundant, cheap, clean, and reliable energy technology,” says Friedman.

It is late afternoon, and we are chewing on chocolate-covered malts, a gift from one of Friedman’s many disciples. He has had back-to-back appointments all day. Leaning back in his chair, he ponders the sobering question of how much time the planet might still afford us to
move forward with his plan. For Friedman, who has been following greenhouse gas emission levels for some time, the current projections make grim reading and he concedes, “If we look at the climate challenges and the numbers we have in front of us, it would be easy to say, ‘We’re cooked, we’re fried—let’s party.’ But I’m never going to give up,” he says, “because I have kids.”

In line with the positive call-to-action feel of his latest book, which propels his vivid and often humorous prose style, Friedman is determined to keep focused and is far from giving up. “To give up would be giving up on the world your kids will live in, and I don’t think that’s responsible,” he says. “So no, I don’t think in those terms. I am focused on the here and now.” The “here and now” of today’s conversation might loosely be defined around one central issue: U.S. federal- level legislation, which would denote a price signal on carbon and provide something for America to put on the global table in Copenhagen in December.

How hard can it be?
Clearly Friedman is passionate about his subject, but despite the hyperbole and vaulting ambition of his ideas, he is also unwaveringly pragmatic when discussing them. On the daunting task of pushing through the country’s first federal climate bill, Friedman acknowledges that “change is hard” but adds that “necessity is the mother of invention.’ “You know it’s one of the oldest sayings we have,” says Friedman. “When the government creates a necessity, for example, that says by 2025 we will have 25 percent renewables, you will be amazed what people will invent.” He pauses. “But before that happens you will be amazed at how much and how long people will resist change.”

Friedman cites precedents at home and abroad (in Texas with wind and Germany with solar) where renewable energy portfolios have been imposed and ingenuity has flourished. He says categorically, “Sometimes governments just have to finally say, ‘This is how it is going to be. We have heard everybody, but this is what’s going to be and we are just going to have to get on with it.’” He adds, “There are a million reasons not to do it, but let’s just get on with it and we’ll see ingenuity take over.”

Who needs to lead the way?
While the international community might still be skeptical—and with good reason—about how quickly legislation might materialize and Friedman’s proposed U.S.-led energy-climate overthrow might take shape (keeping in mind that the U.S. was booed in Bali by peers at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in 2007), Friedman is confident that the U.S. will, and must, step up into an international leadership role. He also accepts that there has been a welcome attitudinal shift in Washington in recent months. However, Friedman wants to be clear. “There’s stepping up rhetorically and stepping up in substance. Without a price on carbon, without a national renewable portfolio of standards, without tougher efficiency laws, and without the real substance that will translate our stepping up into real appreciable long-term results,” he cautions. “I am not ready to congratulate our efforts yet. We are certainly talking a different talk, but we still need to walk a different walk.”

Friedman himself has gone beyond rhetoric, choosing to live in a geo-thermally heated and solar-powered home. He and his wife, Ann, sunk more than a dozen geothermal wells into their backyard while they were building their home in Montgomery County, Md., five years ago, enough to fully air condition the house. They also added two big solar arrays that provide around 8 percent of their home electricity use. “I get a big kick out of generating my own clean electrons,” laughs Friedman. But while he is happy with their investment, it was not an easy journey. Montgomery County law originally said that homeowners could not put a solar panel in the front or side yard of a stand-alone house. Given that the sun would not have hit them in the back and that they have a very large front and side yard, Friedman had to work with his solar company and the local government effectively to create case law that would change the code to allow solar systems in side yards. Now he believes that more and more families in the area are
following their lead.

Wordsmith to eco-star—how did that happen?
Friedman, who has recently become a leading mega-voice on the environment, is by no means an accidental eco-star. He has been immersed in environmental issues from the beginning of his journalistic career. “As a columnist for a major American newspaper, I’ve probably written more environmental stuff than anybody,” says Friedman. His very early years included extensive travel with Conservation International, studying biodiversity in the world’s ecological hotspots. While he reverted to this earlier focus on biodiversity in the 1990s, what really moved him in the direction of his latest book was the period following Sept. 11. “It was about not wanting to see my country depending on oil, which was enriching people who were attacking us. That was a huge issue,” he asserts. “[After Sept. 11], I really felt that America as a country had lost its groove. We had become a sub-prime country. We thought we could have the American dream with nothing down and nothing to pay. It was partly about national security, partly an American argument, and partly a concern with biodiversity loss.”

He adds that while he was looking at all this, the climate story also emerged. “I am not a climatologist. I have had exposure to some of the great ones, but climate became part of the story, so I took that on as well.”

Hot, flat, and crowded
“I think the world’s biggest problems all grow from a planet becoming hot, flat, and crowded,” he says. In his latest book’s title, “hot” refers to global climate change, and “flat” is a metaphor for the rise of middle classes all over the world, who can now compete and collaborate like and with Americans. “Or if you like,” says Freidman, “they can live like the people in Richmond, in American-size homes and eating American-size Big Macs.” “Crowded,” of course, refers to dramatic population growth. “We’re adding another billion people every 13 years,” says Friedman.

But there are still a lot of climate-change skeptics out there. How does he respond to them? Unmoved, he holds up a hardcover version of his book. “Do you want me to take out the ‘hot’?” he asks rhetorically, concealing the word with his hand. “By all means take out the ‘hot,’ and
let’s just go with the ’flat’ and ’crowded.’”

In the book, he asks readers what it looks like when “crowded” meets “flat,” and then presents them with the arrival terminal at Shanghai airport, where every other person on the passport line is on a cell phone or PDA. “When you unleash that much capitalist energy from so many people, the effect on our natural resources can be staggering,” writes Friedman. Without a code green on how we produce energy and protect the environment to accompany the spread of
American-style freedom and free markets, he warns that “Mother Nature will impose its own constraints and limits that will be worse than communism.”

Having said that, Friedman believes there is still time for China and others to take a different approach. The Chinese leapfrogged the developed world in telecoms—there is only 5 percent land-line penetration in China—so why not in the energy sector as well? In 2007, at a Green Car Congress in Tianjin, China, Friedman gave a hard-hitting talk to an audience of auto executives, most of whom were receiving his remarks via simultaneous interpretation. Friedman told them, “Every year when I visit China, young Chinese tell me, ‘Mr. Friedman, you Americans got to grow dirty for 150 years, you got to have your Industrial Revolution based on coal and oil, now it’s our turn.’ Well you’re right. It’s your turn,” he tells them. “And take your time, please grow as dirty as you like for as long as you like.” At this point, Friedman began to see a bit of earpiece adjustment going on. He continued, “I think my country needs only five years to invent all the clean power and energy efficiency tools that you, China, will need to avoid choking on pollution, and then we are going to come over here and sell them all to you.” At this point, Friedman noted that some heads started nodding as many began to get his point: If clean energy is going to be the next great global industry, the countries that get a head start are going to have a competitive advantage, not to mention the cleanest air and the fastest-growing business sectors.

Friedman’s thinking is, “The longer China focuses on getting its share from a world that no longer exists—a world in which people could use dirty fuels with impunity—and the longer it postpones imposing the policies, prices, and regulations on itself that will stimulate a clean
power industry at scale, the happier I am as an American.” The point Friedman would make to his compatriots back in the U.S. is that “we have to take the lead in this in and of ourselves, for our own reasons. We will not be able to maintain our standard of living unless we are the biggest player in the next great global industry.” “To what extent that converges with the interests of the other big players in the world,” Friedman shrugs that he doesn’t know and doesn’t really care. “We have to do this for our own reasons.” When the boom begins, Friedman says, “I don’t want to be buying the technologies from Finland.”

Who wins and who loses?
So how does this clean energy shift play out at home? For example, in the context of America’s coal-producing states, Friedman says, “There will be winners and losers.” Until now, America has been engaged in what he describes as a green party, with green as the new buzz phrase for saving the planet. Even the fashion industry has joined in with all the major glossy magazines releasing green issues and using slogans like “Ten ways to savethe Earth (and money) in under a minute.”

However, despite all this frivolity, if “green” is the color du jour, coal cannot be the new black. “There is no doubt,” says Friedman, “that in states such as Virginia, and particularly West Virginia, the coal industry is going to be a near-term loser. But the future depends on whether they see themselves in the coal business or in the energy business. If they’re in the energy business, there is no reason—and many coal companies to their credit have already done this—that they couldn’t now be taking their profits from coal and segueing into renewable energy.”

He continues, “The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones. If they want their coal mother lode to sustain them forever, I think it is a bad strategy. I think we are entering a world where your country, your neighbors, your kids, your citizens, even your customers will start to demand that you pay the full price for the carbon you are putting into the atmosphere. So whether it’s cap and trade or a carbon tax, whether it’s tomorrow or the next day, that’s what’s coming. So I think just sort of blindly going ahead with coal would be a losing business proposition.”

Electronic buffet—at what cost?
Friedman continues with other examples of what he calls losing propositions, likening the U.S. utilities business to an all-you-can-eat-for-five-dollars electron buffet. “For a while they were making money by building more and more plants and selling more and more cheap electrons and never trying to manage demand,” he says. “But then one day a funny thing happened on the way to the all-you-could-eat electron buffet: a few people like Al Gore wandered out the back to the kitchen and saw the mess we were in. They came back around to the people at the tables and asked them if they knew what was happening back there. It turned out that the buffet was cheap but the cost was enormous. It was generating global warming, childhood asthma, acid rain, deforestation, biodiversity loss, and petro-dictatorship, and no one was factoring this into the per-kilowatt cost.” And by the way, Friedman’s point here is not to overtly bash the utilities. “These people are your neighbors and mine. They’re not out to harm society, they’re part of it.”

He adds, “Don’t get me wrong, I want our utility companies to do well. I want them to get rich, but to get rich doing the right things. And the right thing is to work with your customers to be paid by how much you help them save energy instead of how much you can get them to consume energy.”

Friedman, whose mastery is converting complex problems into pithy analogies, leans forward in his chair and says, “You know your mother was right, when she came in after you’d left the lights on in your room and told you that you owned shares in the electric company.” He explains that under the current system, when we leave the lights on, we benefit the electric company, which gets paid more when we use more. “We want to reverse that,” says Friedman, alluding to the somewhat controversial and developing practice of decoupling, which a number of states across the U.S., including Virginia, are now looking at. “It works,” he says. “It worked in California!” Decoupling seeks to address the underlying tension between the consumers’ interest in lowering their electricity bills by using less and the utilities’ interest in raising revenues through selling more. In his book, Friedman quotes Ralph Cavanagh, the utilities expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, who compares this untenable dynamic to “driving with one foot on the brake and one on the accelerator.”

States such as Virginia are working to address this by developing new business models for electric and gas utilities that allow ratepayers and utility companies to share in savings from energy efficiency. Or, as Friedman puts it, “We want it to be that if you turn your lights off, someone will say, ‘Oh, you own shares in the electric company.’”

What about a gas tax?
Of course, a discussion about efficiency would not be complete without touching on the U.S. auto industry. Friedman is firmly of the mind that a gas tax, while not being a cure-all, is certainly the reason why Europe today has much smaller, more energy-efficient cars and higher
energy-efficiency standards than the U.S. But when asked if Americans, now looking to play catch up with Europe on efficiency, might finally be ready for a similar tax, Friedman laughs without mirth. “It’s been off the table for so long, people have forgotten where it went.” However, he cites recent government bailout plans for some U.S. auto companies as evidence of the need for a tax. “For example, the government is basically telling GM, ‘We are going to bail you out, but in return, we insist from now on that you make smaller, more fuel-efficient cars.’
Well, if the government does that and doesn’t impose a gasoline tax at the same time, as the vice chairman of GM pointed out, they are doing the equivalent of ordering every shirt company in America to only make size small—and not asking the American people to go on a diet!”

Although Friedman acknowledges that a gas tax is almost certainly not going to materialize any time soon, he is willing to wait and see how things open up. “You know, we are eventually going to have to pay for all this stimulus we are doing, and if it isn’t through a carbon tax, what will it be?” He compares it to the practice of raising cigarette taxes to pay for children’s health care. “Why not raise gasoline taxes as well? We don’t want people to be smoking. Well, our cars are smoking, or doing the equivalent of smoking.” But with a gas tax off the table and a federal draft discussion bill floundering in Congress, one feels compelled to reassert the question, is America really ready for revolution? Certainly global expectations are running high, and some Europeans would hold that the U.S. is already so late to the table that they are in danger of finding themselves on the menu.

Friedman reaffirms that America is more than ready, but adds, “People want to know that it will come from the top, that it will work, and that it will be done fairly.” He pauses. “They also want to know that the pain will be apportioned fairly. I think that’s a big thing. You convince them of that and you will see Americans signing on in big numbers.”

Can Virginia take the lead?
We are close to wrapping up and Friedman must pre- pare for his next appointment, but there is time for one last question: In the context of Virginia, how relevant is this revolution? Friedman has a ready response, bringing us back to the notion of invention that is driven by effective policy—and we have come full circle. He suggests that state legislators in Virginia might well draw lessons from Scandinavian success, and he holds up the nation of Denmark as a case in point. “It’s a tiny little country with a CO2 tax and a five-dollar-per-gallon gasoline tax. It has all of these huge, very stringent regulations, and what has been the result? Well, they have a thriving economy. Their fastest-growing export industry is clean-tech. One out of every three
wind turbines in the world is made in Denmark, and the world’s two leading cellulosic enzyme companies, Novazymes and Danesco, are Danish. The government over there created all this necessity and the outcome was a lot of invention.

“And I would say to a state like Virginia, which has strong public schools, great universities, and forward-thinking policymakers, that if you create the necessity with very high environmental regulatory standards, you will start to see a lot of invention.” Friedman adds, “Which state is going to be the home of America’s renewable energy industry is still up for grabs, and if I were a Virginian, I’d want it to be my state.”

Thomas L. Friedman joined The New York Times in 1981 as a financial reporter specializing in OPEC- and oil-related news and later served as the chief diplomatic, chief White House, and international economics correspondents. A three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, Friedman is also the author of several best-selling and award-winning novels, including The World Is Flat, which analyzed globalization, especially in the 21st century. Last fall, Friedman expanded his views in Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Needa Green Revolution—and How It Can Renew America to bring “a fresh outlook to the crises of destabilizingclimate change and rising competition for energy,” according to the author’s website.

Laurel Colless is a faculty member of the research development team at Virginia Tech, focusing on technology for sustainable development. In 2007, she founded the Energy Efficiency Partnership of Greater Washington, a cross-sector partnership among government, business, and civil society led by Virginia Tech to address climate change through energy efficiency in buildings. Colless also serves on the board of the Institute for Sustainable Communities, a nonprofit organization founded by former Vermont Gov. Madeleine Kunin that works with emerging democracies on problem solving through training, technical assistance, and grants.

Summer 2009 | Virginia Issues & Answers

EARWIGGLING

2009-07-24T04:12:00.000-07:00

Can you wiggle your ears? I don't mean wriggling or waggling, but wiggling: moving the ears backwards and forwards. It involves operating the latent muscles of the ears. It has nothing to do with earwigs, though if one of those insects got into your inner ear and applied its forceps your ears might start waggling and wriggling.

Earwiggling is a skill that can be learned. One person recently asked publicly for help in wiggling one ear singly, not both together, a feat he is already able to perform.

In order to wiggle one ear at a time, more practice is needed in front of a mirror. That is where I learned the art (when I was a boy, ever fearful that the Devil would appear over my shoulder, as my mother threatened would happen to children who gazed at their own reflection too long). By grinning forcefully and widely the ears are made to move, and you can then concentrate on consciously finding the muscles that move the ears, and control them without the mouth grimace (and manipulate them without using your hands). You command the left ear to move alone, and then the right ear.

What use does this skill have? It impressed teenage girls, up to a point, and a by-product was the smoothing of wrinkles on my forehead, but this made me look too young to be taken seriously by them.

A heavily edited version of this appeared in NEW SCIENTIST (17 April 2010, No 2756, inside back cover); they deleted the reference to my mother, even though she was English; they struck out the Devil (as being an unscientific non-phenomenon, I suppose), and omitted the reason why I was not attractive to girls 60 years ago (I trust that situation will change, now I look older).

KANGAROO

2009-06-29T04:47:00.000-07:00

Kangaroo caught on the hop

PALMERSTON NORTH CHORAL SOCIETY
90th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
On the night after the performance of ELIJAH
(there may be some clashical allusions, below)

An old Australian chorister was LYING (through his teeth),
DYING (the ground red), worrying about his pet kangaroo, TEDDY;
so he called his CHOIR COBBERS around him,
and he lifted up his voice, SAY-ING:
Draw near all ye people, come to me.
When I’m gone, I want you to be good sports and look after Teddy:
Tie miy kangaroo down, sport, Tie miy kangaroo down;
don’t let him go galavanting around the town,
just tie miy kangaroo down.

ALISON STEWART
You are so lovely, ALISON, with the CHALICE ON Sundays;
and you never show us any MALICE ON Mondays;
you could give him a taste of Thomas TALLIS ON the organ;
make Teddy hop to your beat, or beat him with your batòn, Alisòn;
however, come what may, they will never say...
(what never? no never! what never? absolutely never!)
they never will be able to say... you BLEW IT Mrs Stewart.
All together now: Tie miy kangaroo down, sport.

JOHN and KATHY LOVE
President John, our Mister Fixit, so keep the lights ON, JOHN;
the blessed light bulbs keep burning out in the hall
and in the JOHN, JOHN;
the summer days are GONE, JOHN, and yet no power cometh,
to help us;
lift thine eyes, o lift thine eyes, to the mountains, whence cometh help;
so keep your hilltop electricity turbines whirling ON, JOHN, LOVE.

KATHY, you put the icing on the cake;
I wish you were my personal private secretary, at MASSEY U;
I’d love to spend countless minutes with you dictating minutes,
to dissipate (not in dissipation) my aPATHY, KATHY, LOVE;
but a man should be happy with what he HATH, KATH;
and you are too busy trying to tie your own frisky Oziy kangaroo down.
Yes, Tie miy kangaroo down, sport.

ROBERT BURNS
Bob Burns, you are a revered senior,
coming in at 18, still here in your 80s;
as we say and sing: We heard it with our ear...trumpets
(though I’m the one with the trumpet;
your instrument is the trombone;
and that’s the reason for our debilitating deafness)
but in those years when we were here in this hall together,
in John Schwabe’s youth orchestra, you in your fifties, I in my forties,
you were playing your mellow cello, making our hearts THROB, BOB.
A good accountant EARNS his keep
and LEARNS his JOB, BOB BURNS,
and when he is auditing, he wears his hearing-aid, for better audition,
and for best results he gives it a few more KNOB TURNS, BOB BURNS.
And don’t forget: Tie miy kangaroo down, sport.

NEREDA CORBETT
NEREDA, you always say, WHERE ARE DA things to be done?
you do YOUR BIT and YOUR BEST, and bake a cake;
and NEVER A dull moment, NEREDA;
if you are in the line of Gentleman Jim Corbett, the boxer,
you could give my Teddy a bout,
all for THE BETTER, FOR A BET, NEREDA CORBETT.
OK. Tie miy kangaroo down, sport.

JENNY HOULBROOKE
With Jenny in charge, TED will be well catered for, and FED;
I have had dinner at your place, and I know;
and while the committee deliberated in their meeting there,
I REDD a WHOLE BOOK, Mrs HOULBROOKE.
When I was a boy, the kangaroo featured on the Oziy PENNY, JENNY,
and as you are always in for a PENNY, in for a POUND,
you could keep Teddy in your pound;
and if you helped him with his TIE,
he would give you a nice kangga hug, one of MANY, JENNY.
So .... Tie miy kangaroo down, sport.

EDDIE EGGERS
Look after my comforter TEDDY, EDDIE; he badly needs counselling,
so always have your psychology handbook READY, EDDIE;
don’t EGG him on when he should be in BEDDY bides;
the BEGGAR’S likely to try and eat the Apple on your Mac computer.
So you had better Tie miy kangaroo down, sport.

NEVILLE BISHOP & JOHN JAY
Don’t let the little sinner PLAY and STRAY, Reverend John JAY;
don’t let him REVEL on your roads, Bishop NEVILLE;
the blighter can go like the DEVIL, NEVILLE,
and next thing he’ll be hopping about on a LEVEL crossing;
when he gets possessed by an unclean spirit, one DAY, Father JAY,
or a dirty DEVIL, NEVILLE, John the priest can exorcise him,
and when he is LEVEL headed again, NEVILLE, you can exercise him.
Right, then. Tie miy kangaroo down, sport.

KEN & SHEILA JOLLEY
JOLLY old Ken, our Ken, the big’n from WIGAN, in Lancashire;
(cows in Lancashire are having an Italian opera singer serenade them,
to improve the quality of their milk, but I digress);
you left a barber-shop choir to join us, back THEN, KEN,
and now you can’t get a good haircut, KEN, WHEN you need one;
a wizard of an alchemist, you turn base metals and bass notes into gold.
I FEEL A liking for that JOLLY nice SHEILA you hang round with;
your hands are full keeping your WHEELER-DEALER tied down;
don’t take me literally, when I say ‘feel’ and ‘hands full’ and ‘tied down’
and ‘wheeler’ as meaning someone who goes round in curves;
you didn’t understand they were speaking metaphorically,
when they told you to ‘break a leg’;
that’s the height of FOLLY, Dr JOLLEY.
You are the one who needs to be kept in a PEN, KEN, with my Teddy.
Yes indiidy, Tie miy kangaroo down, sport.

MICHAEL PETTIFAR
Take Ted walkies on your Pettifar forest track, on a HIKE, MIKE;
he’ll be the BETTER FOR it, Mr PETTIFAR, and not get SICK, MICK;
don’t let him get on his BIKE, MIKE; and that’s not a METAPHOR;
watch his legs, though, he gives a HELL OF A KICK, MICK,
so keep your hand ready on your walking STICK, MICK.
And when necessary: Tie miy kangaroo down, sport.

IAN GORDON
You are a connoisseur of kangaroo (meat), fat-free and LEAN, IAN,
so I’m wary of entrusting him to a Victorian Sydneyan Queenslander;
I’d need to keep a CORDON around you;
no parachute-jumping, with the ripCORD ON hold and intact;
as a dancer you could teach him the foxtrot and Gay GORDONs;
but his perverse predilection is for munching music books,
so you would have to keep a CORD ON him, librarIAN, IAN.
Yep: Tie miy kangaroo down, sport.

FRANCES & GRAEME SIDDLE
When your left hand caresses the piano,
the bass line DANCES, FRANCES,
and Teddy could do a fling to that, but prevent MAYHEM, GRAEME;
you will find he is a sweet LIDDLE pet for the SIDDLE home,
though inclined to fidget and FIDDLE a bit, and PIDDLE on the carpet.
Definitely keep a tight leash on him: Tie miy kangaroo down, sport.

FIONA CROZIER
Give him KIA ORA, FIONA, and KIA KAHA, Miss CROZIER;
but he needs stern discipline (a good smack on his rear?),
don’t let him think he is THY OWNER, WHAIA ONA;
I realize he could be a WEE CLEANER, WHIWHIINA,
but you won't let him make messes on the FLOOR or LAWN, FIONA.
Still, sometimes you will have to Tie miy kangaroo down, sport.

NEAL GILCHRIST
I shall itemize all his needs on a FULL LIST, SCIENTIST GILCHRIST;
briefly, if he gets a bit stroppy, just make him KNEEL, NEAL,
your bell-ringing, making Hell’s bells PEAL, NEAL,
will surely bring him to his knees.
Otherwise, simply: Tie miy kangaroo down, sport.

LOIS ENSING
When Teddy is on the loose, don’t get caught BENDING, Mrs ENSING;
you will SHOW US, LOIS, that a kangaroo can do flower ARRANGING;
and you will make him laugh AND SING.
No need to: Tie miy kangaroo down, sport.

BARBARA ARCHER, LOCK, PURCHAS
All you Barbaras should PURCHASE a good Yale LOCK,
in case he LURCHES out of his DOCK like a Welsh rabbit;
keep him under lock and key, but when he is free, no ARCHERy.
It might seem BARBAROUS, BARBARAS,
but: Tie miy kangaroo down, sport.

CARROL DONOGHUE
Dearest Mrs DONOGHUE, you have DONE A FEW kindnesses for us,
definitely more than ONE OR TWO historical displays,
and constant regular encouraging words to myself;
on the Wellington bus, CARROL, to sustain us,
you were the BARREL of meal that never fails, and a BARREL of fun;
and you will keep my kangga on the straight and NARROW LINE,
and not let him go off the rails.
Tie miy kangaroo down, sport.

STANLEY BARNES
For keeping the account books, you are the MAN, STAN;
a treasured treasurer you store our treasure
in secure BARNS, Mr BARNES;
truly, it is a taxing job you do, as you conscientiously PLAN for us;
our wealth is always safe in your HAND, STAN;
(the committee once built a BRIDGE over troubled CORPses;
but that's all water under the BRIDGE now);
and if Teddy ever plays up, throw the book at him.
Tie miy kangaroo down, sport.

JOHN DRAKE
Dr DRAKE, I don't want to be too OPAQUE, but for clarity's SAKE
I'll say we noticed you finding it hard to stay aWAKE,
after bringing a clutch of ducklings into the world that day;
we know you are not a veterinary medico,
but if Teddy fathers any noisy kangaroo joeys,
and looks as if the strain is making him FLAKE out
(I'm not asking you to BAKE a CAKE of flaky stuff,
but Tasmanian wallabies are into opium poppies)
you could give him a comforting shot, and he'll be JAKE.
Then you should Tie miy kangaroo down, sport.

CHRISTINE FISHER
You could comb and burnish his coat
to its PRISTINE state, CHRISTINE,
but be warned, CHRIS, he thinks a KISS is BLISS,
so you'd best Tie miy kangaroo down, sport.

JANE JOWETT
With regard to feeding him, JANE,
he has been a PAIN and the BANE of my life;
a lot of money goes down the DRAIN,
he eats more than a Great DANE, JANE,
try to make him reFRAIN, singing this refrain:
Tie miy kangaroo down, sport.

WILMA GLASSEY
Unfortunately, he is a bit of a TIPPLER, WILMA,
and FILL MA GLASS, EE, to KILL MA thirst, LASSIE
is what you'll be hearing; but make him settle for
a cup of DILMAH, WILMA, not your watery pearl tea.
You must just Tie miy kangaroo down, sport.

GWEN HINGSTON
You are not around these days, my sweet FREN' GWEN,
I miss you so much the pain is as bad as when you are here;
you can keep Teddy in your PEN, GWEN,
and soothe him by strumming on your MANDOLIN, GWENDOLINE.
And I would like you to Tie miy kangaroo down, sport.

ESMÉ HAIGH
BLESS ME, ESMÉ, HEY, Good idea!
Dress TED up elegantly in a RED jacket, but no pearls;
he will probably greet your attempt with DISMAY,
and try to avoid you like the PLAGUE,
but it would PLEASE ME.
Hold on to him! Tie miy kangaroo down, sport.

CATHERINE KEARINS
You asked me to do this, and I nearly left you out;
but CATHERINE I have been BLATHERIN' too long
in your HEARIN'.
So, just: Tie miy kangaroo down, sport.

HELEN MILNE
A chaplain is just what I will be needing soon,
a madré in lieu of a padré;
I am not a FELON, HELEN, but I'll need a bit of absolution,
and for my cremation you can put me in the KILN,
and if I revive you will hear me YELLIN'.
That's when you should Tie miy kangaroo down, sport.

PETER HARRISON
I'm starting to PETER out, PETER; I'll want you as a PALL-bearer;
nothing could be SWEETER than FLOWERS ON my coffin
from the HARRISON garden centre.
And as an architect you will design for me, and TED when he's DEAD,
a magnificent tomb that is beyond comPARISON.

NAOMI CLEMENTS-ROEPER
The names are getting longer, and so a gentle Celtic word for you:
Begorrah! NAOMI, make Teddy STAY ‘OME In inCLEMENT weather,
and that will be just SUPER Mrs ROEPER.

BETTY-ANNE LAWLER-WISCHNOWSKY (BETTY KENDALL)
Longer and longer names.
Now Cherith’s brook is dried up. For rhyming and punning purposes:
the deeps afford no water; and the rivers are exhausted.
The heavens are as brass, There is nothing above me.
Does any of that rhyme? Not even an ANAGRAM, BETTY-ANNE .
My TRAWLER finds the FISH have gone OFF-SKI.
Time for me to WISH you well and stop singing OFF-KEY.
As the prophet Eliyahu declared: It is enough!
Tie ME AND miy kangaroo down, sport.

Remember the new health and safety rules: you may kiss with a kangaroo, waltz with a wallaby, but don’t jig with a pig, snog with a hog, or entwine with swine.

Eliyahu

2009-06-27T03:47:00.000-07:00

MENDELSSOHN, ELIJAH
Sunday 28th of June 2009 at 2 pm
All Saints' Church, Palmerston North

"Draw near all ye people..."

Thus sayeth/singeth the prophet ELIJAH (properly Eliyahu) when he invites the Israelites to watch the LORD sending fire from heaven to consume as a whole-burnt offering ('holocaust') a sacrifice on an altar, up on Mount Carmel.

Warning: violence may disturb ("Take all the prophets of Baal [we pronounce Baal as in Transvaal] and slay them").

The soprano proclaims "Hear ye, Israel, be not afraid"; the contralto comforts us with "O rest in the Lord, he shall give thee thy heart's desires"; the tenor encourages us with "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun"; the bass baritone (Elijah) declares "It is enough".

Massed choirs have been rampant in Palmerston North in recent years. The Renaissance Singers and the PN Choral Society have combined for The Creation and a Last Night at the Proms. And the Bach Choir of Wellington joined the Renaissance Singers for a concert a while back, and now they are coming to town again to unite with the Choral Society for Mendelssohn's wonderful oratorio ELIJAH.

A week ago they all performed it in the splendid acoustics of Saint Andrew's on the Terrace; this time it will be the expansive ambience of All Saints' on Church Street, with its magnificent organ ("a mighty wind").

Hail a fiery chariot, or catch a passing whirlwind to heaven, but tell the driver to set you down at ALL SAINTS' CHURCH, in Church Street, Palmerston North, opposite the civic square (Wow!).

Sunday 28th of June 2009 at 2 pm

At one point,the prophet Obadiah upbraids the multitude, saying:

"Ye people rend your hearts and not your garments".

The same line was uttered (or spluttered) by a Scottish minister when he surveyed the contents of the collection plate (more buttons than currency). But attendance at this church service will cost you no more than 20 small gold coins (though a single green $20 'bill' for the till will get you through the pearly gate more quickly).

The oratorio begins with a long-range weather forecast from the prophet:

"As God the Lord of Israel liveth, there shall be no rain".

But if there is any downpour or drizzle, still come; don't sit in your tent moaning about false prophets. Participate, and be able to echo the line "We heard it with our ears".

Here's a piece of pedantic nit-picking: when we sing "Will then the Lord be no more God in Zion?", we are guilty of anachronism and misplacement. You see, this quotation is from Jeremiah (Yirmyahu) preaching to Judah and Jerusalem (Zion, Siyon) in the 6th century BCE; but Elijah (Eliyahu) was denouncing the kingdom of Israel (not including Judah and Jerusalem) in the 9th century, and this Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians in the 8th century (722), and its population was deported into oblivion ('the lost ten tribes').

Never mind. They that shall endure to the end shall be saved.

Shalom/Salaam

Brian

For a more colourful presentation of the information (every hue of the rainbow) click 'open sesame' on these magic spells:

http://homepages.inspire.net.nz/~helencolless/Choirquire/Concerts.html

http://homepages.inspire.net.nz/~helencolless/Choirquire/Choirquire.html

http://collesseum.googlepages.com/elijah

Yours respectfully and as unintrusively as possible,

Brian Colless

Wedding Cake

2009-05-10T05:02:00.000-07:00

HELEN AND BRIAN’S 50TH ANNIVERSARY

Laurel Christina Colless

Mum and Dad, family and dear friends. I hope you are having a relaxing and happy visit, as my parents prepare to cut the cake and make their wishes.

By now you will have heard from other family members some highlights from the first four decades of Helen and Brian’s marriage and it is now my turn to present a few from the fifth decade (notice I did not say the last decade as I know we are all wishing them many happy more together). The cake, which I hope is standing tall among you is my gift to you today. As you can see there are two tiers – one for today and one to put in the freezer to be brought out at future celebrations. (I know Dad is now grumbling that there is no room in the freezer but perhaps there is a volunteer from among the guests with a big New Zealand style freezer we could impose upon.)
Actually it is Helen who takes that line, when I try to put more frozen vegetables and icecream into the two drawers. Also, we learnt when we sang in the choir at a Samoan wedding on the previous Saturday that the top storey goes to the minister. But our pastor, Philo, will not insist on her rights in this instance. It is indeed a work of art, as was the original wedding cake, baked and decorated by my mother Irene Colless.

Another wedding cake was taken to Tokyo by Helen and myself for celebrations of her marriage to Pekka (which had already been solemnized in a Lutheran church in Finland). We had one tier each, and they created much interest as they traveled in planes like babies.
Mum and Dad
Thank you for being such terrific and available parents - including from call boxes in Tokyo in the middle of the night. Contrary to what I told you when I was a teenager, being health food junkies with strong environmental awareness; having integrity and being thoughtful contributing members of our family and society; as well as being very smart and loving were after all probably more important than wearing the right clothes and being cool.
Including your ban on wearing socks with sandals.
I thank you both for staying together through the good years, and even some of the mediocre years, and for keeping our family together. Thanks for your love and support, luckily I am not reading this aloud myself, as I would probably be crying by now, but Pekka and I and the girls, even Doris the dachshund, will do everything we can to return that love and support to you in the decades to come. Congratulations again and we love you both very much.
This message was read out by Dawn Colless, Laurel's dear sister-in-law.

And this brings me to the top five points, which I have chosen to highlight from the last ten years.

1999- 2009
(1)
Early in the decade we saw the unprecedented terrorist attack on the world trade center and at no other time in our living family history did this make Brian’s extensive lifelong research and education around religion seem more relevant. 9/11 affected everyone of us in some way and it made our world seem smaller.
The '9/11' is the American way, getting things the wrong way round; it was the 11th day of the 9th month (September), and so '11/9'

It also put a spotlight on religion as an influential force that shapes human experience and human actions. Something that Dad has been teaching students locally and around the world for more than forty years.
Here in New Zealand we had already moved on, and so it was Wednesday the 12th, and I was taking my two final classes before retiring, on the subject Religion in the USA. I had already prepared my video clips, and the first image that came up was an American skyscraper! I asked the students whether George Bush would practise Christian forgiveness in this case (he being a good Methodist), but none of them thought that would happen. Laurel herself has had contact with him in the oval office at the White House (go to Collesseum; Celebrities).

(2)
Dolly the sheep was cloned, Olivia the third grandchild was created in vitro; then Julia the determined fourth shunned the help of science and appeared of her own volition. Their parents, Pekka and I, moved out of Finland to the US and a little closer to New Zealand.

(3)
Two years later, Helen Colless - Mum – got sick. That brought me and my family home much more often and put me more closely in touch with many of you. Prayers, well wishes, e-mails, letters, cards and visits also flowed from people everywhere, and this also made the world seem smaller.

(4)
New Zealand saw its second female prime minister serve two of her three consecutive terms in office, then leave her political career to eradicate poverty as head of the UNDP.

The other important Helen had already given her very active and energetic career to educating and empowering people, particularly children, and not least her own, in her adopted Manawatu community. She moved up with Brian to her new castle in an exotic street on the hill. Later during Christmas 2008, Mum would defy illness with a high energy family holiday, where she became a dancing queen, captured on film.
Those two little girls could sing all the Abba songs from Mamma Mia.

(5)
Not long before this, Al Gore received the Nobel Peace prize for his service to the environment, giving much needed impetus to a thinking shift on Capitol Hill, which should ultimately make the entire world greener.
Laurel's own contribution to the cause is stupendous (see Bonzoz: Ecology).

Back up on their hill, Queen Helen developed a beautiful new landscape and garden while Brian, who has always been very green, offsetting his carbon footprint to Mum the solo driver of the family, began mowing the lawns - unfortunately not ever in the correct way, so we are told.
She did the mowing herself on this occasion, and for several weeks directed Bill the plasterer and Jill the painter as they refurbished the exterior of the house..

But seriously, both Helen and Brian have spent their lives figuring out clever ways to consume less and reuse more. (With the exception of that hideous and noisy fence made of venetian blinds in Ashford Ave, we must applaud this.)
People born during the Depression don't like to see food or other goods being wasted.

And I would finish by saying that their 50 years together respecting and honoring the environment could never seem more relevant than in the context of today’s geo-political environmental struggles. Congratulations Helen and Brian. God save the earth and God save our Queen.

MARRIAGE

2009-05-06T05:52:00.000-07:00

Fifty Years of Wedded Bliss/Blitz

When I married Helen 50 years ago, I had brown hair and hers was blond; now she is a brunette and I am the blond.

I did it then, and I would like to do it now. I grasped the opportunity of making a speech at our wedding breakfast. I chose the word OFFEND as my theme, because in my relationship with Helen and her family I seemed to be 'offending' people all the time, entirely innocently and unintentionally. So I talked about 'off-ending' ( going off the deep end, emotionally, over Helen); and 'fending off' unwelcome attention from other women; and 'off-fendering', causing damage to cars in collisions (I could think of two cases in her family). I do think that it is easy to offend people who are determined to take offence. Later in life I learned the helpful saying: Don't take offence, take a gate (and enter the garden of harmony and reconciliation).

Since then we have had fifty wedding anniversaries, including this one in 2009; it is not like the mistake made by all those stupid people (no offence intended, truly) when the year 2000 popped up; the 200th anniversary came on the 1st day of January in 2001, 2000 years from the 1st day of the first month of the year 1 (1/1/1).

Fifty is a score that allows a person to raise his or her bat and acknowledge the applause of the crowd, but the century is the one to get excited about, if there is any excitement left in your body still (yes, 'still' could be the operative, or inoperative, word). But in wedlock, a husband (meaning 'housebound' slave, wed-locked up in his cell) often has cause to cry out: 'It's not cricket'.

The woman who owned the wedding-reception place remarked after she had observed the proceedings: "This marriage will last". Was it (as it is at this gathering) the gaiety of the occasion, the good humour, the lack of inebriation (only pineapple juice available), and the bride's blissful dazzling smile that led her to this conclusion?

Of course, we do not agree on everything, and there is one thing we have certainly never agreed on: suitable and reasonable grounds for divorce.

Now, I don't count my relationship with Helen from the day we were parsonicly matrimonified, or matrimonially parsonified. Actually there is a long shared history preceding that.

We were married on Friday the 8th of May 1959 at Croydon Park Methodist Church (I belonged to the Balmain Methodist Mission) and we were both aged 22 (a mental arithmetic test for you); but on the 1st of April 1956 we had already met and forged a link at Blackheath, at a Christian youth camp (we made eye contact tramping along the road, though it was the back view of her legs that first caught my eye, a vision of loveliness, I think I said to the wedding guests); and in the previous two years we had both been students at Sydney Teachers College, and must have been together whenever we all lined up for our cheques on pay days; for 5 years before that we were at the same secondary school, Fort Street High, though segregation of the boys and girls was severe, on separate sites, miles apart; but I know that in 1953 we were together a couple of times in a room at her school for French dicatation exercises, and I would have been attracted to that vivacious blonde who was in the company of a pair of famous twins. In our early childhood we lived in adjacent suburbs, Lakemba and Croydon Park, and we could have passed each other in the Campsie shopping centre, on foot or in our prams. So, I am convinced that our loving relationship has been lifelong; and we had even earlier connections through a common ancestor among the earliest British settlers in New South Wales, and through the intermarriage of Collesses and Flacks before we were born or were united in holy matrimony.

Concerning our marital vows, we each learned them off by heart, to speed up the process; and because the repeat-after-me routine makes you think you are married to the parson in the end. It went something like this:

I call upon these persons here present to witness that I Brian Edric Colless do take thee Helen Christine Flack to be my lawful wedded wife (not my awful wicked spouse?),
to have and to hold (yes, nice hugs and cuddles)
for better for worse (when she's bad she's better?)
for richer for poorer (we've tried both of those)
in sickness and in health (that one has surely and sorely tested us)
from this day forward (and now half a century later)
till death uth doth part (thank God for chemotherapy and radiotherapy)
and to love, honour, and obey (that got left out then, but to keep the peace I will say it now).

There was also something about offering thee my body and endowing thee with all my worldly goods, but after I had bought this blue merino suit and a sports suit for going away, and two inexpensive electrum rings, with the cutest little diamond to remind us of our lower-class origins, I was broke, with only a few Bibles to my name.

We took some books with us on our getting-to-know-you holiday, in the school vacation of one week; we were both teachers, and had to do our 'work-plans'. There were Bibles in our luggage, of course, and I was studying Hebrew, Greek, and theology. I can remember two manuals on Christian marriage, one published by the Evangelical Union (IVF Press) and the other written by a liberal married couple (Student Christian Movement Press); actually the fundamentalist handbook was more practical on physicality than the liberal one; but they were both coy about which buttons to press; they seemed to be more concerned with the first commandment from God the Creator, in Genesis 1 ('Be fruitful and multiply', implying 'but don't overdo it'); yes indeed, marriage is solely for procreation, or re-creation, not recreation. Now, I don't throw books away (as the hundreds of groaning shelves in this dwelling will testify to you), but those two have certainly been discarded as obsolete, not to say useless.

We were huddled together in a cold house that did not receive sunshine, being on the wrong side of the hill in the chilly month of May. Kookaburras would fly in every day to be fed on meat (there was a dearth of snakes, apparently), but to no avail; at the time we were earnest vegetarians heavily under Seventh-Day Adventist influence. The stove could not bring water to the boil, to cook potatoes. What did we eat? Peanuts, nutmeat, and gluten steaks, I presume.

Anyway, we went out frequently in search of the sun; and one day we were walking along the rocks beside the ocean, and reached a spot where we would have to leap across a gap as the waves beat against the rocks; we could have been washed away and would have thus created a great mystery in world history (Read all about it: Honeymoon couple disappear into thin air); so we turned back, to work diligently, dutifully, and joyfully on the greatest love-story that this world has ever known.

SIN

2009-04-22T05:30:00.000-07:00

The Seven Deadly Sins
Brian Colless

Only seven sins? Aren’t there ten commandments in the Decalogue, delivered by God through Moses at Mount Sinai, on two stone tablets, so there must be ten sins deserving of death, since the death penalty was applied to each of them?

While Roman Catholics and Protestants have differences over how to divide up the divine injunctions in Exodus 20, they still end up with ten as the number. Adultery is often said to be the seventh commandment, but it holds sixth place in the Roman division (because the prohibition on idolatry is passed over, as images are used in worship; and coveting is divided in two, separating the neighbour’s wife and his goods, though this is not easily done, as the wife is part of a man’s property, and is preceded by his house in the list). However, by my reckoning the total of the offences is clearly and obviously ten, as follows:

[1] apostasy (“no other gods”) (3)
[2] idolatry (4-6)
[3] blasphemy, misusing the name of God (7)
[4] working on the Sabbath day (8-11)
[5] dishonouring parents (12)
[6] murder (13)
[7] adultery (14)
[8] theft, larceny (15)
[9] perjury, false testimony (16)
[10] coveting (17)

In the Wisdom tradition of Israel we have a set of seven abominable things that God hates (Proverbs 6:16-19), introduced by a formula that goes back to the god Ba`al in the Bronze Age: “There are six things Yahweh hates, seven he loathes:
[1] haughty eyes, [2] a lying tongue, [3] hands which shed innocent blood, [4] a heart which devises evil plans, [5] feet which run hastily to evil, [6] a false witness who commits perjury, [7] a person who sows discord among brothers.”

These examples of anti-social behaviour share only perjury [2, 7] and murder [3] with the ten commandments, though adultery is treated at length in the remainder of the chapter.
In the New Testament Paul presents a list of seventeen sinful “works of the flesh” (Galatians 5:19-21), which includes a few items from the commandments, namely fornication, idolatry, and murder (in some versions, but “envy” in others, the Greek words phonos and phthonos being similar, and perhaps both should be there).

In the fourth century, Evagrios Pontikos (Evagrius of Pontus, one of the monks of the Egyptian desert) compiled a list of eight evil thoughts (logismoi in Greek) which demons could use to arouse passions and cause sin. These were:

[1] gluttony (gastrimargia, ‘belly-madness’)
[2] fornication (porneia, sexual immorality)
[3] avarice (philarguria, ‘love of money’)
[4] sorrow (lupê, pain, distress)
[5] anger (orgê)
[6] discouragement (akêdia, listlessness, boredom)
[7] vainglory (kenodoxia, vanity)
[8] pride (huperêphania)

In the fifth century, John Cassian took them from Egypt to southern Gaul (Marseilles) and established eastern monasticism there.
This Evagrian collection of vices is clearly the source of the seven deadly sins, or capital vices, promulgated by Pope Gregory the Great in the sixth century:

[1] luxuria (extravagance, dissipation, lechery, lust)
[2] gula (gluttony)
[3] avaritia (greed, avarice, covetousness)
[4] acedia (sloth, negligence)
[5] ira (wrath, anger)
[6] invidia (envy)
[7] superbia (pride)

Which one of the original octet has been left out, and which ones have changed in their translation from Greek into Latin?

Invidia seems to have a rather ‘invidious’ position, apparently coming out of nowhere; but ‘envy’ (phthonos) is included among the list of logismoi once. This means that two others have been omitted.

Vainglory has presumably been subsumed under pride. And sorrow or sadness has been welded to acedia, which originally meant the restlessness and boredom a monk experienced in the daytime while waiting for the one meal of the day at 3 pm; it involves yawning, looking through the window or at the door in the hope of receiving a visitor; this distraction from manual labour or devotional practice is covered by the term ‘sloth’; the night-time is when the demon of lust and lechery would attack.

Obviously these ‘deadly’ sins are not subject to the death penalty in this life; they are personal vices not capital crimes, and if they are treated with penitence and repentance they will not send their perpetrators to Hell, but to Purgatory.

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) included the register of seven vices (presented in reverse order, from pride to lust) in his three-part narrative poem known as La Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy). It starts with Dante’s mid-life crisis and gives an imaginative description of an imaginary journey through Hell (Inferno) and Purgatory (Purgatorio) to Paradise (Paradiso).
Purgatory is a penitentiary, where penitent sinners undergo punishments designed to reform them and fit them for Paradise. This is how Dante does it:

Purgatory (Cantos 10-27): the Purgatorio gate leads into the place of purgation of sinners and purification from sins, through penance. Seven circular terraces rise one above the other, connected by steps in the rock. Each level is concerned with purging one of the seven capital sins (the deadly sins) from souls who are obsessed with that particular vice. Dante divides them into three categories, related to failure in expressing love.

(1) Proud (2) Envious (3) Wrathful (Perverted Love)
(4) Slothful (Defective Love)
(5) Avaricious & Prodigal (6) Gluttonous (7) Lascivious (Excessive Love)

The Terraces of Purgatory
[10] First terrace: Pride > Humility
The proud are each weighed down by an enormous stone.
“Verily they were bent over more and less according as they had more and less weight on their back; and he who had most patience in his doing seemed to say through his weeping, I can no more.” (10:136-139)
[11] They say the Lord’s Prayer (Pater Noster, O Padre nostro) in Dante’s paraphrase translation. The benediction for this section is: “Blessed are the poor in spirit”.
[12] Graven on the floor Dante sees depictions of the proud who fell (pride goeth before a fall, of course): Lucifer (Satan), who fell like lightning (Luke 10:18); Briareus (a giant who attempted to overthrow the gods of Olympus); Nimrod (who tried to reach Heaven with his tower in Babylon); Saul (first King of Israel, who fell on his own sword); and others.

[13] Second terrace: Envy > Kindness
The envious sit in sackloth, having their eyes stitched up with wire.
“An iron wire pierces all their eyelids and stitches them up, as is done to an untamed hawk because it will not stay still.” (13:70-72)
[14] More examples of the envious.
[15] “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Mathew 5:7)

Third terrace: Anger > Gentleness
The wrathful walk amid acrid smoke. “No sky darkened with cloud ever made so gross a veil to my sight, or was of such asperity to my senses, as that smoke which covered us there.” (16:2-5)
[16] Suffocating smoke envelops this area (from the blazing anger?!)
The hymn here is: Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis; dona nobis pacem (Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy on us; grant us peace). The beatitude is: “Blessed are the peacemakers”.
[17] Discourse on love and free will.

[18] Fourth terrace: Sloth > Zeal (Keenness)
The term translated ‘sloth’ is accidia, ‘unconcern’, spiritual torpor.
The slothful must run continually. “That whole great crowd kept running, and two in front wept and cried out, ‘Mary ran to the hill-country with haste’ (Luke 1:39)” (18:97-100)
The examples of zeal are: Mary, as the mother-to-be of Christ hastening to her cousin Elizabeth and receiving “Ave Maria, Hail Mary, full of Grace... blessed is the fruit of your womb” (Luke 1:39ff). And Julius Caesar, destined to be the founder of the Roman Empire, hurrying from a siege of Marseille to defeat Pompey in Spain. Here the prayer would be the labours of love they perform. The benediction is (19.50): "Blessed are they that mourn" (Matthew 5:4).

[19] Fifth terrace: Avarice & Prodigality > Generosity
The avaricious and the prodigal must lie prostrate. “ I saw people who were weeping, all lying face downward on the ground; I heard them saying, My soul cleaveth to the dust (Psalm119.25).” (19:71-74).
Here the prayer is: Adhaesit pavimento anima mea (My soul cleaveth unto the dust, Psalm 119:25)
[20-21] The whole mountain shakes (a sign that a soul has been released from Purgatory), and all the penitents shout Gloria in excelsis Deo.

[22] Sixth terrace: Gluttony > Temperance
The gluttonous are deprived of food and drink. “Each one had dark and hollow eyes, and pallid face, and was so wasted that the skin took its shape from the bones.” (23:22-24)
The Beatitude is: "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness" (Matthew 5:6), but omitting the words "hunger and"! The prayer, which is 'wept and sung' (23.10), is: Labia mea, Domine (Lord open thou my lips, Psalm 51:15).

[23]-[24] Dante converses with his intemperate friend Forese Donati, who would have been related to Dante’s wife Gemma Donati.

[25] Seventh terrace: Lust > Chastity
The lustful are purified in a wall of flame. “ The fire burns them, and with such a cure and such nourishment the wound may conveniently be healed.” (25:137-139)
[26] The souls with this problem learn to greet one another with a holy kiss, as recommended by the Apostle Paul. (This is in stark contrast to the sinful lingering kiss of Paolo and Francesca da Rimini on the afternoon when they were reading about the love between Lancelot and Guinivere.) The prayer in this section (25.121) is a hymn from the breviary, against lust: Summae Deus clementiae (God of highest clemency).
[27] Dante is terrified of the purging cleansing fire that they must pass through.
The final beatitude (27.8) is very apt: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Mathew 5:8). This is what the purging was all about, to purify the mirror of the ‘heart’, to scour away all the dross on it, so that it could reflect God in his glory. This was the teaching of the Syrian Christian mystics that have occupied my head for half of my life. John of Dalyatha in the 8th century quotes this beatitude continually, and European mystics learnt this purgative way from Pseudo-Dionysios the Areopagite: purgation > illumination (seeing God’s effulgence) > unification (mystical union with God).

The wall of flame is also connected with the fiery sword of the Kerubim guarding the entrance to the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:24), which is for Dante on top of the Purgatory mountain.

Since the time of Dante, the seven deadly sins have continued to appear in art and literature, and there have been some new constructions of social and environmental offences.

Here is a set of seven modern vices issued by Mahatma Gandhi:
Politics without principle
Commerce without morality
Wealth without work
Pleasure without conscience
Knowledge without character
Science without humanity
Religion without sacrifice

Another account of the evils of our own era was set forth by Bishop Gianfranco Girotti of the Apostolic Penitentiary in the Vatican (March 2008), indicating several vices operating in the age of globalization. Journalists moulded them into a heptad thus:
Pollution of the environment
Genetic engineering
Drug taking and trafficking
Abortion
Paedophilia
Causing social injustice
Obscene riches
With regard to the last one, some commentators remarked (perhaps unthinkingly) on the great wealth of the Vatican itself.

Also in 2008, Bradley Boniface, a student of UCOL (the polytechnic of Palmerston North) produced an award-winning collection of seven artistic photographs illustrating the deadly sins as portrayed in Dante.

The seven sins with characteristics and representative characters
[1] PRIDE (superbia) > Humility
Horse – Violet – PRINCE
[2] ENVY (invidia) > Kindness
Dog – Green – PEASANT
[3] WRATH (ira) > Patience
Bear – Red – KNIGHT
[4] SLOTH (acedia) > Diligence
Goat – Light Blue – JESTER
[5] GREED (avaritia) > Liberality
Frog – Yellow – KING
[6] GLUTTONY (gula) > Abstinence
Pig – Orange – QUEEN
[7] LUST (luxuria) > Chastity
Cow – Blue – PRINCESS

These photographs can be seen in the journal MUSIC IN THE AIR (Exploring spirituality in the creative arts) Issue 27 (2009) 19-26.

Music in the Air is published by John Thornley, 15 Oriana Place, Palmerston North 4412, Aotearoa/New Zealand. Subscription (2 issues per year) $30.

Brian Edric Colless PhD ThD taught religious studies at Massey University from 1970 till 2001, and he is now a research associate of the university. His four lectures on Dante’s Divine Comedy, and an introduction to his book on Syriac Christian mysticism, are posted on his website: collesseum.googlepages.com.

CREATION

2008-12-05T18:59:00.000-08:00

As I have repeatedly intimated (now look here, and here, how may times have I told you?), the little town of Palmerston North in the interior of Aotearoa New Zealand (we can not see the sea from here, only fiery volcanoes) was to have a performance of Joseph Haydn's Die Schöpfung (which does not mean "Die shopping!", but is German for "The Creation"), sung in Milton's style of English.

This is the message I sent to opera-lovers (who might have planned to hear Mozart's Don Giovanni on the radio) to entice them under false pretences to an operatorio:

You have a prior engagement which has priority, a previous appointment which must not be broken, to save you from disappointment.

You will be at the Regent on Broadway at 3 pm, either on the stage (with me) or in the audience (with Helen my wife) to see two large choirs in seamless combination, with a 50-piece orchestra (or 4 dozen, count'em, and don't overlook the harpsichord).

Joseph Haydn's oratorio The Creation (giving George Frideric Handel some competition). An opera with a cast of thousands (the celestial beings will be invisible, though)

Extra! Read all about it! First man and woman in high degree of bliss (and you will be, too)

And for the rest of the human race:

For lovers of fine music (Joseph Haydn, The Creation),
Bible stories (God saw everything he had made, and behold it was very good),
Milton's poetry (opening her fertile womb the earth obey'd the word),
Satanic reverses (despairing cursing rage attends their rapid fall).

If you are anywhere near my little village of Palmerston North in Aotearoa New Zealand on Sunday at 3 pm on the 30th of November in the year of our Lord 2008, hie you to Broadway and step right up to the Regent, and enter its halls for the entertainment of a lifetime.

And God said: "Let there be light", and there was indeed light!

Hear bright light set to music by Haydn.

Massed choirs sing as and like angels.

Heavenly trumpets, sackbuts, horns, hautbois, flutes, viols of all shapes and sizes, and an authentic harpsichord (home-made) carry you to another world, a new created world, in the beginning.

Six days of delight encompassed in a single ecstatic afternoon.

For tidings of great enjoyment resort ye (with a click of a finger) unto:

http://homepages.inspire.net.nz/~helencolless/Choirquire/Creation.html

Well it has finally happened, and you can read Stephen Fisher's favourable (fabulous actually) review of it at Choir Quire. I was sitting at the end of a long row, so don't look for me in the contracted (not to say, censored) photograph there.

And after doing a 50-minute walk under the blazing sun I reached the theatre in time for a "warm-up" (not what I really needed) under hot stage lights.

This is my response to the amazing event that turned my humble hamlet into a cultural city:

Warning, plagiarism might be detected by machines designed for that purpose, but when a person has internalized the words and music of a great opus, things come bursting out.

Achievèd is the glorious work!

After all those months of slaving over a hot score:
Our duty we have now perform'd.

And behold, it was very good!

There were doubters who said we were:
misled by false conceit, ye strive at more than granted is.

But throughout all those grilling thrilling drilling sessions:
Softly fly the golden hours.
Ev'ry moment brings new rapture,
ev'ry care is lull'd to rest.

And we reached the point where:
Now chaos ends, and order fair prevails.

And God said, Let there be light
and was there ever light!
It was not light light, and not heavy light,
but it was resonant light which did indeed
to the ethereal vaults resound.

Let his name resound on high.
Praise the Lord, utter thanks,
Yahweh's praise for ever shall endure. Amen.

Yes, my prayers were answered, and that abomination of desolation "Jehovah" was removed. But the name Yahweh was not there either. We sang:
The LORD is great, his praises shall endure.

But I wonder how many times Jehovah slipped out in the excitement, in the *heat* of the moment under the bright lights.

Are the tunes and words still buzzing around in your head and bursting out at inopportune moments? On Tuesday I was in a monastery, chanting with monks; on Wednesday I spent all afternoon whistling and humming along with Strauss waltzes and polkas; but on Thursday snatches "of the second day, the second day", and "in lofty strains let us rejoice" were still rising up.

Alison Stewart and Guy Donaldson had done wonders with the rough and raw material at hand. The firming meant displays of the wonders of the work.

Morag Atchison's photograph attracted many into the auditorium, and her voice was deemed to be 'gloriously warm'.

Richard Phillips, from Cardiff, with a 'richly expressive tenor voice', mercifully refrained from breaking into his other languages (Welsh, Chinese, and Japanese).

Hadleigh Adams (who was made for the part of Adam, and had been Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof) had to hold his 'splendidly fine bass voice' back from breaking into Hebrew, or Yiddish.

At the interval I went out into the auditorium to do a survey of the consumers, and I was able to report that our product was judged to be wonderful.

And now, Stephen Fisher, in the Manawatu Standard, has given his considered opinion on the performance as "immensely satisfying", and the jewel in the crown of all the music-making in our metropolis (yes, our stocks are rising, while all the rest are plummeting) in 2008.

In the Tribune, Christopher Abbey's headline was: Audience enraptured by stunning oratorio.

The two reviews are reproduced at Choir Quire.

As I said in a message to the three marvellous soloists:

You have been a vital part of something very special in a town which is often the object of humour, and which the national orchestra will no longer visit, and which is bypassed by the travelling opera company. So we have to make our own music, and your support has been highly appreciated by us.

Awake the harp, the lyre awake, and let your joyful song resound, Renaissance Singers, PN Choral Society, Manawatu Sinfonia.

PRAYER TREES

2008-11-11T02:00:00.000-08:00

My Forest Cathedral

Fred Symes

For most followers of mainstream religions their main place of worship is a building. It may be a tiny weatherboard church needing a coat of paint. Or it could be one decorated inside with superb carving and tuku tuku wall panels as is the one at Tikitiki near the East Coast’s Ruatoria. Then again, it could be the quite majestic white-spired Roman Catholic edifice in Palmerston North, the Assembly of God hall in the same town’s Ferguson Street or the lounge room in the home of an obscure sect leader.

It could very easily be a magnificently domed and minaretted mosque, a vaulted synagogue, a Taoist temple in Japan, Russian Orthodox cathedral in Kiev, a Hindhu temple in India or even the well-preserved 1000-Buddha temple in the Fragrant Hills of Beijing.

As aesthetically striking and architecturally impressive as many of these houses of god are (choose your own belief) they are but the puny efforts of egoists trying to mimic the grandeur of the creator. Too often, I feel, the perceived man-made grandeur and the vast expense to achieve it are equated by guilty and fearful humans to a need to placate god, to ensure a place at his right hand after death. There have been times in the evolution of human civilisation that the same equation has been achieved by animal, and even human sacrifice. I trust that, as god did for the sacrificial Jesus, all those innocent virgins, goats and sheep experienced deserved resurrection.

The grandeur of, and vast expenditure on, the houses of god is directly related to their position in the hierarchical structure; the closer to the leadership of a particular belief, the finer the houses of worship. It seems to me that fine structures are built more to the glory of the leaders and as a display of church wealth and power than to the glory of their particular god. Does god really care about all this rather grotesque show of finery – and obscene wealth?

When I see these quite miserable attempts of man to attain the creative genius of god – and I have visited many major houses of worship in Europe and Asia – I am reminded of the cartoon by the Australian social commentator, Leunig. It shows a father and child sitting spellbound in front of a television set. On the screen is a beautiful sunrise. Father and child are completely oblivious to the real thing that could be their’s to glory in if they would only look through the window.

Which brings me to the title I have given this story, ‘My Forest Cathedral.’

Call me strange if you will but, with two exceptions, I have never experienced feelings of spiritual awe in any church – not Anglican, not Catholic, not Baptist, not Methodist, not Seventh-day Adventist, not Uniting, not Buddhist, not Hindu nor Moslem. The exceptions were in a high-steepled Anglican church in the tiny village of Bloxam, near Banbury Cross, and in Canterbury Cathedral. Even then the feeling was more aligned with my own personal spirituality and a family problem than with the Anglican god.

My spiritual awareness woke from its dormant condition when, as a 19-year-old, I lived in Te Aroha and discovered the New Zealand bush. I discovered a few other things about life there, too, but the majesty of the bush was the real clincher in establishing religion in my mind. Not any established, institutionalised corrupt and hypocritical religion, but my own, inner-self harmony and belief in the purity of the natural world.

During the year I was there I spent many summer evenings climbing on the bushclad Mt Te Aroha and many weekends enjoying the strenuous climb across the ruggedly steep Kaimai Range. Whenever I was in the bush I marvelled at its sublime beauty and gave thanks for its being. It was a place where I always felt at peace, both with myself and with the world.

It was a few years later and after a too-long bush-free city life that I eventually came face to face with my god. I was on a business trip to the Bay of Islands region. On a rough, gravel road on the way from Kaikohe to Kaeo I noticed a weathered sign announcing Puketi Forest. Having time to spare and not having been in the bush for a couple of years or so, I pulled over. There was a hardly discernible, narrow, muddy track leading into the forest.

Stepping as carefully as I could to keep my polished shoes from as much mud as possible I ventured along the track, ill lit by the dappled light of an overcast sky sneaking through the thick canopy. All around me were magnificent kauri trees, straight backed and lofty. Little did I realise as I gaped and gasped at this great natural beauty that I was about to discover the home of my personal god.

Around a bend in the track and only about 200 metres from the road was a cheek-by-jowl trio of truly beautiful, long-lived specimens of kauri. Alongside was a paint-flaking sign naming the grand trio as the Three Princesses. Well, that’s how some forest bureaucrat might have seen them, but not me. These creations of my god were the template for the cathedral beauty that man has strived mightily to achieve over centuries. But never has, and never will.

I have been back several times to my forest cathedral and enjoyed friendly chats with its owner. I was last there in 2000 and he told me he was a little concerned that humans were turning his beautiful home and the extensive grounds surrounding it into a flashy place with fancy boardwalks, billboards and other paraphernalia of tourist worship.

I just hope no one installs a tv set there.

© Fred Symes 2005
[Used without explicit permission, but that C in a circle says to me: Copy! Right!]

My friend Fred and I exchanged places for quite a while; before we knew each other he lived in my hometown Sydney, while I was here in his city Palmerston; he has now returned, and we are both helping to increase the average IQ of this country.

I understand the reference to Michael Leunig. My son Michael sends me the Sydney Morning Herald calendar every year, with a Leunig cartoon for every month, and the naked father and son watching the sunrise on the television screen instead of through the window has been on show in my office in October. I have not turned the page yet, but I see it has another TV one for November: she (the woman holding the remote control?!) asks him as they scoff their take-away pizza: "What violence do you want? Sporting, military, or random-psychotic?".

Now, I am not going to disparage watching television, which literally allows us to see (video vision) from afar (tele) things that are significant and beautiful, without having to trample the earth ourselves, polluting the air and the water as we go. Today a group of us had a rewarding time watching Dava Sobel's LONGITUDE, about John Harrison and his son William devoting their lives to making chronometers to enable navigators to know where they are on the ocean, instead of being all at sea. (The terrible thing about television is that it is a horrible hybrid of Greek and Latin!)

From the same source, my bus-driving son in Sydney, I have received Leunig's little book THE PRAYER TREE (copyright 1990). Picture the naked man with his constant companion, a white duck. "A person kneels to contemplate a tree and to reflect upon the troubles and joys of life. The person imagines mornings and evenings in a great forest of prayers, swarming and teeming with life. The person is learning how to pray."

Trees are getting lots of mentions in Bonzoz; it is starting to look like an obsession. This one includes a veritable and venerable Kauri Trinity.

ELECTION

2008-11-06T15:08:00.000-08:00

The date above is US time, but it is already Friday in this hemisphere.

Here in New Zealand, as ill-fated Ophelia said, tomorrow is Saint Valentine's Day , or something like it. We get to tell a person that we love her, or him, but we do it anonymously, through the medium of the secret ballot. The USA had their turn during the week, but they did not have a woman (though Hillary, named after our Ed Hillary, according to a politician's false spin, did her best to get into the wrestling ring). Hillary Clinton was consigned to the wings, but Sarah Palin, in her polar bear fur-coat, metaphorically speaking, was brought onto the stage. She believes the Bible (supported by the recently deceased Michael Crichton): humans were once hunted by dinosaurs, and vice versa. I can not find dinosaurs mentioned in the Bible, unless they were the giants that pop up on the earth; in the olden days dinosaur bones were thought to belong to human giants. Sarah does not read newspapers, but she knows that humans are not causing climate change; it is still cold in Alaska, so global warming is nonsense.

However, in this country the candidates for leader are not giving us a choice between black and white, but male and female, and the woman is no dumb blonde or ignorant brunette. I met Helen Clark of the Labour Party at Massey University a decade ago, and told her I was a supporter, and she gave me a copy of her manifesto; we had a friendly discussion about the future of the university. She has been our prime minister since then, and the arts have flourished; she likes opera! There is a story that will not go away, about her appreciation of paintings: she put her signature on one and it was sold to raise money for charity; this was supposed to prove the deceitfulness of politicians and her own lack of honesty. Pardon me, artists put their names on the painting itself; Helen signed on the back, merely indicating that the work had passed through her hands and had met with her approval. It is the same as writing one's name on the flyleaf of a book; this indicates ownership not authorship.

Recently four hundred Jewish New Zealanders attended a celebration at our parliament. Helen Clark spoke glowingly about their contribution to New Zealand society, providing two prime ministers in the past.

Ironically, her opponent John Key is Jewish (the cartoonists have noticed the nose), and a third instance to add to her list may be coming up. Some people are muttering that Shylock will be ruling over us, and the promise of tax "cuts" suddenly sounds ominous; and his National Party is renowned for not doing what they said they would do, doing what they said they would not do, and turning on a whole pile of surprises that had not been mentioned at the hustings.

It was noticeable that when the two leaders had another debate on television, immediately after the results of the Obama and McCain election, instead of shouting each other down again, they were conciliatory and civil.

If John Key becomes my prime minister, I will remember my distant Jewish ancestry, and be guided by Helen's words, that NZ Jewry have given us "their passion for education, family and community and their social conscience".

The contest is not only red and blue, as in the USA, but also GREEN, lest we forget.

HUGS

2008-10-06T03:10:00.000-07:00

In a league of their own

In my natal town Sydney, the 2008 Rugby League Grand Final has been decided, with Manly (Sea Eagles) 40 defeating Melbourne (Storm) 0 [nil, they never crossed the opponents' line to try to score a try, nor got out of gaol to achieve the goal of kicking a goal]. We're talking about football here, in case you don't understand the RL reference.

Manly is one of the beaches of Sydney (I used to go there on the Manly ferry, and one time I was admiring a good-looking sheila from behind and found out it was my cousin Judith). The aboriginals sighted on that shore by the first English explorers were considered to look manly, and the name stuck. I, with my British skin, used to sunbathe there to try and get a tan equal to the original Australians; also at Cronulla (which never wins the Grand Final); Bondi I usually avoided, because the sewers emptied there. Botany Bay beach (no surf) is where I taught myself to swim (the graceful 'dog-paddle' stroke), and where my ancestor George Colless was sent in chains for his sins. Well, they can tan me hide when I've died, Clyde (quoth Rolf Harris, last seen painting Queen Elizabeth's portrait, but not with a large brush and a can of the best of British paint), but my pelt is still pink and white, though spotted and scarred and sagging as a result of sun-damage. Melbourne was the last Australian city I lived in, and I got my worst sunburn there riding my bike from Brunswick (remember Death in Brunswick?) to Geelong and back, in short pants and no sleeves in bush-fire weather (110 degrees Fahrenheit).

Funny thing, when I lived in Melbourne (1965-1969), and in Adelaide (1962-1963), the southern Australians showed no interest in Rugby football (whether lower class Rugby League or middle class Rugby Union) but played an energetic vaulting game known as Australian Rules (but related to an Irish form of football). I have never learnt even the rudiments, but the exciting thing is that you get big scores (some of the points are called 'behinds'), far superior to soccer (allegedly the true football), where they run around madly for a couple of hours and fail to score any goals at all, by kicking the round ball through the goal posts, past the goal-keeper; if only they removed that spoil-sport from the game, they might get some figures to write home about, like cricket scores.

Nevertheless, though I digress, Melbourne manages to cobble a squad together for the Rugby League competition, to defend their honour against several teams from Sydney and Brisbane; and even Auckland (New Zealand) has the Warriors (which beat Melbourne but lost to Manly in the run-up to the final contest).

I hail from Balmain, and my parents and my two younger brothers and I all followed the Tigers. At Balmain primary school (Gladstone Park, 'pigeon ground') we got coaching on Friday afternoons, free and in school time, from a famous player (the skills were punting, drop-kicking, tackling, dribbling). This helped a bit when I was forced to play Rugby Union at Fort Street Boys High School (the headmaster wanted us to learn to give a knock and take a knock, making it sound like a knocking shop). My wife Helen went to the same school (though the girls were on a distant segregated campus, so we never met); she did not play Rugby (though my daughter Laurel did); but Helen's rugby league team was called Western Suburbs, and they and Balmain eventually combined (as she and I did). My son Michael lives in Sydney and even though he was born in Canterbury hospital, he insists on following Saint George.

If you redd (sic, if I wrote 'read' you would not know how to 'read' it) the one-word headline, you are wondering when I am going to give you a hug. Well, first let me say I was amazed to see all the Manly players embracing one another passionately ('rugby' is certainly an anagram of 'bugry', but the physical contact is not at all erotic). Apparently you are no longer thought to be a poofter if you hug your mates. That's nice. Hugs are special, in a league of their own.

Tonight I was hurrying through our public gardens (The Esplanade) to get to choir practice, and I passed a Korean family; the mother fell on my neck and hugged me; then I recognized her as one of the pastors from the Methodist church; no time to revel in the close encounter, though.

Yesterday, walking in company with Helen and Betty, alongside the rushing Manawatu River with its passing parade of floating logs and branches, we paused to admire a eucalyptus tree; the migrant magpies and possums must have brought their gum trees over with them, and the native tui birds have taken to them with gusto (Yeah, right!); there are two magnificent specimens in view through my office window here. So, we were admiring the colours of its 'skin' (it sheds its bark); they reminded us of Australian Aboriginal art.

I approached it and found these words inscribed on it: HUG ME. I willingly complied, flinging my arms around as much of the trunk as I could encompass. I let out a pained yelp,because the palm of my right hand had been pierced by the point of a screw poking out. (I still can't work out how the blighter managed to screw it in backwards.) I hope that's the nearest I will ever get to crucifixion.

But that's the point about hugs: if you have a hug you don't expect a screw.

TURBINES

2008-09-23T04:33:00.000-07:00

Blots on the landscape

In our town, people keep complaining about the beautiful revolving fans that have appeared up here on the hills in recent years. They are said to be an eyesore, and to be sending out a low noise that can not be heard but it makes us sick. Worst of all, it is claimed that our property values are being debased by their presence.

I really don't know what the problem is. They make cool breezes for us in the summer, and they are comforting to contemplate as their blades turn gracefully. I understand that as a by-product they generate some electricity, so we don't need to burn as much valuable oil to keep the power coming into our homes.

No, the frequent reports in our news media show that the real trouble is elsewhere. Every day they are tumbling over and crushing our beloved houses and precious cars. I am talking about trees. They are moving in on us like those gnarled monstrosities in The Lord of the Rings. Recently a lot of good folk in my neighbourhood were cut off from their homes by thoughtless trees blocking the road, and they had to get out of their vehicles and walk.

Forests are where ferocious bears and ravenous wolves lurk. In hot weather the trees catch fire and the flames engulf us and our pet animals. Let's cut them down and enjoy the sight of green meadows and lush pasturelands, where useful beasts can graze contentedly.

All my life I have been repeatedly told that money does not grow on trees, and that shows just how useless they are.

That is what I wrote in our local newspaper, about the plethora of electric windmills on the hills. It did not cause an avalanche of passionate responses, but a few people sent txt misivz to the editor. I had hinted that these structures are more stable than timber plants, and will not fall over and wreak havoc, as inconsiderate trees do.

The correspondents in the txt column seemed to say that the main trouble for them was the noise of trucks bringing in the components. Living near the mouth of a dead-end 'tributary' of Summer Hill Drive, which is a very busy thoroughfare, I see and hear endless traffic, emitting noisy explosions and noxious fumes into my space. When we moved here we did not know that a landscape-garden centre would be set up over our back fence, with vibrations that shake our house, as heavy materials are moved about.

However, if I want the benefits of the modern industrial society, including my splendid computer which gives me internet access to the whole world, I have to endure these inconveniences, without crying 'Not in my backyard, thank you'.

I have to admit that trees and windmills are both beautiful, and I think that I shall never see a turbine lovely as a tree, but which is more useful? Certainly, the leafy wooden erection set up by nature has its uses: they say that forests clear the air after it has been polluted by wood burning in hearth fires, and in my lifetime I have seen motor cars fueled by charcoal. But a tree can not create electricity.

DELUGE

2008-09-07T19:00:00.000-07:00

FLOOD WARNING A-BU-BU

It is raining again as I write this, but a real deluge is coming your way.

YOUR SINS HAVE FOUND YOU OUT. While you went on eating, drinking, and reveling the flood has come upon you unawares.

We have opened the windows of the heavens and the floodgates of the oceans, and a deluge of writing has come pouring down upon your head. Here at BONZOZ, and also at the COLLESSEUM. (Click on it to see the total damage.) The one you should look for (with instructions on how to escape destruction) is The Epic of Atrakhasis : Flood Story, under the heading ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA.

Now you will drown, and your name will be blotted out from the celestial book of records and the tablets of destiny.

YOUR ONLY HOPE OF SALVATION lies in drinking it all in, down to the last drop. Then there will be nothing left to drown in.

When the Mesopotamian gods destroyed humankind with a deluge (abubu), they were sorry and said in Akkadian (the language of ancient Mesopotamia):

We have made abubu.

Gods cannot survive without worshippers to feed them with sacrifices. When the survivors sent up sacrifices, the gods gathered like flies at the altar, we are told.

After the Hebrew God sent his devastating deluge, affectionately known as the Great Flood, he told Noah that he would never do it again (Genesis 9:8-17), and he put his coloured bow in the sky as a sign of this covenant.

No such undertaking will be given here.

The early Babylonian account of the Flood is found in THE EPIC OF ATRAKHASIS from ancient Sippar in `Iraq. That city was the home of the sun-god Shamash. The story goes that the gods had to do all the work of digging beds for rivers in the beginning, but they went on strike, and so humankind was created to maintain the earth. However, they bred so profusely that their noise prevented the top god Enlil from getting his beauty-sleep. So he sent a series of disasters to wipe them out, but neither plague nor famine, nor drought, nor flood could eradicate the nuisance, because each time Enki the god of wisdom saved a few so that the gods would not be left bereft of labour, and servants to bring their meals.

In the Bible (Genesis 5-7) the reason why God sent the Deluge was that humankind had polluted the earth with their sins, and it needed a good cleanup. One family and a pack of animals was preserved in a a box-boat (an ark).

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YHWH

2008-09-04T18:43:00.000-07:00

DECIPHERING THE DIVINE NAME

Haydn's oratorio The Creation (Die Schöpfung) is to be performed in English by the Palmerston North Choral Society and the Renaissance Singers, with the Manawatu Sinfonia:
3.00 pm Sunday 30 November, 2008, Regent on Broadway, Palmerston North, New Zealand.

The divine name Jehovah appears in the last line of the libretto: "Jehovah's praise for ever shall endure".

Everywhere else in the text, the Deity is 'God' or 'Lord'.

I am glad that 'Jehovah' will be changed to 'the Lord' in this performance by the combined choirs.

Let me explain. Listen carefully, I will say this only once (but you can always read it as often as you want).

My general complaint is that JeHoVaH is another of those monstrosities created by speakers of English, whose lawless spelling system leaves them without a clue with regard to phonetics.

The original Hebrew consonants in the divine name are Y-H-W-H. (We can call Y and W consonants, though they are semi-vowels.) Notice it has four-letters, and so it is reverently designated as the Tetragrammaton (Greek for 'four-letter word').

English always turns Y into J (dj) in Biblical names:
Jesus < (Latin) Iesus < (Hebrew) Yeshua` In JeHoVaH, W has become V (though modern Israelis also say V for W, because they spoke German ['Yiddish'] for so long). The vowels were YaHWeH (and all the consonants were pronounced). So where did the -e-o-a come from? Here beginneth the lesson. You have heard of the Ten Commandments (Do not steal, Do not murder, Do not 'adulterate', and so on) given to the tribes of Israel through the prophet Moses at Mount Sinai (Exodus 20), each of which carries the death penalty, apparently. One of them says "Do not take Yahweh's name in vain" (meaning: don't misuse it, in oaths and curses and magic spells), and for safety's sake it was decided by the Jewish sages that it would be best never to say it out loud. The exception was on the one day of the year, The Day of Atonement, when the High Priest entered the inner sanctum of the Temple in Jerusalem (the Holy of Holies), where God was enthroned above the kerubim [winged sphinxes, not cherubs] on the Ark [box] of the Covenant; there he would whisper the divine name. When the Scriptures were recited, if YHWH appeared then the Hebrew word for 'My Lord' ('Adonay) was substituted (or some Jewish readers say 'The Name'). In ancient Hebrew texts (the Dead Sea scrolls, for example) no vowels were written, only the consonants. But every Jewish boy had to be able to recite the Torah by the age of twelve (at his Bar Miswah [mitsva in Yiddish pronunciation] ceremony), and something had to be done so that words would not be mispronounced: therefore dots and dashes were added to indicate the vowels. Now, the scribes inserted the vowels for 'Adonay on YHWH, to remind the reader to say 'Adonay [My LORD], not Yahweh, and certainly not Yahowah! When the Bible was translated into English, that is what happened: out came Jehovah (in Exodus 6:3). Note that the first -a- in 'Adonay was a very short vowel (a form of shewa), and the -e- in Jehovah is meant to be a shewa (schwa or sheva in English dictionaries, a Hebrew word meaning 'emptiness'). It is the indistinct unstressed vowel sound heard thrice in "a MOMeNT aGO". It has the same quality as New Zealand i [as in sit], and the standard pronunciation of Jehovah is dyihouva [ou as in soul, not as in ghoul, or doubt, or double; you can see what a ridiculous writing system it is]. But now we have changed 'Jehovah' to 'the LORD', as in most English Bibles (exceptions being the translation used by Jehovah's Witnesses; and the Catholic Jerusalem Bible, where Yahweh is consistently written). The name is a verb meaning 'He is'. When he refers to himself he says "I am", not "He is" (see Exodus 6:3). But 'He causes to be' is another possible meaning, implying he is the Creator. Either way, note that the name is a verb and points to a dynamic God who acts. There are two short forms of Yahweh: (1) YAHU (Yahoo!) (2) YAH. The Anglicized 'Elijah' is either Eliyahu (a name many Israelis have) or Eliyah (My God is Yahweh). It is found in the interjection Halleluyah (usually spelled with j!): Praise ye Yahweh, or Praise the Lord.

For an 'alternative' view (Yehweh not Yahweh) go to Yehspace: Cracking the code of the most important name in the universe, IEUE.

I regret that I cannot accept all of the origins for the letters of the alphabet, as suggested by J.E. Marchant on the table supplied in Yehspace. My own chart is here, the first of a series I am running on the original letters of the alphabet.

May I add something about a puzzle in the celebrated chorus (14):

The heavens are telling the glory of God,
the wonder of his work displays the firmament.

Both statements say the same thing, but the second is turned round back to front, poetically but confusingly. The firmament is the sky (= the heavens, the solid vault of heaven, not terra firma) and it is the subject of the verb "displays".

The Authorized Version of King James has:
The heavens declare the glory of God;
and the firmament sheweth his handywork. (Psalm 19:1)

"You can never have too much information" is my motto.

God aend ay haev given ap on Ingglish speling.
God and I have given up on English spelling.

Shalom/Salaam
Brian

ABGDT

2008-09-01T06:36:00.001-07:00

A IS FOR AUROCHS

This table of characters with its grid of rows and columns represents the culmination of my life's work on the origin of the alphabet.

At first glance it may be overwhelmingly mysterious and incomprehensible, but I will take you through it gradually, line by line, starting with the letter A .

Of course, it is rather small, but I hope your computer will zoom it up if you click on it, as mine just did, filling the screen. Then you can print it out; but the result I got was rather faint, so maybe it should then be photocopied to make it darker! (That worked for me.)

First go to the heading ROME on the far right, and run your eyes down that column. All the letters should be recognizable (I have tried to print them clearly in block letters, as required on all official forms). Not all the letters of the Roman alphabet are there (FJWXY are missing), so you could be thinking this document is to be suspected, or rejected, as flawed (but I would be floored and dejected, if you did).

Those Roman letters were derived from the Greek alphabet (so called because its first two letters were named Alpha and Beta), and you can see the standard Greek forms to the left of each Roman letter; but you will sometimes need to look further left in the GREECE box to see what the Romans copied, notably for C/G, D, L, P, S.

Concentrating now on the letter A: it is derived from the Greek Alpha. That name means nothing in Greek, but it was borrowed from the Phoenicians in the 8th century BC(E), and in their language (Phoenician, and Hebrew) it did have a meaning: 'alep(h) says 'ox', and looking along the row, back to the Bronze Age, a millennium earlier, we find that the original Canaanite (West Semitic) form was 'alp.

Because of the antiquity of the name'Aleph, I have chosen to say "A is for aurochs" (rather than "for apple"), the ur-ox ('original ox') being the extinct wild animal that was the ancestor of domesticated cattle.

Now, a surprise as astonishing as a cow jumping over the moon: there is a stark qualitative difference between the list of Greek and Roman characters on the far right of the chart, and the list of sounds the original letters represented (in the column on the far left). Can you spot the difference?

There are no vowels in the first column. Instead of A we see an apostrophe ('). There is another one (meant to be the 6-shaped one) at the section dealing with the letter O (originally an eye).

The ox-sign did not represent the vowel a in the beginning, but the 'glottal stop'. It is a silent consonant! You can experience it in English if you say "over and over" without running the words together, but putting a glottal stop before 'a and 'o.

Notice how the ox-head starts upright, then lies on its side, and is finally inverted as A. (There seems to be instances of complete inversion quite early in Canaan.)

There is an important feature about the way the letters of the proto-alphabet could be used in their early days (in the Bronze Age). They could also be used as logograms or rebuses: the ox-sign could stand for the word for ox ('alp) and for any other word (or part of a word) which had the same consonants ('-l-p). You wil not find that fact in books you read, but it is a discovery (rather than an imaginary invention) of mine.

The heading ABGDT shows the first four letters and the last, in the Hebrew and Phoenician alphabet, but it originally included a Kh between the G and D (boomerang and door).

More information and elucidation is available at the Cryptcracker site, notably at the Abt Origins and Original Abt pages, but it comprises a whole course on early writing systems.

POLITICAL MANIFESTO

2008-08-31T04:44:00.000-07:00

STATEMENT OF POLICY

All this damaging talk of right-wing conspiracies leads me to make this unsolicited announcement on behalf of the National Party of New Zealand.

Listen very carefully, I will say this only once (to stay within the bounds of the electoral finance law). I do not want to have to come back and say, regretfully, that I should have chosen my words more carefully. Read my lips (as Dr Lockwood Smith said before an earlier election, when he pronounced the words 'No fees' to the tertiary students, rightfully adding under his breath 'without student loans'). The incoming (lovely word, 'income') National Party government will not sell off public assets. Not in the first term (time will tell whether this will be the first school term of 2009 or the longer university semester).

Most importantly, National (despite our name we are against 'nationalisation') will never, not in the short term nor in the long term, sell the brave little Kiwi Bank. On the contrary, we will buy it. Our leader will purchase it with his own personal tax cut, and it will become the Key Wee Bank (it's yours, John, it is not copyrighted). The profits will be used (no connection with the word 'usury') to fund tax cuts for all the hard-working deserving citizens of our Nation.

GREEN LIGHT GO-GO

2008-08-26T04:52:00.000-07:00

THE GREEN GLOW OF ECOLOGY

Green jewels signify fertility in some cultures, and it seems that this goes back 10,000 years or more when humans moved from hunting and gathering to farming and harvesting. Green beads, displaying the colour of vegetation, were worn to promote fertility in nature and in humankind. Did they want to give birth to 'the boy with green hair' (I saw it in 1948) or just healthy babies?

Here in Aotearoa New Zealand (which tries to portray itself as a green and pleasant land, with verdant grass and carbon-inhaling trees) we have greenstone, a type of jade, which could help promote our image and our campaign against 'global warming' (adverse climate change).

GO GREEN, we sing out in our region, not only because the Manawatû rugby team wears that colour, and not always to promote a particular political party. Green is the ecological way to go.

Just before I came on air (or whatever) I saw the start of David Letterman's Late Show, and he exhibited a moving picture of Al Gore's house, with a huge flashing sign exhorting us to put a stop to global warming. Dave spoke of irony and 'an inconvenient truth'. Well, maybe Al's electricity comes from a sustainable source. The lights are yellow, but they may still be 'green'.

I live on a high and windy hill (where two lovers kiss) and up here a magnificent obsession (Rock Hudson 1954) has taken hold of the electricity companies, and they are being given the green light by the environmental authorites (resource consent): they are gleefully erecting a plethora of windmills for producing the power to turn our darkness into light. Some ungrateful people are saying these dark satanic mills spoil the view and ruin the landscape. But the wind turbine way to power is catching on, and you can even buy a smaller version for your own back yard.

Who remembers Laurel Colless at Palmerston North Girls High School, and at Massey University? Ever wondered where she is now?

Today is my daughter's birthday (26th of August), and I want to draw your attention to the wonderful work she is doing to greenify Washington (DC = 600, but not 666) and make it the environmentally clean capital of the world (I hope she has Beijing next on her list). Working out of Virginia Tech (you have heard about that technological university, though you might have forgotten why, having suppressed the traumatic memory) she hunts and gathers funding from the oil-guilty rich.

Retrofitting is the name of the game (fitting buildings out with the insulation and power-saving features they should have had in the first place); it is not a retrograde business, and certainly not 'retro'.

Here is a recent account of her progress: The Washington Times, 16th of July 2008. It mentions that she grew up in New Zealand as the daughter of a university professor.

Well, that father is immensely proud of his daughter, and she could not have chosen a better career than this to please him.

Have a peep at the page in the family album to see her in the oval office at the White House, playing cricket with the President: Collesseum.

OLYMPIC WIN-WINNERS

2008-08-25T05:59:00.000-07:00

WE DID WELL FOR OUR SIZE

I did not manage to see the closing celebration of the Beijing Olympic Games. I set the recorder to catch it on TV1 through SkyTV. What do I find in the morning? Sky had switched it over to Sky Box Office, as often happens in the middle of a program on the Arts Channel. On this occasion, I might not have checked that it was on the right channel, but I hope there will be a replay eventually. I truly am an admirer of Chinese culture and I am fascinated by their writing systems, so I was glad to have a video-tape recording of the opening ceremony.

Here in New Zealand there is not too much gloom. Number crunchers have shown that calculating on a per capita basis Aotearoa came 7th on the medals table, and Australia got 5th place. The NZ result was the best since 1992 (Madrid). I have a recording from that time, when Australia did not do well, but very ill. Andrew Denton and the cast of Live and Sweaty sing "I don't care as long as we beat New Zealand" (but they didn't). Quote: NZ has just won its fifteenth gold medal in kayaking! (not this time, though). And an extended dialogue with variations on the mantra "We did quite well for a country our size", with a plethora of permutations and combinations, and ultimately the introduction of the word 'bloody'.

Personally, I am counting a host of other medals that did not get the Aotearoa national anthem sung to them.

Since Phelps the porpoise was partly trained in this country, we can share all his gold medals with the USA (well, we won't include the relay medal). By the way, I noticed he had a bevy of fans wearing PHELPS shirts. In this Godzone land some people would read that as P HELPS; but it does not help at all; metamphetamine misuse has produced a new wave of infants with brain damage and personality disorder, to add to those ruined by fetal alcohol syndrome; and here comes the stupidest invention of modern times: a drug that will allow pregnant women to imbibe gin laced with vodka with no harmful effects on the baby, just damage to their own silly selves.

And because I have an Australian passport (which, like Chinese passports, proves I am 16, not 14) I am snapping up all the Oz medals, too.

My mother Irene Rilatt was English, and my convict ancestor George Colless was Anglo-Scottish British, so I am raking in all the medals won by Great Britain.

Finally, all New Zealanders can cash in on this one and be win-win winners. Notice how often we come fourth in the events. Because there are now so many countries and so many competitors in the Olympic Games, 4th place should be recognized with a medal. And this gallant little nation will supply the medals. Alongside the gold, silver, and bronze, we can have aluminium (maybe even beryllium, or beryl). Each little disc will carry the inscription: "Proudly made in New Zealand at the Tiwai Point smelter" (and if we are feeling generous we might add "from Australian bauxite"). That's "power to the people" (but also "power from the people", since that smelly factory uses up a power of our electricity).

Yes, we did really really well for our size (I'm talking about our national obesity problem).

IRAQ OLYMPICS

2008-08-22T04:53:00.000-07:00

OLYMPIC GAMES BEGAN IN MESOPOTAMIA (IRAQ)

Well, the Olympic Games, as the name shows, is a Hellenic thing, originating in Greece in 776 BCE and continuing till 393 AD/CE.

But, however, nevertheless, notwithstanding (though sitting at the computer is what gives me a pain in the bottom) be prepared to be amazed at the discovery that has been made by David Chibo (in Victoria, Australia). This is not one of Ripley's "Believe it or not" pieces, but a case of "You had better believe it or else". It all began in ancient Iraq, with the Gilgamesh Games.

http://www.gilgameshgames.org

The model for the Greek games was the funerary games conducted to remember the celebrated King Gilgamesh of Uruk. The festival took place annually in the month named Abu, which is Ab or Av on the Hebrew calendar still used by Jews; my personal diary has all the Hebrew dates for 2008, which is the year 5768/9, and Av corresponds to August, which is the month in which the Olympic Games happen. Originally the Olympiad was held every year, but was changed to a fourth yearly event.

The focal point of the games in Mesopotamia was a statue of Gilgamesh (as divine judge of the netherworld) in a temple; and in Greece it was the statue of Zeus in the temple at Olympia.

A feature of the Gilgamesh celebration was the lighting of torches (because of the underworld connections, presumably), and of course the Olympiad was associated with a torch.

On a summary table, eleven compelling comparisons are shown.

http://www.gilgameshgames.org/ggamestable.html

I will have more to say on the Epic of Gilgamesh ....

There is a website named ANCIENT OLYMPICS which will answer all your questions in English, Dutch, Chinese, and Arabic.

You can download a nice little book, which will tell you about the ancient history of the Olympics, in words and pictures.

http://olympics.bib-arch.org/ebook.asp

BONZOZ BONZER BONANZA

2008-08-19T05:38:00.000-07:00

Kia ora! (Mâori greeting: "Be alive", not "Get a life")

As you can see, the name of this blog is BONZOZ. It is not exactly an acronym, like ANZUS and ANZAC, but it does have New Zealand (NZ) and Australia (Oz!) embedded in it. Notice the beady eyes looking out at you in BoNZ0Z (sometimes bleary eyes as my posts are often sent out in the wee small hours). As a citizen of Australia and a resident of Aotearoa I am definitely not one-eyed. Ever since I was a literate little boy, B has been my letter, and from time to time I want to tell you about the origins of the letters of the alphabet (as on my cryptcracker blog).

Bonzo the happy dog and Bozo the jolly clown are lurking in the word BONZOZ, too. There is more than a hint of our Ocker word BONZER (a synonym of BEAUT), which means excellent, and seems to be connected with BONANZA, which speaks of prosperity and productivity (originally Spanish, meaning good weather). Our Sunday paper has a puzzle where you have to find about twenty words from five letters. This one is a challenge: boo, zoo .... no, on ... keep going!

I had thought BONZOZ was an original word, but when I did a web-search on it, six pages were offered to me! None of the examples were my blog (yet?). Somebody is using bonzoz.com, and the first one led me to Character Profile: Bonzoz.Spirestone - Thottbot: World of Warcraft.That does not sound like my style;"Blessed are the peacemakers" and "Peace at any price" are my mottoes. So I thought I might change it to BRONZOZ, with the Br- of my name, and the Bronz-element hinting that I live in the Bronze Age, with all my work on ancient scripts; and it evokes the image of a bronzed Australian (though that is not me, as the sun has merely blistered, freckled, and gnarled my tender white skin). And Bro is a New Zealand form of address, whereas Bo' is American (as in "Say, Bo", "Oui, c'est beau".)

But Bronzoz delivers five pages from a google search! So, I guess I will have to live with BO (for most of my life I have been told I am sweaty and smelly when I get off my bike).