Heracles, Hercules, Why So Many Names

 The mightiest son of Zeus has many names, but the two most frequently used in modern media are Hercules and Heracles. The simple explanation for this is that the Romans used Hercules, while the Greeks used Heracles (or Herakles). That suffices, but it would not be a Wednesday Classics post if there were not greater depths to explore.

The original name of Herakles was Alkaios, the name of his paternal grandfather, Alkaios, son of Perseus. This genealogical connection is why Herakles is sometimes referred to as Alcides, “descendant of Alkaios.” Herakles’ mortal parents were Amphitryon, son of Alkaios, son of Perseus, and Alkmena, daughter of Elektryon, son of Perseus. Alkmena’s name shares a root with Alkaios which indicates strength, because names in myth and legend are often extremely on the nose. Alkaios, son of Amphitryon, was a target for Hera, the wife of Zeus. After baby Alkaios strangled the two serpents sent to kill him in the first days of his infancy, he was renamed Herakles, “glory of Hera,” in a futile attempt to appease the wrath of Hera by dedicating the baby to her. That is the mythological background for the name.

Greek is an Indo-European language with a pitch whose placement is not automatic and a distinction between long and short vowels. The pitch on the name Heracles appears on the final syllable of the name; the length pattern of the name was long-short-long, a cretic according to Greek metrical naming conventions. This name did not fit well into the dactylic pattern of epic poetry, so alternate names were often used for Heracles in poetry. The Greeks used the Greek alphabet, which did not have the letter C; Heracles in Greek is spelled with a K (kappa).

 The Greeks travelled and colonized much of the Mediterranean, including what is now Italy. In Italy the Greek colonists met the Etruscans, the dominant ethnic power of northern and mid-Italy. The Latin peoples, the speakers of Old Latin, were under the power of the Etruscans. The Etruscans borrowed and adapted the Greek alphabet to write their previously unwritten language.

The Etruscan language was quite different from the Greek language. The variety of the Greek alphabet which the Etruscans adopted had three velar sounds: kappa, qoppa, and gamma. Kappa and qoppa were like a hard C sound in English, although the Etruscans could hear a difference. Gamma was like a hard G sound in English. The difference between hard C and hard G in Greek is called voicing; it was something which the Etruscan language lacked. The result of this lack was that Etruscan heard G as C. At this point, with three letters for the same or similar sounds, many language adopters would have chosen one; Etruscan retained all three and distributed them in front of specific vowels. Qoppa (Q) appeared before U. Kappa (K) appeared before A. C, the gamma which was now identical in sound to K but had one less stroke, appeared before E. Due to its slightly easier writing, C gradually annexed the vocalic territories of K, including before I, the fourth vowel of the Etruscan language.

The speakers of Old Latin learned to write from the Etruscans. They therefore adopted the three varieties of hard C. Q was useful because QU was a frequent combination of consonants in Old Latin. Old Latin did not need both K and C and opted for the simpler of the two – except in the important time word Kalends and some names. Since C was always an English hard C, any Greek words with K could be spelled with C.

An alphabet was not all Etruscan and Old Latin shared. The languages were in a Sprachbund, a kind of linguistic marriage in which certain features are shared between unrelated languages. One of the features in the Etruscan-Old Latin Sprachbund was consistent stress (not pitch) on the first syllable of a word. Herakles, therefore, became Heracle in Etruscan, with initial syllable stress. A frequent result of initial syllable stress is a decrease in stress on non-initial syllables to the point that the vowels in those syllables disappear; thus Heracle became Hercle. This form lasted in Etruscan until its eventual extinction.

Old Latin, however, did not like this consonant cluster. Old Latin, unlike Etruscan, was also a member of the Indo-European language family. Old Latin had long and short vowel lengths, which underwent different changes in initial and non-initial position. This distinction is why the Latin verb ‘facio’ has the perfect passive participle ‘factus’, but the same root with the prefix ‘infacio’ has the perfect passive participle ‘infectus.’ In Old Latin as well as Etruscan, Heracle became Hercle, but Old Latin broke the cluster by inserting a vowel to produce Hercules – Old Latin shared many declensions with Greek and therefore requires the case ending -s to use the name Hercules. The name Hercules had the same metric value as Heracles; thus this difficulty remained unresolved.

Latin, the descendent of Old Latin, had a different set of stress rules, but these happen not to affect the name Hercules. Although the native name Hercules was preferred, the Greek borrowing Heracles (with Latin C rather than Greek kappa) was available. Poets were still stuck with an awkward name – especially because Latin, due to the initial stress period and the loss of non-initial syllables, had even less short syllables.

When the Western portion of the Empire fell, most knowledge of Greek was lost, while Latin retained its position as the language of the church and of administration. The name by which the son of Jupiter, “Jovis filius,” was known for millennia in the West was Hercules, in accordance with the use of Latin names for the Greco-Roman gods. This can be confirmed in the English poetic tradition, which favors initial stress. The Greek names were not unknown, but not preferred.

In more recent times, however, there was a movement to use the Greek names, or at least the Latin spelling of the Greek names, of mythological figures. Heracles became a more common sight than it had been previously, but it did not displace Hercules in the popular consciousness. The next step was the restoration of the kappa in the name Herakles. This is most common in relatively historical or realistic accounts. While Hercules and Heracles have co-existed for a long time, the use of the name Hercules in the scripture of the Mouse is an indicator of which name remains preeminent in English-speaking, and particularly American, popular culture.

Island in the Sea of Time

Snake Island, the island off the Romanian coast from which the Ukrainian soldiers shouted words as vociferous, if not as grandiose as some Laconic words of defiance has a history stretching back into the Greek myths. Upon this island lay the temple of Achilles, where now the lighthouse stands; on its model the Greeks constructed Elysium; on these shores Circe (in some accounts) absolved her niece Medea of the murder of her brother Absyrtus (whose resemblance to Abzu, the watery consort of Tiamat, does not pass unnoticed). Pindar's Olympic Ode 2 mentions the Tower of Kronos in the Islands of Blest. If any island should represent the ghosts and sorrows of war, it is this island. 

Back to the Brigade?

Written on June 19, 2018. A follow-up post will arrive after sufficient research.

In recent years, there have been numerous groups that have claimed that the Boy Scouts of America have lost their claim to be "morally straight" and formed their own organizations. This is, of course, their right. The phenomenon is fascinating, but scarcely new. One feature I have noted that these organizations share are that they are implicitly or explicitly religious-based, specifically Christian, if not even more narrowly denominational. These groups are, in fact, correct in claiming that they hearken back to the early days of youth organizations, but they are wrong (for the most part) in claiming that this Christian youth group mentality was the purpose of the BSA.

Many of the original troops were groups of boys from the YMCA, which at that time was a Protestant organization, but the primary motivator here was threefold: first, that's where the boys were; second, that's where pre-built facilities were; third, the YMCA was already an organization committed to the moral improvement of young men. This was functionally no different than the current reasoning that encourages troops and crews to use church basements and social halls as meeting spaces. The perceived Protestant element was so strong, however, that the Catholic Church forbade its boys from joining until 1913.

The Scouting movement already established in England had addressed this issue: although the initial testing ground for the Scouting movement had been the resolutely Presbyterian Boys' Brigade, of which there were Anglican, Catholic, Jewish, and Pacifist iterations, the Scouting method was designed as a religiously neutral method of training boys, and the Boy Scouts, once founded, maintained that neutrality. The self-organizing principle ensured that many groups were religiously homogeneous, often because they were also units of the Boys' Brigade or equivalents. This was also a reflection of the more segregated religion of the day, except in the military, from which Baden-Powell came. Baden-Powell and Brigadier Smith, the founder of Boys' Brigade worked together for many years, but the split, one of many among the promoters of the booming youth program movement, was on the relatively passive role of religion with the Boy Scout organization. Baden-Powell was adamant that duty to God was a matter of individual conscience and therefore could not and should not be administered by external forces within the Boy Scout organization. Smith, whose initial inspiration to form the Boys' Brigade had come from the union of Sunday school and military drill, could not countenance such sloppiness. This was hardly the only ideological rift among youth leaders, but the military and political aspects are topics to be discussed another time.

It is worth noting that neither of the predecessor organizations in the United States, the Sons of Daniel Boone and the Woodcraft Indians, placed explicitly denominational requirements on their members. This ecumenicism (for non-denominational, sadly, has now come to mean "very specific denomination") carried over to the BSA, although it seems that many people could not wrap their minds around the concept except in terms of military training.

Nowadays there is an organization called the Troops of St George. It is Catholic, somewhat military ( partly through expediency of Army/Navy store supplies in Texas), and incorporates father-son elements similar to the YMCA's long-defunct Indian Guide program. The truly distinguishing paraphernalia, however, is the Rosary. Although the organization is not linked to the military, nor are troops within the organization required to practice drill, the assumption of a military rank system and the explicit religious element are a return to the days of the Boys' Brigade, or in this case, the Catholic Lads' Brigade.

https://troopsofsaintgeorge.org/troops/

https://boys-brigade.org.uk/

http://www.bgbrigade.com/

http://www.thefullwiki.org/Sons_of_Daniel_Boone

http://history.oa-bsa.org/node/3039

http://vintagekidstuff.com/yguides/yguides.html

Navel of the World

On a bright Saturday morning, a hardy few Scouts and parents gathered at the Blue and Gold Ferry Building in order to seek by boat, albeit not a swift one, the island now called Angel but to many trapped therein after a long voyage to these domains hardly angelic. Across the foam-flecked waters we crossed to the harbor where the vessel lay anchor and we debarked. Our leader, though still yet a youth, spake unto the rangers and discovered that the path we had chosen was no longer passable. He sought, therefore, another path whereby we might attain the summit of the isle. After we had trod but a short while, we came to a place of rest and refreshment whose roof was made of leaves and whose seats were made of the fallen brethren of the trees. In this place we shed our vestments and donned the garments more meet for journeying.

The ascent led the faithful company through copses and fields full of those flowers whose virtue allows them to grow in this soil unto the summit. From that giddy height, thronged by many who had come to that isle, a man or boy could see all the shores that surround the mighty bay. The ground beneath was made of greywacke, a stone that is born grey but changes to tan upon exposure to the relentless air, and serpentinite, a greenish compound whose poisons forbid all but the hardiest plants to grow. Some in error call it serpentine, a more harmonious word, but those to whom more wisdom has been granted know that serpentine is but a part of the whole from which serpentinite takes its name.

The company descended to the far side of the isle, where they supped on the food which they had brought them. It was a fair spot to enjoy the fare, but that long grey isle wherein some many suffered,, perhaps justly, in part lay between the isle upon which the company sat and the fair city of tall towers and mighty hills whence we had fared that morn. Nigh unto the place of merriment were three grooves dug deep into the earth, that those warriors who once stood guard upon the isle might better aim their weapons in defense of the realm.

When the company had eaten their fill, they journeyed once more. They found a building, long abandoned, ruined but not yet wholly fallen down, wherein they played, imagining the adventures that boys do dream of according to their nature. Some, not tall enough though slender, wished that they had wings or mighty thews that they might reach the levels above forever out of reach of ordinary men. A marvelous mechanical device might have aided in the accomplishment of their desire, but the company lacked such wonders.

The company returned too early to the place where they had arrived upon the isle and from which the vessel would depart at the appointed time (or so it was hoped). Now the converse of men is good for the strengthening of brotherhood, but it would have been better if our youthful leader had used the time he had created for something other than idle games. I with another went to the house nearby, once the residence of the governor of the isle but now a place of remembrance for all that had passed upon that isle since the first Europeans set foot thereon. It may be that my enthusiasm made the sights within that building greater than they might have been, and that another more critical eye assessed the sights more truthfully.

The vessel which was to bear the company back to the city wherein they dwelt tarried in its coming, so that the number that desired to leave the isle, fair as it was, was vastly greater than the number which the ship could hold. All of the company made the first journey (the masters of the Blue and Gold had summoned a second vessel to rescue the sad remnant upon the isle). The boat itself was filled with merriment, of which much derived from the overconsumption of alcohol by those whose idea of pleasure is to eat and drink until judgment fades and impulse rules the limbs. Once the vessel neared the port of the Blue and Gold, a man in their service who fancied himself a wit warned the passengers to ensure that their vehicles, two-wheeled and painted with garish colors, not be taken by thieves and scoundrels.

Then the company landed and this tale is ended.

Selma and Suspension of Disbelief

Suspension of disbelief is an essential component of the cinematic experience, aided and abetted by that human faculty that gives rise to stories, lies, and Plan Bs when the world seems set against you. The darkness of the cinema, only recently swept clear of the glare of cell phones, is a sensory deprivation which the audience has chosen in order to clear the palate for other sensory experiences. This voluntary immersion is especially important for films that take place in other times, whether in the past or future. Selma is about the past, although its release date suggests it is the past representing and commenting on the future - the Chinese government once banned films set in the past for this reason. This representation, however, may not be exact, and above all should not be explicit. The power of such messages are that they infiltrate the mind, allow the audience to ruminate, to understand where the parallels are not exact and thereby encourage a creative response to the social crisis so addressed.

The inability of the creators of Selma to get the rights to use the actual words of Martin Luther King, Jr., is not necessarily a liability. Every school child has heard "I have a dream" so many times that there is a substantial risk that the audience will gloss over it. The torturous rewrites that this legal barrier triggered may have cause audiences to pay more attention to the message. These rewrites, however, are very much in character for the era and therefore do not disrupt the audience's immersion in the narrative.

This immersion lasts throughout the film, only to be broken at the last second by an intrusive song referencing the incidents in Ferguson. Even if King's Selma march were the right comparison to Ferguson, the insertion of this song indicates an astonishing lack of subtlety in an otherwise well-constructed film, the cinematic equivalent of crying out another woman's name in the moment of passion or the study guide that turns a work of literature into a school assignment. The only possible conclusions to be drawn from this are either that somebody involved in the film did not trust his audience to understand the parallels (in which case he should have made a better, more focused, film) or that the parallels between movie and reality are not as strong as the auteurs would wish, and that the addition of the final song is a desperate attempt at "relevance".

Revealing the End Among the Dry Dust

Civilization is a tenuous construct, and this is illustrated nowhere more plainly than in Eric Cline's 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed. Cline demonstrates how the civilizations of that area - Egyptian, Hittite, Mitanni, Mycenaean, Ugaritic - were tied together by trade rather than isolated civilizations and how the best evidence of this trade lies in the exchanges of wealth among the elite, not only in (relative) imperishables, but also in the more fragile goods, whether worn or consumed. He further shows that there were merchants of foreign nations in the capitals of these nations, possibly for generations. The specter of imprecise archaeological chronology rears its head, but Cline handles it as well as can be expected. The source material is richer than in past decades, but all archaeology is feeding on scraps! The interconnection of the civilizations presents a clearer picture of the post-apocalyptic past, but muddies the waters of the lives of the survivors, since the equation of new pottery forms with invasion and a new population is no longer a Euclidean equation. Cline's book is informative, but written in a style too dry for the casual reader, and not technical enough for a professional. Some authors have the skill to walk the via media: in this book, Cline is not among that company.

Nos Spectaturi Te Salutamus

On a recent Monday, I found myself down at the Commonwealth Club for a talk, "The Ancient Roman World on Film" presented by the Humanities Forum. Dr. Gary Devore from Stanford was the speaker. He spoke about the way directors manipulated the image of cinematic Romans to present them as Us, Them, Both, and Neither. The Romans were Them in The Sign of the Cross (1932), a bland Victorian pseudo-historical piece spiced up and sexed up as only Cecil B. deMille could do. Kubrick's Spartacus (1960) presented a remarkably pro-Communist message for its day, while being aggressively pro-family. Allegiance to a cause and its leader spans the political spectrum. In Anthony Mann's The Fall of the Roman Empire, which Devore described as the "thinking man's epic" in contrast to Ridley Scott's Gladiator (2000), the Romans are both Us and Them, and serve as a warning to our era. Fellini's Satyricon (1969) absolutely rejects the possibility of identifying with the ancient Romans; Satyricon is a reaction to Fascist use of Roman symbols and the Mussolini-penned Roman epic Scipione l'Africano.

Troop Fourteen:Rainy Day Hike

On Saturday, March 24, a small but intrepid band of Fourteeners braved the rain to attend a hike. The weather was bad and would get worse as the day passed. Since so few had dared the weather, the acting Senior Patrol Leader decided to change the hike from Mount Tamalpais to the Presidio; this way, the hike could serve as a test for the rain-worthiness of each Scout's equipment. Most of us ditched our lunches in cars at the beginning of the hike, but some hungry Scouts were unwilling to abandon food, even for a few hours. We walked down Lovers' Lane to the waterline. Then we headed to Fort Point, where the waves were crashing against the rocks. At first it seemed that the fort was closed, and none of us had planned to buy entrance tickets, but Bruce McKleroy spoke with the attendant . The fort opened ten minutes later and the group explored the fort. I had not visited Fort Point since sophomore year in high school, and had forgotten how Spartan the living conditions had been. The struts of the Golden Gate Bridge loomed overhead like a red metallic spiderweb. We left too early for my taste - I suppose I shall return soon on a better day when I can take proper pictures. The Senior Patrol Leader then led us up the hill and along the Ridge Trail past Camp Rob, where one of the first place patrols camped a year or so ago. The Presidio is within the Scout district, so permits are much easier to obtain than for trips beyond (which, sadly, includes Pacifica, which has some nice trails). If anyone plans to camp there, prepare for wind, but even a night at Camp Rob would count as a night for Camping Merit Badge. Bruce McKleroy explained that only the military had access to the area of the Ridge Trail when the military controlled the Presidio. Now it is a pleasant hike, even though the yellow mud along it was extremely slippery. We passed Julius Kahn Playground, a locus for stories of childhood injuries, and returned to Broadway and Lyon before noon. The total distance covered was 6.7 miles, not too challenging for a patrol outing and a breeze for the Troop.

A Peaceful Sabbath

I'm recovering slowly, but I thought I should get some fresh air, so I went down to Japantown to poke around. I stared at the front of the Kabuki, debating whether I should go to a movie, but there was no way to tell non-electronically what the movies were, and my clunker of a phone can't deal with graphic overload (or scroll sideways). I poked about the mall, purifying myself of the last bad memories there. There were many cute shops, but most were not yet open.  I admired the scale model of Osaka Castle, home of the Toyotomi clan and then the following Tokugawa clan. I love castles, and it's a shame there are so few in the United States. Eventually, I sat in the sunshine in the Peace Plaza and ate my sandwich. The woman on the other side of the stone circle, who was sketching the sculpture in the center, had satchel with Watchmen characters on the flap; she had bought it in Chinatown. A bit later,  I had bought a cup of tea sans lid, so I was forced to walk a fragment of the way home. I passed a line of indigents in front of Macedonia Baptist Church; the Philadelphian Seventh Day Adventist Church lacked such a line, but was open for its service at 11:20. Clearly this corner of San Francisco has a metaphysical connection with the Aegean!

When I returned home, I took Puff the Dog-Sat to the park. I had worried he would have an accident in my apartment, but instead he slept for five hours straight and was ready to visit the nearby dog run.  He was very energetic, and a bit uncooperative, but he showed his age in his feeble dominance display. Even he did not seem convinced. (Right now he's hyper because I fed him several pizza crusts and now he refuses to believe there are no more).

Birthday

That was quite a birthday! My cousin, Zach, and his girlfriend, Katie, came up for the festivities on Thursday. On Friday, we tried for the river, but in the morning the raft company had not opened, so we decided to go on the boat around the lake. Katie had never been on the lake, although her friend had been to Tahoe may times. We went over to Thunderbird Lodge, the stately manor founded by the heir to PG&E and Richmond/Sunset real estate, former circus performer, and 1905 earthquake hero. The old woodie Thunderbird II was nowhere in sight.

We continued down the Nevada side of the lake and stopped at a cove and a group of rocks. Three of us jumped, and as usual, were stripped of our breath by the bone-chilling temperature. Two of us adjusted fairly quickly. We swam to the rocks and climbed up on them. The rocks were as warm as the water was cold; unfortunately, somebody had tagged the back of the rock.

Once we were back on the boat, we went southward, past the clothing-free beach. Since we had enough gas, we headed across the lake to Emerald Bay. The heavy snowfall of this winter, still abundantly evident in the peaks of the Tahoe Rim, had filled Emerald Bay nearly to its greatest extent, so that the water was a marine blue rather than emerald green. The waterfall behind Vikingsholm, usually a trickle at this time of year, was visible from the mouth of the bay as a foaming white spray. As we travelled around Fannette Island, I told the others about Mrs. Knight, who owned Vikingsholm, and her predecessor Cap'n Dick, who used to row to Tahoe City for drinks and rowed back drunk every night. Nobody wanted to swim to the island with me! The one unfortunate effect of the high water was this: the travel lanes in and out of Emerald Bay were not as idiot-proof as usual (and a lot of idiots go on vacation). The return trip was uneventful, except for gas.

Since we had missed lunch altogether, Zach, Katie, and I went into town and got a slice of pizza to tide us over. Later, Mom, Dad, Zach, Katie, Aidan, Kirsten, and I went to the recently reopened Hacienda del Lago. It was nice to have the place back, although the bar that they built for the (former) tapas bar places takes up a lot of room that used to be seating.

After dinner, Zach, Katie, and I went to The Blue Agave to kill some time before the movie, and ran into Aidan and Kirsten. Zach, Katie, and I then watched Captain America, which all of us (even Katie) enjoyed. Marvel is doing a good job of tranferring its interwoven narrative to the screen.

On Saturday, Aidan, Kirsten, Zach, Katie, and I floated down the Truckee (since the rafting had opened the afternoon of the previous day). The extra water that had been added that morning made navigation more hazardous, since the rocks which usually showed were underwater and all the gunk which heretofore had lain on dry, or least slight damp, land, had risen up and headed downstream in the current. Several groups of enormous size hit the river, so we had to avoid the logjams. I got suburnt, but it was a great last part to my birthday "weekend".

Flashlight Hike 2010

This Saturday, a few (a very few) hearty souls set out for the Marin Headlands. The day was cloudy, but not particularly cold and free of rain. We ascended the first hill to the battery, where they have filled in the gun emplacement where once strange fish swam in dark waters. The view of the ocean was spectacular, and the crab boats did not seem so far apart from that lofty height. We continued to climb; the light began to dim, and the crab boats transformed from black dots to distant phosphorescent jellyfish. The path above the main road runs along the ridge, passing by the magazines filled with darkness and dank pools of water, lookout posts bereft of camouflage netting, and the collapsed roofs of old military shelters. These relics of coastal defense were the ideal sights for boys not yet brainwashed by the aggressively pacifist educational philosophy of our time. We continued to climb, and reached the Nike missile base. The fallen slabs of concrete platforms, which were in evidence last year, had been removed, and the site was safer, if no less windy, than it had been. After we had supped, we descended and increased our pace on the second leg of the trip. The trail was free of ruts, but noetheless steep in sections. Fortunately, we made the right choice at the fork where a wrong turn would double our overall travel distance. When we were walking along the side of the road, the party bus stopped for us, but we declined such softness and ease in favor of the long path to doughnuts and cocoa.

A Little Foggy On The "Good Turn" Concept

Recently I heard a story on NPR about Scouts about which I have ambivalent feeling. According to this report, a thief (not the Boy Scout) stole a wallet, removed the money, and abandoned it. The thief, who obviously was not a particularly competent thief, did not check the other compartments, in which there was cash in excess of the easily accessible amount. The aforementioned Boy Scout found the wallet and returned it to the owner. I have no issue with that sort of honesty; what bothers me is his acceptance of the $100 reward, which is against the Scout code.

The story of how the Boy Scouts were established in the United States goes as follows: American publishers W.D. Boyce was on a business trip to London when he became lost in the "fog" (since we would now call it smog) and recieved help from a Scout, who refused the tip which Boyce offered. Although the legend differs from the truth (the truth of fact and the truth of legend serve different purposes), the fundamental point remains the same: Boyce was impressed by the boy's refusal of the tip and his willingness to help without promise of monetary compensation. One of the founding policies of the Boy Scouts of America was that one should do good deeds for their own sake, not for compensation. I do not believe in the either/or model of motivation, so I do concede that it is possible to do something because it is the right thing to do and recieve money, but the Boy Scouts of America, in order to prevent any confusion on the motivation of their members, requires that Boy Scouts not accept rewards. This is especially true when members are in uniform.


I shall relate something which occurred a bit more recently, so that my readers do not think that this policy is some sort of "rotten borough". When the Troop was on a recent camping trip (the SRH, for those in the know), one of the boys discovered a cell phone dropped on the trail. We called the number and arranged to meet the relieved owner in the parking lot of a certain supermarket chain. When we had finished the hike and were returning home, we stopped at the aforementioned parking lot and waited a short while. The owner eventually arrived and tried to reward us, and we found it somewhat difficult to convince him that we could not take the reward - hence my lack of surprise at the approving tone of the recent news story and its discrepancy from BSA policy.

Last Trial of the Templars!

The hills are not alive with the sound of muezzin. The Swiss have voted against the further construction of minarets in their tidy little country. This vote applies not just as a regulation, but as an amendment to the Swiss constitution. The Swiss Constitution, based on what I have learned about Confederate govenment, probably does not possess the sanctity of that of the United States of America, but it is no doubt a serious matter to amend it if it requires a majority vote by population and canton. The resident right-wing party celebrated, as one might expect, and the media have forgotten that Swiss neutrality never meant Swiss tolerance or niceness.

What do the Templars have to do with this matter? There is no doubt that the Templars vanished quickly and quietly away in the aftermath of their dissolution, since many of those that did not were slaughtered by their creditor, the King of France. One possible destination of the missing Templars was the Alpine mountain range, a region whose importance derived from the limited number of passes between Germany, France, and Italy thorugh which armies and merchants traveled. I would never equate probability with certainty, but the presence of Templars in that region would explain the sudden appearence of a local sophisticated and secretive banking industry and a sudden rise in regional military success, both of which were specialties of the Templars. The military successes of the Templars, however, were never long-term, and their history was a series of stepped strategic retreats.

If the Swiss hypothesis be true, then the growing presence of Muslims in the last redoubt of the Knights Templar indicates the final defeat of the order which started in a Christian Jerusalem, an ultimate insult after the recent breaking of their banking secrecy under American pressure.

Sic Semper Tyrannis (No, I Don’t Know How To Say It In Korean)

I have been following with the interest the events of the tense succession crisis in North Korea. Kim Jong Il, “the Dear Leader”, has appointed his younger son, Kim Jong Un, as “the Brilliant Comrade”, passing over the elder son, whose name I do not recall seeing. I do know, however, that there is speculation that the elder son was passed over for the dubious honor of leadership of North Korea because he attempted to enter Japanese Disneyland with a fake passport. Such disgraceful behavior is reminiscent of the Athenian suitor for the daughter of the tyrant in Corinth, who drunkenly danced away his chance at her hand and then brazenly claimed he had no regrets. Kim Jong Un’s title as “Comrade”, rather than “Leader”, does not have a precedent in the previous transfer of power; in that case, the government announced the change without any previous suggestion of the ailing health or recent demise of “the Great Leader”. The elevation of “Comrade” to the meaning of “Crown Prince” (the final blow to a title founded in radical egalitarianism) suggests that the Dear Leader is still alive, but incapacitated. How much true power the Brilliant Comrade will wield if and when he becomes the Brilliant Leader is a vexing question, in light of the nuclear tests and the characteristics of the third generations of Kim tyrants. I should pause to explain that my Classical training has taught me to use “tyrant” as a technical political term (rather than a near generic term of political abuse), which indicates a “bad” monarchy, one which has no cultural or historical legitimacy in the country in which it establishes itself. In general, the Greek tyrannies began with an ambitious man who rallied his countrymen under the banner of improving their condition, who overthrew the current government, and who (if fortunate enough to avoid assassination) passed his rule onto his son. Most Greek tyrannies collapsed in the second generation; those which survived did so because they had transformed into pseudo-monarchies. These states remained pseudo-monarchies because they lacked the clear line of succession which (most) monarchies possessed. The third generation was the last for the tyrannical dynasties. Even the Syracusan tyranny, which approached most closely the ideal of monarchy, fell in the third generation, only to be re-established about a century later, and those latter tyrants claimed a descent from the former in imitation of monarchy.


The presence of two brothers in the rising generation is not reassuring. Even in monarchies which had a clear succession, there was often much tension between the Crown Prince and his younger brothers, such as the sons of William the Conqueror, or the Emperor Vespasian; in monarchies which lacked this tradition, such as the Ottoman Empire and the empire of the Mongol Horde, fratricide was a common occurance. A few occurances of happy balance have existed, such as the harmony between Emperor Charles V and his brother, but for the most part history and legend record conflicts such as that of Romulus and Remus, Caracalla and Geta, and the sons of Solomon, allegedly the “wisest” king of all history. Even if the brothers themselves do not seek to quarrel, the internal parties of the state (and they always exist) now have the opportunity to support their own candidate and undermine that of their rival, whereas a lone son can be a puppet in equal measure, but does not provide the same opportunity.


In this age, inimical to the establishment of new pseudo-monarchies and not exactly friendly to the existing established monarchies, I would not expect that the Kim tyranny will survive a third generation. How much the eventual collapse will damage the world, given North Korea’s posturing, remains to be seen.

Parks and Propositions

On Thursday, there was an article in the Chronicle (which I still read in the old way, in a café with a coffee) which said that the continuing state budget crisis might force many of the state parks to close their gates. The connection of this unprecedented action with the abject failure of the propositions on the recent ballot is clear enough, but these closures would cripple the outdoor activities of many Scout troops and districts.

On the one hand, I understand why the park service needs money, but I have learned the history of propositions in California and no longer can regard their current use as a substitute for responsible government action as acceptable or worthy of my support. The propositions and initiatives, as originally conceived, were an emergency measure for times of crisis, and had they remained restricted to such times, their use in the current crisis would conscionable. The transformation of the proposition and the initiative into substitutes for governance has not only allowed the government in Sacramento to evade responsibility, but also deprived Californians of a valuable tool by dulling the blade so that the axe is useless when it is most needed. In nineteenth century Portugal, one of the factors in the stall of the national economy (other than the exponential imbecility of the monarchy - read Royal Babylon: The Alarming History of European Royalty for more information) was the cumulative effect of pious gifts to the church; a third of the land in the entire country was the property of the church, the world’s longest-lived legal person . A similar process happens when pressure groups incite well-meaning citizens to vote for propositions and initiatives that create mandatory uses and set-asides; the individual propositions may or may not add up to an extensive sum, but the cumulative effect is to diminish steadily the amount of flexibility that the state government can practice.

The more immediate effect the closure would have on my way of life would be the sudden and catastrophic deprivation of camping and hiking sites for Troop 14 (my troop) and other troops around the Bay Area. I am sure that we will find new venues or new activities if the closure should happen, but the focus within Troop 14 on camping and hiking (since some troops have a different focus, and I do not presume to know the activities of all other troops in the Bay Area) makes it an area of particular concern.

The effects of closing the parks would be in the main undesirable. Modern buildings, unlike the sturdy stone structures of my academic background, are not designed to weather well without maintenance, and many years of repairing the troop’s traditional campsite at summer camp has taught me that it is more expensive to repair delayed maintenance than to maintain the structure in a regular manner. The population of the parks, too, would change. The absence of both rangers and visitors would encourage an influx of homeless (which might not be altogether bad, if they consumed some of the ubiquitous mule deer and provided a predatory niche whose lack has encouraged the explosive overpopulation) and pot-growers. I should be clear here: my concern in this essay is not the legality or legitimacy of the weed farmers, but rather the displacement of the native flora. I may blog on my thoughts on homeless and potheads on a separate occasion.

I find it exceedingly difficult to write conclusions, and this is my blog, so I feel no obligation to do so.