OTOSAN GA TARANTADO ANG PUTANG INA KA GAGO!!!

Que hi ressona dins aquesta mite? No ho sé dir amb exactitud. Només sé que la bàrbara alegria de la gran mare espetega dins meu cada vegada que l’invoco. La crepitació d’un misteri igni.

Men Like Gods

Tarzan Pays Homage To Heracles

by

R.E. Prindle

First published in the online Magazine: ERBzine

The Golden Age of Strongmen had captured the imagination of the world between 1890 and 1910....Into the 1920s the strongman continued as a living wonder and inspiring vision that could be had for the modest price of admission

-Ed Spielman: The Mighty Atom:

The Life And Times Of Joseph L. Greenstein

 

     When I was a child and youth in the 1940s and '50s the legendary strongmen of the turn of the twentieth century were, if no longer living, living legends.  At least one, Bernarr Madfadden, the father of American bodybuilding, was still going strong.

     The most legendary of the strongmen was Frederick Mueller who was known professionally as the Great Sandow.

     In his heyday Sandow was so strong that he was capable of 'exploding' or breaking the 'Test Your Strength' machines in the arcades of Vienna, Austria.  There were so many broken machines that it was thought a vandal was destroying them but when apprehended it was discovered that Sandow was not only testing his own strength but the strength of the machines.  He flippantly suggested that they be made of better materials.

     On stage as Spielman relates, Sandow, who was trained as a turner, could do a back somersault over a chair with a thirty-five pound dumbbell in each hand.  He could do a one arm chin-up with the grip of any of his fingers of either hand, including his thumbs.

     He could...wait a minute!  I've heard something like that before.  Oh yea, I remember now.  In Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan And The Lion Man he has Tarzan leap up to seize stakes pointing down from a ten foot high wall, then draw himself straight up until his torso was above the stakes, then roll over the top defeating the purpose of the stakes.  Was he thinking of the Great Sandow when he wrote that?

     I think he was.

     Burroughs was a fan of boxing and a great admirer of the strongmen of the Golden Age, although he didn't like the bulky physiques.  He repeatedly denounces the physical build of the Strongmen in preference for Tarzan's 'smooth rippling muscles.'  In my day the bodybuilders were ridiculed as being 'muscle bound.'  But the ladies panted when they said it.  Tarzan is as strong or stronger than the strongmen but sleek.

     Next one asks is there any place that it can be shown that Burroughs ever saw Sandow?  yes, and where else?  The Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893.  The Expo was a life changing experience for 17 year-old Ed Burroughs.  Bill Hillman of ERBzine has written a wonderful series on the influence of the Fair on young Burroughs.

     The influence of the Fair was as moving for the rest of America and the World as it was on Our Man.  There apparently has never been so influential a World's Fair as that of Chicago of 1893.

     One of the best attended features of the Fair was put on by the Great Sandow.  Bodybuilding had already gotten started in England.  Sandow was a student of the innovative Professor Attila in London.  He came to the attention of Florenz Ziegfeld while performing in New York.  Ziegfeld brought him to Chicago for the Expo.  Sandow was a sensation.

     He created quite a stir at the fair.  Not only did Burroughs see him there but so did a man named Bernarr Macfadden.  At the time he was known as Bernard McFadden but he chose Bernarr because it sounded more like a lion's roar and Macfadden because he thought it looked more distinguished in print.  As a result of seeing Sandow Macfadden became the father of bodybuilding and the health movement in the United States.  John Dos Passos spoofs him in Vol. III, The Big Money, of the his USA Trilogy.

     Macfadden was the discoverer of isometric exercises, which his student, Charles Atlas, renamed Dynamic Tension and made a fortune.

     Unless I'm mistaken Macfadden would cross ERB's path sometime between 1908 to 1912.

     Sandow made bodybuilding a rage after the Fair while Macfadden organized the sport around his magazine 'Physical Culture' which he began publishing in the wake of the Fair.  Sandow also opened the way for a number of strongmen to build careers on their physiques.

     They all passed through Chicago.  How many of them ERB paid the modest price of admissio to see we can't know, but as he always speaks of the strongmen in the plural one assumes that he saw several.

     Anyone who has watched the Strongest Men In The World competition on cable TV will understand how impressive both the feats and the physiques of these men were.

     In ERB's day a man called Warren Travis Lincoln could lift a platform that held twenty-five men with his back.  That was a weight of about 4200 pounds.

     G.W. Rolandow could stack three decks of playing cards and tear them in two.  One assumes that was before they were plastic coated.

     Emil Knaucke who weighed in at five hundred pounds, a spectacle in itself, could hold a car above his head with one hand.  Spielman doesn't specify make or model.

     Louis Cyr, one of the most famous strongmen, could restrain a team of horses on either side at the same time.  Really spectacular stuff.

     A man like Arthur Saxon of the Saxons was considered to be the strongest man in the world.  He could do a bent press of nearly five hundred pounds.  As in the photo, in the bent press a lifter raised a barbell above his head with one hand in a bent posture then raised another weight with his other hand.

     Eighteen ninety to nineteen-ten were formative years for ERB.  He would have from fifteen to thirty-five so that when he saw Sandow in '93 at seventeen he was at a most impressionable age.

     ERB turned 40 in 1915 and 50 in 1925.

     By the twenties vitamins and food supplements had been discovered and were being developed for commercial use.  Vitamins were still novel when I was kid in the late forties.  Not everyone knew of their value as late as then.

     The Great Sandow, Louis Cyr, and a trio of German strongmen called the Saxons were all naturally strong but by the 20s it was possible to build muscular Adonae from the scratch of a 98 lb. weakling.  With vitamins, food supplements and a rigorous regimen for bodybuilding a normal body could be turned into as mammoth a specimen as Tarzan, as witness Arnold Schwarzenegger and his contemporaries who emerged from New York City gyms in the 1960s.

     In point of fact you didn't even need all that gym equipment.  If you followed the body building plan of the most famous Adonis of the 40s and 50s, Charles Atlas, all you needed were your own opposed muscles.

     Atlas took Macfadden's isometric exercises and called them the more commercial sounding Dynamic Tension.  By pitting one muscle against its opposite fantastic results could be achieved.

     Charles Atlas, who changed his name from Angelo Siciliano, was voted the world's most perfectly developed man in 1922 by his mentor, Macfadden and Physical Culture magazine.

     Angelo, born in 1894 in Acri, Sicily came to the US in 1904, thus he would have been 18 in 1922, 18 in 1912.

     Siciliano actually had been a 98 lb. weaking who had sand kicked in his face by a bully.  His girl friend actually did walk away from him.  Siciliano then built himself up into what I've always considered to be the image of Tarzan and changed his name to Charles Atlas.

    I was not as successful with the Dynamic Tension plan Chuck sold me in the 50s but then I didn't try that hard and I couldn't afford the food supplements which are indispensable.  Nevertheless it had become possible to turn out 'Men Like Gods' on an assembly line basis.

     It is more than likely that Burroughs was very familiar with the bodybuilding or fitness program of Macfadden.  That photo of him flexing his muscles on the dock at Coldwater is that of a man who has been working out.  I can't beleive that a man who was interested in magazines as Burroughs was couldn't be familiar with Physical Culture Magazine.  Not only would he have the living memory of the Great Sandow in his mind from the Expo but Bernarr Macfadden had moved his headquarters from Battle Creek to Chicago in 1908.  He had a very prosperous looking facility.

     During these years from 1899 when ERB was bashed in the head in Toronto to 1910 at least, he complainedof excruciating headaches that began when he got up in the morning and lasted through half the day.  These would have been very enervating affecting his ability to work.  In The Girl From Farris's he has his hero Ogden Secor suffering from the same headaches going from doctor to doctor 'tinkering with his skull' in hopes of finding relief.  The doctors could do nothing for Secor so he undertook a fitness regime which eased his situation.  So must have ERB.

     Once again, the picture of ERB standing with his legs apart flexing his muscles on the dock at Coldwater in 1916 shows that he was either proud of a moderate physique or he was trying to develop those 'rippling' muscles like Tarzan and Charles Atlas.

     At fifty in 1925 ERB probably thought himself beyond the age when he could develop his physique into a semblance of his creation, Tarzan.  Ten or twenty years younger and you might have seen Burroughs as another Charles Atlas or Tarzan.

     There is every reason to believe that sometime between 1908 and 1912 he developed an interest in Macfadden's program.

      When he sat down to begin his Tarzan series at the end of 1911, Burroughs' mind must have been filled with the feats of Sandow and the other strongmen.  Anent this, Tarzan's leopard skin loin cloth was borrowed from the strongmen.  Leopard skin shorts were de riguer for the bodybuilding crowd.

     Of course the role models for these strongmen were Samson and Heracles.  The latter is better known in his Roman usage as Hercules.  For the purposes of this essay I will refer to him as Heracles in hs Greek manifestation.

     Especially in his original manifestation Heracles was a Sun god as the companion of the Earth Mother, Hera.  When the Patriarchal system was imposed on the Matriarchy Hera was wed to Zeus while her former consort, Heracles- The Glory Of Hera- was demoted to the role of Holy Fool and the strngest man in the world.

     ERB often refers to Tarzan as a Jungle God and a latter day Hercules.  Burroughs had a good Greek and Latin education so one might asume that he had some familiarity with the cycle of myths devoted to the feats and tribulations of that ancient type of all strongmen, Heracles.

     In fact, without stretching the point unduly, one can posit a relationship between the Pelasgian Sun God, Heracles and the Flaming God of Opar and through them to Tarzan; they can be construed as one.

     Whether ERB was conscious of what he had done in conflating the three cannot be determined for sure but as he was manipulating valid historical data why shouldn't he have been conscious of what he was doing?  The Aztec ritual of tearing the heart out to offer to the sun god is implicit in scenes where Tarzan lies across the sacrificial block, pardon me, altar.  The annual sacrifice of the queen's consort is implicit once again as La raises the sacrificial knife.  A blatant resemblance to Cybele and Attis.

     While the subconsious is always important it is the conscious mind that organizes, plots and writes.  As a writer I may have subconscious motives which may emerge but assembling and organizing my material is a conscious intellectual act.  It is axiomatic that one cannot write what one does not know.

     One of the great mysteries of mythological studies has been the relationship of Heracles to his namesake the former Matriarchal Earth Goddess, Hera.    I noted just previously, during the matriarchy as the Sun, Heracles would have been appropriately called 'The Glory Of Hera' or of the Earth.  The same notion can be applied to Mesopotamian and Egyptian mythology.  For instance, as David Adams points out somewhere, the lion is a symbol of both the sun and the matriarchy.  It is a fact that the body of the Sphinx at Memphis is older than the head.  The head of the original has been replaced by that of a man.  It therefore follows that the Sphinx was carved during the Matriarchy having either a lion's or a woman's head.  After the succession of the Patriarchy the head was changed to reflect the New Order.

     In the Greek Oedipus myth the Theban Sphinx was still represented as the original matriarchal symbol of a lion with a woman's head.  Woman-lion/sun/Heracles.  The answer to her riddle after which she committed suicide was 'man' which denied the Matriarchy, hence she had to kill herself as the Patriarchy thus symbolically replaced the Matriarchy.  Apply that to the Egyptian Sphinx and the change of heads.

     Now, the original Egyptian Sphinx was exactly the same as the Theban Sphinx: a woman's head on a lion's body.  the Sphinx is positioned to be looking due East at sunrise in the Age Of Leo.  Thus, perhap, the secret of the Sphinx is simply that as Mother Earth she sat waiting for her consort Heracles (or his Egypian counterpart) to appear on the horizon each morning.

     The notion has simplicity to recommend it.

     As we all know, Oparians were a group of Atlanteans isolated from the main body when mythical Atlantis broke apart and sank beneath the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.  The worship of the Flaming God was inherited from the parent civilization by Opar.

     Thus whether Burroughs knew what he was doing or not he always gets the sequence of events right.

     Without getting into any discussion of if, where or when Atlantis may have existed, let me say, neverttheless, that all the evidence points to a predecessor civilization anterior to Crete, Pelasgian Greece, Egypt and Mesopotamia in much the same way Atlantis preceded Opar.

     The predecessor civilization must have existed in the Mediterranean Basin during the last ice age when ocean levels, scientists tell us, were several hundred feet lower than they are today.  There are evidences of quarrying several hundred feet below sea level on the flanks of the island of Malta for instance.  Given this as a fact, then when the ice melted and the waters rose during the Great Flood to their present levels any society or civilization that existed in the Mediterranean Basin was forced to move to higher ground which is to say above the present sea level.

     One thing is certain, if the Basin was habitable it was inhabited.

     The disruption caused a long dark age from which mankind only slowly recovered.  At the same time these relatively highly developed people moving into less developed savage societies had a fertilizing influence introducing more sophisticated ideas and methods such as agriculture.

     Lower Egypt, one of Two Lands, was obviously settled by the displaced Libyan dynasty.  After centuries of warfare the Upper Egyptians succeeded in conquering Lower Egypt uniting the Two Lands.  The Third Dynasty was a Libyan Dynasty so that the warfare was translated from an external one to an internal one in which the Libyans defeated the Upper Egyptians.  During the Libyan Dynasty the great pyramids were built reflecting in some way the the flooded predecessor civilization.

     So Crete and Pelasgian Greece received survivors also.  The Sumerians of Mesopotamia attribute their civilization to the advice of Oannes, John in English, who came from the sea.

     Often ignored by classical scholars but obviously part of this great Mediterranean culture is ancient Spain.  Now, Spain has one of the great traditions of the worship of Heracles as a Sun god.  This tradition preceded and was uninfluenced by any Patriarchal tradition from Greece.  In point of fact the Patriarchal Heracles went West to annex the Spanish traditions to the Patriarchal cause.  In the process he rounded up the cattle of the Sun i.e. the Matriarachal Heracles to bring back to Greece.  Throughout history, including modern Africa, lifting another man's cattle transferred his authority to oneself.  See the great cattle raid of Cooley in Irish mythology.  It therefore follows that the Greek Patriarchal myths of Heracles are built on an earlier Matriarchal mythological cycle while being perverted or converted to Patriarchal needs.

     Heracles was originally a sun god.  He was the original of the Flaming God.  I can't say Burroughs knew this either consciously or subconsciously, however as we will see there is substantial evidence to indicate that he was consciously manipulating the material.

     The city of Seville in Spain is built over a Sun Temple in which Heracles was the sun deity.  This site beneath Seville can still be vistited today.  Assuming that the history of the Spanish Heracles developed independently of the Greek Heracles which after all is a Greek interpretation of a Pelasgian god then it follows that the two traditions must have come from a common source.  That source cannot have been other than the ante-deluvian civilization of the Mediterranean Basin.

     It follows then that whatever names they were known by in this anterior civilization Hera was the Great Mother Goddess while her 'Glory' Heracles must be no other than the Flaming God, the Sun.  What else could the 'Glory' of the Earth Mother be?

     Thus when the Great Flood, which must be the same as that spoken of by the Sumerians who would have gotten the story from Oannes, destroyed the civilization of the Mediterranean Basin the inhabitants fled to the former highlands surrounding them taking their traditions with them.  The Spanish Heracles was yet identical to the Pelasgian and Cretan models which later became variant.

     When the Greeks entered Pelasgia at the beginning of the Arien Age, the Zodiac dates back to the anterior civilization, they found this remnant of the ante-deluvian civilization with immemorial religious traditions occupying the land.  As the Arien Age began a great shift in the mental and social organization of man progressed in its evoltuion.  The shift was from a Matriarchal consciousness to a Patriarchal consciousness.  In other words, the God replaced the Goddess as the most important sex.  Fecundation became more important than actual reproduction.

     This meant that all the divine myths had to have all the sexual relationships reversed so that the God took precedence over the goddess.  Hera could no longer be allowed to have a male god as her subordinate 'Glory', the roles had to be reversed. Hera would have to become the dependent of Zeus.

     Homer's Iliad is one key in the story of this reversal.

     As Hera was unwillingly made subordinate to her Lord and Master, Zeus, Heracles had to be appropriated by the God.  The Patriarchy then turned Heracles into a scourge of Hera and she his enemy in ridicule of the previous dispensation.  Kind of a Burroughsian style sly joke.

     The meaning of the name Heracles as the glory of Hera was thus lost.  Heracles lost his identification with the Sun becoming a buffoon as the greatest of men; a physical giant of somewhat dim intelligence.  Hera's glory was turned into a laughing stock but still a good sort of fellow who could aspire to godhood at death.

     In the Patriarchal myths Heracles destroyed various Matriarchal cult centers such as the Hydra at Lerna, the Stymphalian Swamps, the Stag of Artemis, the Nemean Lion and others.  His cycle of adventures was involved in replacing the Matriarchal with the Patriarchal sarcastic 'Glory' of Hera.

     To make a feeble Patriarchal attempt at accounting for the meaning of Heracles' name Homer tells the following story in book XIX of the Iliad.  Zeus, influenced by the goddess Folly, announced to the assembled Gods on Olympus that before the day was out a descendant of his lineage would be born to a mortal woman who would be the greatest man in the world.

     Hera, who hated the infidelities of Zeus, heard his proclamation with scorn.  She knew her husband but too well.  She knew he referred to Alcmene who was bearing Heracles but she also knew that a son was to be born to the wife of Sthenelus who was only seven months pregnant.  Sthenelus was of the lineage of Zeus.

     Hera rushed off to visit Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth, to ask her to hasten the birth of Eurytheus while delaying that of Heracles.  The former having been born first became the greatest monarch of the age after the Patriarchal fashion but by Matriarchal means.

     Hastening back to Alcmene Eileithyia uncrossed her legs allowing Heracles to be the younger son of Zeus born on that day.  While Heracles was the bravest and strongest of men he was nevertheless compelled by Hera's resourcefulness and prompt action to be subservient to Eurystheus.  Thus the will of Zeus which could not be averted was perverted by Hera to thwart the Big Guy's will.

     Heracles was still the strongest man alive but he was subordinate to the will of Hera through Eurystheus, portrayed as one of th weakest and most cowardly men of his time hiding behind his mother's skirts but by the grace of Hera and the matriarchy, the greatest ruler.

     Zeus, appalled by his lapse of judgment threw Folly off Olympus from which she is still banned.

     In that sardonic manner Homer explained the meaning of Heracles as the glory of Hera.  She had used him to Ace Zeus.  Heracles had been stripped of his role as the glorious Sun companion of Hera.  He comes down to us as the strongest man who ever lived.  In the Roman nomenclature of Hercules he became the role model of every strong man who ever lifted a dumbbell.  Yet they all wore leopard skin shorts, the leopard being a symbol of the Matriarchy.  You can't fool Mother Nature.

     To Burroughs who was a student of Greek mythology the great strongmen of the Golden Age must have appeared as men like gods.  Their feats of strength, their marvelous physiques, were so far beyond the abilities of ordinary men that they must have seemed to be in a class by themselves far above mortal men.

     In that sense Tarzan is the greatest of the strongmen, above Sandow, Arthur Saxon and even Heracles.

     Heracles himself had been demoted to a mere mortal although his legend was so great that he was allowed immortality by the Patriarchy after his mortal death.  Unwilling to grant him too much credit he was allowed to be the doorman of Olympus.  He held this position throughout the Arien Age being replaced by St. Peter in the New Dispensation of the Piscean Age.

     Burroughs, familiar with the mythic cycle of Heracles, however he understood it, plays with both identities of Heracles in the person of Tarzan at Opar.  He also brings in a number of elements from H. Rider Haggard's novel She.  There can be no doubt of the influence of Haggard.  Burroughs even names his heroine La which is what 'She' is designated as in French translations of Haggard's novel.  The palance of Opar is also based to some extent on the labyrinthine caves of She.

     There are many literary influences for the creation of Tarzan not least of which are the real life H.M. Stanley and Haggard's fictional heroes Sir Henry Curtis and Allan Quatermain.  I would now like to direct attention to a third, that of the heor of She, Leo Vincey.

     If one closely examines Vincey it will be discovered that he too was a Sun King whose death had been caused in an earlier incarnation by She.  The cartouche which contains the name of Leo's distant Egyptian ancestor was translated as 'The Royal Son Of Ra' or son of the Sun as in Egyptian mythology Ra is the sun.

     Leo also translates from the Latin as Lion so we have the Son of the Sun who also is a Lion Man which is how Burroughs refers to Tarzan in 'The Invincible' and undoubtedly as how he always thought of his creation.

     Haggard translates Vincey as the Avenger.  Tarzan is the 'Avenger' or guard of Africa.  Haggard describes Vincey as almost inhumanly beautiful while Tarzan is the most handsome man in the world not unlike Charles Atlas.

     Haggard's She is indescribably old kept forever youthful by having bathed in the fire of eternal youth.  Hera was also eternally youthful and a virgin queen.  She restored her youth and virginity by bathing annually in a holy spring.  Hera's bath obviously refers to the Spring rains which inundated Mother Earth just prior to vegetation springing forth in virgin birth.  After the summer heat the vegetation dies down and Earthy Hera becomes barren once more to await her bath and return to virginity.

     So a connection can be made between Sun>Heracles>Vincey>Tarzan and Mother Nature>Hera>She>La.

     Burroughs La was neither ancient nor immortal in the personal sense although she was the latest in an immortal line of Priestesses.  She is a priestess of the Sun or Ra, The Flaming God.

     Haggard's Leo Vincey was the direct descendant of Kallikrates She's great love of two millennia past.  She, or Alyesha, to use her name, had killed Kallicrates in a rage.  Kallikrate's descendants were sworn to avenge the murder.  Thus Vincey travels from England to far off Africa to locate this fabulous woman.

     Kallikrates was the love of Alyesha's very long life.  When she recognizes Leo Vincey as her lost lost love she saves his life while offering him eternal youth if he will only bathe in the flames of eternal life.  He hesitates to do so.  To encourage him Alyesha steps once again into the flames which was a serious miscalculation.  She crumbled to dust.  Thus while Leo Vincey doesn't actually avenge the death of Kallikrates she is nevertheless his victim.

     Tarzan while actually born in Africa was conceived in England so he made the trip to Opar from England although he is ignorant of La.  When Tarzan is captured in Opar he is laid on the altar of the Flaming God, La with the sacrifical knife raised, looks down on this Jungle God, this man like a god, and falls in love.  Thus we have a replay of the She-Kallikrates situation.

     Unable to take Tarzan's life, La releases him begging him for his love.  Alyesha's full title was She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed in the Matriarchal sense.  The old conflict arises, Tarzan is more on the Patriarchal side, he has his moly in the waistband of his loin cloth, monagamous we are led to believe, happily married, so the Lion Man Sun King declines the honor of being mated to La>Hera.  He asserts his Patriarchal prerogative to disobey although he always has a soft spot in his heart for La.

     In a fairly masterful way ERB conflates the legend of Heracles, the fiction of H. Rider Haggard and the incredible strongmen of the Golden Age and his own little bit to write a charming and beautiful story which is fairly simple on the surface but one which becomes immensely rich with a deeper understanding of the sources.

     Ernest Hemmingway once said that before one sat down to write one should have ten time the information in your possession as you put on paper else the story will seem shallow and contrived.  It would seem that the sources upon which Burroughs was drawing, from the bodybuilding strongmen of his day to the legendary cycle of Heracles to the adventures of H.M. Stanley and the fiction of H. Rider Haggard might well fulfill Hemingway's dictum.

     When one searches for the sources of Burroughs one finds layer after layer of golden riches while discovering that in fact ERB did indeed create a man like a god- Tarzan The Magnificent.

Addendum

      This is a quote taken from Bonzo Dog's song Mr. Apollo.  I don't know whether the reader is familiar with the Bonzos but they were one of my favorites.  Several glorious LPs.  Neil Innes came from them as well as the great but tragic Viv Stanshall.  Leave those drugs alone, boys.

Follow Mr. Apollo,

Everybody knows a healthy body

Makes a healthy mind.

Follow Mr. Apollo,

He's the strongest man the world has ever seen.

If you take his courses

He'll make you big and rough.

And you can kick the sand right back in their faces.

A few years ago I was a four stone apology-

Today, I am two separate...Gorillas.

Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band

Long may they wave.

Foto ketika masih duduk di kelas II-1 (dari depan ke belakang)
hisbuddin, aan, ihwan, lukman, zule
hikmah, niar, imma, evi, indri, cilya
hera, upi, besse, ida, wani, yasmin, edi, dhar
arul, dian

Avete visto il nuovo film di Indiana Jones e i teschi di cristallo vi hanno incuriosito? Ebbene, gli amici di Hera e di Sviluppo Cultura hanno organizzato un convegno proprio sui Teschi di Cristallo.

A Milano il 5 luglio.

Jupiter being desirous of rendering the infant Hercules immortal that he might rank among the divinities caused Somnus to prepare a necftareous sleeping draught which he persuaded Juno to take The Queen of the Gods fell immediately into a profound slumber and Jupiter then placed the little Hercules to the celestial breast in order that the babe might imbibe the ambrosial milk that would ensure its immortality The infant over eager to enjoy the delightful nutriment drew the milk faster than he could swallow and some drops falling to the earth there immediately sprang from it the white Lily the emblem of purity some of the milk is also said to have dropped over that portion of the heavens which from its whiteness still retains the name of the Milky Way 

from Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics Embracing the Myths, Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-lore of the Plant Kingdom By Richard Folkard published in 1884

Mogs and I are nearing the final days of nursing.  It has been a long and gentle movement toward weaning.  Each time I nurse her I think that it may be the last.  Breastfeeding has been an incredibly powerful and emotional experience.  My mom didn't breastfeed me (formula companies were really pushing hard in those days) and I mourn a little that she and I didn't experience this particular bond.  I can hardly believe what a commitment it has been going from nursing her for twenty minutes every two hours 24/7 in the early months to our current just checking-in  comfort sessions.  I am proud and grateful that I have been able to breastfeed for as long as I have and fortunate to not have suffered any mastitis along the way.  I wanted to commemorate this special time in my relationship with Mogs, so I created this watercolor illustration for her.  It's called "White Lilies."

detail of "White Lilies"
 

III IPA-1 di Lembah Biru, Malino, ketika semua sudah sibuk dengan persiapan EBTANASnya, kita masih sempat untuk berkumpul bersama satu kelas III IPA 1di lembah biru, yang akhirnya Hisbuddin mau dibujuk juga untuk ikut.

yang hadir III IPA 1 tanpa terkecuali : Cheelo, Zule, Aan, Niar, Arul, Yasmin, Hera, Hisbuddin, Wani, Evi,Imma, Hikmah, Ida, Edi, Besse, Lucky, Teten, Indri, Wa-wha, Dhar, Leeho.

Gerana was a queen of the Pygmy folk in Greek mythology. She boasted to be more beautiful than the goddess Hera and was transformed by the angry goddess into a crane. The bird descendants of Gerana waged an eternal war on the Pygmies during their winter migration to the shores of the river Oceanus.*p

and by the way...i lost my momentum in making this post because i am at work right now and i just got back to my seat. so ill stop talking about the topic above. hmmmmmm.....what should i talk about now? lol

ok about my job, i mentioned that i love it right? well thats because i can slack off a lot legally. LOL! what i mean is if there are no customers i can just use the internet and continue my past meaningless life as a hp fan.

thats all for today thank you more customers coming in right now. lol

Da wikipedia:

La propaganda è un tipo di messaggio mirato a influenzare le opinioni o il comportamento delle persone. Spesso, invece di fornire informazione imparziale la propaganda è deliberatamente mistificatoria o fa uso di fallacità che, sebbene talvolta possano risultare convincenti, non necessariamente si rivelano valide.

Sono in molti a pensare che le pubbliche relazioni siano un'arte e non una scienza. Dimostrazione di ciò è il quotidiano ed indiscriminato modo di comunicare tramite dépliant. Dépliant e bocchetta della posta, il modo peggiore per spendere soldi e ottenere pessimi risultati.

I professionisti delle pubbliche relazioni odierni sono quelli di Hera. Hanno inviato un foglio A4 a tappeto per informare la popolazione su qualche micro-cassonetto per carta, vetro e materiale organico piazzati a fianco degli altri. Chiunque si occupi del giro "spazzatura domestica" a casa propria avrebbe colto la novità alla prima occasione.

Tutto ciò avviene stranamente dopo che in consiglio comunale è stata discussa e bocciata la raccolta differenziata porta-a-porta, sono stati presentati i risultati che smentiscono il successo della loro politica inefficiente per la gestione dei rifiuti sotto la vigile e attenta osservazione di chi ci tutela.

I professionisti delle pubbliche relazioni si preoccupano della salvaguardia dell'ambiente e usano un foglio di carta per la loro propaganda. Non aspettano nemmeno di inviare questo foglio A4 con le regolari comunicazioni alla clientela infilandolo nella stessa busta e risparmiando anche qualche euro cent in meno. Preferiscono l'inefficienza e non è una novità.

Dr.House salvaci tu!

Obviously, Starbuck is too obvious.  And I think she actually has another role, although I've not quite worked out the role myself - a messenger maybe.

And I think I read somewhere that the producers said it definitely wasn't Roslin, Baltar, or Bill or Lee Adama.  So where does that leave us?

Knowing what we do about the four among the crew - Tigh, Anders, Tory and Tyrol - I think it's clear that the Final 5 are very different from the other Cylons.  What exactly that difference is, I'm not sure.  I've even speculated that they were from Earth.

But knowing how similar the Final 5 are to the rest of the survivors and how long they've been integrated with the colonists (Tigh has been friends with Adama for more than 40 years), I've had trouble picking up any clues as to the identity of the last Cylon.  That is, until this last episode.

In "Ties that Bind," Cally, Tyrol's wife, suddenly became a suspect for me for two main reasons.  Let me explain why.

The four revealed in "Crossroads" all became aware of their Cylon status when they entered the nebula.  Clearly that nebula has had an effect on Cally too.  She said her insomnia started when they entered the nebula.  But unlike the others she turned to pills to help with the symptoms.  Could the pills have prevented her from hearing the music?  Or as the last model, could she simply be so different that the music didn't affect her?  If the final Cylon is on Galactica, why else would they not have responded to the music when in the nebula like the others?

Then there's baby Nicky.  A great deal was made about Hera - a child born to one Cylon parent and one human parent.  Hera is considered the chosen one.  But what about Nicky?  If Tyrol is really a Cylon and Cally a human, wouldn't Nicky be some miracle baby too?

In everything I've read the producers have been especially evasive in acknowledging Nicky as a half human, half Cylon.  Could that be because he really is a full Cylon?

At first I thought the difference between Hera and Nicky was that one had a Cylon mother and the other a Cylon father?  Or the fact that Tyrol was a different type of Cylon that Athena could be the difference. But if Nicky has two Cylon parents that explains a lot.

The one think that troubled me about this theory is why would Tory kill a fellow Cylon.  But clearly the other four Cylons aboard Galactica don't know who the final Cylon is, so it's possible that Tory didn't recognize Cally as a fellow Cylon.  The other four didn't recognize each other's status until the nebula.  And we also know that Cylons are above attacking each other.

But the big question is what has become of Cally.  Is she really dead?  Do the Final 5 regenerate like the other Cylons?  If so, how?  They clearly don't have a resurrection ship nearby which is pretty risky in and of itself.

And that leaves me with one final question (or at least one that I'll ask here).  How many copies of the Final 5 are there?  Is there only one?  Could that be what's different about them?  Or are there more copies?  If so, where are those copies?  Earth?

So tell me, do you think Cally could be the final Cylon?  Or are the clues I'm reading misdirection?  If not Cally, who do you think is the final Cylon?

------------

Related Post

Does the Right Eye hold the Secret to BSG?

Are the Final 5 Cylons from Earth?

sorry i like to use the word JITENSHA than saying it plainly as BICYCLES. Yeh i work at a bicycle store, i am in charge at one of our bicycle shops in Pasig. I never knew a day of being in charge at a bicycle shop could be so tiring and i dont even move a lot at all, i just stand, sit, walk there for a whole day and after a long day i feel like my limbs could fell apart when i get home. I can't imagine how tired our employees can get since they do all the repairs and some errands from one branch to another. Im not complaining though, im just saying what i have experienced these past 3 days that i have been working there. Haha thanks to the Playstation Portable (PSP) my life there is less boring! and of course having my nephews around and them helping in the shop i still have someone to talk to. The bicycle shop had just started and its a real pain when no one buys our stuff for the day. But according to my dad the business will run good after 3-4 months. Ahem...that means i have to bear with that store with no one buying. haha o well...

Who's the final cylon?  What happened to Starbuck?  Does she really know the way to Earth?  What is with Baltar's harem?  Is the prophecy about Hera (Agathon and Helo's baby) or Nicky (Tyrol and Cally's baby)?

These are all questions fans everywhere are puzzling about.  But in a recent interview with ComicMix, Verheiden is mum on the answers to these hot questions.  The only thing Verheider will say is "As to what it all means, again, I preach the mantra of patience..."

But he is willing to talk about eyes, or more specifically the right eye:

"If there's a single moment that I really like in that "gave me a little chill" way, it's the red light from the raider scanning Anders' eyeball."

For those of you not paying attention that was Anders' right eye.  And after scanning it, the Cylons disengaged and left.

Verheider promises that we'll learn more about it next week.  But could a scene before it hold a clue.

Moments before the recently self-identified cylon Sam Anders went face to face - or eye-to-eye - with the toaster-version of the cylons, his fellow recently identified cylon Colonel Tigh had a hallucination on the bridge.

In his dream sequence, the one-eye Tigh shoots Admiral Adama in his right eye - the very same eye Tigh is missing as a result of the cylons on New Caprica.

About this Verheider quotes writer David Weddle:

"I was waiting for someone to pick up on that telling detail. Congratulations. But I am disappointed you have not figured out its significance within the larger mythology of the show. It's all laid out for you. All you have to do is run the episode over again in slow motion, and the deeper truth will be revealed."

Well they say the eyes are the windows to the soul.  Can they be the window to the secret of BSG?

Check out the screen shots from that sequence above.  What do you see?

Maybe I'm reaching, but in Adama's glasses I see the reflection of the board behind Tigh.  With the hole that bullet left, I think his eye looks like the Eye of Jupiter.

I've read on some boards (I can't remember where, sorry) that the Canadian version was bloodier that the Sci Fi version of the episode so I'm not sure if that makes a difference in the image.

If that is the Eye of Jupiter, what does it mean?  Why did Tigh shoot the right eye?  Why did the cylons scan Anders right eye?  Is there a connection between these two events?

Could Tigh have used his hallucination to send some kind of warning to the toaster cylons through Sam's eye?

-----

Related Post:

Are the Final 5 Cylons from Earth?

Could Cally be the Final Cylon on BSG?

Cicero

We are doing a unit on ancient Romans. I have decided upon a new approach (not my original idea, but I liked the idea when I heard about it) this year. I have assigned each student a Roman name. The names are all of important Roman men, and a couple of well-known Roman women.

It appears that most Roman women did not receive an education, and were kept at home doing housework and having babies. Also, Roman women had a situation similar to most women in the Middle East today--that is, they are under their father's authority until they are married; then they pass to their husband's authority. (In many--but not all-- Middle Eastern countries today, a wife cannot travel more than 60 miles, or get a passport, without her husband's signature permitting it.)

For this reason, I had a problem getting any Roman women's names of anyone important, or who accomplished anything (other than women who were the wife or mother of someone important). So, for most of the girls, I used names of Roman godesses.

Roman Goddesses: Juno (Hera in Greek, above) and Ceres (Demeter in Greek, below)

We drew the names out of a bag. I've made stand-up name tags for each student to keep on their desk, as well as a wall chart with their student numbers and Roman names. So now when we are doing math, or some other subject, I can call them by their Roman names.

Students are having a great time learning about who they are. Sometimes they misbehave on purpose, just so that they can hear me say, "Marcus Aurelius, sit in your chair!" or, "Cicero, turn around and face the front!"

Eileen

Thanks for having a look at the blog. I have actually completed 15 sets of gawwwjus skins. All but one has 6 different makeups and let me tell you it took a couple of weeks of butt busting. I promised myself that I'd start working on something else as soon as I finished with 15 sets... Ok... so I'm about to start working on... Something else.

Zeus o impetuoZo – GERAL ME OBEDECEM! diz:
ae meus filhos blz tenho um comunicado pra fz pra rapaziada

Hera – acima d td espoZa diz:
oi amor vem logo pra casa rs

Atena – cai dentro mané diz:
Paizão =** te amo eterna

Afrodite – amor eh fogo q arde 100 c ve diz:
Papai q saudades fale??

Zeus o impetuoZo – GERAL ME OBEDECEM! diz:
seginte vo rola uma festa sinistra + eh meio prive qeuro cazar o peleu com a tetis há força pq to asçando q vai rolar um adulterio ce ela fika sozinha + tempo saco entao eh um casamnento soh pra galere do olimpo os bonzão nao qero q chame outra pessoas e digo mas ERIS TAH D FORA VLW

Hera – acima d td espoZa diz:
mais a tetis coitada amro acho q vai dar confusao

Afrodite – amor eh fogo q arde 100 c ve diz:
Ih pai foi mal eu tinha acabado de chama a eris pro chat

Éris foi adicionado à conversa.

Éris –><– Onde quÉRIS revolta, sou coqueiro diz:
falae galere qual a boa

Atena – cai dentro mané diz:
Paizao asco q vai ce massa fz uma festiha de casamento to dentro vou chamar alto gatinhos

Éris –><– Onde quÉRIS revolta, sou coqueiro diz:
Opa kem vai casa ai

Zeus o impetuoZo – GERAL ME OBEDECEM! diz:
Ningem eris nem era pra vc ta aki ok

Afrodite – amor eh fogo q arde 100 c ve diz:
Eris do q q vc tah falano

Éris –><– Onde quÉRIS revolta, sou coqueiro diz:
Pode para com o papiho Afrodite jah me liguei jah 6 vao da uma festa e agora eu fiquei sabedno rs vcs nem tem como nega

Hera – acima d td espoZa diz:
Eh isos msm criança peleu e tetis tão juntano os trapiho agente vai liberar o hidromel pra galere mais vc num tah convidada

Éris –><– Onde quÉRIS revolta, sou coqueiro diz:
Não?? Blz mais vcs vão t q mim engoli lembresse disso

Éris –><– Onde quÉRIS revolta, sou coqueiro sai da conversa.

Zeus o impetuoZo – GERAL ME OBEDECEM! diz:
Pronto Atenas vc e sua língua souta putamerda agora ela jah sabe vai fz o maior fuzuê aposto q vai aparesse na festa triloca de pó jogano hypnol nas birita e tirano a roupa encima da mesa aposto eu conehso eris

Hera – acima d td espoZa diz:
Lige nao amor eris eh fogo de palha soh fala + nao faz deicha ela q ela esquese ok

Afrodite – amor eh fogo q arde 100 c ve diz:
Papai c se quizer eu vo la e falo com ela ela me escuta derrepente ce comporta q q 6 ächão?

Zeus o impetuoZo – GERAL ME OBEDECEM! diz:
Merda qeuro soh ver mais tah tranks vai la afrô fala com ela q eu preciso liga pro buffet e e resolve ai essa estória das melancia com qeuijo feta bjks ai pra minhas garotas hera eu vo chega em casa la pelas 22 ok as 23 comeca a festa

Hera – acima d td espoZa diz:
Tah bom amor t espero bjs

Atena – cai dentro mané diz:
Po foi mau pai nem pensei mais agente vai resolve isos fike tranks bejao

Afrodite – amor eh fogo q arde 100 c ve diz:
Vo chama ela d volta agora bjs pai

Zeus o impetuoZo – GERAL ME OBEDECEM! sai da conversa.

Éris foi adicionado à conversa.

Éris –><– Onde quÉRIS o sim e o não, talvez diz:
Me chamarão d novo?

Afrodite – amor eh fogo q arde 100 c ve diz:
Eh isos ai eris qeuro fla com vc qeuria pedi pra vc relacha não fike brava com papai certo

Hera – acima d td espoZa diz:
ele eh mto teimozo menina e vc tah com o filme keimado tah ligada

Atena – cai dentro mané diz:
E eu vou te comer na porrada ce se não se comporta sua escrota

Éris –><– Onde quÉRIS o sim e o não, talvez diz:
Meu Zeus rs q exajero seguinte meninas não qeuro brigar??? Ce aceitei vim aqiu foi pra dizer q eu nem quero msm ir na festa nao vou com a cara da tetis e mais eu tenho um prezente pra manda pra vcs segure ai

Éris –><– Onde quÉRIS o sim e o não, talvez envia:
kallisti.jpg

Aceitar(Alt+C) Salvar como...(Alt+S) Recusar(Alt+Z)

Afrodite – amor eh fogo q arde 100 c ve diz:
Eris q lindo adorei a homenajem brigada nao sabia q vc era tao delicada atencioza??

Hera – acima d td espoZa diz:
Ta louca Afrodite ela mandou pra mim ok

Atena – cai dentro mané diz:
Não fode mãe tah escrito ali pra + bela tah na cara q a maça dorada eh minha!!

Hera – acima d td espoZa diz:
Então eris vc fale d qeum eh a maca

Afrodite – amor eh fogo q arde 100 c ve diz:
eh minha nao eh

Éris –><– Onde quÉRIS o sim e o não, talvez envia:
UAHUHAUHUAUHAUHAUHAUAHAUHAUAHUHAUAHUAH!!!!1
SINTÃO O PESO DA MAO DA DEUSA RS FUI DISCUTÃO AI

Éris –><– Onde quÉRIS o sim e o não, talvez sai da conversa.