You Think You're So Smart!

You Gotta Really Look!

2005-09-01T11:14:00.000-07:00

Galileo Galilei- Mathematician, Physicist, Astronomer Emeritus, Dropper of Things, and Victim of Religious Extremeism.

Galileo was born in Pisa Italy, then a thriving city that had once been an independent state, on February 18, 1564. The end of Pisa's freedom came at the hands of too wealthy and too nearby Florence. Galileo's parents were well to do and learned. He was well educated by his sophisticated mother and father, learning the prequisite Greek and Latin as well as math and music.

At seventeen he was sent to college to become a doctor. There he discovered two things, he didn't want to be a doctor and important facts regarding the swings of pendulums.

Galileo is often said to have performed his famous physics experiments involving falling bodies by dropping objects from the Leaning Tower a mere stone's throw from his birthplace. It may or it may not have actually happened that way. He makes no mention of it in any of his staggering amount of personal papers. Others however claimed to eye-witnesses and there is little reason to doubt them.

He was busy man, what with all the discovering and observing. He never had time for a wife but managed to find time for mistresses and his offspring by them. His children remained part of his life until the end.

Galileo did not invent the telescope. He vastly improved it by making a telescope with 1000x magnification. By far the best of its time.

1610 was quite a year for Galileo. In January he looked through his marvelous telescope and discovered four moons around Jupiter. One of which he slyly named after the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo II. Later, in July he discovered the rings around Saturn.

He squabbled in print with many of his contempories as he argued for observation coming to replace 'pure reason' in scientific thinking. A learned but impolite debater, he reffered to one opponent as an ignoramus and a eunuch.

The ignorant preacher Tommaso Caccini attacked the Copernican view of the solar system as heretical and of course Galileo was well known proponent of the idea. The church asked him nicely to moderate his stance but he would not. In fact he wrote even more inflammatory ideas regarding the church's lack of right to refuse to accept what seemed to him as simple fact. He said he could believe that God would give him the gifts of wit and reason and refuse to let him use them.

Galileo maintained a sort of running battle with the church for many years. He published books and articles that scandalized church fathers. Ironically, one exception was Pope Urban VIII, an easy going and clever man.

It all came to ahead and Galileo handed himself over to the Inquisition in February of 1633. He is nearly seventy years old. He was kept prisoner for almost three months before being interrogated. He was poorly cared for and likely threatened with torture. Galileo was moved to a more comfortable prison but had to return for four more rounds of interrogation. Finally the old man broke and recanted that he had ever thought that the Earth revolved around the Sun. He knelt before the his accusers and called everything he believed a cursed and detestible heresy.

The sick and humiliated old man was ultimately allowed to return to his own home. He died on January 8, 19642.

Worst Jobs Ever!

2005-05-13T07:40:00.000-07:00

This is an incredibly interesting and funny look at the worst jobs in history. If you think you've got it bad take a look at this.

I Confess!

2005-04-25T10:29:00.000-07:00

St. Augustine- Greatest thinker of early Christianity, inventor of the autobiography, reformed party guy.

It is impossible to over state the impact of St. Augustine on the formation of Christian ideals during the late fourth century. His writings still serve as inspiration and instruction to Christians and non-Christians today. The two books for which his is remembered are Confessions and City of God. Confessions is the very first autobiography ever written and lays bare the saint's evolution from dissolute youth to religious icon. City of God is theological comparison of religious versus secular life. I leave the validity of the theology to those more qualified. While I find Confessions extremely beautiful and funny neither should be taken on an empty stomach and may cause drowsiness.

St. Augustine was born in Roman Africa, Numidia to be exact, in 354. His mother, Monica, was a woman of great faith and virtue who would eventually be made a saint herself. His father not so much. Augustine's father was a wastrel and a philanderer.

In his famous autobiography St. Augustine admits to a youth badly misspent. Games of chance, sexual misconduct with married women, and drunkenness all competed to fill the future saint's time.

He was schooled in Carthage, a city repeatedly described as a cesspool. He studied Latin, what passed for the sciences at the time, and made a pass at Greek. After completing his education he worked as an educator for a little while.

About this time he began keeping a concubine he was very fond of. She helped the saint become a teenage father when she gave birth to a son called Adeodatus when Augustine was only eight-teen years old. By all account he was a good father and loved his little son to distraction.

It should be remembered that St. Augustine was not yet a Christian more less a saint at this time. His religion wasn't quite Roman paganism but it certainly was not Christian.

At age twenty-nine St. Augustine decided to go to the center of western civilization Rome. His mother was appalled. If Carthage was a cesspool then Rome was cess-ocean and St. Monica feared for the immortal soul of her son who was just starting to show signs of moral reform. She insisted on going along and to his lasting shame St. Augustine pretended to go along with the idea but then ditched her at the docks and sailed away leaving her weeping on the shore. Eventually she caught up with him and presumably laid the longest guilt trip know to motherhood on him.

At age 32 he finally settled down and married; to a ten year old girl. Augustine was however a gentleman and waited until she was twelve to take her into his house.

St. Augustine's conversion was not the blinding light and sudden awakening type. He battled for many years with doubt. Doubt that incompassed both the old ways and the new. He struggled with all the questions that plague the thoughtful but religious mind. Whether it was to simple patient spirituality of St. Monica or the mazes of theology we cannot say but on Easter Sunday 387 Augustine along with his son was baptized by yet another future saint Ambrose. Monica, her work done perhaps, died soon after.

Not long after his conversion Augustine returned to Africa, sold all his worldly goods and retired to a monastic lifestyle with Adeodatus and few friends.

In 389 tragedy struck in the form of the death of his seventeen year old son. Despite the saint's belief in the immortality of the soul and of heaven it broke his heart.

Although Augustine lived as a monastic he engaged in very public debates including the bishop Fortunatus. The two men argued publicly on the finer points of Christianity until beaten and shamed Fortunatus fled from the battlefield a broken man.

In 396 Augustine was elected to the amusingly named office of Bishop of Hippo. We are told he hated the idea and begged to be allowed his old life. Once he was moved in he shocked everyone by keeping his old habits and vegetarian diet. Incidentlly St. Augustine had never been a priest before this moment and took his orders in order to wear the bishop's hat.

As one might expect he became less tolerant of unconventional views once he became bishop. He publicly declared his belief that Donatist were damned and encouraged their arrest. He stopped short of wishing them dead and actively tried to prevent their executions. By the way all of this took place because the Donatists believed that a priest had to be virtuous in order for their sacraments to actually work.

While Bishop of Hippo St. Augustine wrote his two great works as well as many, many sermons that do not survive but were well thought of in his time.

At age seventy-six he died in his bed his world on the edge of disaster. The city of Hippo was in the midst of a lengthy siege by the barbarian Vandals who were in the midst of their conquest of North Africa. The old saint had rallied a populace stricken with fear and starvation for months but did not live to see his city pillaged, burned, and raped by the invaders.

It Takes a Big Man to Make The Middle Ages

2005-04-14T10:31:00.000-07:00

Charlamagne- Barbarian, Holy Roman Emperor, savior of popes, pushy schoolmaster of Europe.

Although he has come down to us as Charlamagne he would not have recognized the name. Charlamagne is French for Charles the Great. Charlamagne did not speak French, he was German.

His father was Pepin the Short, a brilliant man in his own right. He made France out of Gaul, like his son made a habit out of rescueing popes, and made himself King of the Franks. When he died he left his kingdom jointly to his sons Carloman and Charles.

Much his made of Charlamagne's impressive heigtth and powerful build. He stood six feet four inches tall and was built along heroic lines. He was blond and kept his moustache neat.

In 771, when Charles was twenty-nine, his brother Carloman received his great reward and Charles was left sole ruler. The place just wasn't big enough for the both of them. No longer conflicting with his brother Charlamagne set out to conflict with everyone else.

A devoted Christian he converted pagan Bavaria and Saxony at the point of sword. He once had the heathen heads of some 4500 Saxon cut off in one day. It should be noted that converting these peoples required conquering them first. Not content to massacre the heathen Charlamagne bullied the clergy as well. He called them uncouth and unlettered.

In 773 Pope Hadrian II begged Charlamagne for help against the also barbarian Lombards. The Lombards lived in Northern Italy and hated the pope. Charlamagne was convinced to come to the pope's aid and made quick work of the Lombards. Hadrian felt entitled

How the Mighty Have Fallen

2005-04-06T05:24:00.000-07:00

The End of the Habsburgs- The last generation of imperial kooks.

World War I is a sadly neglected historical period. This is particularly true in the United States where participation was fairly brief and totally overshadowed by the Great Depression and World War II. This is unfortunate because the Great War, in a certain sense, marked the end of the old world and foreshadowed the new one. One significant example of this change was the collapse of the Austrian Empire and the fall of one of histories great families, the Habsburgs.

The Habsburgs would need an entry all to themselves to explain their long and colorful history. For now it will have to suffice to say that at one point the Habsburgs ruled one of the largest empires ever recorded. Their holdings at one time or another included Spain, Austria, South America, much of North America, the Netherlands, and almost all of south Eastern Europe. This is list is far from complete.

The last true Habsburg emperor was Franz Joseph who ruled from 1848 until his death on October 21, 1916. His reign of almost sixty-eight years makes him number two on the all time absolute ruler longevity list. He was a tall man who almost always dressed in military uniforms and had a reputation as an aloof prig even when still very young.

While the emperor may have been a somewhat dry character the same could not be said of his large family which contained a largish collection of lunatics and fools.

We will begin our tour of the asylum with Franz Joseph's beautiful wife Elizabeth. She was born in Bavaria in 1837. Her family were lively and relaxed country folks. She grew up surrounded by animals and was said to be the best horsewoman in Europe. Later she even took up fencing. At sixteen she became engaged to Franz Joseph and didn't like it much. She was bullied by her mother in law Sophia and intimidated by the arcane rituals that made up Habsburg etiquette. Eventually she took refuge in isolation and madness. A number of events contributed to her descent into insanity, the death of her first child at the age of two, her younger sister died horribly in a fire in Paris, and general loneliness. She was anorexic and sometimes ate only oranges for days at a time. Sisi, as she was called occupied herself by pretending to be Shakespeare's Titania with a passion that bordered on delusion. Elizabeth took to constantly wandering about the empire under an assumed identity that fooled no one. Least of all, the Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni who stabbed her to death on September 10, 1898.

Although the actual causes of World War I are too complicated and ridiculous to deal with here the assassination of Franz Joseph's nephew the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife by Serbian separatists got the ball rolling.

The parade of violent deaths is not yet exhuasted. Franz Joseph's drunken and cynical son Rudolf entered into a suicide pact with his seventeen year old mistress Marie Vetsera. He shot her and then himself on January 29, 1889. He was thirty-one years old. Curiously he first tried to convince his wife to commit suicide with him and when she refused turned to Marie.

To my mind the most amazing of the Habsburg tragedies was the life and death of Franz Joseph's brother Maximillian. Max and his Belgian wife Charlotte were convinced by the French government of Napolean III to take the unstable throne of Mexico. The motivations for this adventure by the French essentially amounted to greed and the hope to get a foothold in the Americas while the United States was distracted by the Civil War. It was a doomed and silly affair from the beginning. Almost all Mexicans supported the democratic government of Benito Juarez and despised the foreign invaders. The rightist reactionaries that initially supported the Habsburg emperer came to hate him because of reformist ideals he held. Maximillian was too far right for the left and too far left for the right. France developed serious problems of her own and the American Civil War came to an end. Napolean withdrew his forces he had lent Maximillian which were getting kicked around by the Mexicans in any case. Maximillian was left all alone except for a few devoted Mexicans generals and European adventurers. Charlotte returned to Europe in a misguided attempt to rally support. Once the futility of her mission dawned on her already unstable mind she went crazy. She lived for a while with the pope stealing food from his plate insisting she was in danger of being poisoned. Her brother was now the king of Belgium and he kept her as a virtual prisoner until her death in the 1920s. She is said to have spent her time constructing paper crowns to replace to one she had lost. Maximillian labored on for a while until captured by the Mexican nationalist forces. He was exicuted by a firing squad on June 19, 1867. His execution took place despite the best efforts of Princess Agnes Salm-Salm the wife of one of the Europeans killed along side Maximillian Felix Salm-Salm. Agnes was an American who had been a circus performer before marrying the prince. She tried bribery, tears, and even offered herself to save her husband and the emperor. The fall of Maximillian's government is still celebrated in Mexico and elsewhere as Cinco de Mayo. Max and Charlotte's tale is so bizarre that it will get its own article soon.

Franz Joseph, unlike his wife, son, nephew, and brother died peacefully in bed on October 21, 1916. The Austrian Empire was on its deathbed as well but it fell to Franz Joseph's weak eyed nephew Charles to guide it into its grave.

Apart from Shakespeare You Mean.

2005-03-25T13:49:00.000-08:00

Elizabethan Playwrights- A motely colletion of scholars, hypocrits, spies, and murderers.

Along with William Shakespeare there was an entire artist subculture surrounding the theatre of Elizabeth's England. Many others made their mark on this gestational period of English letters. Some of their output endures and is still frequently performed while others have been rendered absurd or indecipherable by time. Others still are lost entirely.

Most educated playwrights did their best to hide the fact that they wrote for the public stage. Everyone in Elizabethan England flocked to the theatre but it was universally regarded as a cesspool of vice. A few found it profitable to turn in outrage from the stage and make good livings denouncing its immorality.

It always strike us as odd that young boys played all the women's roles on the English stage at that time. Even at the time some thought so too. One moralist could not help but wonder if dressing young boys up like women might protect no ones virtue and even possibly encourage homosexuality. Go figure.

Christopher Marlowe is probably the most famous of Shakespeare's contemporaries. Marlowe is responsible for a collection of plays including Tamburlaine I and II, Dr. Faustus, The Jew of Malta, and Dido, Queen of Carthage. The literary merits of his works are for others to discuss. Although, I confess I am personally fond of any version of the Faust legend.

Marlowe, like a curiously large number of English writers was probably a spy. While still attending Cambridge he was sent to spy on Catholic dissidents living in Rheims, France. The Catholics had been driven from England by Elizabeth I and were plotting varying degrees of violence against her person. Years later he was accused of consorting with the queen's enemies. He was.

Other writers of the time included an alarming number of Thomas'. Thomas Kyd author of The Spanish Tragedy (an absolute blood bath), Thomas Nashe a right wing wit, and sword wielding Thomas Watson make up the vanguard of a literary era awash with guys named Thomas.

Speaking of Thomas Watson, he and Christopher Marlowe almost certainly worked as hired goons for a theatre impresario and tavern owner named John Alleyn. Alleyn purchased plays from both Marlowe and Watson. William Bradley another innkeeper was involved in some complicated and acrimonious business dealings with Alleyn. He was visited by the armed play writes. What they had to say to one another is not known but soon swords were drawn. Bradley wounded Watson and chased him into a ditch. It probably came as shock to Bradley when Watson stabbed him in the chest and killed him. Both Marlowe and Watson were immediately arrested and tossed into Newgate prison. Marlowe was found innocent and released. Watson it was declared acted in self-defense but still had to sit in stir for nearly five months.

In November of 1587 a group of actors fired fully loaded muskets on stage. The list of victims included a pregnant woman, a small child, and adult man.

On the 30th of May, 1593 Christopher Marlowe who was about to be arrested for heresy, counterfeiting, and treason had lunch with three vile associates. Marlowe's friend and roommate Thomas Kyd had been tortured into testifying that Marlowe was part of a cabal of atheist bent on destroying state and church. Marlowe's companions at lunch were Robert Poley a spy and political strong man, and a pair of thieves named Nicholas Skerres and Ingram Frizer. They gathered in what was probably some sort of private room they hired for the occasion. It was later testified that they quarreled over the bill and Marlowe drew his dagger and attacked Frizer. The innocent Frizer had no choice but to plunge his dagger into Marlowe's face. Marlowe died immediately. Frizer was acquitted and walked away. It is very unlikely that the official account was true. It is more likely that Marlowe was killed at the order of Elizabeth's spymaster Lord Burghley. Poley was certainly Burghley's man and Skerres and Frizer capable of anything.

A Wit, a Pen, and a Lot of Women

2005-03-22T15:34:00.000-08:00

Giacomo Casanova- Memoirist, alchemist, soldier, inventor, musician, and all time ladies man.

Casanova was born April 2, 1725 to Gaetano Casanova, an actor turned lens maker, and Zanetta Farussi, a shoemaker's daughter turned very successful actress. Gaetano died while his son was still quite young and his stunningly beautiful but distant mother raised Casanova. Not surprising given how he turned out.

At about age two little Giacomo's nose began to bleed. He bled copiously and continually. Physicians failing to see how further bleedings might help were at a loss. His family felt sorry for him but figuring he would surely die ignored him. Eventually, when he was about eight, his maternal grandmother took him to a witch who locked him in a box and cast spells on him. Once this undoubtedly frightening experience ended he was taken home and put to bed. That night he was visited by what he could only describe as a fairy and caressed and comforted. In later life he said that while he did not believe in fairies or witches he could not explain what happened to him but his nosebleeds stopped.

At age nineteen he became the lover of twenty-nine year old Dona Lucreztia. Her husband, an open-minded Neapolitan attorney, encouraged the tryst and helped Casanova along professionally. Lucretzia educated young Giacomo in libertinage and introduced him to life's simple pleasures. His relationship with Lucretzia resulted in the birth of a daughter.

Giacomo lived his adult life as a nobleman. He took the completely fictitious title Chevalier de Seingalt despite the fact that his parents came from a most disreputable profession. Actors and actresses were regarded as essentially the same as con men and harlots. Casanova succeeded at his charade of gentility by simply bald facing. He felt he was at least as good as anyone and acted like it. The ready wit, the broad learning, and the nerves of safecracker opened the palaces of Europe to Casanova. In short he lied like a rug and kept moving to stay ahead of them.

In 1755 Casanova was arrested by the Inquisition and imprisoned for reading banned books and thinking impious thoughts. After a year and a half he and another prisoner escaped in a rather daring manner.

Amongst Casanova's numberless papers were found two alternate scenes, written in his hand, for Mozart's opera Don Giovanni. Incidentlly, it was scene 10 Act II. It is known for a fact that Casanova spent time with the great composer immediately before the premier of the opera.

Lucrezia reappears a number of times in Casanova's life. Most notably when he announced his desire to marry the beautiful young courtesan Leonilda. She informed him that this was impossible as the young woman was their daughter and suggested they just have sex instead. They did.

Top of the Food Chain, Ma!

2005-03-18T10:47:00.000-08:00

Dinosaurs- 225 million years of genetic dominance and alleged maladaption

If you are interested in dinosaurs and generally intelligent but are not a paleontologist I suggest you read the book "The Dinosaur Heresies" by Robert Bakker. It is lively, smart, and very informative. The edition I have is from 1993 and is undoubtedly somewhat dated. In any case, much of this post is taken from Dr. Bakker.

Dinosaurs are often conceived of as the very definition of evolutionary failure. This notion could not be more mistaken. Consider this, for 130 million years mammals were so oppressed by dinosaurs that none got bigger than a few pounds.

Ceratosaurus, a creature similar to the tyrannosaurus, had a jawbone that expanded outward in the manner of a boa constrictor allowing the giant predator to consume even larger bites.

As the nineteenth century dawned a museum in Berlin was sent a full size replica of a diplodocus by Andrew Carnegie. The museum's expert, a man named Tornier, assembled it so that the thighs stuck out away from the body in the manner of crocodiles and alligators. This posture would prevent the animal's legs from extending past its ribcage and reaching the ground.

It is possible that diplodocus had a trunk like an elephant.

The triceratops had the biggest skull of any land creature that has ever lived. A bone structure four feet wide and up to eight feet long. Speaking of triceratops, most animals with horns can only strike with their horns by tossing their head from side to side but triceratops' horns were oriented forward allowing the creature to lunge straight at an attacker with its several tons of meat directly behind the thrust.

He WAS the Renaissance, Man

2005-03-15T12:28:00.000-08:00

Leonardo Da Vinci- Greatest painter of his age, inventor, scientist, and slacker extrodinaire

Leonardo was born naturally but illegitimately to a Florentine lawyer and a woman whose profession is listed only as peasant girl. His father's wife, his stepmother in an odd turn of the phrase, raised him. Not surprisingly, she didn't like him much.

He wrote, "The sun does not move... The earth is not in the center of the circle of the sun, nor the center of the universe." This was many years before the publication of the Copernican theory.

Leonardo was a vegetarian and purchased caged birds in order to free them.

On June 7th, 1476 Leonardo was charged for the second time with homosexuality. He was briefly imprisoned. In both cases the charges were dismissed as unproven. Strangely, the Florentine Signory, who accused him, didn't seem to hold grudge. They later hired Da Vinci to paint an altar in the chapel of St. Bernard. Despite his acquittal it is almost certain that Leonardo was a homosexual.

While it may seem impossible to believe given the quantity of Leonardo's paintings and inventions he had a reputation as a slacker. He failed to complete many of his commissions. Most famously, a giant equestrian statue for the Duke of Milan. (His name was Lodovico. Interesting fellow with a marvelous wife, Beatrice.) The statue was supposed to be an immense bronze man on a horse affair requiring fifty tons of bronze. Leonardo spent months drawing horses and arrogantly refusing other commissions. His employer lost money and patience but could find no one as capable as Leonardo for the monument. Eventually a twenty-six foot plaster model was finished. Lodovico was losing a war with the French and needed bronze for more practical canons. French archers used the plaster model for target practice.

Michelangelo publicaly humiliated Leonardo and despised him almost to violence.

Nothing Jolly About Roger

2005-03-14T06:52:00.000-08:00

Pirates- A Short and Brutish Life on a Sea of Misconceptions

Although pirates have existed as long as there have been ships to prey on and still prowl the worlds waters today, the overwhelmingly dominant image of piracy comes from its so-called golden age. Black Beard, Captain Kidd, the dreaded Bartholomew Roberts, and the pioneering Henry Avery's careers all took place between 1692 and 1725. A period of only thirty-three years.

Creativity in cruelty was certainly practiced as an art by golden age pirates. A merchant captain once had a small hole cut in his abdomen from which his small intestine pulled out and nailed to the mast. The unfortunate mariner was then forced to run around the mast and ultimately disembowel himself.

No one was ever forced to walk the plank.

Buried treasure is nearly entirely mythic. Pirates spent their loot in orgies of self-indulgence.

Women have not been excluded from the ranks of pirates. Mary Reid and Anne Bonney are surely the most famous women pirates. Bonney once killed a fellow pirate in a duel to protect her lover and died in prison of fever awaiting execution for her crimes. Reid told Calico Jack Rackam when the noose was on his neck that if he'd fought like a man he needn't hung like a dog. Mary Reid may well have escaped hanging and lived to ripe old age. It is likely that the most successful pirate of all time was a woman. Madame Chang, whose career took place during the early nineteenth century, commanded thousands of ships and brought the emperor of China to his knees.