Hans Is Great

Eye Candy

2009-11-06T14:48:00.002-05:00

Sponges

2009-11-06T14:19:00.013-05:00

A brief introduction before I begin. I've decided to test out a new series of posts about life on earth. Most of these posts will be about different types of animals, but plants will be included intermittently.

Life has been present on earth for over 3.5 billion years. It has since diversified into a vast assortment of different organisms. Animals all share two key features: first, they obtain their energy from food (as opposed to plants, which produce their own food by photosynthesis); second, they are multi-cellular, which distinguishes them from single celled organisms.

My inaugural post on animal life concerns the simplest of all animals...

Sponges (Porifera)

Sponges were once thought to be plants because they spend their entire adult life fixed to the sea floor, unable to move around. On land, animals must move around in search of food. In the ocean, water currents carry an abundant supply of food in the form of microscopic plankton. Fixed animals can take advantage of this by filtering their food from the water, without having to move from place to place.

When it is time to reproduce, they shed sperm and eggs into the water. Currents distribute them to new area, where they can settle and grow.

The anatomy of a sponge has no symmetry, nor do they have distinctive body parts. A sponge consists of a cooperating community of individual cells, which surround a system of canals through which water is pumped. As water passes through, plankton and particles of organic matter are trapped inside. Rigidity is provided by a skeleton of tiny, bony splinters called spicules, scattered throughout the body.

Some sponges grow to about 6 1/2 feet tall. The largest may be hundreds of years old. There are more than 15,000 different types of sponges in a breathtaking variety of colors. Grays and browns predominate in deeper waters, brighter colors in the shallows.

Six species of sponges are considered commercially marketable, especially a type called demosponges, whose populations are now badly affected by over-collection. Mediterranean sponges are the softest and best. These are gathered by divers and then cut into the familiar blocks seen on supermarket shelves. Fortunately, most kitchen and bath sponges are now synthetic, and were never really living sponges at all.

The elegant branches of the tube sponge are easily torn, so this variety is found only in very deep water where wave turbulence is minimal. Tube sponges are most common in the tropical waters of the south Pacific, and they typically grow to about 3 feet in length. It is sometimes seen as a single tube, but more often as a series of branches joined at the base. When this sponge releases its sperm into the water, it resembles a smoking chimney.

Most sponges need a hard surface for attachment, although a few can bore through soft sediment. For this reason they often form beautiful "gardens" in shipwrecks and on coral reefs. The largest populations exist where tidal currents are strong, which brings extra food. Other animals such as crabs and worms sometimes live inside of sponges.

There aren't too many interesting books just about sponges, but there are lots of good ones about all kinds of animal life. Animal: The Definitive Visual Guide, by David Burnie and Don Wilson is a good first step for an interest in animals in general. Ocean, by Philip Eales, David Burnie, and Frances Dipper is a good one about sea life. Both are filled with interesting facts and lots of glossy pictures, perfect for yourself or as a holiday gift.

Eye Candy

2009-11-04T20:41:00.004-05:00

The History of Civilization

2009-11-04T19:50:00.019-05:00

Chapter Twenty: Alexander the Great

King of Macedonia, conqueror of Persia, and one of the greatest military geniuses of all time; Alexander the Great traveled further east than any European until Marco Polo, more than a thousand years later. He is the most famous person from the classical world, with the exception of Christ.

Physically, he was ideal: handsome, charming, and good at every sport. His boyhood tutor, Aristotle, had given him a love for Greek literature and philosophy which enriched his military career with true statesmanship. He liked hard work, dangerous enterprises, and never wanted to rest. Legend claimed he tamed an incorrigible horse, named Bucephalas, when he was only ten years old, apparently unaware of the danger of being trampled to death. He also introduced to Europe the custom of shaving, claiming that a beard was too easy for an enemy to grab during combat. In this little item, perhaps, he had his greatest influence on history.

When Alexander became king, he was faced with wide-scale rebellion through the rest of Greece. His father, Philip, had been assassinated, and the king of Persia believed it would be easy to defeat the immature twenty year-old who was now leading Europe's mightiest army. Meanwhile, there was unrest at home as well. Philip had been unpopular with his Greek subjects, many of whom had been brought into the empire by unwilling conquest. When news of his death reached Athens there was public celebration. Within Macedonia, a dozen factions conspired to kill the young king.

Alexander rose to the situation with an energy that ended all internal opposition, and set the tempo of his career. He arrested and decapitated all the plotters at home in Macedonia, then marched his army south to Greece, arriving at Thebes within a few days. The Greek city-states quickly renewed their allegiance, and sent a profuse apology for celebrating his father's death. Alexander, appeased, declared all dictatorships abolished and let each Greek city live in freedom according to its own laws.

His promptness in crushing the revolt and characteristic generosity in dealing with the defeated brought the other Greek cities into an instant and abject submission.

With Greece now secure, Alexander began his war against Persia in the spring of 334 BC, with an army of 35,000. At Troy he encountered a Persian force of 40,000 and soundly defeated them, losing only 110 of his own soldiers. Continuing his advance southward he encountered the main Persian army in northeastern Syria.

Ancient tradition claims that Darius' army contained 600,000 men, although this is now believed to be a wild exaggeration. In any case, the Battle of Issus, in 333 BC, resulted in a great victory for Alexander. Darius fled, abandoning his mother, wife, and children to Alexander, who treated them with all the respect due to royalty.

Before continuing his campaign, Alexander paused in 332 BC to secure the Mediterranean coastline. While here he founded, on the mouth of the Nile River, the city of Alexandria, which would become the literary, scientific, and commercial center of the Mediterranean world. The city hosted a magnificent harbor and a famous lighthouse, considered one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.
Here the Jews came into contact with Greek learning, which profoundly influenced later religious thought; and the Greek translation of the Old Testament, called the Septuagint, came into being.

Everywhere he went, Alexander founded Greek cities as part of his strategy of "conquest by civilization". Each city was designed along Greek lines with help from the king's architects and city planners. The vast network of new towns (about 70 in all) was the key to the Hellenization of the territory he had conquered.

Alexander had some impressive early victories, but the Persian King Darius was still at large, and the Macedonian army had yet to make a move into Persian territory beyond the Euphrates River. He wanted to defeat the Persian powers which had threatened Greek civilization for centuries. To do this he had to move his army into unknown territory.

To be continued...

Naturally, there are a lot of great books about Alexander. He's one of the most famous people of all time. My personal favorite is In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great: A Journey from Greece to Asia, by Michael Wood.

For my previous posts on the History of Civilization click here.

Eye Candy

2009-11-03T17:50:00.005-05:00

Quotations

2009-11-03T17:39:00.008-05:00

I cannot pretend to feel impartial about colors. I rejoice with the brilliant ones, and am generally sorry for the poor browns.
Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)

One needs to be slow to form convictions, but once formed they must be defended against the heaviest odds.
Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948)

Make money your god and it will plague you like the devil.
Henry Fielding (1707 - 1754)

One man practicing sportsmanship is better than a hundred teaching it.
Knute Rockne (1888 - 1931)

It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.
Seneca (4 BC - 65 AD)

The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star.
Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755 - 1826)

A single day is enough to make us a little larger.
Paul Klee (1879 - 1940)

To find fault is easy, to do better is difficult.
Plutarch (46 - 120)

Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them?
Rose Kennedy (1890 - 1995)

Eye Candy

2009-11-03T10:15:00.004-05:00

Tyrannosaurus Rex

2009-11-03T09:14:00.020-05:00

Tyrannosaurus Rex and its subgroup, the Tyrannosaurids, were some of the largest land predators the world has ever known. They were several times larger than the largest land predators of today, such as the grizzly bear, which weighs less than one metric ton. Tyrannosaurus Rex weighed more than five metric tons. The mouth was wide enough to swallow an adult human, and the bite was three times as powerful as that of a lion. Possibly the best known of all dinosaurs, it was considered the "king of the dinosaurs" until the discovery of larger allosaurids, such as gigantosaurus in the 1990s.

About 20 skeletons of Tyrannosaurus Rex have been excavated, so the appearance of this dinosaur is known with some confidence. It was present at the mass extinction event, 65 million years ago, which ended the ended the age of dinosaurs.

It was first discovered in the Hell Creek Formation in Montana, probably the best record anywhere on earth of life at the end of the Cretaceous era, just before and during the mass extinction event that wiped out 35 percent of all species including the dinosaurs. This formation has yielded thousands of fossils, including the T-Rex skeletons in the American Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Institution. During the Cretaceous era the area was warm and humid with open forests and rivers. It was not swampy.

Scientists debate the lifestyle of Tyrannosaurus: was it a fearsome predator, as has always been portrayed? Or was it a slow-moving animal, living as a scavenger on the corpses of animals that had died or had been killed by more active hunters?

Evidence for the first theory includes the position of the eyes. The fields of vision overlap, so the animal had good depth perception, essential for a hunter of fast-moving prey. The teeth and skull certainly seem very strong, able to withstand the stress caused by struggling prey. Although they are much larger, the teeth are almost exactly the same shape as those of monitor lizards, the most vicious predatory reptiles of modern times. The ear structure is like that of crocodiles, which have good hearing.
Marks that match Tyrannosaurus teeth have been found on the bones of Triceratops, and Tyrannosaurus teeth have been found wedged in the bones of the duck-billed dinosaur Hypacrosaurus.

On the other hand, animals as big as Tyrannosaurus might not have been capable of much sustained speed or activity. Once up to speed the animal could stumble easily, resulting in a crash that might have been fatal.

It is very likely that both theories are true to a degree: Tyrannosaurus was probably an occasional hunter when threatened with starvation, but did not pass up the chance to devour any corpse it came across. Trackways suggest that it might have followed great herds of plant-eating dinosaurs, preying on easy victims such as the young and the injured.

The small arms of Tyrannosaurus Rex have always been a mystery. What good is a pair of arms that is too short to reach the mouth, or anything else?

There are three main theories: First, that they were used to pull prey toward the chest so that the jaws could reach it. Second, that they were used to grasp the female while mating. Third, that they could help the animal get up from a lying down position.
The arms were surprisingly powerful: the same length as a human arm, but three times as thick. Still more peculiar, the arms end in only two clawed fingers, useless for grasping.

No one can explain any of this for certain, and it's a good example of how some aspects of dinosaur behavior cannot be solved by the fossil record.

There are a lot of terrific books about dinosaurs, perfect for holiday gifts. A few of my favorites include the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs, by Dougal Dixon; National Geographic Dinosaurs, by Paul Barrett; and Dinosaurus: The Complete Guide to Dinosaurs, by Steve Parker. All are available online at our sponsor, Barnes & Noble.

For my previous posts on dinosaurs, click here.

Eye Candy

2009-11-02T17:05:00.003-05:00

Civil War Museum of Philadelphia

2009-11-02T16:44:00.009-05:00

What follows is the first article by Nancy, a promising new Hansisgreat correspondent. Nancy's interests include children's books, the Civil War, and horses. She currently maintains a ranch to care for elderly horses. She writes today on behalf of an important cause, reopening the Civil War Museum in Philadelphia, closed since 2008.

There are wonderful treasures to be discovered in Philadelphia, for those with a passion for the turbulent time of our heart-wrenching split between North and South. One treasure is open for all to see; the other has gone underground until a new home can be found, to display this fascinating relic of national significance.

Key players in the war have called Philadelphia home, such as General George Gordon Meade, the commanding general at Gettysburg. The equestrian statue to honor him is in Fairmount Park on Lansdowne Drive, directly behind the Memorial Hall, which is now the Please Touch Museum. The sculptor was Alexander Milne Calder, famous for his William Penn statue atop City Hall.

The statue is magnificent, yet challenging to get to and therefore largely unnoticed. The General Meade Society has a petition to move the statue to a more prominent place by City Hall. The petition is on the Society's website at www.generalmeadesociety.org

The other intriguing treasure is the precious head of General Meade's favorite war horse, Old Baldy. He was previously displayed with deep respect in the front room of Philadelphia's Civil War and Underground Railroad Museum at 1805 Pine Street.
The museum closed in August 2008, preparing to move to a fine location on South 3^rd Street. Unfortunately, the funding was suddenly cut by the Pennsylvania government, leaving the museum in limbo, the collection in storage.

Hopefully a new location will be found, so Old Baldy and their excellent collection can be on display in time for the national events commemorating the 150^th anniversary of the Civil War, beginning in 2011. Information on the museum and updates on the search for a new location can be found at www.cwurmuseum.org

Eye Candy

2009-10-18T20:46:00.005-04:00

The Moon

2009-10-18T19:57:00.018-04:00

Most people heard that NASA launched a missile at the moon's south pole last week, followed by the LCROSS spacecraft. The experiment was designed to search for the presence of underground glacial water, which scientists have suspected might be found beneath the Cabeus A crater. The LCROSS spacecraft flew into the plume of dust left by the missile's impact and measured the properties before also colliding with the lunar surface.

The experiment cost $79 billion, cheap in the world of space travel. Millions gathered outside with binoculars and telescopes on the early morning of September 9 to observe the impact. It therefore seems like a good time to post a few comments on the moon, our nearest celestial neighbor, and the only body with details visible without a telescope.

As far as we can tell, it's unusual for a satellite and its host planet to be so close in size as the Earth is to the Moon. Mercury and Venus have no moons, and Mars has two, but they are very tiny. The diameter of our moon is about one-fourth that of Earth (3480 Km, 2160 mi.); but its volume is one-fiftieth of Earth's, and the Earth's mass is 81 times greater than the mass of the moon. Thus the pull of gravity on the lunar surface is only one-sixth of what it is here.

A rocket trip to the moon takes 60-70 hours. If you drove to the moon by car at a steady speed of 75 miles per hour, it would take 135 days to reach your destination. Twelve men and no women have walked on the moon, and the Apollo missions have collected 842 pounds of moon rocks.

Although the strength of the moon's gravity is one-sixth that of Earth's, the gravitational field itself is uneven. There are patches of unexpectedly high gravity , called "mascons", or "mass concentrations" on the lunar surface. Nobody knows for certain what causes them, but they are found in high concentrations where there are thick layers of lava from volcanic activity. Surprisingly, not all areas which were once volcanically active host mascons.

In 2011, NASA will send a probe to study the moon's gravity in minute detail. This will not only allow us to learn more about the moon, but also about how gravity can work here on Earth, and throughout the universe.

Things hardly ever change on the surface of the moon. Neil Armstrong's footprint will be visible for thousands of years, and it is still possible to find rocks on the surface from when the Solar System was created. The astronauts from the Apollo 15 mission found a rock that is 4.5 billion years old. Called the Genesis Rock, it is now on display at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

The moon is a very quiet, stable environment, which makes it a terrific place to mount astronomical instruments. In fact, the moon is a perfect observatory, completely free from noise, light, and atmospheric interference such as we have here on Earth.

Some day its craters might be used as dishes for massive radio antennae. It's also an ideal launch pad for deep space exploration. If bases could be established on the moon, deep space exploration would become much easier. To exploit this potential, first we'd need to work out how to live there and build construction facilities. This is where water, native to the moon rather than shipped from Earth, would come in handy. Then we would have to find a way to launch space vehicles in a lunar environment.

No doubt it's a big job, but we're working out the details all the time.

For more information, I recommend checking out the Book of the Moon, by Rick Stroud.

For my previous posts on outer space, click here.

Eye Candy

2009-10-12T21:01:00.004-04:00

The Elements

2009-10-12T20:22:00.019-04:00

The elements with atomic numbers 57-70 are known collectively as the lanthanides, after the first member of the series, lanthanum. The name is derived from the greek word lanthano, meaning, "to lie hidden". The older name was rare-earth elements, although not all are rare.

The discovery of the lanthanides began with yttrium, which is not a rare-earth element but is very similar to them and often found with them. The mineral gadolinite, from which yttrium was first extracted, also contains trace amounts of several lanthanides.

Lanthanide elements with even atomic numbers are more abundant than those with odd numbers, a common feature of all the elements. The cost of lanthanide metals is in line with their rarity: most command prices of several thousand US dollars per kilogram. World reserves of lanthanide metals are estimated to exceed 110 million tons. The largest deposit is in China, and accounts for 75% of world production.

Today, we focus on the first three lanthanides...

Lanthanum:
Atomic Symbol: La
Atomic Number: 57
Discovered in January 1839 in Stockholm, Sweden by Carl Gustav Mosander, who remained strangely silent about his discovery and did not publish an account of it for several years. Most of his time was taken up running a mineral water business.
Lanthanum is one of the more abundant rare earth elements, being more common than either lead or tin. The element consists of two isotopes, the heavier of which comprises 99.9% of the total. The remaining 0.1%, lanthanum-138, is very weakly radioactive, with a half-life of 100 billion years.

Cerium:
Atomic Symbol: Ce
Atomic Number: 58
There is only a small demand for cerium metal. One use is in so called "self cleaning" ovens, in which it is sprayed on the walls to catalyze the disintegration of cooking residue, which is mostly carbon.
Cerium has some environmentally friendly characteristics: cerium oxide cleans up vehicle exhaust, and cerium is an essential part of long life, low energy light bulbs.

Praseodymium:
Atomic symbol: Pr
Atomic Number: 59
Carl Mosander believed he discovered two elements, which he named lanthanum and didymium. The first of these was a true element, the second was not, although it was accepted as such for more than 40 years.
Didymium was later discovered to be a mixture of two components: praseodymium and neodymium.
Praseodymium glass is used to make goggles for welders because it filters out heat radiation. It is one of the most abundant rare-earth elements, and is four times more abundant than tin.

There's a terrific book about all the elements called Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements, by John Emsley. Highly recommended if you're one of the statistically insignificant number of people who's interested in this sort of thing.

For more geeky fun, check out my posts on the previous elements, hydrogen through barium, by clicking here.

Eye Candy

2009-10-08T20:15:00.004-04:00

Japan: The Early Centuries

2009-10-08T19:36:00.013-04:00

There are 4,223 islands in the archipelago called Japan. Six hundred of them are inhabited, but only five are of any considerable size. The largest, Hondo or Honshu, is 1,130 miles long, averages about 73 miles wide, and contains 81,000 square miles, more than half the land area of the nation.

Population: 127,463,611
Total area: 145,882 sq. mi. (slightly smaller than California)
Capital: Tokyo
Prime Minister: Yukio Hatoyama (since September 2009)
Constitution: May 3, 1947
Language: Japanese
Religion: most Japanese observe both Shinto and Buddhist rites; about 16% belong to other religions, including 0.7% Christianity
GDP: $4.018 trillion, $31,500 per capita

No other nation is so afflicted by earthquakes. In the year 599, an earthquake swallowed entire villages. Comets streaked across the sky, asteroids crashed into the earth, and Japan was mysteriously blanketed in snow in mid-July. Drought and famine followed, and millions of Japanese died. In 1703 an earthquake killed 32,000 in Tokyo alone. In 1923 earthquake, tsunami, and fire caused 100,000 deaths in Tokyo. Kamakura, so kind to Buddha, was nearly totally destroyed. All modern Japanese buildings are now constructed to withstand seismic activity as a result.

Research has shown that the Ainu, a tribal people whose origins are unknown, were the first inhabitants of the Japanese Archipelago. They may have populated the islands from the 2nd and 1st millenia BC. Invading peoples from nearby areas in Asia began expeditions of conquest to the islands, forcing the Ainu to the northern portions of Honshu.

About AD 360 Empress Jingu, who would eventually be considered a goddess, took over the government after the death of her husband, Emperor Chuai. She led Japan to invade and conquer a portion of nearby Korea. During the next several centuries, cultural influence passed between Korea and Japan. Chinese writing, literature, and philosophy became popular.

The most important event of the period was the importation of Buddhism. This is usually dated in 552, when a king from southwestern Korea sent Buddhist priests to Japan, together with religious images, scriptures, and calendars. The imported culture soon became deeply rooted in the islands, and while contact between the two countries weakened after the Japanese were driven out of Korea in 562, by the early 7th century Buddhism had become the official religion of Japan.

In 604, the first Japanese constitution was drafted. A great council, the Dajokan, ruled alongside the emperor through local governors sent from the capital. Nara in Yamato became the first fixed capital in 710. In 794 Kyoto was made the imperial residence and, with few interruptions, remained the capital until 1868. By the 9th century, the emperor and Dajokan ruled all of the main islands except Hokkaido.

During the 9th century the emperors began to withdraw from public life, delegating the affairs of state to subordinates until they came to be regarded as abstractions in the national life rather than its directors. This political void was filled by the rising power of the Fujiwara, the leading family of court nobles. In 858 the Fujiwara became virtual masters of Japan, maintaining their power for the next three centuries.

The period of Fujiwara supremacy hosted a great flowering of Japanese culture; influenced, but no longer dominated by China and Korea. Wealth accumulated, and was centered on a life of luxury and refinement. Kyoto became as elegant as Paris in poetry and dress, setting the nation's standards for learning and taste.

I've stopped trying to summarize the Nations of the World in a single post. My short history of Japan will be continued...

For my previous posts on the Nations of the World, click here.

Eye Candy

2009-07-21T23:23:00.003-04:00

Outside Talent

2009-07-21T22:54:00.008-04:00

A couple of things I grabbed from other bloggers One of the things I love about the internet is how much talent rises to the surface that otherwise would have remained unknown.

The following is a poem by John Logue, from his website, The Feed. He kinda reminds me of a young Ginsburg:

Scorcher

My lungs are full of ocean air as my
hair drips salty water into my eyes.

The sun hangs high above the equator

while the waves beat me into the sand.

Some doors have opened

And others have closed.

Any wave may take me far out to sea

but only the best will guide me back to the shore.

My skin now aches because the rays
of the sun have beaten down upon me.

Some photography from About a Boy, a longtime friend of Hansisgreat. I visit his site regularly as a source of eye candy, and am often taken aback by how lovely his photographs are. Very simple and elegant. A few samples...

Finally, a few illustrations by the incredibly talented Erik Hageman, from his website Digital Absinthe, Erik is actually an artist by trade, but he's largely unknown, so his work is worth putting out there for those who aren't familiar with it. These are part of a series on Norse mythology...

Hans the great wishes the best of luck and much success to these three talented young artists.

Eye Candy

2009-07-16T22:23:00.004-04:00

Iran

2009-07-16T21:18:00.027-04:00

Some of you may recall that I run a regular column on the Nations of the World. Today's posting is especially timely, as the Islamic Republic of Iran has been much in the news lately, on account of disputes surrounding their presidential election.

As is often the case for Americans watching news stories about other countries, I was surprised at how little I knew about Iran. One blog post won't make up for everything, but it's a start...

The Islamic Republic of Iran:

Population: 66,688,433
Land Area: 636,294 square miles (slightly larger than Alaska)

Languages: 58% Persian, 26% Turkic, 9% Kurdish

Religion: 89% Shi'a Muslim, 10% Sunni Muslim, 1% other

Monetary Unit: Iranian rial

President: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (since August 2005)

Until the 1930s, the country was known abroad as Persia. Most of the terrain is rugged, and geologic instability has caused frequent earthquakes which have resulted in much property damage and loss of life throughout the region's history.

Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, conquered nearby Lydia and Babylonia (546-539 BC), and established Persia as a preeminent power in the world.
Darius I, who ascended the throne in 521 BC, pushed the Persian border to the Indus River, earning the title Darius the Great. From 499 to 490 BC, he led a crushing invasion of Greece until he was historically defeated at the Battle of Marathon.

Alexander the Great added Persia to his realm in a series of battles between 334 and 331 BC. His death resulted in a long struggle among his successors for the Persian throne, eventually resulting in the Parthian Empire, Rome's greatest eastern rival. The Roman Empire actually enjoyed relatively good relations with Parthia, although many emperors may have dreamed of conquering it.

After the conquest of Persia by the Arabs in 641, Iran became part of the Islamic world. The old Zoroastrian religion gradually vanished, and Iran became a Muslim country. The area soon became a major center of Shi'a Muslim culture.

In the early 13th century, Iran was conquered by the Mongols, and was ruled by them until 1502. Ismail I (1486-1524) founded the independent Iranian Safavid dynasty, and established the Shiite doctrine as the official national religion. He was regarded as a saint by Iranians, who proclaimed him the shah.

The story of modern Iran begins with the Qajars, a Turkic speaking tribal confederation which conquered the country piece by piece in the late 18th century. It's real power was restricted to the capital, most authority rested with local magnates. During this period, Britain and Russia struggled for hegemony in Iran.

The rise of foreign influence and weakness and corruption of the country's rulers led to the development of a nationalist movement in the early 20th century, which demanded a constitutional government and an elected Parliament. In 1906, shah Mazzafar ad-Din was at the center of a ring of corrupt officials, and had borrowed millions from European leaders. The Iranian economy was in shambles, inflation was rampant: in 1906 the cost of bread rose 90%.

Shah Mazzafar was forced to acknowledge the first Majlis, or national assembly, which drew up a liberal constitution. His son and successor, Muhammad Ali, attempted to destroy the constitutional movement by force, but was defeated and deposed. Meanwhile, a treaty between Britain and Russia divides Iran into "spheres of influence": between the two countries, challenging the nation's independence. Following World War I, Persia was recognized as an independent country, but was virtually a British protectorate.

US and British forces, anxious about their access to Iran's rich oil fields, deposed the democratically elected Majlis and restored power to the autocratic shah. Resenting his absolute power, financial mismanagement, and excessive use of his military secret police, Iranians ousted the last shah in 1979. Iran's dominant religious leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, came to power after years of exile in France.

After toppling the shah, Khomeini, supported by the clergy and the large conservative element in Iran, presided over the establishment of an Islamic republic. The regime ended the country's close ties with the US and Britain. Hundreds of the shah's supporters were executed. When the shah came to the US in 1979 for medical treatment, militant Iranians stormed the US embassy, taking 62 Americans as hostages.

The hostage dispute with the US dragged on: they were finally released on January 21, 1981, minutes after Ronald Reagan's inauguration. The next day the Ayatollah Khomeini took executive power. Another wave of executions followed.

Meanwhile, war with neighboring Iraq from 1980-1988 severely crippled Iran. Casualties are estimated from 450,000 to a million dead on both sides, and the war consumed nearly all of Iran's revenue from oil exports, leaving it bankrupt. In 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini died.

Iran remained mired in economic and social stagnation, with evidence of popular discontent for years. In 1997, religious authorities gave voters their first genuine choice for a presidential candidate. They overwhelmingly chose modertae reformer Mohammed Khatami. Despite clerical opposition, Khatami reopened diplomatic relations with "the Great Satan" of the US.

In 2005 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the popular mayor of Tehran, was elected president. He immediately began attacking Israel's existence, the US occupation of Iraq, and began pressing ahead with Iranian plans to develop a nuclear program. Ahmadenejad remains in power after an election of highly suspect authenticity in June 2009. Mass protests have followed, demanding a new election and an end to police attacks on peaceful protesters.

Few countries have advanced as quickly as Iran from wooden ploughs to a nuclear program. In 1900, the country had a population of less than 12 million, with a 5% literacy rate. Now its population is over 66 million, with an 84% literacy rate and 1.6 million enrolled in college.

For my previous posts on Nations of the World, click here.

Eye Candy

2009-06-14T23:44:00.003-04:00

Whatever Makes You Happy

2009-06-14T23:41:00.001-04:00

Whatever Makes You Happy, by William Sutcliffe

$11.70 at Amazon.com

ISBN: 1596914955

Those of you who are looking for a fun beach read that's light and funny while retaining some substance will enjoy this terrific new novel about mothers and their sons.

It's set in the beautiful and exciting city of London. Matt, Daniel, and Paul were boyhood friends. Now in their thirties and all still bachelors, they've lost touch with one another; but their mothers meet each month to talk about their children, as mothers will do. When Mother's Day passes without so much as a phone call or a card, the three women decide it's time to reestablish the bonds with their sons.

Carol's son Matt works for a men's magazine called Balls! He spends his nights visiting posh night clubs and bringing home girls who are half his age. No grandchildren on the way here. Meanwhile Gillian's son Daniel is on the mend from a heart-wrenching breakup. He lives in squallid isolation, feeling sorry for himself. She used to dream that he'd marry a nice jewish girl, but now absolutely any girl would be encouraging.

My favorite of the three is Helen. Her son Paul's door is answered by a handsome man in his early twenties:

He was wearing a tight, short T-shirt and a pair of jeans so low and loose-fitting that they appeared to be held up only by his genitals. A good five inches of midriff were on display, though it was more low-riff than midriff, since the revealed band of flesh started at the navel and descended to what was unmistakably a frond or two of pubic hair.

The clothes, even to a woman who was no expert on these matters, said very clearly, "I am gay." The way he stood said, "I am gay"; the hair said, "I am gay"; even the way he opened the door somehow succeeded in saying, "I am gay."

He was gay.

None of the three guys have any idea their mom's are coming to visit; and they've been out of touch for a while, so the moms don't have a clear picture when setting out of what they're grown-up son's lifestyles are like.

Naturally there's a bit of generational humor in all three cases, as "clueless" mom tries to reconnect with the modern British man. There's a terrific scene in which Helen follows her playboy son Matt to a launch party for a new aftershave. The two are ambushed by a paparazzi-style reporter, and awkward attempts are made to cover the fact that a major Balls! reporter goes to circuit parties with his mother. Hilarity ensues.
There's nothing complicated or challenging about Whatever Makes You Happy, it's simply a pleasant and diverting short novel. Parts of it were quite touching: since my own mother has passed away, it was interesting to contemplate how it might be if she came to visit me as it happened in the book. If your mother is living, it will make you want to call her and tell her you love her.

This book strikes the perfect balance of melodrama and clever British wit, and is sure to be the feel good hit of the summer.

Eye Candy

2009-05-03T22:34:00.003-04:00

The History of Civilization

2009-05-03T21:18:00.011-04:00

Chapter Nineteen: The Rise of Macedonia

By the fourth century BC, the most powerful city-states of Greece were weakened by decades of war with one another. Persia maintained control over Greek affairs, especially on the Aegean coast. There was no need for the Persians to destroy the Greeks: they were destroying one another. The only barrier to a complete Persian victory was the rising power of Macedonia, Greece's neighbor to the north.

Macedonia was still mostly a barbarous country of hard-working but illiterate mountain folk. While Greeks elected political leaders who served for pre-appointed terms, Macedonian kings were despots who ruled with no legal limitations on their power. Political instability resulted: many Macedonian kings died in battle, and still more were assassinated by rivals.

Nor was there any public bureaucracy. The strong preyed on the weak, crime and gang violence were common. Although it used Greek as its official language, Macedonia contributed not a single author, artist, scientist, or philosopher to the Greek scene.

The kingdom of Macedonia itself was stabilized by a strong and charismatic king who was able to subdue the warring factions and organize the country's labor. He would soon turn his eye on Greece itself.

Philip II came to the Macedonian throne in 359 BC. Having lived in Greece for several years, he had developed some sense of culture and many military ideas. Like his famous son, he sometimes had a violent temper but was also prone to generosity. Unlike Alexander, he had a boisterous laugh and was fond of low-brow jokes. He liked boys, but liked women more and married several of them. He attempted monogamy, with Alexander's mother, but gave it up when she told him she's had sex with a god and he wasn't Alexander's true father.

In diplomacy, he was quick to break promises, but always ready to make more. He gave Macedonia its first truly professional army within a few years. With this force he was determined to unify Greece under his leadership and, together, cross the Aegean and drive the Persians out of Asia Minor.

At every step he found himself working against the Greek love of liberty. They simply didn't feel ready to have a tribal warlord with absolute power as a political leader.

To finance his campaigns he had sold thousands of captives, many of them Athenians, into slavery, and so lost the hearts and minds of the people. A small army was hastily organized under Demosthenes (shown right) in a desperate last effort to preserve the Greek empire and way of life. They met Philip's force on the plain of Chaeronea in 338 BC. Every one of its members died on the battlefield.

Demosthenes' Athenian army had fought bravely for a cause they dearly believed in, but they had waited too long and were not equipped to deal with so disciplined an army as the Macedonian.

The outcome of the Battle of Chaeronea was unexpected. The unity that Greece had failed to create for itself had been achieved, but only by the force of an outside invasion.

Philip was generous in victory, and offered the defeated Greeks an alliance. The purpose of this alliance was to create a united Greek army for an attack on Persia. Suddenly, Greece was revitalized, and ready to go on the offensive in its long and humiliating cold war with Persia. Philip was appointed to lead the assault, and was just about to depart for the first campaign when he was mysteriously assassinated in 336 BC.

Philip's son, Alexander, was idolized by the army and beloved by the royal court because of his handsome looks, athleticism, and polite manners. He had already participated in several military campaigns, and had led a crucial charge against the Greeks at Chaeronea for which he was widely acclaimed as a hero and a military genius. He seized the Macedonian throne without difficulty and, at the age of twenty, prepared to conquer the world.

To be continued...

For my previous posts on the History of Civilization, click here.

Eye Candy

2009-05-01T15:14:00.003-04:00