first off, i would like to start by saying i am HIGH on my sleeping pills, so all incongruity is not my fault. my lady mother arrived today to paris. she’s depressed and scared and i don’t like it. she’s afraid the cancer will come back. me, on my end, i’m afraid that i am a crazy fucking bitch whore. annnnyway, i bought the most fucking amazing pairs of boots yesterday with my lover J. they were super cheap and keep my toesies super warm. i need now a leather jacket to go with them, and some tight ass dresses.pictures to come. i’m becoming asexual. i need to get laid soon, or else i will fall deep into the pits of not giving enough of a fuck, which will result in me being ugly, which is not a good thing for anyone. now my mother is rumbling around the room (very small very horrible hotel room in bumfuck ghetto ass neighborhood) looking for her crazy pills, which are obviously not doing enough.
in other news i am kind of bummed i don’t get as many views as i would want. true, i do not write scholarly articles about feminism or queer culture, or building bikes, but that is cause my life is much more interesting than… not-my life. whatever, i found these awesome awesome pictures that experiment with color, all from russia with love from 1905-1915. they are very cool, all Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, all copyright of him and the library of congress, i guess.

enjoy…

anyway, i love early color experimentation because it makes the past look real. i mean these pictures are right out of national geographic before it even existed. also, in russia, at least back in the day, and now i guess too, there were like different tribes and denominations of people. i see tons of mongolian influence, and a lot of people’s last names were “Khan”… guess who had a bunch of offspring? my man Genghis.

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They were the dreaded forces on the fringes of civilization, the bloodthirsty warriors who defied the Roman legions and terrorized the people of Europe. They were the Barbarians, and their names still evoke images of cruelty and chaos.

But what do we really know of these legendary warriors? From the frigid North Sea to the Russian steppes, this ambitious series tells the fascinating stories of four of the most fabled groups of fighters in history, tracing 1,000 years of conquest and adventure through inspired scholarship and some of the most extensive reenactments ever filmed. Mongols rides with Genghis Khan and his descendants as they sweep from Asia to the heart of modern Germany in a frenzy of expansion.

They came in waves from out of the dark forests of Europe and over the course of a millennium they drove a mighty empire to its knees. Relentless unmerciful and united only in their hatred for Rome each of these warrior tribes had its own violent agenda dark rites savage tactics and secret weapons.

This documentary follows eight of history’s most fearsome tribes: The Goths, Mongols, Huns, Vikings, Vandals, Saxons, Franks and the Lombards as they cut a swath of destruction through the world. BARBARIANS recreates the world of these invaders through even more intense stunts large-scale battle re-enactments and a fast-paced exciting narrative.The whistle of the war axe and the clank of the shield will ring in viewers’ ears as these four programs bring the epochal clash of civilizations to life as never before.

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Watch the Full Documentary Now

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1. The Mongols

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2. The Vikings

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3. The Huns

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4. The Goths

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5. The Saxons

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6. The Franks

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7. The Lombards

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8. The Vandals

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“So you can imagine what happens when a mainland species gets introduced to an island. It would be like introducing Al Capone, Genghis Khan and Rupert Murdoch into the Isle of Wight – the locals wouldn’t stand a chance.” – Douglas Adams

Here is a passage from my 2005 Bestseller, “The Translucent Revolution.”

In 1990 Václav Havel, the playwright who became president of the Czech Republic in 1993, told a joint session of the U.S. Congress, “Without a global revolution in the sphere of human consciousness, nothing will change for the better . . . and the catastrophe towards which this world is headed — the ecological, social, demographic, or general breakdown of civilization — will be unavoidable.”

We live at a pivotal time in human history. The dominant Iago trance state has never been so pervasive: economically, environmentally, politically, in the expression of religious fundamentalism — you name it; we have never been poised so perilously on the edge of the cliff. Read back over the list of Iago qualities defined in chapter 1; they define the state of today’s world. Certainly there has been greater cruelty, inequality, and imperialism in our history, but it has always been localized to a despotic regime here or an invasion there. Hitler, Genghis Khan, and Stalin may have yearned for global domination, but their insanity was isolated. Today the Iago cancer has become systemic rather than localized. The dominant paradigm affects everyone, seeming perpetrator and victim alike. We are all in this together. At the same time, every writer, teacher, researcher, and translucenton- the-street I have spoken with is aware of a countervailing “emerging paradigm,” with the potential to transform every sphere of life in every part of the world. The birth pangs of Homo lucidus may sometimes cause us to yearn for the familiar, but for most people it is too late. The head of the new human being has pushed through, and its first cries are already in the air. We are riding the crest of a worldwide wave whose consequences are unimaginable, and which holds perhaps the only real basis for optimism for our planet and its inhabitants. We can sense the possibility of a quality of life that has seldom been dreamed of. If we fail to take advantage of this opportunity, our present habits may well destroy us.

As a boy, I loved James Bond movies. Don’t groan, it’s a guy thing. The plot always followed the same basic template. A “bad guy,” usually very rich, greedy, and slightly mad, has malicious intentions to take over the world, causing widespread destruction in the process. Every one was a man, as I recall, with a name like Dr. No or Goldfinger. He usually heads up some sort of global clandestine corporation, often with a benevolent facade. His operatives are dark, inhuman, and robotic. And then there is Bond: suave, centered in his body, living totally in the moment, and free of fear. He is humorous, even in the face of death, and brings a lust for life to every situation.  Again and again, against all odds, Bond will save the world. Its usually a race against time. Will Dr. Destruction detonate his mother of all bombs and turn us all into plasma, or will James single-handedly wrestle hundreds of meanies to the ground and save the day? Bond always comes through, with seconds to spare, and the movie ends with yet another liaison with the goddess of the day. Dozens of movies in the last decades have had the same theme: Indiana Jones, Superman, even Austin Powers.

In one way these far-fetched scenarios have prepared us for the situation we face at the start of this new millennium. The threat to our world’s stability comes from a collective expression of greed, most pointedly embodied by global corporations, which put profit before integrity. Like Bond, translucents are heavily outnumbered. But also like Bond, they are sleek, sexy, cool-headed, humorous, and increasingly activated toward social change. So here we sit, on the edge of our seats, at the last and most gripping act of the movie. Will we see life as we know it irreparably mutilated by corporate greed and fundamentalists bent on proving themselves right and the enemy-of-the-month wrong? Or are we finally at the dawn of a collective shift into sanity? No point in twiddling our thumbs in anticipation, the final pages of the script are still being written, and you and I have been handed the job of finishing it off.

To read more about a radically different way of looking at awakening pick up your very own copy of Translucent Revolution today.

The Denver Museum of Nature and Science has more than just dioramas of cavemen of the pre-GEICO era. Its special exhibits are world class.

From October 16, 2009 to February 7, 2010, Genghis Khan invades the museum, and like everything else he ever invaded (except for Afghanistan), he conquered well.

For me it brought up the question of what it’s like to be married to the most famous barbarian, the most successful conqueror of all of Asia and beyond.  I gleaned much about Borte, the famous first lady, from the exhibit.

I came across this peice on EurasiaNet. It discusses the reappraisal of Chingis Khan’s legacy in China and Russia, where a large number of Mongols live in Inner Mongolia (China) and Buryat, Kalymok (two Russian Federal States).

“In Hohhot, the capital of the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia, there is a brand new Genghis Khan Square, featuring a huge equestrian statue of the conqueror, and next to it runs Genghis Khan Boulevard, where the feature nominally Mongol motifs, like domes on the roofs and blue and white color schemes.

That China would so honor Genghis Khan, whose Mongol armies overwhelmed China in the 13th century and ruled it for more than a century, would seem unlikely. But Beijing, in an attempt to keep a close hold on its Mongolian minority, now reasons that since Genghis conquered China, he can be treated as a Chinese hero.

And that gives the search for Genghis Khan’s grave a bit of a geopolitical flavor. Asked why the tomb of Genghis Khan should be found, Mongolians can give several answers, like finding the right place to worship the great hero, or to draw the world’s attention to him and to Mongolia. But perhaps the most often cited justification is the need to prove that Genghis Khan belongs to Mongolia.

On the prairie of Inner Mongolia, which borders Mongolia, and which is home to most of China’s Mongolian minority, (and more ethnic Mongolians than are in Mongolia proper), stands the Genghis Khan Mausoleum. The name notwithstanding, virtually no one claims that Genghis is actually buried there. But the “mausoleum” is nevertheless a significant monument to the Mongolian leader, and one that China uses to bolster its claim to Genghis’s legacy.”

Read More here…

Chingis Khan has been depicted ultra negative by most writers.

In most parts of the world, name of Chingis Khan is used to refer brutality and ruthlessness. Particularly in Muslim world, Chingis Khan is depicted very negatively by historians with biased writings. Iranian writers are the most biased, thus almost all sources available in Afghanistan and that region are referred from those books. Similarly, many western writers, too, have been ultra negative while totally ignoring the positive aspects of the Great Khan and his Mongol Empire.

A book, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World was published in 2004 written by Jack Weatherford, a Professor of Anthropology at Macalestor College. Random House Inc. writes about the book;

“‘The name Genghis Khan often conjures the image of a relentless, bloodthirsty barbarian on horseback leading a ruthless band of nomadic warriors in the looting of the civilized world. But the surprising truth is that Genghis Khan was a visionary leader whose conquests joined backward Europe with the flourishing cultures of Asia to trigger a global awakening, an unprecedented explosion of technologies, trade, and ideas. In Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford, the only Western scholar ever to be allowed into the Mongols’ “Great Taboo”—Genghis Khan’s homeland and forbidden burial site—tracks the astonishing story of Genghis Khan and his descendants, and their conquest and transformation of the world.
But contrary to popular wisdom, Weatherford reveals that the Mongols were not just masters of conquest, but possessed a genius for progressive and benevolent rule. On every level and from any perspective, the scale and scope
of Genghis Khan’s accomplishments challenge the limits of imagination. Genghis Khan was an innovative leader, the first ruler in many conquered countries to put the power of law above his own power, encourage religious freedom, create public schools, grant diplomatic immunity, abolish torture, and institute free trade. The trade routes he created became lucrative pathways for commerce, but also for ideas, technologies, and expertise that transformed the way people lived. The Mongols introduced the first international paper currency and postal system and developed and spread revolutionary technologies like printing, the cannon, compass, and abacus. They took local foods and products like lemons, carrots, noodles, tea, rugs, playing cards, and pants and turned them into staples of life around the world. The Mongols were the architects of a new way of life at a pivotal time in history.”

In Nagaland they used to hang the skulls of their enemies, from the branches of trees, as a mark of respect! The killer with maximum number of skulls is the hero of the village.

Timurlane, Genghis Khan, Napolean – all are heroes, because they killed a number of people, their soldiers and their enemies.

In recent history the US President is the mot successful head hunter after Hitler!

If the skulls of all those killed in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq are added, there will be enough to decorate the boundary of the whole new world. If used to make a pyramid, its height will exceed the World Trade Centre!

An atom bomb was dropped in Hiroshima, simply to know how many people will be killed this way. But why was the feat repeated in Nagasaki?

I have ignored those red Indians annihilated by the white settlers.

In the eyes of the Almighty God, all are head hunters.

Does it make any difference, whether I am killed by Obama or Bin Laden?

Changing Turkey in a Changing World is proud to announce the winner of the 1st Big Idea Competition:

A Melange of Cultures

by Alan Scott

Mr. Alan Scott is a teacher of mature years living in Istanbul and currently teaching English at Okan University (Istanbul-Turkey). He was born in New Zealand and worked as a high school teacher of English there. He first came to Turkey in 1995, and, apart from two years back in NZ, he has lived in Istanbul since then. He has a strong attachment to this country now through his Turkish wife, Dilek, as well as a great interest in Turkish history and culture. He has three grown up children living in Australia.You can see Mr. Scott’s blog where he publishes his thoughts as a foreigner in Turkey at: http://turkeyfile.blogspot.com/

Each year Muslims prepare a delicacy known as ashure in remembrance of Noah and his people, who survived the flood of God’s anger. Search for the recipe of this ancient dessert. You will find many experts willing to share their knowledge – but little agreement, other than that it has a large variety of ingredients. For this reason, ashure has been used as a symbol of multi-culturalism. Yet, in the end, it is just a dessert – one item in the culinary wealth that is Turkish cuisine. How much more difficult to define the peoples currently in possession of this land lying at the meeting point of Asia and Europe!

Excavations at Çatal Höyük, near the Turkish city of Konya, have revealed a site dating from 7500 BCE, the oldest centre of civilisation on earth. The modern name, Konya, derives from ancient Iconium, which was a city in the time of the Hittite empire, around 1500 BCE. It was an important city in the kingdom of the Phrygians, in the 8^th Century BCE, later falling to the Persians, and again to Alexander the Great, before being assimilated into the Roman Empire. The Book of Acts records that St Paul preached a sermon there around 50 CE. Its Christian history ended in the 11^th century when Konya became the capital of the Seljuk Sultanate, and Muslims still visit the tomb of the Sufi mystic, Mevlana, in this iconic Turkish city.

Plunge a spade into the ground anywhere in Turkey, and you will find traces of similar antiquity. Preparations for Istanbul’s year as ‘European City of Culture, 2010’ have been slowed by the city’s archaeological riches. Work on the Metro line has unearthed thousand year-old harbours and ships from Istanbul’s days as capital of the Byzantine Empire. In the last thirty years, its population has swelled from three million to more than fifteen million. Shopping centres comparable to any in Europe exist in proximity to shantytowns of migrants from the Anatolian heartland, where methods of agriculture have changed little in two millennia.

The European stereotype of a Turk is the image evoked by names such as Genghis Khan – squat, swarthy, muscular Mongolian horsemen, thundering in hordes out of the Asian steppe, raping, pillaging and burning – locating themselves on the lower rungs of a rational person’s ladder of civilisation. Yet even the physical characteristics of a Turk are hard to classify. Almost every shade and combination of skin, eye and hair colour will be met, and a striking range of body shapes and sizes, from Naim Süleymanoglu, the pocket Hercules weightlifter who measured 1.47 m and won three Olympic gold medals from 1988 to 1996, to Sultan Kösem, who, at 2.47 m, was recently recognised by the Guinness people as the world’s tallest living man.

One thing can be said with certainty: attempting to glibly define Turkey and its people, and to locate them on some arbitrary continuum of civilisation is risky. Your stereotypes may bounce back to confound you.

Last week, eyebrows were raised over yet another media appearance by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief, Mohan Rao Bhagwat. This time, the fuss centred on his categorical public announcement that the next national president of the Bharatiya Janata Party would not be a Delhi-based leader, and that L.K. Advani would soon relinquish his post as leader of the Opposition. Fortuitously for the Indian foreign policy establishment, his prognosis that Pakistan and Afghanistan “are a part of us and will return one day” did not arouse corresponding attention. (via The Telegraph – Calcutta (Kolkata) | Opinion | A shift in position).

From Ashvakan to Afghans

The task of subduing the Afghan, (a possibly corrupt form of Ashvakan, meaning horse specialists in Sanskrit), from the time of Alexander  to the latest Russian and American misadventures in Afghanistan underscores, the nature of the Indo-Afghan relationship. From the time of Tomyris (Thamyris), when Indian elephant units helped the Afghans to massacre Persian invaders under Cyrus the Great, or when the Afghans hopelessly tied up Alexander.

Alexander’s Indo-Afghan campaign ‘gave him the runs’ (dysentery), his soldiers deserted him in droves, he had to make a marriage alliance, pay nearly 1000 talents (25,000 kg in gold) for an alliance, his dear horse Bucephalus died, he was himself injured twice, made to release prisoners (without a ransom).

End result – he massacred defenceless non-combatant populations and armies alike, when ‘opportunities’ presented themselves.

Islamic ‘conquest’ of India

While Islamic armies were marauding Europe, Central Asia, Africa, India held out. When Genghis Khan’s Mongol armies were running rampant, Islamic refugees found shelter in India, during the reign of Iltutmish. In 1221 Genghis Khan’s Mongol armies pushed Khwarezm-Shah and other Persian refugees across the Indus into the Punjab, India.

During early Islamic rule, when India was still viewed as militarily difficult target, the Mongols did not think of attacking India.  Remember, that the Mongols attempted to invade Japan, a rather poor country then, without the Sado gold mines! The Japanese blessed their good fortune, when typhoons or (‘The Divine Wind” is what the grateful Japanese called) the Kamikaze, that scattered the Mongol invasion fleet in 1274 and 1281. The Kublai Khan himself barely escaped the fury of the typhoon during the second invasion.

India, the richest economy of the world at that time, with known and famous for its wealth, was spared by Genghis Khan! Just why would history’s foremost looter, invader, pillager spare India?

The Mongol fleet destroyed in a typhoon, ink and water on paper, by Kikuchi Y'sai, 1847

Encyclopedia Britannica says ‘Fortunately, the Mongols were content to send raiding parties no further than the Salt Range (in the northern Punjab region), which Iltutmish wisely ignored …” (emphasis mine). As Indian military reputation waned under foreign Islamic rule, the Mongols mounted a military expedition. The Mongols could succeed in India only under the foreign rule of the much-derided Islamic Tughlaks.

End of foreign Islamic rule

The 200-year foreign-Islamic rule from 1206 AD to 1400 AD ended when Ibrahim Lodi, an Afghan horse trader, cobbled together an alliance and sent the incompetent foreign rulers packing. The Lodis, were in turn deposed by another Afghan family, the Mughals.

The Mughals realized, early on, that freedom to Indians was non-negotiable – and enlisted Indian generals, kings, allies to expand their boundaries. The depredations of the foreign ‘Islamic’ rulers were partly reversed by these rulers of Afghan extract – with land reforms, tax reforms, reduction in forceful conversions, et al. The Lodis and Mughals partially reformed the Indic political model – deformed beyond recognition, during the 200 years of foreign Islamic rule. Land holdings remained concentrated in a few hands. Taxes were imposed and increased on the trading classes. Licenses and firmaans were reduced – but remained.

In the last 200 years

The only people who could win against the Afghans were the Indians – last under Ranjit Singhji. The British, and more recently, the Russians and Americans have failed miserably. British possessions of Afghanistan and Balochistan, which were handed to Pakistan on a platter, were a part of the Sikh-Punjab Empire, which fell into the British lap.

Till about 1960’s India-Afghanistan trade and relations were close and neighbourly. Rabindranath Tagore wrote the short story, ‘Kabuliwalla’. Subhash Chandra Bose escaped from Colonial Raj imprisonment during WW2, using the Afghan route to reach Germany finally.

In early 1970s, in Hyderabad,  कागजी बेदाना अनार (seedless pomegranates) from Kabul, were available at around Rs.4 a kg – at today’s value is about Rs.100 a kg (based on gold prices). Local varieties were sold at less than Rs.1 a kg.

Between 1950 to the post-1973, Nixon Chop world, saw increasing of walls, barriers, battening down of national boundaries. Marxism-Communism seemed relentless and inevitable. Closed economies were seen as the panacea of all problems. Trade was a dirty word. During this period, something momentous happened – a complete and total closure of the Indian mind. India’s international profile underwent a profound change. Indians, who earlier saw the world as a their stage, suddenly retreated into a shell.

Right and wrong

So, yes RSS view is right.

India and Pakistan are a part of the Indic family. What this means is to see Pakistan and Afghanistan not as troublesome neighbours, but as prospective future allies. The Indian political construct was always to surround the Indian heartland by buffer states – like Bangladesh, Nepal, Tibet, Pakistan and Afghanistan. It was not to take over these countries and expand into an unwieldy land mass.

So, when RSS, dreams of an Akhand Bharat, they are wrong. The idea of Bharat was value driven and not power-driven or ruler driven. What Bharat needs to focus on is not to create an Akhand Bharat, but a real Bharat, which will become a model for other countries, especially of the Greater India.

Back to the future

But the Indic model was never to have one king who ruled over others. The Indic model allowed for smaller kingdoms to compete for populations – based on opportunities, freedom, equity. Land holdings in the hands of the populations remained a unique Indian feature for thousands of years – and the West saw this feature only in the last 150-250 years. Religious restrictions in India were not even discussed – unlike the Desert Bloc where the ‘Cuius regio, eius religio’ principle (meaning whose land, his religion; CRER) was established.

In the Desert Bloc, the land, the religion and the very life of all subjects belonged to the king – unlike in India. And that is the Akhand Bharat that we all need to work for!

Every once in a while, something comes along which makes one go WOW. If you’re listening to a song, it might be a sudden chord progression or perhaps, some nifty lyrical arrangement. Or, as is often the case with me, a simple matter of Uilleann pipes. If yer reading a book, some kind of word play, perhaps some literary technique; perhaps a dénouement, perhaps Chekhov’s celebrated rifles.

Such a moment might be something as banal as discovering some random trivia. Or it might have the brooding majesty of mountains wreathed in early morning mist. The point is, there are always things in life to amaze you, to bowl you over. Totally instinctive types. And leave you chuckling silently like some kind of a deranged Cheshire Cat afterwards. Which is much, much good

Saw me a movie today. By the name of Mongol. There was this one particular scene; the final battle sequence between Temüjin and Jamukha. No, not even the final battle sequence, the prelude to it actually. The apéritif, as they say. A detachment of horsemen, decked completely in black, masked, cloaked, scimitars in both hands, dagger grip, and looking something like this:

See, that's how you oughta use 'em swords

Now, multiply that image by forty, and have them arranged in parallel formation. Pretty good naa, but not yet cult. So, why am I raving about it? Is it because I am a prat? Is it because I am over-caffeinated? No, no, I won’t spoil it for ya. You’ve got to see the three minute odd long sequence for that. You’ve got to see the way it bloody ends. And then you can decide, whether or not to go WOW.

August 22, 2009.  Our trip started with a Saturday 3:15am alarm, ugh… then it was off to the airport.  We were on our way to China!  We flew to Chicago then had several hours layover before we boarded our direct flight to Beijing.  After 4 movies and several meals we were in Beijing.  The airport was a modern wonder of design.  After fetching our bags and getting some Chinese money we made our way to the hotel.  The 30 hour trek went by without a hitch!  The hotel was beautiful and new, as were all our China hotels (except for Inner Mongolia).  The room was large and the bathroom was perfect.  

As we settled in at the hotel, I thought I would check out the food.  The restaurant was classy – all the wait staff in black suits, linen table settings, mmmm, looking good!  However, no one could speak English and the menus were in Chinese only.  So I started guessing on the menu… the first thing I pointed to ended up being dog and the second was horse.  I went back up stairs and we went to bed with a nice meal of snack bars.  Don’t get me wrong - I do believe in trying the local cuisine.  I was just too tired for the challenge.  

The next day we flew to Baotou, a bustling city of almost 3 million in Inner Mongolia.  We drove and drove and made our way to Resonant Sand Gorge to begin our adventure in the Gobi Desert.  This was like a trip through western Nebraska, miles of rolling land with only an occasional house.  Our driver was determined to make time so he would pass cars anytime, anywhere.  He seemed unconcerned with approaching traffic and held his own, even going up hills.  No one slowed down – it was a game of chicken.  As our driver pushed on, the approaching traffic would veer to the side of the road to avoid collision.  Eventually we got to the Gobi Desert and prepared to ride camels.  

The camels patiently wait for the next rider

I guess the excursion to Inner Mongolia gave us a few surprises (we had lots of surprises during our two weeks).  The web site said to bring sun screen etc. since it could be a hot sunny day.  This was late August so it should have been hot, but the weather was already turning colder… the temperature was in the 50s and 60s with lots of wind and driving rain.  We bought rain coats ($2 each) and went to the camel corral.  There we learned we needed to remove the rain gear so we wouldn’t frighten the camels.  Anyway…  The ride on the camels was great as they slowly plodded over the hills of sand.  It was quite a site to see a long line of camels crossing over the hills of sand.  I later learned this area has crazy weather.  The desert is on a plateau and can reach over 100 degrees during the day, yet frost at night.  Also, when the winds come out of Siberia, everything cools down.  

Mary speeding through the Gobi Desert

Lunch was at a place that seemed like it could have been a 1950s Communist party recreation center.  We went into a large industrial type building and the cooks put the food on a table in large cooking pots (they looked like they would hold 4-5 gallons each).  People would take large spoons and fill their plate (a metal tray pressed with sections for your food).  As we approached the table, people would shove and push and hip check in order to get to the pot first.  Once you tasted the food, you wondered what the tussle was all about… 

Genghis Khan Mausoleum

Our trip to Inner Mongolia also included a visit to the Genghis Khan Mausoleum, a horse-back ride, a Mongolian show and more Mongolian food.  Finger mutton (you got it, you eat it with your hands), rotten vegetables, not so good.  The pork and mushrooms was a nice surprise, but, I will admit, by now the bar was pretty low.  We spent the night in an unheated yurt with a concrete floor.  The bed was a blanket on a hard board platform.  The pillow was a bag of dried seeds – it was like sleeping on a bag of soup beans.  The bathroom had hair and dirt all over the floor and the next morning we noticed it was in the bed too.  We had a thermos of hot water that was to last the two of us all day for our bathing needs.   

The yurt village where we stayed

The evening ended with the Chinese guests (we were the only two westerners) singing songs around a fire with busted-up lumber, a fun touch.  There are so many stories from Mongolia… But, I will not go into all the details about our car breaking down in the rain or the driver getting lost several times and making U-turns in the middle of major 8-lane intersections in front of the police, etc.  This part of the trip could easily be the material for a “Vacation” movie. 

Please don’t get me wrong, we did enjoy our adventure to Inner Mongolia.  The people seemed very nice… we just could not talk to anyone but our guide for about 3 days.  Some of the food was tasty… I think I’ll end the story there.   

Off to join the Mongol army

Throughout the film, a motif of loving memory sustaining husband and wife during successive separations develops, the last line spoken in the movie being Chinggis’s promise that: “I have to finish what I started.  You’re a good wife, Borte.  You know I’ll always come back” (Mongol).

This idealized picture of timeless true love, however, has little basis in fact, with “no evidence of any romantic love between Chinggis and his chief wife Borte”  (Lane 234) extant today.

Bodrov’s compassionate characterization of the notoriously brutal Chinggis Khan, then, appears to be an attempt at fitting the historical couple into a more modern conception of romantic love and feminine independence — in Mongol, the betrothal of the two is seen not only as a free, unforced choice on the part of Temujin, but also made at Borte’s own insistence: “I chose you,” she later reminds him.

Modern audiences expect a bold female lead, but in reality, the khan and his wife’s relationship likely lacked the sentimentality.  Mongol women not only worked tirelessly in the hardscrabble environment of the steppe, but in marriage often occupied a similar position as the livestock they tended — status markers.  Higher-ranking men “acquired wives as they might horse or cattle, and the richer and more powerful the man the more wives he would have” (Lane 227).

Chinggis’s own domestic life only provides a more magnified example: as his army grew and state expanded ever-outward, marital alliances became increasingly important, and women as plunder increasingly common.  The Chinggis Khan of Yasushi’s novel appraises the role of his wives and consorts perhaps more realistically than the romanticized man of Mongol: “Impregnate them and make them give birth to Mongol children,” he advises his brother, “Do women have any other purpose?” (Yasushi 121).

But while Mongol probably overemphasizes the role love for Borte drove Chinggis to survive to fight and conquer, The Blue Wolf, contrarily, ignores the contributions another strong woman made to Temujin’s upbringing and protection — his mother, O’elun.

Yasushi depicts the family after Yisugei’s death and their later abandonment as an autocracy under the eldest son.  “When it came to the business of running the household, he allowed her no voice at all,” he writes of Temujin, speculating that “without the approval of Temujin, she could not so much as move some bedding around.”

Academic histories suggest, however, that it was O’elun whose “tenacity and perseverance held the family together during those hard and, for Temujin, formative years” (Lane 234).  Even The Secret History of the Mongols is in agreement on this point, describing the redoubtable O’elun’s constant struggle to provide food for herself and her children from what little she could forage — “with wild onions and garlic, the sons of the noble mother were nourished until they became rulers,” the translation reads, “the sons of the patient noble mother were reared on elm seeds” (Onon).

Though wild roots and seeds make for a paucity of sustenance, the passage indicates that O’elun was held in high regard for her indefatigable work on behalf of her children.  When in Mongol O’elun tells her daughter-in-law “I like you: you’re strong, like me” (Mongol), the characterization might not be far off.

And as the film points toward Borte as her husband’s central driving force, in The Blue Wolf Chinggis’s motivation for conquest surrounds O’elun, particularly the uncertainty of his paternity which arose from her abduction by the Merkids.

Unable to know for a fact whether his father was truly Yisugei of the Borjigin — and thus whether the blood of the distant Mongol ancestor, the blue wolf, heats his heart — Chinggis suffers a doubt so heavy that he is depicted as experiencing relief at the death of his long-suffering mother: with a strange sense of “expansive freedom” at the departure of “the one person on earth who knew the secret of his birth” (Yasushi 153), Chinggis at last could imagine himself heir to the blue wolf without O’elun as a living reminder of his doubt.

But imagination is not enough: “He was unable to have peace of mind unless he was back on the field of battle, or failing that, moving with his yurt,” Yasushi writes, revealing not only the great magnitude of Chinggis’s internal discord but also the solace he found in traditional culture.

A blue wolf, the passage suggests, was not only ferocious in battle, but adhered to the customs of all the generations before, much as Yisugei said in the film Mongol; deviation would turn the world upside-down.  And so throughout the novel, while Chinggis uses battle and conquest as a means of proving he is a true Mongol wolf to the only critic that matters — himself — his single-minded focus on military prowess leads him to neglect the second part of the equation: traditional lifestyles.  Ironically, it is this single-minded effort to prove himself a Mongol that ultimately opens the steppe to foreign cultures, alien peoples whose goods, values, and own traditions will undermine the lifestyle at the heart of Mongol identity.

This is part 2 of 3 of a slightly re-tooled version of an paper I wrote for an Asian Civ course in Fall 2009.  Feel free to use or abuse it—just cite your sources, and my sources, which are these:

Lane, George. Daily Life in The Mongol Empire. The Greenwood Press “Daily Life Through History” Series. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2006.

May, Timothy Michael. Culture and Customs of Mongolia. Culture and Customs of Asia. Hanchao Lu. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2009.

Mongol, DVD. Directed by Segei Bodrov: Picturehouse and Sony Pictures, 2007.

Morgan, David. The Mongols. The People of Europe Series. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 1986.

Onon, Urgunge. The Secret History of the Mongols. Abingdon, Oxon: RoutledgeCurzon Press, 2001.

Yasushi, Inoue. The Blue Wolf: A Novel of the Life of Chinggis Khan. Joshua Fogel. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.

Ghengis (or Chinggis) Khan’s father-in-law was particularly insightful:

“This boy has fire in his eyes and light in his face,” he said (Onon 57) — or so states The Secret History of the Mongols in an early characterization of Temujin, the kid who would become Chinggis Khan.

The work’s date and author remain unknown; its phonetic transliteration from the original script into Chinese may have distorted some meaning; and the very content of its early legends and myths throw doubt on its accuracy as an historical document — nevertheless, The Secret History of the Mongols still remains one of the most substantial sources of indigenous history from the period of the Mongol Empire.  And though contemporary chronicles and accounts, modern historical analyses, and fictional reconstructions of the life of the great, if brutal, warrior often present conflicting narratives, all agree on the significant point best put by the anonymous author of the Secret History: the boy was driven.

This question of motive — what incredible mission or ambition propelled the young Chinggis Khan to unify and establish the greatest land empire in world history? —  forms the foundation of two recent depictions of the boy Temujin and the man Chinggis: Sergei Bodrov’s film Mongol and Inoue Yasushi’s novel The Blue Wolf.  Though the director and author take liberties with historical evidence in drawing their portraits, both works still reflect the personal and political tensions inherent in the clash of cultures the Mongol conquests catalyzed.

Life on the Central Eurasian steppe during the time of Chinggis Khan was dominated by a pattern of pastoral nomadism, defined as a “planned migration so as not to exhaust the pasture,” (May 33) a pattern necessary in an environment of little rain and a culture lacking the technology to cut and store feed for livestock.  Mongol life was thus dominated by constant movement, herding, and — most importantly — horses.

Holding an “honored status” (May 34) among the steppe tribes, the quantity and condition of a family’s horses could mean either prestige or ruin, something both Yasushi and Bodrov suggest in their works.

In the novel, a young man named Bo’orchu selflessly agrees to accompany the teenage Temujin in tracking down the horse thieves who had plundered his already-impoverished family’s yurt — Bo’orchu’s willingness to risk his own life for a stranger’s benefit not only guaranteed that he would become one of Chinggis’s closest companions, but also indicates the level of value the Mongols placed on horses: theft is worth losing one’s life over.  Mongol further emphasizes the important horsemanship by equating it with the fundamental Mongol identity: a young Jamugha laughs incredulously at Temujin’s confession that, with his family abandoned and suffering dire economic straits, he doesn’t have a horse — “But a Mongol has to be on a horse,” Jamugha insists (Mongol).

In this way, the film suggests Mongol identity as being inextricably tied up with the traditional nomadic lifestyle, a theme strongly reinforced in Yisugei’s death scene: though suspecting foul play, Temujin’s father accepts the offering of a drink from members of an enemy tribe.  “If I, the khan, start breaking the customs,” he says before drinking the poison, “the world will turn upside-down” (Mongol).

As Bo’orchu risks his life to preserve traditional values, Yisugei gives his for the sake of upholding custom.  Mongol, however, frames Chinggis as a rebel throughout.

Given the opportunity to avoid a battle by leaving the families of his warriors behind, Chinggis, though hopelessly outnumbered, refuses to abandon innocent women and helpless children — encouraged by his wife to “do as all Mongols do,” Chinggis nevertheless rejects traditional practice:

“Not me,” he replies (Mongol).

Unlike his predecessor, the new khan is shown to be willing to turn the world upside-down — at least for the sake of Borte, whose abiding love motivates Chinggis throughout the movie.  One scene even suggests that their connection is strong enough to transcend the farthest distances: Chinggis, enslaved by the Tanguts, entrusts a small carved bird to a Buddhist monk, hoping he will find Borte and give it to her as a sign that, though imprisoned and far away, her husband yet remembers her — though the monk dies on the journey, Borte sees his location in a dream and so finds Chinggis’s symbolic message.

This is part 1 of 3 of a slightly re-tooled version of an paper I wrote for an Asian Civ course in Fall 2009.  Feel free to use or abuse it—just cite your sources, and my sources, which are these:

Lane, George. Daily Life in The Mongol Empire. The Greenwood Press “Daily Life Through History” Series. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2006.

May, Timothy Michael. Culture and Customs of Mongolia. Culture and Customs of Asia. Hanchao Lu. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2009.

Mongol, DVD. Directed by Segei Bodrov: Picturehouse and Sony Pictures, 2007.

Morgan, David. The Mongols. The People of Europe Series. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 1986.

Onon, Urgunge. The Secret History of the Mongols. Abingdon, Oxon: RoutledgeCurzon Press, 2001.

Yasushi, Inoue. The Blue Wolf: A Novel of the Life of Chinggis Khan. Joshua Fogel. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.

Ze digs deep into the history of the ‘Graveyard of Empires’ to offer a condensed timeline of Afghanistan from Genghis Khan to 9/11

Source:
http://www.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,45950304001_1931954,00.html?iid=digg_share

As the madness of ITC weekend is tagged, bagged and filed for later use, it’s time to get back to the serious issue of recording our debut single.

Things can be serious, but fun, and topped with 10 layers of Rum….

We’ve held out on a release for the past 2 years as we didn’t see the point in doing it so early.  We still wanted to carry on building up our songs / sound / and spreading the word of ‘the 66’ before releasing anything official to the world.

So now…

We’re heading into Analogue Catalogue Studio on Sunday 25^th October, to record our debut single, Genghis Khan… We discovered the studio after speaking to T-Dog of the Exile Parade who recommended it; we looked, listened and fell in love with its warm and smooth analogue sound. 

There’s something about analogue that no matter what anyone says, it can’t really be replicated even with modern machines.  And one other thing, there is no BULLSHIT! You get what you create, no digital enhancements, no fixing of notes, REAL LIFE BABY!  There’s no polishing of turds involved.

Some bands are studio bands, who then try to replicate their tracks live.  You could say we are the opposite; the hard thing for us is capturing the raw energy and sound that happens live and putting it down on record.   Well we’ve got a good feeling about this place and think it’s going to be perfect for capturing the energy and vibe of our gigs. 

We’ll be using a rare legendary trident desk, and most likely playing around with all the equipment such as New Orders synths and whatever other vintage equipment we may find that can add to the sound.  That may even include the hot tub upstairs, basically anything is possible.  For us, this will be like a caner in a candy shop.  But don’t worry we won’t drown it!

Producing along side Julie and Rob who have a wealth of experience between them, we know exactly how the song needs to sound, fucking massive!  It’s layered with keys, space echo, and massive drums, driving bass and an epic vocal, all bringing out the atmosphere of the track and tugging at your emotional strings.

Genghis Khan was the choice amongst the 66 fan base we asked, it’s got massive radio potential if we can get it through the security gates.  We want as many people to hear us as possible and think this track has the potential to do just that as a debut release.

Release

Looking at a possible release date of April 2010, but saying that there are a lot of sandwiches on the table at the moment so we need to decide which one tastes the best and how to proceed. 

We’ll spend the next couple of months doing what we always do, gigging, writing and getting rum, preparing for the quickening!

On a final note, thanks for all your comments, messages over the last couple of months, and all the new fans that have jumped on board.  We look forward to you all hearing the new track and catching us at our future gigs. 

Love the 66 x

Join our mailing list mail@the66online.com to keep up to date with all the latest news. 

The Genghis Khan trilogy wraps up with this book. That was a shame from my perspective as I was hoping for more books. Personal bias there, as I find the Mongols of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries quite fascinating.

The saga of the Mongols in their conflict with one of the pre-eminent military powers of the day, the arrogant Khwarizm takes centre stage in this book. All is not well at home for Genghis and his close family members are either under threat, or a threat to Genghis. Conn Iggulden ends a great series with a neat twist.

[Φήμη] Νέα γενιά καρτών γραφικών και παιχνίδια DirectX 11 σύντομα! – ( HWBOX ) O/C on first boot
Η ATi ως πρωτοπόρος στην μετάβαση στην τεχνολογία DirectX 11 με τις κάρτες της σειράς 5800, εργάζεται με αρκετές εταιρείες παραγωγής games για τον υπολογιστή, ώστε να φέρει νέους τίτλους με δυνατότητες του νέου προτύπου DX11 όσο το δυνατόν πιο γρήγορα γίνεται. Στους τίτλους που θα χτυπήσουν την αγορά, λογικά πριν τα Χριστούγεννα, θα δούμε το BattleForge (EA – που μπορείτε να το βρείτε διαθέσιμο άμεσα και δωρεάν), το S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (GSC) και το Dirt 2 (CodeMasters). Επιπλέον, θα δούμε το τελευταίαο Alien Vs Predator κάπου κοντά στο Φεβρουάριο, το Lord of The Rings (online), το Dungeons and Dragons (online), το Eberron Unlimited (με τη προσθήκη σχετικού patch) και τέλος το γνωστό MMORPG – Genghis Khan. Πέρα από τα παιχνίδια, θα δούμε και καινούριες μηχανές, όπως τη Frostbite 2 (EA DICE), τη Uniengine (Uniengine), τη Vision (Trinigy), και φυσικά την CryEngine 3 (CryTek).[next]

I’m a little swamped with teaching commitments (and a head cold) at the moment, so you haven’t been hearing much from me. I still have time to read an occasional blog however, and I was charmed by this one from the Airport Economist, Tim Harcourt.

He offers some insights into the experience of an underexamined emerging economy, Mongolia, and its increasing engagement with the global economy. The claims regarding the possible impact of Aussie mining firm Ivanhoe’s development of copper and gold mining in the country blew me away:

According to Chad Blewitt, Ivanhoe’s chief financial officer (on secondment from Rio Tinto), the project will “double Mongolia’s GDP of $US5 billion and the mine deposit will become one of the fifth largest mines in the world.” Blewitt believes “this place could be like Dubai in five years time, but they’ve got to manage the revenues and ensure that they have the right skill mix in the labour market to make it all happen.”

Such a transformation is well worth keeping an eye on…

Oh, and the lessons about Genghis Khan (sorry, Chinggis Khaan) are fun too.

Evil. On a large scale. One thinks of Adolf Hitler. Before the 20th century, perhaps one thought of Attila the Hun. Or Genghis Khan. But what is it about this monster, Hitler (even his name has a ring of the frightening) that makes one nervously curious? Germany was one of the most civilized of nations. It was the crib of Mozart and Beethoven, Kant and Hegel. It is as if Jack the Ripper became head of the Disney Studios.

O grupo musical Genghis Khan começou em 1979, criado pela gravadora RGE para ser cover de uma banda alemã homônima.

O grupo era comandado por Jorge Danel, um bailarino argentino e também contava com Genghis, Tânia e Tully.

Seu grande sucesso foi “Comer, Comer (É o melhor Para poder Crescer”).

Talvez você se interesse em saber que o Genghis Khan original, também conhecido como Temujim, assassinou o próprio irmão, aos doze anos de idade, para poder comer um pedaço maior de uma fruta.

Não estou certo se a letra da canção alude ao fato…