HUNGARIAN CHRISTMAS

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CHRISTMAS EVE PRAYER FOR (IMPOSSIBLE?) PEACE

Recently I was with a group of people and one woman asked us all to pray for the survivors of Pearl Harbor.  She was of the generation - some call it "the Silent generation" and others "the Greatest generation" - in which her peers were involved in World War II.  World War II is not so long ago in history, but what is sure is that it remains a Hollywood film favorite subject, while other wars such as Korean - Viet Nam - and the whole big mess of the Middle East have comparatively few films made about them.  Unpopular wars, underreported wars, and wars that are no longer called wars, are going on all the time.


I spoke up and said, "Let's pray for peace instead."


Don't know that my blurt was appreciated, but to me all that was required was a moment of silence or a mental bookmark.  You see, I don't actually think there ever will be Peace of Earth, but in the West, at Christmas time, the notion of Peace of Earth is popular.  Consider that sometimes in war there are agreements that for that one day of the year, Christmas, there is a "peace fire."


And, I really do think that peace on earth has to begin with each individual, and in Christianity the prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi is my favorite.  Yet, for all the empathy called for, in order to understand and forgive others, sometimes I've been considered naïve, a fool, and exploitable for all the give I have.  I've been at times sneered at for my hope, faith, belief, or innocence.  I have not been testy, suspicious.  I haven't asked enough questions.  (These days an exploiter will blame the victim, saying, "you didn't do your due diligence.")


So, while I don't think there will ever be peace of earth, and am making no claim to perfection and a straight ticket to heaven, the notion of heaven is very influential.  Heaven allows us to imagine a place that is peaceful and joyful, and where everyone else is good!


This is my open mind set for the holiday season.


A week ago I told myself I should start decorating.  I managed to get a string of lights up around the door.  I pulled out my small artificial Christmas tree, only to discover that a piece of plastic had broken off while it was in storage.  Three days later I got out my glue gun and tried to fix the leg on without that piece.  It sort of worked.


I went off to Trader Joes, were I planned to buy all the ingredients needed to manifest five different cupcake recipes which I wanted to make to gift.  It's been years since I made or gifted baked goods and I remembered the days when Christmas visiting meant indulging in baked goods from many different ethnic backgrounds.  Family and friends had married into Italians, Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, Slovaks, Ruthenians, Irish, Germans -  we have a Persian - that whole mix that is United States of America - everyone making traditional cookies, cakes, pies, that their ancestors made.


As I made way to the location, I passed by an Armenian banquet hall.  Someone must have had a wedding, ordered in numerous floral ornaments for the tables, and when unboxing found one was broken.  Outside on the sidewalk was a beautiful gold sprayed branch that had blooming rose petals glue gunned to it!  One rose had fallen off and there was a glob of glue.  I took one look at it and grabbed it.  At home I decided not to use the artificial pine tree at all, but hang my small ornament collection off the branches of this bare limbed "tree."  I set it up and it's beautiful.  My dog lay in her swirl of blankets looking at the pretty lights.


Then I made the cupcakes.  Pumpkin oatmeal spice with no icing.  Walnut flax seed with vanilla powdered sugar,  dried cherries in the mix and topped with cherry jam,  and finally Ghirardelli Chocolate (from San Francisco) inside and melted atop plain white cake.  Improvising with cardboard shirt boxes, wrapping paper and tissue, I made up four boxes.  One delivered to a friend who lives in an assisted living.  I assured him, I used no milk, no butter, no corn, corn starch, or corn syrup.  (I used safflower oil, spring water, brown sugar, real sugar, flour, flax seed, oatmeal, real vanilla.)  Then off to the neighbor who a few weeks ago did me a huge favor even though he barely knows me.  (He came to the US as a refugee from Bosnia.)  This morning, I delivered another to a business that I frequently visit, me and the dog.  The people there have fed her endless treats.  And then I went to visit another friend who has leant me films this year, some of which I have to return, and learned he has moved!


Such is the state of art and science at this time in my life.


I wish all my readers, whatever your ethnic origins or religious beliefs, at least one day of complete and total peace, inside yourself and with the world.




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Magyar American Blogspot

MENNYBOL AZ ANGYAL - ANGEL FROM HEAVEN

SNOW MAN

I PLAY SAINT NICK and EVERYONE LOVED IT!

A few days ago I met with a group of people who I've know just a few months.  None of them are of Hungarian heritage and I had mentioned mine to them here and there, without much of a reaction.  I didn't know what to think.  Do some of them have secret prejudices against Hungarians or, perhaps, me for my heritage?

Today I took a load of clothes to a charity drop off and tonight I start working on decorating, since, by my way of thinking, the twelve days of Christmas has just about begun.

When I was growing up, we didn't bring the tree inside until Christmas Eve, and then left it up until Three Kings. We also bought live trees and then planted them when the snow thawed.

I'm not going to go "all out," with decorating or celebrating, but I do know that first the house has to be neat and clean.

While I was going through some things, I found some books that I'd bought and read, mostly somewhat spiritual, and decided that I would wrap these up, take them with me when I met with my new friends, and let them each choose.

"I think I've mentioned my Hungarian heritage,"  I said.  One woman looked at me, and I thought she was thinking, "Now what's she up to."

"Well, in Hungary, Christmas is all about Jesus, but then there is Saint Nick's day for presents, which is about now!  I admit these are books from my personal collection.  Each of you pick one!"

As it turned out, every person picked the book that turned out to be the most perfect for them!

The first person to pick, the most curious you might think, is a retired journalist!  The last, a book on spirituality and world peace, who had just come back from a religious retreat!

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SAINT NICHOLAS PUTS KRUMPUS IN HIS PLACE!

CRUSS VON KRAMPUS - COMING TO YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD TONIGHT...

The Christmas Devil comes the day before

Saint Nick does, rounding up the "bad" kids.

One of my aunts told me that when her sons were young,

one Christmas she threatened that their toy gifts

were going to be taken back.

She hid them in a closet for a couple days.

The sons turned into responsible adults.

They don't seem to have been too traumatized by the experience.

A MALTESE POODLE CHRISTMAS

IS A WISH FOR PEACE JUST RIDICULOUS? THEN CALL ME THAT! THE STATE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

The recent Presidential election left many Americans, including me, embarrassed and exhausted.  The winner, Donald Trump, might just make America Great Again, one of many campaign promises he made, but he seems to be a mercurial person. 


Many people I've spoken with have told me that they expect campaigns to get nasty.  It was just so nasty, it left me wishing and hoping that we can all hit the restart button, and begin again, in brotherhood and peace, with not politicians but with leadership. 


AM I JUST RIDICULOUS?  Maybe so, but if there is any time of the year in the Christian world where we can have such hopes, I think that's the Christmas time.   It's become the most materialistic time of the year.  It should be the most idealistic.


It's coming up on us fast, and so is the swearing in of Donald Trump as the President of the United States. People I meet are not idealistic about his - regime.  They are afraid they will go without health insurance or housing and be out on the street.  It's enough to make me think MAYBE CALIFORNIA SHOULD BECOME ITS OWN COUNTRY... WE'RE ALREADY BIGGER THAN SOME!  THE MENTALITY HERE IS JUST - DIFFERENT.  Some people are suggesting we leave the Union - for four years or the end of Trumps regime, whatever comes first.


No, that's not likely to happen.


In particular to my state, California, there is a lot of fears about illegal immigration, that there will be "sweeps," and people will be taken away, like the Nazis taking away the Jews in the Holocaust.


One of my friends is a librarian for the city, of Mexican origin, her great grandfather walked into Arizona, worked full time there, and founded a family that has done well for itself.  On the library desk I found print outs that had been left there by immigration advocates, in both English and Spanish, intended for illegal residents to hand to any police officer that might start asking them questions, stating that they are going to stay silent.  I took one for my wallet, even though I'm legal, as a reminder that I don't necessarily have to answer the questions asked by an officer, though I don't think I'm headed for trouble with the law.  I told her that I did not think there would be sweeps.  Our mayor and police said they would not cooperate if ordered to.  However, if someone commits a violent crime or is dealing drugs, especially if that person has broken Federal law, then I would not be surprised if they were deported.


What is so difficult about becoming a citizen?  If you come legal, it's not!  I have a neighbor from Hungary getting his citizenship.  Another neighbor who got his a decade ago came as a refugee from Kosovo.  There is a Moslem family, peaceable, who are refugees from Pakistan, also in process.   Another neighbor, has just gotten dual citizenship - Great Britain and the U.S.  Yes, there was time involved, and money, and tests, but it worked out.  None of them ever felt their stay here was threatened because they were doing the right thing from the start.


I believe that if you do the right thing from the start, you will be honored.


Recent killing rampages by people of Moslem origin especially, have basically sanctified what Trump is talking about, and that is, that we have let in all sorts of people who do not deserve to be here.


Do we really need more immigrants?  We welcome the educated, but Blue Collar American Trump advocates want their jobs back here and now.  Here is the hitch.  Illegal immigrants are not protected by labor laws and can be hired for cash and less than minimum wage and they are not likely to complain about the worst conditions.  Some of them are afraid that becoming legal will mean no longer getting work.  They also break the Unions, simply because they are willing to be underpaid.  It's not hard to find them.  I suspect that every construction site has some.  Some dirty people take terrible advantage of them including dumping them off after a days hard labor without the promised pay, and the threat to call the INS on them.


It's kind of like the situation for background actors for film.  Everyone who does it wants to get into SAG, the union, because the pay and benefits are then decent, but everyone says that once they got into SAG, their bookings diminished, so they worked less, and made about the same money.


California decided that a person didn't need to be legal to have an ID or a drivers license, which means they have to be insured for accidents, they can have library cards, they can have medical care at County hospitals, and they can have education.  Why?  Because California decided that these benefits benefit everyone, not just the illegal person. 


Much is made of Mexican gangs.  They exist.  They shoot  and kill each other and innocent people.  However, there are gangs of Armenians and Russians, and other ethnic groups as well, and sometimes it seems like identity theft and more sophisticated frauds are committed by these more educated criminals 


So, will a wall actually keep people out - or in?  If you read around it, you'll learn that the wall has been an ongoing project in the Obama administration, and that it isn't always a physical wall. 


Our illegal immigrants are not all criminals and our criminals are not all Mexican.

I DOG SIT FOR MY NEIGHBOR and MY DOG IS ... A LITTLE BITCH!

The other day my neighbor asked me at the last minute if I would please watch her dog. 


We are aware that her dog and mine have a complicated relationship.  You see, when mine was five, theirs was a puppy who upon the sight of my dog did the wail for mommy.  He matured and tried to mount my dog who was not interested.  Pretty much, "been there done that," was her attitude.  I think he took it badly.  Ever since then the two of them have doggie hated each other so when they go past each other they rapidly bark as if they are sassing each other.  But recently when my dog got out this neighbor rescued her and held her for me till I got home.  I'm eternally grateful as it could have been a disaster otherwise.  I would never have said no to her request. 


She needed someone to watch her dog while she went off to college where she is studying for a Master's Degree in Child Development. Her landlord was finally sending in workmen in to repair the flooring of her kitchen which had been water damaged.  There was going to be a lot of noise, hammers and buzzsaws.  No place for a dog to be home alone with strange men.


She brought little Keaton over.  She brought his big cage, his dog bed, his bone, his ball, and his blanket, all of which I suggested just in case.  When my dog saw Keaton coming through the door she stared.  Oh No!  Not him again.


In an attempt to train Keaton and my dog in proper behavior when company, I tried to reinforce that my dog was not the leader of the pack, I was, but that she was second in command.  Keaton, being younger, male, and more energetic and strong than my dog, was skeptical.  He could see his house from our front door, so he knew he wasn't really away, and his person just went down the drive way.  She'd be back, wouldn't she?


And so, in short order, Keaton decided that he would be at the front door, watching and waiting.  So my dog got up on the sofa, leaning over it, and growling to let him know he was on her turf and watching him.


Then my dog started doing bitchy things to Keaton.  She sniffed around his things and she stole his bone, not once, but three times.  Each time I took the bone away from her, put it back near Keaton, and put her in the bedroom and closed the door for time out. 


She got into her second most favorite spot, the chair she likes to sleep on and has pillows and blankets on, again to intimidate Keaton, who was looking around my kitchen floor and sniffing, hoping he was going to get some real food that dropped.


I went to the treats can and pulled out a few different ones, from little sausages, to cheese and chicken flavored mini-bones, and some kibble that comes in little bags and is made of trout.  I put a couple of these down near Keaton's things but my dog was like an eagle coming out of the sun to blind its prey.  Keaton couldn't get one treat because, with incredibly bad manners, mine ate them all, right under his nose.


It all worked out in the end.  I never put Keaton in his cage and I never tied up the dogs inside the house to keep them apart. The noise and vibration across the way was intense and Keaton knew something was going on in his house and for a while he shook.  He let me hold him and sooth him.


However, what I had to remember was how insecure my dog is because she has been dumped and rescued three times in her life.  When she came to me she showed signs of having had to compete for food.  Even though there were no other dogs around, she would take some kibble and hide it, or eat away from her dish, as if she were ready to be attacked.  I believe she was born in a backyard and then was part of a breeding program.  Mine may be the first house she has lived in and it may be the first time she has no other dogs to compete with.  She came to me terrified to have her paws touched, fearful and uncooperative about baths, and generally seemed to have been, if not abused, roughly handled in the past and untrained.  We've gotten so over those fears of hers that she comes to me eagerly when I say "bath."  Like a person who did not have a good childhood, there are elements of her personality that are not companionable.  I love her as she is.


I walked the two dogs together and while my dog tried to keep pace with me, and it was Keaton who started huffing and puffing first, I realized that Keaton was simply not going to perform any command I asked of him.  He was not going to Come, Sit, or Stay, or Heel.  He looked at me as if to say, "I no understand Hungarian!"


Moving into the holidays, I've already bought my dog a new collar and leash, a new toy, and a new sweater.  I sent Keaton home with a new Christmas bow for his collar.


Here's to the days ahead!




C 2016 All Rights Reserved - Including Internet and International Rights

THANKSGIVING

HUNGARY RENAISSANCE MUSIC

SAINT ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY DAY

FLOATING LKE BOKODI FISHING VILLAGE ON STILTS NORTH of BUDAPEST

DAILY MAIL TRAVEL - HUNGARY's AMAZING FLOATING VILLAGE ON STILTS  beautiful pictures but it's cooold out there!

EXCERPT: This is Hungary's answer to the paradise islands in the Indian Ocean - a village on stilts northwest of the capital, Budapest, near Bokod, that's known as the 'floating village'.


(is this your great escape?)

VETERANS DAY

A SLAVIC BEAUTY WILL BE FIRST LADY OF THE U.S.A. - THAT'S A FIRST! WHY HUNGARIAN and SLAVIC AMERICANS MAY HAVE GONE TRUMP!

Melanija Knavs, Melania Knauss, MELANIA TRUMP, will be our First Lady of the United States, as her husband DONALD TRUMP was elected to be the next President and will take office in a few months.

Hungarians are not Slavs, but because Hungarians and Slavs have lived around each other for hundreds of years and intermarried, and in the United States this is especially true, we're considered to be the same people. (So listen please if you're reading this post in translation while living in Slovakia or Romania because believe me when I say that if you came here you would only be grateful to find another one of you and grateful to find some of the people you may think of as enemies there!).  

Never before have we ever in THE UNITED STATES had a Slavic person in as high a position in our country as First Lady.  In the American mind Hungarians, Slovenians, Slovaks, Poles and Russians - and all manner of Slavic people - have been in the popular mind in the same category; work-desperate legal immigrants who came in such high numbers a hundred or more years ago that their country of origins seemed vacated, not very intelligent and speaking strange languages.

In reading genealogy records of those Hungarian churches in towns in which so many people left during the Industrial Revolution, I have seen the notes, of children born while "father is in America," and of those children named AMERICUS!  (Note September 2022.  I've learned that this given name might relate to the English name Henry or Henrik. However, I've seen it barely used until the industrial age immigration period.)

Those hardworking men and women came and shifted from the agricultural economy that had sustained them to factory work and manufacturing, and ask anyone who comes from this background, they worked for pay but were closer to slaves.  (Some people think the word Slav and the world slave are of the same root.)

Granted Melania Trumps legal immigration occurred in a different time in history.

On my commute home yesterday I switched on my not-so-smart phone and Googled "2016 Election," and up came the most incredibly useful site imaginable which was a map of the United States that showed the voting results as they came in, both popular and electoral college, giving each state a pale red or pale blue color, which became solid red or solid blue, as that state became overwhelmed with Republican or Democratic votes.  A few states changed color as the evening went on, but by about 6:30 in the evening, California time, I was sure that Trump would win.  One could click on the state to get the details, such as what percentage of votes were in, and by county, and I saw what was happening. 

IN THE LARGE POPULATION CITY AREAS and COLLEGE TOWN AREAS the voting was Democratic, but the more rural areas had gone Republican, and the "RUST BELT", the areas where so very many of those descendants of Hungarian and Slavic immigrants had come, worked, and lost their jobs to the export of the work to other countries - including Japan and Mexico- went Republican too.  It was city versus country, educated versus not so much, but certainly part of a long held theory of mine that PEOPLE ALWAYS VOTE THEIR JOBS!

Honesty, though I'd been telling everyone I encountered for the last week who wanted to talk the election that I believed Hillary Clinton would win, when I said I thought the race would be very close, many people got mad at me.   Everyone thought the whole campaigning process had been disgusting and humiliating for us as a county and wanted it to be over.

Here's the thing.  DONALD TRUMP WAS NO MORE A REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE than BERNIE SANDERS WAS A DEMOCRATIC ONE.  Both ran with a party because traditionally it is the way to win, yet Trump financed his own campaign with about one hundred million, and for a billionaire that's not so much, while Sanders did surprising well with near no campaign funds but the free labor of grass roots activists.  AND BOTH TALKED ABOUT ECONOMIC ISSUES as the BOTTOM LINE PROBLEM HERE IN THE STATES. 

I felt vindicated to have written in my candidate when I read this morning that former President George H.W. Bush and former First Lady Barbara had voted but not at all for President, a none of the above vote. 

Remember that it was during President William J. Clinton's office that jobs were sent to Mexico.  Some people thought that if Mexicans could make good wages in Mexico there would not be so much illegal immigration from that country.  I was against that trade agreement.  Remember when President Bush Jr. and other Republican's defended the way big corporations were sending manufacturing jobs overseas, calling it "work Americans won't do?"  I knew that was, to put it politely, B.S.  I knew that because I met out of work people everywhere who were loosing everything, including their houses and apartments, desperately at the libraries looking for any kind of work,  often aged out or in need of retraining, and I remembered the truth of the work that immigrants from Hungary and other Slavic countries generations before.

So when DONALD TRUMP said to make America Great Again he meant that those jobs "Americans won't do" would SO be done by Americans again. That message, that campaign promise, is what got him elected, and it wasn't just against the precedent of the Democratic Clintons but also the Republican Bushs!

The word Campaign before the word Promise often negates the Promise.  However, we can't always say that a candidate once in office then lied, because our President is not a Dictator or King, but must deal with the Senate and the House, our system of "checks and balances" in place to prevent the President from being either.  Currently the Republicans will dominate the Senate and Supreme Court nominees may also be conservatives and so it is possible that Trump can get more of what he promises actually done with less opposition.

Now we come to his wife MELANIA TRUMP and what her role will be as First Lady.  This morning I read Daily Mail UK and saw the headlines from newspapers around the world, in Europe and the Middle East, some in shock, while the leaders of many countries, including Hungary, were at least polite enough to send congratulations, if not having great enthusiasms for DONALD TRUMP as PRESIDENT.

May I suggest that MELANIA TRUMP can be an in the White House representative of the humble people who have immigrated and made good?  She grew up in a communist apartment block, now lives in Trump Tower, and will go to the White House. She is intelligent and she speaks several languages, English not being her first language. She appears to have taken on the traditional role of wife and mother, as well as the traditional role of volunteer worker and charity fundraiser, and she is unlikely to be the "power behind the man," but she is as unconventional a first lady as there has ever been, not because of her first generation American status, but because she was a model who got naked, and is the third wife of a man who has children from three marriages, all who got behind him in this campaign.  She is more of the modern generation than her husband. Her air of sophistication and presence may be more Jackie Kennedy than Pat Nixon or Lady Bird Johnson or Michelle Obama, but we are all hoping that the once womanizing Trump has left his old ways behind in marriage to her! If there is anyone to tell this man to start thinking about what he has to say instead of spewing and back-stepping, she's the one.

Like many Americans I will both keep an open mind and wait and see what happens.  I feel lucky to live in California though!

C 2016  All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights.  Magyar-American Blogspot

Note September 2022.

So much has happened with Trump in office, and of late, the scandal in which he is accused of possessing and using documents that never belonged to him personally and belong in our National Archives. 

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION DAY - UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

IN LINE FOR 6 HOURS TO VOTE EARLY! I'll NEVER DO IT AGAIN!

I've voted, and wrote in a Candidate for President.  Nothing else would satisfy my soul.  I also avoided voting for several candidates for lesser positions because I didn't like any of them.  In my area measures and propositions were also important.  I voted in each case.

WHY, when I could have gone to my polling place on Tuesday morning did I choose this EARLY VOTE?  Well, because I looked at my schedule for Tuesday and realized that I was going to be doing a lot of commuting and MIGHT not be able to also vote, at least not while I still had some energy! 

My dog and I walked to the nearest early voting location and the line was very long looking, but at first, as people started moving up and leaving less space between them it appeared to be moving.  Meanwhile, there were some interesting conversations to be had with people in line around me.  However, one of them left after FOUR HOURS because she had a mail in vote in hand that COULD HAVE BEEN DROPPED OFF, and really, about the four hour point, with ONE FOOD TRUCK, no bottled water, no snacks, and without the foresight to at least bring a good book, which I could have done.


FIVE HOURS INTO IT, we got close enough to an actual tent full of EMPTY CHAIRS.  We went and dragged some back to sit on.  MY ENTIRE BODY HURT.  Getting up and down out of this folding chair hurt.  MY DOG had BEEN SO WONDERFULLY PATIENT THROUGHOUT.  Someone gave her water.  Someone else went out to the store, bought Halloween candy on sale, and the bag was passed back as we all needed the SUGAR for that false boost of energy!

THEN FINALLY WE WERE INDOORS where chaos continued.  My dog stayed under my chair and later went to the voting booth with me.

I HOPE THAT EARLY VOTING MEANS MORE PEOPLE VOTE! 

But I think most of the early voters were so disgusted with the election, THEY JUST WANTED IT TO BE OVER!

BLESS US ALL!

WHITE HOUSE

BERNIE SANDERS said "DEMOCRACY IS NOT A SPECTATOR SPORT"

No doubt the Democrats do more for the people but I still can't imagine voting for Hillary Clinton.

BELA LUGOSI - INVISIBLE GHOST

BELA LUGOSI AROUND THE CORNER NEAR THE CHURCH - ALL SOULS DAY

I met a man recently who was telling me that he was looking on the 1940 census and found out Bela Lugosi lived right around the corner from his present day church...  I dared him to try and find out if the Hungarian was Catholic and if he might have gone to that church, which was in its humble mission church phase but is now a landmark. I thought it was a bit of a coincidence since I'd been looking for Bela Lugosi posters for this blog.


Walking my dog around the neighborhood, some of my neighbors have gone all out with decorations, because they expect trick-or-treaters, or because they are what I call Ghoul School, or because they work for the studios doing sets; one family has Halloween all year long with an evil looking cemetery out front which must save them having to water.  One house in particular was really impressive.  Out on their white wicker setae on the front porch are two loved up human-sized monsters, reminiscent of the couple, both with significant teeth.  That one made me laugh.


But as I'm not at all into the violence and gore that has become part of the celebration that was rooted in spirituality and honoring the ancestors for so long, I refrain from entertainments that are not spiritual.  The Celtic tradition of carving a turnip to hold a candle as symbolic of the soul - the flame of the spirit - in the body, moved to smiling carved pumpkins, and then to demonic ones.  The church that's around the block from where Bela Lugosi once lived is having a special All Souls Day evening Mass, and I may just attend.


C 2016  All Rights Reserved  Magyar-American Blogspot

HOWLING WOLF

THE SILK ROAD by VALERIE HANSEN : MAGYAR AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW

A NEW HISTORY WITH DOCUMENTS
WITH COVERAGE OF THE MONGOLS and MARCO POLO
C2017 Oxford University Press



I confess, I saw that this book, which came from the history - genealogy department of my library, had pictures of artifacts (including clay monkeys from Yotkan that are sexually explicit and probably used to enhance fertility), a burial called the Niya coffin, in which a man who died of knife wounds and his smothered wife, dating 3rd or 4th century CE, were buried together and the garments they wore survive in color,  an ancient Buddhist Stupa (that barely looks like Buddha), and other items that are from archeological digs, and I wanted to read it from cover to cover.  It has translated poetry, letters, Hebrew prayers, and is also about religion, the spread of Buddhism for instance.  There pictures of silk fabric fragments that help you understand the designs that people were able to produce hundreds of years ago. 


I will probably have to order this book back in to do so; I found myself unable to concentrate and give it the time it deserves.  I decided to focus on the routes called "the grasslands" . one of which went from Europe (Vienna) and seems to go through upper Hungary or lower Poland on today's map.




In college I took a literature course that focused on Crusades era travelers including Marco Polo, John of Plano (also called John Plano Carpini0, and other very early manuscripts (that were in translation to English). I was also aware that the travels of Marco Polo are suspect.   There are a lot of maps in this book and on page 392 there are several routes on a grasslands map, including those used by William of Rubruck, Rabban Sauma, Ibn Buttuta (another person whose writing we read in the course), as well as Marco.  Rabban left France, further west. 


The grassland routes went through Eurasia into the Mongol empire that had been unified in 1206 by Genghis (Chinggis is his Mongolian name) and this way the travelers bypassed the mountains and the deserts to the south.  (Sounds like the way to go to me.) 


On page 394 it says that  after Genghis died it was his son, Ogodei, who  led armies to victory over Georgia, Armenia, Iran, Kiev, and Hungary, creating the largest continuous empire in world history.  (Other Silk Road routes took travelers through India as well.)  This expansion took place during the era of Christianity called the second crusades which began in 1100 when the pope called upon European Christians to travel to the Holy land to capture Jerusalem from the Islamic rulers.  According to author Valerie Hansen, the Pope hoped an alliance with the Mongols would be helpful.




Now what surprised me was learning that THERE WERE ALREADY CHRISTIAN MONGOLS!  "The East Syriac Christan Church, based in Iraq, had sent Uighur speaking missionaries into Mongol territories before 1200, and they had one converts, particularly among the Ongut tribe, and some Mongols from the Kereyit and Naiman tribes converted after 1206."  Some of Ghengis' descendants married these Mongol Christians!  "The Europeans also believed that a mythic Christian ruler named Prester John ruled somewhere in Asia..."  (I've heard of Prester John before, and I believe that he remains a mystery and may have always been a myth.)




This was also the era in which SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISI started the Franciscan order!


Somehow, knowing that brought the whole Mongol conquest and the founding of Hungary into historical perspective of me, and didn't seem so long ago anymore.




Pope Innocent IV sent John of Plano Carpini  (Giovanni del Plan di Carpini) to the khans court in Mongolia, or tried to...  Carpini carried a letter.  I recall from my college class that this man was portly, his bones ached, he was about 60, and the trip was hard on him.  He spoke Latin and French only, so he took along a man named Benedict who knew Russian and Polish...  I suppose that must have helped for some of the trip!  On the way the letter was translated at the camp of Batu, a Mongol prince.




The translation was from Latin to Russian,  Russian to Persian, and Persian to Mongolian.  (Page 396)  Who knows how the communication had altered?




Carpini and his companion covered 3000 miles in three and a half months, and I don't want to ruin this rich story for you, but it would be some time before they were able to deliver that letter.



It wouldn't be called the Silk Road if there were not a lot of silk and other beautiful fabrics worn, made into tents, and used for trade.  Gifts were expected.  Gold and Silver were in abundance through plunder.  The merchants they encountered included Austrians, Poles, Greeks...  (So, while people back home feared the Mongols, the merchants apparently knew enough about their culture to be able to trade with them.)




I'll leave my brief version of just one of the amazing stories in this book here.   Whenever I read about the Mongols and the Silk Road, the merchants moving along the routes, I often think about what we are learning about the migration of our DNA through thousands of years. 




So, though I have yet to read this book cover to cover, I do recommend it highly!




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MAGYAR TORTENELEM - MAGYAR HISTORY

I thought this YouTube video was very well done, very dramatic music too.  Iin this case the creator believes the Hungarians are related to the Sumarians - Nimrod

Some ANCESTRY.COM DATABASES NEW and UPDATED FOR HUNGARIAN and GERMAN-ROMANIAN GENEALOGY

ANCESTRY.COM has SIBIU, ROMANIA MILITARY CONSCRIPTION 1689-1807 as well as SIBIU, TAX LISTS for periods beginning in 1701-1724  and 1787-1878  now, and has updated HUNGARIAN CIVIL REGISTRATION 1895-1978 as well as HAMBURG GERMANY PASSENGER LISTS.

I ran all the surnames in my own genealogy family, as well as some that I've researched for others into these databases to see what, if anything new would come up.

SIBIU is also known as SEBES.  There were at least a dozen German villages in what is now Romania (or Rumania) and in these villages people kept to their German customs, such as cooking, home building, clothing, and language.  Some of them came in the 1600's from German - in wagon trains (Yes, really!).  However, as there were also Hungarians and other ethnicities in the country, many of them were multilingual and eventually, as they identified themselves as Hungarians, there were marriages between ethnicities.  This is one of the ways that so many Hungarians married with Germans, before they ever came to the United States, but also the basis for the mythology that all Hungarians ARE Germans.   I noted that individuals  on the SIBIU DATABASES were coming up from Brasov, Muhlbach, Lebang, and Kerz (Cirta), so keep checking as I believe that the database intends to cover more than one settlement.

One of my ancestors had a Hungarianized German surname and is marked as coming from Sebes into Abauj on other documents.  However I did check the surnames and variations in the databases as is and nothing came up.  (Remember with Ancestry you can use the first three letters and an * to bring up names with various endings.)

For those of you who have an ancestor who came to the United States on a ship from the German Port of Hamburg, you may be aware that there is a passenger list upon docking (in New York, Castle Garden, or Ellis Island, but there were many other ports of entry.)  You may also be aware that lists were made before the ship left port.  Thus, if you have them on the passenger list when they got to the United States (or Canada, or wherever) and it says they left from Hamburg, you may want that document also.  Now you might think, What's the point?  Well, if the handwriting is much better on the German documents than the others you have tried to make out with magnifiers, you'll be rewarded.  

Also, for those of you who had ancestors leaving the German ports, be aware that some people got off the ship in Southhampton, England and decided to be tourists for a few days or weeks, and then boarded another ship to New York or other American ports.  It was about 2-3 days from the German port to the ports of Great Britain, and then about another week to the U.S.  If your ancestor felt they needed some time on land before they crossed the Atlantic, then it's possible they will ALSO APPEAR on manifests originating in that country.

As for the Hungarian Civil Registration, this database seems to me to be very minimal, as I've tried to find how many counties it includes and so far I'd say there are many missing.  But you never know until you try...


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All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights.

AUTUMN IN TOKAJ COUNTRY

TOMMY RAMONE (TOMMY ERDELYI) HUNGARIAN AMERICAN PUNK ROCKER

GRAMMY MUSEUM - THE RAMONES  EXHIBIT HEY HO LET'S GO THE RAMONES and the BIRTH OF PUNK


If you're in Los Angeles, this exhibit ends in February 2017, so  you still have time.  I went recently and loved the exhibit.  Of course, this museum is one that I try to visit at least once a year. I have to say that my favorite things to look at are the clothes or costumes that the singers and musicians wore to perform, and handwritten lyrics.  (I'm always looking to see if their handwriting looks like mine!) 
"Co-curated by the GRAMMY Museum and the Queens Museum, in collaboration with Ramones Productions Inc., the exhibit commemorates the 40th anniversary of the release of the Ramones' 1976 self-titled debut album and contextualizes the band in the larger pantheon of music history and pop culture." 


Event posters, equipment, personal photos, lots of music including in the cinema, their performance.


So I'm walking along reading the placards and I see that TOMMY was born in Budapest.  A Hungarian- American!


EXCERPT from the link above; " The Ramones' place in rock & roll history was already assured by 1978 with their first three albums: Ramones, Leave Home, and Rocket To Russia, all made in the span of 18 months, between February 1976 and the fall of '77. When it was time to make records, Tommy said, "Our art was complete." The art was the combined product of four strangely aligned personalities — all living within shouting distance of each other in the conservative, middleclass enclave of Forest Hills, where their mutual needs as fledgling musicians and bored delinquents far outweighed the mess of differences and civil wars that could never quite bust them apart. Once a Ramone, always a Ramone."  (TOMMY WAS THE ORIGINAL DRUMMER and with the band four years.  He became a music producer.)


***


ALL FOUR ORIGINAL RAMONES have died.


  From 1976
***
THE RAMONES OFFICIAL SITE - 40th ANNIVERSARY of FIRST ALBUM


***




A Later Interview.  Tommy died in 2014.
***

BEFORE THE COLD SETS IN - PUTTING THE "SUMMER" CLOTHING AWAY

The turn of the seasons is upon us, but in Southern California we are always braced for a last heat wave in October. Still, maybe it's just tradition, but even in a hot climate - and ours has been one "heat wave" after another - it's a good thing to give some of your clothing a rest for a few months before wearing  them again. 


End of the season clearance sales often feature the colors and thinner materials of spring and summer, whites and pastels. Then, though I can't imagine who buys these clothes other than perhaps people who are going to be traveling for work or to visit family in colder climates, the stores put out fall and winter wear that we probably won't wear but a few times, if and when the temperature goes down to about fifty.  An evening of about 50 degrees and some wind might bring us to freezing, and then we have to watch for the fine layer of ice that is on the pavement and cement from the automatic water sprinklers so that we don't fall.  It's rare.


A few years ago we did have a cold and damp winter, one that required that you put the electric heater on in the bathroom for fifteen minutes before you took a shower in the morning.  However, once fully dressed, sweater or light jacket and all, I would go outside and it was too hot to wear the same clothes I wore indoors; layering is essential.


The best thing about such evenings and nights is that some home owners who have fire places go ahead and build themselves a fire that they can enjoy, the wonderful sound of cracking wood and the wonderful smell, which wafts around the neighborhoods.


I was out here for years before I had the occasion to actually wear a wool coat that I had in my closet, and that was Christmas Eve, when I went to an old Spanish Mission for Midnight Mass.


Boots are often sold here, but the women who put on socks or stockings and wear the boots must be mad for fashion and be able to stand sweltering feet!  All shoes including sports shoes made of "man made fibers" hold the heat and so even with powders, socks, and charcoal inserts, such shoes can soon stink!


I have a sweater cloak that I wear in the early mornings when I take my dog out for a walk.  I also put a sweater on her.  But I'm still wearing sandals.


The best reason to put your spring and summer clothes away is that when you pull them back out in the spring, which is March here, they will seem to be a good change and somewhat new because you haven't seen them or worn them in a few months.


I try everything on and if there is something I no longer want to wear, I give it away, usually to the local hospital.


Whatever -  have a glass of wine, pull out your pumpkin recipes, and relax!



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FALL HARVEST MANDALA

HUNGARIAN PAPRIKA HISTORY

OLD HUNGARIAN ALPHABET

HUNGARIAN MUSIC FROM TRANSYLVANIA

HAVE YOU TRAVELED TO YOUR ANCESTRAL TOWN IN HUNGARY?

I would love to hear from you and if you blog or write about your Hungarian travels, perhaps I may link to you too!

I'm wondering if this was your first trip? Did you meet any relatives? Did you go to any churches that figure in your family history? Were people nice to you? Do you speak Hungarian? Did you have an easy time of communicating and finding your way around?

POLISH, CZECH and SLOVAK GENEALOGY by LIZA A. ALZO

POLISH CZECH and SLOVAK GENEALOGY
 by  Lisa A. Alzo



Since so many Hungarians have united in marriage with people from Polish, Czech, and/or Slovak heritage, both in Europe and in the United States, I wanted to read this book, which is very informative and has loads of information, some of which even the very experienced genealogy researcher might find helpful.


For instance,  On pages 134-135  we learn that there was such a thing as PARISH CENSUS and POPULATION REGISTERS.  


A parish census is different than the usual birth, marriage, and death records because it is a census of all the people in the parish, even if maybe that year they had no sacramental going on. 


A population register is different because in some European countries a person was required to register their PLACE OF RESIDENCE, and these records can give you the person's name, birthdate, and birthplace, as well as family relationship, parents' name and marital status.


There are extensive website and publication lists in the back of the book.  There are also lists of commonly encountered words in Polish, Czech, or Slovak when you're trying to read typical genealogy records.  There's an example of a Polish CIVIL Marriage record which was brimming with detail (once translated) from 1863; It mentioned  the age and occupations of the witnesses as well as their marital status, that the marriage was religious, and that the newly-weds stated that there was NO PRENUPTUAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN THEM!


Although the author finds forums valuable, I never have.  I've wasted a lot of time on them reading pleas from people who expect to find relatives, not through genealogy, but because they are social networking, and these people rarely give the kind of details that would convince the researcher that there's a connection.  They think their surname, which may be difficult to spell or pronounce is so unusual or that there is a village in common is all someone needs to know.  I also wonder at the personal information being given to the world that is and should be private in this pursuit.  Finally, once or twice I read something on a forum that triggered some interest, but by the time I had my research to the point where I was more convinced of a connection, that person's contact link or e-mail was no longer good, or I never heard back from them anyway. Sometimes I think forums are just full of inexpert or lazy people.


All in all, this is book worthwhile your time!


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AUGUST 20 is SAINT STEPHEN'S DAY IN HUNGARY

AUGUST 20th is SAINT STEPHEN'S DAY IN HUNGARY. There are state celebrations such as firework displays as Saint Stephen is credited with FOUNDING HUNGARY and making it a Christian nation in 1000 AD. It is his crown that it used as an icon for Hungary and the real crown still exists. But that's not all that exists. When Stephen was canonized as a saint on August 20 1083, it was found that he his hand was still "fresh" and so it was removed and is mummified and on display (It looks kind of gray!)

GOING FOR THE BERN WHEN THERE IS NO BERNIE SANDERS!

It's almost old news that the AMERICAN DEMOCRAT-SOCIALIST CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT, Bernie Sanders,  has failed to gain the ticket to Presidency. 

However, considering the CLINTON's have been campaigning for years and have what we call THE PARTY MACHINE in their favor,  SANDERS PROVED TO BE AMAZINGLY COMPETITIVE.  he touched the hearts and souls of so very many who know that we need to do more as a country for our citizens who make average incomes or less and who are struggling.

Since he ran on the Democratic ticket, Sanders was obliged to say that all votes for him should now go to Hilary Clinton.  I forgave him.  The bad news was that he is not a "write in" candidate.

I like thousands of others thought they could, but it turns out that if you want to be a "write in" candidate you have to file to be on the ticket - of each state - individually.  It was too late.

Sanders went back to be the Senator he was before his run.
But believe me when I say that he is not forgot, nor is his message forgotten.

On the bike path nearby where I live, his GRASS ROOTS SUPPORTERS took chalk and wrote their own messages encouraging people to vote for him.

He was the only candidate that had volunteers who had not been down to campaign headquarters making home made signs and holding them up for hours at high traffic intersections.

I had not seen this kind of GRASS ROOTS SUPPORT for any candidate in my lifetime.

Will the amazing show of support that he had when it came to the Democratic Primaries actually change the platform of that party and lead to some or any of the changes that the people who spoke up about what they wanted from him with their vote?

I've been vocal about my candidate and why I wanted him to be our President.

First, I must say that from the very beginning I suspected that DONALD TRUMP really wanted the Democrats to win the next Presidency.  Every time I read another article about him I wince.  The man has a real talent for putting his foot in his mouth and having to backtrack to say what it was he really meant.  I've met many people who say they will vote for him because they see his personal business success as an indicator that he can pull our country out of the economic crisis it has been in for so very many citizens for years now.

However, TRUMP doesn't always succeed in business.
And our national debt went to nothing when we had PRESIDENT WILLIAM J. CLINTON in the White House.

There's just one problem for me with THE CLINTONS, and it's a big one.

I can understand that some people get married and take their vows seriously yet that marriage can be difficult and that sometimes one or both of them go ahead and fall in love with someone else, or have an affair.  Several of my friends through the years have done just that.

There's that, and then there is the womanizing that "Bill" has apparently been committed to for years.  It wasn't just Monica Lewinsky, who has had a very difficult life over the public exposure of her romance with Bill (for surely she was in love with him), that he was womanizing with.

Some people say to me, "Well, JKF did that too. and Jackie put up with it."

Yes, but Jackie wasn't an IVY LEAGUE EDUCATED CAREER WOMAN who MADE AN OUTSTANDING AMOUNT OF MONEY (more than Bill for some time) AS A LAWYER.

I could even understand why Jackie or Hillary would "stand by their man" while he was still in office.  However, I DO NOT ADMIRE HILLARY CLINTON FOR NOT DIVORCING BILL,.

NO these TWO are members of a POWER COUPLE for whom, grand mothering aside, ARE NO EXAMPLE TO US of PERSONAL MORALITY.  And that to me should be considered.

SO I LIKE THAT BERNIE SANDERS got married and stayed married to the same woman all these years, with no scandals.  I know that if he got into the White House we'd never have to worry about him receiving sexual services from an intern while on the phone with VLADIMIR PUTIN or any other world leader.  And it would be sexist of me to think that HILLARY would never, just because she is a woman.

I agree that we must now focus on the candidates who are running for lesser offices than the Presidency - our Senators and Congresspeople and local representatives in City Councils.

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MONGOLIAN WOMEN HAD IT GOOD COMPARED TO MOST MEDIEVAL WOMEN

Pages 169-174  From GENGHIS KHAN  His Conquests  His Empire  His Legacy by Frank McLynn.

The Mongols were polygamous (taking many wives) and polygynous (taking many concubines) but the children of the chief wife were the ones who could be considered for the succession when their father died.

Genghis Khan's troops killed half the population of Hungary in the 1241 era, and one of the Mongol warriors favorite activities was raping the women, often in front of their father or husband.  So what was life like for a MONGOLIAN WOMAN?  Well, it turns out that compared to most medieval women, they had better status.  This didn't mean they weren't treated as chattel, but consider; Genghis OUTLAWED RAPE.  In the past only women were executed for adultery but now both men and women suffered the same punishment, "unless they were rich enough to buy themselves out of the predicament."  Women could also decided if they wanted to be married and divorce became possible for them as it was by mutual consent.  They did not expect a woman to be a virgin when she married and there was no stigma about having children before marriage or divorcing with children or having been married before.  What this means is that if a couple could deal with their differences mutually and peaceably, the consequences were not great.

For the chief and high status men, marriage was not a personal decision so much as a community decision.  Marriage was also considered to be eternal.  Genghis was concerned about inbreeding but his precautions were not always followed. (It's possible that shorter lifespans were a result.)

In their nomadic and hunter-gatherer society, unlike the more European Agricultural societies, women and men performed many of the same or similar jobs, so there wasn't the divide of roles or "men's work," seen elsewhere.  She was kept busy with household and other tasks.  She was expected to know how to drive a large wagon, some with as many as 20 horses.   "One woman would often be expected to drive as many as thirty interconnected wagons,; seven women would often be needed to transport a single oligarch's possessions, for one of these elaborate dwellings, when transported could fill over two hundred wagons; moreover, a single noble with multiple wives might have several such portable palaces." (171)  Sometimes the woman had to figure out how to load the horses - and camels - so that everything was weight distributed.

Wise old women were prized for their wisdom and thought that some women had magical powers.  Women did not have their feet bound as women did in China, nor did they wear clothing that prevented than from moving or seeing freely, such as Person chadors or Arabic burqas.  They could even be regents or the realm or advisors.  So in the 13th century there were many notable Mongol women.  All this upset visitors from the Christian and Muslim faiths, and Buddhism and Confucianism when adopted from China, also reduced the role of women.

Overall, Genghis was considered a very pragmatic man and a genius about human nature.  All the changes he made so that women would have a greater role and more respect than they had before were probably made to make life easier for the entire tribe.

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HUNGARIAN OLYMPIC ATHLETES KATINKA HOSSZZU - ARON SZILAGYI - EMESE SZASZ - FIVE GOLD MEDALS

Fencing: Men's Sabre Individual Aron Szilagyi

Swimming: Women's 200m Individual Medley

Katinka Hosszu

 

Swimming: Women's 100m Backstroke

Katinka Hosszu

 

Swimming: Women's 400m Individual Medley

Katinka Hosszu

 

Fencing: Women's Epee Individual

Emese Szasz

 

****

CELEBRATIONS!

MONGOLIAN INVADERS KILLED HALF THE HUNGARIAN POPULATION - GENGIS KHAN and HIS TROOPS RAPED WOMEN

  After I learned that the Mongolian Invaders had killed half the Hungarian population (or you could say half the population of peoples living in the land known to us as Hungary) I wanted to know more.  I'm one of those people of Hungarian descent who has some Asian features, and I've already wrapped my mind around the probability that some ancestor of mine was raped and that these features have been brought forward though the intermarriage in Hungary of others with a similar genetic heritage. Or could it be instead that these features are not Mongolian, but of the original Magyars?

Author Frank McLynn did a great job of explaining their culture, their world view, their expertise, and their military strategy, blow by blow. But I was distracted and I decided to focus only on the chapter about the Invasion and Devastation in then-Hungary.

Batu and Subedei where the men who closed in on Hungary, then a nation of around 2 million people that went from Transylvanian Alps to modern Croatia, and the Pannanonian Plain was their base for military operations.  This was the era around 1236 - 1242, a time of Crusades, and a time when Hungary had been through a number of rulers, had a relationship with the Vatican which had it's own army, and was thought to have its own impressive and imposing military force, capable of defeating any European country.

However, the Mongols were greatly feared and there were also issues between the Cumans and the Hungarians so they proved not to be the hoped for allies.  Subedei was a genius strategist who decided to use three armies to invade the land and have them all unite at the Danube. His brother Shiban covered the northern area between Poland and Moravia.  Quadan went south-easterly between the eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river, and the main army under Batu went through the Verecke Pass and the upper Tisza Valley. 

There were few good roads in Hungary and the landscape dotted with villages proved to be mostly indefensible.  The Mongols played the game of allowing a troop to think they were gone or had won and then would come back to massacre them.  Notable men including Archbishops and Bishops and those important in the politics and rule of the region also fought in battle and died.  Ethnic Poles and Germans living in Hungary fought too.  The Mongols continued a systematic program of atrocities and exterminating the people.  They also enjoyed mass rape, especially doing so in front of the woman's father or husbands.

Famine and disease, especially the sicknesses transmitted from having so many dead corpses around killed off many more.  The farmers were unable to farm and have crops in for a year after the Mongols left, there was death by starvation.

Infighting within the Mongol Empire was also occurring, as so many troops had left there to fight,  and by 1279 it was divided.  The Golden Horde of China's Quabilai's dominated Russia for another two hundred years.  Chagatai Khanate (a place) in central Asia dominated parts of today's Mongolia, Russia, India, China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan.  Then an area that included eastern Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, western Afghanistan, south-western Pakistan and parts of modern Turkmenistan called the (place) Iklhanate.

There seems to have been no time in all this warfare for a nice Mongolian boy to fall in love with a nice Hungarian girl and get married, so there is a very good chance that if you have facial or other bodily characteristics that are most often "Asian," rape is likely the way those characteristics came into the Hungarian (or Polish, Slovak, German, or other ethnic population.)  Either way, if you have Hungarian heritage someone in your lineage survived the carnage, at least long enough to have a child.

Learning that easily half a million to one million were killed by the Mongolians in the mid 13th century Hungary, not so long after the country's founding, I've wondered what impact they had not only on the Hungarian looks but other genetic aspects of our humanity.  Culture is mostly learned, I think.  You could say that I think of ethnicity as having more to do with nurture than nature. 

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FIRES, HELLHOUNDS, and the NEW TOO-HOT REALITY.

We are in a bowl of heat, ash, and fire...

Thousands of acres of forested and scrub hillsides have been burned to the ground, many are still burning.  There have been red skys, blazing suns, ash on roofs and the hoods of cars parked outdoors, ash on the leaves of plants, and smells that would be comforting if only the wood burning was is the fireplace on a cold winter night...

No doubt GLOBAL WARMING has caused the fires.  You know this but here's what happens.  Plant life unable to get enough water to live dies, and so do ecosystems such as insects and creatures that feed on insects.

One morning as I and my neighbors walked our dogs we saw BLOODY PAWPRINTS  and they were HUGE.  Some of us tried to estimate how big the dog had to be and where they started and ended, following them a quarter of a mile on the cement.  The animal had certainly been wounded.  One person said "That has to be a human hand."  Another said, "I think a huge raccoon - look at the nails."  Another determined that it was indeed one paw and that the animal had tried to get into his yard.  We decided that some poor big dog that was let out at night to do it's business might have gotten into a close-by construction site and injured itself.  Someone else thought it had caught a foot in a trap.  As neighbors up and down the street began to speculate, we decided to call these prints - which still exist and prove the injured animal may have been in pain and confused about where to go or what to do next in the middle of the night might be a HELLHOUND. Perhaps if we were living closer to the mountains we might think of this dog as a coyote. 

There are coyotes in Southern California and sometimes you see one from the freeway.  A friend who took in a huge German Shepard stray dog once considered that her female might have mated with one of them. 

When you live up against mountains in Southern California, mountains such as the Santa Monica Chain, or the Sierra Madre, the Angeles Crest Forest,  even if you're in a suburb that's citified, you have to keep watch on your pet dogs and cats and other creatures because a coyote would gladly have your pet for food.  In some of these suburbs there signs up on trees and telephone polls with pictures of these "lost" pets on them and nobody wants to admit it but they probably got eaten.  A bad way for your fluffy loved one to die.

I'm about ready to take some soapy bleach water and a scrub brush to the sidewalks.  The blood smell, though old now, is still attracting pet dogs to sniff and follow.

But if seeing a coyote in neighborhoods up against the mountains, or following the concrete Los Angeles River isn't uncommon, why would such a large creature come all the way to where we live?

The answer is the fires and food.

Fleeing animals taking their chances or simply displaced from their natural surroundings where they are part of a group, have hiding places to sleep, and so on have been ruined.

We see no end, even if it begins to rain because the soil needs to be saturated with water.  However, if it does rain this winter, there will be tremendous wild flower displays in the spring since these always compete for water and space with the larger scrub brush and trees.

Meanwhile, my dog and me have uncharacteristically been running the air-conditioning, but set at 86 degrees indoors.  Since the air has been so polluted that the visibility of the mountains has been cloaked, it has become difficult to breath.  We have both been laying about, me in my thinnest cottons.  I cut her hair back and started giving her water dips to keep her cool.


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BOTONICAL SUNFLOWER

THE CULT OF MARY : THE FOCUS IS ON ONE PARTICULAR CULT : MAGYAR AMERICAN FILM REVIEW

MEDJUGORJE ORG


NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC - THE CULT OF MARY

I was disappointed in this Documentary from National Geographic, but maybe it's because I expected a broader meaning of the world CULT.  This one focused on a particular cult associated with the years long visions of Mary and devotion to her in Medjugorgie.  Now, I'm afraid of cults because I've known people who got into them and never seemed to get out.  It was clear they had gone through some sort of dramatic change in which they turned their backs on everything they used to believe.  However, while the particular group that this film focused on does seem to have cult features, most likely what came first is a person's utter devotion to Blessed Mother of Jesus, Mary.  Some people are concerned that since Mary is not considered divine, that this is displaced loyalty, since the focus should be Jesus.


That said, consider all the people in the world who are not Christians of any sort and how weird they must think Christians are.  It's easy for Non-Catholic Christians to condemn any sort of saint worship.  There are those who think that even Jesus is a small player in the Great scheme of things, that prayer is to go directly to his Father, GOD.


Ah well, this cult is tame compared to what you've read about Scientology.  People give up everything they own and are to spend most of their days in the worship of Mary, along with some every day work, just like so many orders of Nuns, Priests, Sisters, Monks, Monastics.
There is a long tradition of that.  The people are not locked up.  They can drive away.  They don't. So what we're talking about is not wanting to or fearing it. 

So why didn't national Geographic properly title this DVD to be something like "A Blessed Mother Cult in Medjugorgie."  because this is NOT a film about the worship of Mary throughout Catholicism, nor does it discuss other cults, or other Holy Orders who have spent much of their time in prayer, meditation, or Gregorian chants.


As a side, there is also a film bonus called "The Secret Lives of Jesus."  I'm not one to think that if Jesus did spend time in India learning from Hindus or Buddhists there before he began his preaching at age 30, that it's a bad thing.  However, after the Dan Brown fiction novels that so many Catholic haters have referenced, thinking the fiction is fact, I'm sensitive to the issue of Catholic's being understood accurately.

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