A film by Werner Herzog. From the little I know of Werner Herzog, he’s a famous cinematographer renowned for his stream-of-consciousness art films. The impression I get from the article or two I read about him was that he struggles to portray the sometimes-insanity of life as realistically as possible in his films. If this…
“A free race cannot be born of slave mothers.” –Margaret Sanger My thesis was written on the Central Asian nomads of the late Bronze and early Iron Age. Since these were mounted nomadic traders and raiders, the modern assumption has been that they were a strongly patriarchal society. One of the “startling” discoveries which I…
Update: Same-sex marriage was legalized in the U.S. state of New York on June 24, 2011 by the New York State Legislature and Governor Andrew Cuomo! The law will take effect on July 24, 2011. Huzzah! I don’t often post on political issues. Today, however, I found New York State Senator Roy McDonald startlingly inspiring….
Here there be dragons… and plot spoilers! Proceed at your own risk. :) I’m struggling through getting final papers written, and my brain needed a break… so I did a quick review of L. E. Modesitt, Jr.’s The Eternity Artifact to clear my head. Whew! I needed that. Now, back to work! ;) ~ *…
Got another tambourine completed — this one’s just a little 6 incher. The theme seemed perfect for spring though: a calla lily on the silhouette of a rose. I’ve always loved the creamy texture of calla lilies, and wanted to try replicating, in art, that interestingly smooth crinkle effect as they curl. Both the rose…
I was recently asked the following question: “Why is it important for feminists to study and comprehend women-centered cultures?” While I thought it a good question, I also think it can and should be fruitfully expanded, in that I do not think only feminists should study these fascinating matriarchies. Learning is good, and as the…
My school emphasizes various forms of psychology, and this weekend there’s a small conference on transpersonal psychology. Sitting in the student lounge at school, I happen to be listening to two enthusiastic and excited fellow students discussing at what moment in human history “true consciousness” emerged. They were not deeply familiar with human evolution, so…
Source material that is simply bad To be fair to Armstrong, I would assume much of her previously mentioned double standards arose from her source material. I do not know why she chose to lean so heavily on such dated and inaccurate material for a book written in 2006. I do not refer here to…
This darkly pessimistic view on goddesses is most exemplified in Armstrong’s version of the myths of Inanna. I’ve had the pleasure of reading some rather good translations of these myths, translations which scholars themselves laud. Inanna, the Queen of Heaven and Earth, Love and War, is clearly a goddess of life, death, and rebirth, moving…
Blatant and inaccurate double standards As I’ve previously noted, I was not happy with how the second chapter was progressing. To my increasing dismay, things only got worse: we are introduced to the so-called original “High God” or “Sky God” of the “ancient Mesopotamians, Vedic Indians, Greeks and Canaanites,” which is a “primitive monotheism” Armstrong…