In the book I'm reading I've come across mention of the amazing Phaistos Disk, yet another example of how astonishing the ancient Greeks were (okay, in this case they were Cretans, not mainland Greeks). What is it? It's a circular clay tablet with characters stamped onto it on both sides, in a spiral.We don't know what the characters say - there aren't enough examples of this writing to do a proper linguistic analysis of it to crack the language. These characters exist on this disk and nowhere else. Since the characters are perfectly identical they are clearly from forms or blocks and stamped into the clay - movable type! Why is this so remarkable? Because this artifact can be confidently dated to circa 1700 B.C., 3,155 years before Gutenberg! There are times I think the Lord took a big bag of excess intellect He had lying around somewhere and simply dumped it into the Aegean region; it sort of coagulated and took ultimate effect c. 500 B.C. and has illuminated the world ever since.
The writer uses it to describe a sort of technological dead end. Why didn't movable type catch on in prehistoric Greece? Why did we have to wait until medieval Germany? The writer gives a number of reasons, not the least of which is the use of clay tablets. By 1455 in Germany ink and paper had been developed, so the use of movable type made perfect sense. In Greece it was a flash of genius well before its time had come.
I saw the greatest little ad last night, Dunkin' Doughnuts Captain America. I bet I'll like it better than the upcoming major motion picture treatment. Kudos to the ad agency who came up with this one!
I bought a CD of Marvin Gaye Motown hits at a yard sale on Saturday and have been listening to it all week. What's Going On? is a great song and my favorite cut on the CD, but my favorite soul singer remains Al Green. I painted much of the garage to the strains of his early Seventies songs.
I have Webelos Den meeting tonight, but one of my assistant den leaders is running the show. The topic is the Citizenship pin requirements. I serve as the adult (there are always more than one due to BSA youth protection requirements) who tells one particular kid to get off the tables and another to come out from behind the curtain. It's funny: I've been doing scouts (Boy and Cub) on and off since 1988, and over and over again I've noticed that those curtains have been an almost irresistible hiding place for a certain class of boys. The sad thing is that time has shown me that those "curtain boys" have never done especially well in life later on. Problems with drinking, crime, the police or simply a waywardness... it seems I can spot it early on by the predilection of a kid to hide in the curtains during meetings. In fact, a few months ago I found one of my 1996 curtain boys on an Internet police page for sex offenders. What do they have in common? Mostly, an absent father, or in one case, a checked-out mother. It's very very sad.
I found the most interesting web site last night: The American Heraldry Society. Being a buff of medieval history, I have always found this stuff rather fascinating. Among this site's many interesting articles and features are the heraldic crests of some of our U.S. Presidents. (Yes, some of them have them, which is a bit of an odd thing in our decidedly democratic, non-aristocratic nation.) Eisenhower, the Reluctant Knight is especially interesting reading. And the one for George Washington is seen all over D.C. - it serves as the city's insignia and flag.
The story about Ronald Reagan's makes for instructive reading, and emphasises a point that I have always maintained: Despite what a product vendor claims, you cannot simply adopt the coat of arms from some family who happens to share your surname. You have to do your own research and establish a link. Genealogy Without Documentation is Mythology!
The fact that Bill Clinton has arms surprises me a bit, but not as much as the design. The design looks professionally executed. I was expecting a crest divided into fourths, with a blue dress, a cigar, a thong and a bill of impeachment thereupon, all surmounted by a crest: a shrew (Hillary).
As it turns out, I can bear a heraldic crest and be absolutely legitimate about doing so. My mother's mother was a Demers, a French-Canadian family from Quebec. I can trace the family all the way back to the early 1600's, in France. There is a genealogical society called the Association des Famillies Demers (Demers Family Association) which has designed arms for the organization (and the family). They are shown above. But what kind of American insists upon flashing a heraldic crest? What would I do with it - paint it on the side of my Hyundai? Have it etched on our stemware? Include a .jpg on correspondence my printer spits out? Tattoo it on my back?
