Penelope’s Loom

 At the end of my last post I made a brief reference to the American space rice. A race with whom? With the united Soviet socialist republic. Also known as Russia. But let us begin with this: No if any of you haven’t already seen the movie “Apollo 13 “, I’m just going to curl up and die. After seeing this you want to watch that movie. You have to begin with nazis. These are the first truly big brains to lend themselves toward our emergent space race in the late 40s and early 50s. However it would take the rest of the decade for Eisenhower to create NASA. And if we’re beginning with the Nazis then we have to begin with one in particular, his name was Werner von Braun.  No old Werner was perhaps Germany’s top rocket scientist. He had gathered a bunch of like minded men to work with him at a site known as Peenemunde.  There of course he had not only an army of scientist, but it equally vest hoard of concentration camp prisoners to fulfill his every wish and desire. Well they...

 Evil, American style. And, yet, as the Star Wars epic progressed, the character of Luke's Daddy became far more complex, ending up as more of an anti-hero.  We Americans believe that there is no true black (despite the color of that absolutely FABULOUS cape), and no true white.  Sorry Malcolm.  There is only truly a shade of grey.  In other words--some good, and some bad.  For some reason, Americans don't really have a talent for pure characterizations, and so we seem to gravitate towards figures like Butch Cassidy and Sundance (who, if memory serves me, was from New Jersey!). I mean, who can resist Paul and Bob?  Come on people!  Witness yet another creation of a complex myth...I mean can these blue-eyed strangers truly be evil? Honestly Sundance, it's the fall that's gonna kill 'ya!  And yet, these were outlaws--perhaps even killers of men. So, who in our brief history of American time could be called "good"?  Traditionally, there are...

 When I was 12, I read a fictionalized romance on the life and loves of Queen Hatshepsut.  I never forgot it.  The story was largely about a romance between Senenmut and the Queen over the course of her reign.  She was also one of the few women who usurped the exclusively male throne of Egypt for over two decades.  An extraordinary accomplishment.   The chief daughter of Thutmose I, Hatshepsut was married to her half brother Thutmose II in her early teens.  Now, what we would today call an adulterous relationship, and go ewwwww!, the royal Egyptians thought they were doing what they needed in order to keep the blood lines pure.  Purity of royal blood lines was one way in which these royals could hold onto their power base, in a land prone to periodic civil war, incestuous marriage became one more way in which a family sustained their authority.  In some sense, we have to leave our modern sensibilities behind, and embrace the mores of the...

 Okay  What am I going to do with you Anne ?  So many many people wish to vilify you, in order to understand and ultimately justify what was most certainly a political assassination because your husband Numbwit (a.k.a. Henry VIII) couldn't sire a son on you.  Yet why, is there such dissent when considering both your character and your actual role in the events that unfolded circa 1536?   Unfortunately, there is very little concrete knowledge about Anne's early years.  We know that she was one of three, possibly four children of Thomas Bolelyn, a minor noble in Henry's court.  But, although his rank was not notable, his ambition was.  As his children grew, he began to use them as pawns in his game to achieve a degree of power undreamed of for a man of his rank.  It's a little disturbing, that when his gambit reached the end, he had all but lost not only his power, and two of his most talented children. So, what is the story here?  We...

  I love Star Trek.  Firstly, being made in the mid 60s, it offered up a hopeful view of the future in a decade that witnessed more than four assassinations of prominent national figures.  I know, I appear to be fascinated by this decade, and yes, to a certain extent I admit to this.  It was one of those watershed moments in American history.  Beginning with Kennedy's murder in 1964, the whole decade just started to go to the dogs.   For some, the sixties represented freedom.  As a child growing up in suburbia, I was sheltered from much of the craziness happening just 8 miles away in Topanga Canyon--southern california's equivalent of Haight Ashbury.  But, later on, I began to grow some awareness of the leftovers of the sixties--for me it was the wearing of Levis and platform shoes when I was 12, and the floppy hats with tie dyed t shirts.  This was the time of the Watergate hearings--a time for the loss of innocence for an entire cultur...

  by the bye...I think that alec baldwin's comical interpretation here is totally great. First, the Beer  hall Putsch-- And foremost, a failed coup d'etat.  Now I am not the only person, I am sure, to say this.  Obviously, but the Putsch reminds me of recent, very recent, events with THAT MAN.  Yes, I mean Donald Trump.  Ewwww.  I actually wrote that name.  Ooops, have I betrayed my political leanings?  Oh well, c'est la vie! If you're still reading, then allow me to share a minor epiphany I had recently.  Now, as I said previously, this thought has most likely occurred to others--but this is my little private space on the internet, so I can write what I wish! Okay.  back to history. November 9, 1923. The German Weimar Republic is in power.  World War 1 had just finished, and Germany had to pay reparations (in the multiple millions...that's billions of dollars...with a "b") to the Allied states, namely France and England, as pu...