Catherine Willows is a Bitch

Catherine Willows is a Bitch. :p

She hates almost anything Mexican, and through 6 Seasons of CSI she remains being self-absorbed and using her daughter as a trading card for simpathy. I know flaws make characters interesting, but this woman has no redeeming feature.

Opinions?

St. George's Day

So, Saint George's Day. I find St. George's legend somewhat interesting. Here's the LEGEND bit from Wikipedia (you can find the whole thing, including historical facts, by clicking HERE):

The tale found its place in the folk religion of several regions of Europe and Asia Minor, and accounts may vary based on local tradition.

The tale begins with a dragon making its nest at the spring which provides a city-state with water. Consequently, the citizens had to temporarily remove the dragon from its nest in order to collect water. To do so, they offered the dragon a daily human sacrifice. The victim of the day was chosen by drawing lots. Eventually the "winner" of this lottery happened to be the local princess. The local Monarch is occasionally depicted begging for her life with no result. She is offered to the dragon but at this point a travelling George arrives. He faces the dragon, slays it and saves the princess. The grateful citizens then abandon their ancestral Paganism and convert to Christianity.

The account used to be considered factual but this belief has been progressively abandoned. On the other hand few doubt it contains religious symbolism but various interpretations have been suggested. George can be seen as representing Christianity. In both the Christianized Physiologus and the bestiaries of the 9th through 13th centuries, the dragon is a consistent symbol of Satan. Similarly, in traditional Judaic and early Christian allegory and exegesis, both the serpent (with the vast serpent being a dragon) and leviathan represent Satan. George's victory over the dragon, therefore, has been read allegorically as the victory of Christianity (riding the white horse of the Church Universal) over Satan. Indeed, as late as the 17th century, Edmund Spenser would use the story of George in that manner.

However, secular historians consider the roots of the story to be older than Christianity itself. They note that the origin of the saint is said to be partly from Cappadocia in Asia Minor, and that Asia Minor was among the earliest regions to adopt the popular veneration of the saint. The region had long venerated other religious figures. These historians deem it likely that certain elements of their ancient worship could have passed to their Christian successors. Notable among these ancient deities was Sabazios, the Sky Father of the Phrygians and known as Sabazius to the Romans. This god was traditionally depicted riding on horseback. The iconic image of St. George on horseback trampling the serpent-dragon beneath him is considered to be similar to these pre-Christian representations of Sabazios^[1]. So a number of secular historians have suggested that St. George has served as a christianised version of the older deity.

On the other hand, the tale of George and the Dragon is widely considered among secular historians to share a common theme with the ancient Greek myth of Ethiopian princess Andromeda and her saviour and later husband Perseus, slayer of the gorgon Medusa. According to this myth, Perseus beheaded Medusa and George his Dragon in a shared theme of decapitation. Perseus' meeting with Andromeda was placed in her native Ethiopia. In several versions, George meets his Dragon in Libya (North Africa west of Egypt). Both locales can be interpreted to represent distant chthonic kingdoms of magic. The saving of the king's daughter is another shared theme as is the reward-bargain exacted by the respective hero of the stories: Possession of the princess for Perseus and the mass baptism of the king's subjects for George.

Another idea is that Saint George is an alternative manifestation of St Michael, the archangel and captain of the heavenly host.

Saint George's history could be considered an example of Princess and dragon Fairy tales.

Coincidentally, a dragon is an ancient symbol of Wales, conquered by England (King Edward I).

A comic book, Aliens vs. Predator Annual #1, retold the story with the "dragon" of the legend revealed to be a Yautja, or Predator.

Aside those observations, Brian Bates, author of "The Real Middle Earth" also notes that the Christian version of the legend was also a convinient way of converting pagans to Christianity by converging all the "evil" aspects they were trying to erradicate into a "slayable" monster. That the deeper meaning of the Dragon in the ancient Celtic traditions was lost on them is also mentioned.

Another interesting thing to observe (as pointed out to me) is George's legend as compared to that of the Minotaur, and its many resemblances.

So the Easter Holidays are concluding with some more examples of certain people’s stupidity.

Before I carry on, let me state that I do not believe every single Christian out there to be an idiot. In fact, one of the most intelligent people I know happens to be a Christian, and I consider him not only a reasonable individual, but a very good friend. The people I criticize happen to be either a bit too Fundamentalist, downright fanatical, and/or stupid. Sadly they move in packs and give the sensible Christians a bad name.

The Roehampton Christian Union (RCU- what is it with “Union” instead of “Society”? United for a common Goal? Or against a common Enemy?) plagued the whole University with posters asking “Who moved the Stone?” they put posters wherever they desired (regardless of the fact that some places were prohibited, or that they shouldn’t use TACKS on TREES) and chased people around asking the question again and again not taking “I don’t care” as an answer. I wasn’t interviewed or asked, so I couldn’t give any witty response such as “Roman Grave Robbers?” oh, yeah, and they also “hosted” a meeting for “anyone” interested in the “Differences between Muslim and Christian Religion” which translated into: “We are right, they are terrorists and completely wrong and while we cannot prove this fact we will pretend that we know what we are talking about and rant about it and not let anyone else talk.”

While on their own, the events themselves might prove to be not only interesting, but provide opportunity for discussion and cooperative understanding, the fact that the RCU is composed mainly of people that declare everyone that doesn’t agree with them heathens and unworthy and servants of the devil makes the whole thing nothing but an escape-hole for people who are unsure of their own values, religion, faith and knowledge of their own roots to bash on other religions and people with the knowledge that everyone else in the room is as lost and just as pig-headed as they are.

These events should have been held by the Hindu Society; or the Asian Society; or the Philosophy Society, or the Human Rights Society... why? Well simply because they would have rather tried to understand the truth about both groups rather than dispense their version of it.

And speaking of Societies, we’re starting the Role Playing Society, which should be interesting. Again, everyone will be invited to join. It will also prove an interesting experience.

Anyway, here’s some good examples to make extremists think...

"AIDS CURES SODOMY"

Posts

Besides Erin, Hikari and Jenny, sometimes I feel like I'm the only one posting kinda regularly, and that is not saying much. ^_^'
Elf, who is also a regular blog-updater is having a good time in some beach, so no news from her.

But what about everyone else? Shun has began updating. In fact, he has some really interesting posts, including one of a conference with Stephen Hawkings :) Although I had to explain a few bits and pieces to him when he talked about it.

Quasi's is priceless, cause I KNOW he has internet. And the last post, made on the 14th of January, says:

My blog has been dead recently.

WELL NO MORE

Which I find very amusing.

Come on, Quasi! Lots of things have happened to you lately!

And where is Kaput? I know your lady demands time and she deserves it man, but a few news? Come on!

And I haven't heard anything from Joy.

FURS

Today Stacey and I went to the Londonfurs Meeting for the first time ever. It was a new experience and we met some interesting people. We ended up having dinner and talking with a couple of them; Spike and Jazz. Pretty cool furs. Ate lots of sushi. Niiiice.

We also had a chance to talk to a lot of others, more than ten, whose names I really can't remember, other than Graff and Shep, basically, and there was this guy who had a gettup that screamed BAT, without being an actuall fur-suit. Really cool. He and I talked about the novel "Silverwing" and its sequels for a bit.



-Nya!

RENT

I just went to watch the Movie/Musical with Stacey. I seriously recommend it. It's probably not as enjoyable for those whose English understanding is helped by subtitles, but otherwise it is amazing. I haven't seen the original Broadway Production yet, but I will definetly go whenever I get the chance.

Anyway, go watch it! NOW.

Updated Blog Links

Well, I updated the links. Added Nullrand's, Stacey's, P-chan's and Hikari-chan's blogs! Who else out there has a blog?

Updated

Well, I've updated the links... (about f'n time too).

Don't have much to say or rant about. My only complaint so far is to the Christians that just will not admit that Easter originated from something OTHER than Christianism; like many other parts of their religion, it was there before Christ. I'm sorry. Understand, just because something doesn't originate from where you want it to doesn't mean it should be less important. It means what it means to YOU, that should be enough regardless of where it came from, so, please, stop the nonsense of telling me it's a 100% Christian originated practice and that I am not allowed to celebrate it in my own Pagan ways.

On that note, the Easter hollidays have begun over here, and Jenny and I are planning to visit Shun in Cambridge. Yay to us! It's just a one day thing, but I think it will be pretty fun.

As for Digimon Savers and Digimon Next... so far so cool! First episode was niiiice. Haven't had a chance to see ".hack root" even in RAW, but I'm sure it's going to prove interesting.

Animes I'm watching at the moment:
Blood+
Digimon Savers
Zipang


As soon as they come out I get my hands on them :p

Reading from monday this week:

Cell by Steven King - Finished
The Summons (Return of the Archwizards Book 1) by Troy Denning - Finished
The Siege (Return of the Archwizards Book 2) by Troy Denning - Finished (Sunday 09 April)