Time Marches on

A while back a friend asked me what snotty was in Spanish. Although I didn't know the context or the gender I answered "mocosa". Only later did I learn that the sobriquet was given to a pet kitten that just so happened to always have a runny nose with constant sneezing (maybe she was allergic to cats).

Martial law is directly derived from the ancient Roman God of War, Mars. Originally Mars was the Roman god of fertility and a protector of farmers. It was only later that Mars associated with battle as the growing Roman Empire began to expand, and he came to be identified with the Greek god Ares. Because seeds where sown in the Spring, the month of March was subsequently named after Mars.

Genesis is the the first part of the Old Testament. One story (Genesis 38) is of the second born Onan who was assigned the task of primogeniture upon death of his older brother. Understandably, Onan balked and "spilled his seed on the ground".

It's amazing how birds, whether they're pets in cages or free in the wild, are messy eaters, especially those that are sustained by seeds. Personally I think a good name for these these type of pets should be Onan.

TE - For whom the bells toll

This is the title of an Ernest Hemingway novel (1940) that later became a popular movie. It tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an anti-fascist(Republicans)guerilla unit during the Spanish Civil War.

The Novel's title comes from a famous quotation of John Donne (1624); it goes like this:
"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee."


Tinnitus is usually described by sufferers as a perceived sound of a ringing noise. I just wonder if Quasimodo suffered from this malady.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

The crowns of the Christian kingdoms of Castile and Aragon were united, by the marriage of Ysabel (Isabel is the modern spelling) and Ferdinando II, they eventually "captured" Granada. When he surrendered Muhammad XII, better known as Boabdil, ended the last remnant of a 781-year presence of Islamic rule in Iberia, thus terminating the Reconquista

One condition of the treaty of Granada was the guaranteed religious tolerance toward Moors (Muslims). History shows that this particular facet of the treaty did not last too long.

In 1492, Spain's Jews were ordered to convert to Catholicism or face expulsion from Spanish territories during the Spanish Inquisition. Not long after (1526), Muslims were also expelled under the same conditions.

All this flashed through my mind as I watched a national leader state that his underlings "don't torture".

Go South young man ...

Although Genoese, Colombo (Columbus is an English name) sailed for Spain at the end of the 15th century (In 1492, he sailed the ocean blue ..) On his fourth voyage to the Americas he, and his crew, sailed a little further and encountered the Cuna Indians. Most of the Cunas live on a narrow strip of land on the San Blas Archipelago, a group of 365 small islands on the northeastern Atlantic coast of the modern Republic of Panama. Nowadays they are known for their reverse appliqué, called Molas, but in those times the Spanish were looking for gold and Silver and were desperate to obtain it. Some of the Cuna women wore gold amulets and when asked, they would point to the South and indicate that's where obtained it.

The Spanish later went South spreading their language and with the Treaty of Tordesillas, Portuguese became the second major spoken language of South America.

I wonder how history would have evolved if instead the Cunas pointed North.