Saturday, January 18, 2014

Ist century AD : the Ferocious Animals' crisis is irreversibly affecting Roma and Gaul !


by Jean-Jacques COURTEY, Doctor in Economic Geography, Ph.D
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Around 2000 years ago, there was also the start of a Financial crisis in the Roman world which lasted till the end of the Ist century AD, and the erasing of the debts of local populations in Minor Asia.
And it affected deeply and durably History which took a rather surprising turn.
Amazingly, this crisis was felt first of all in what was the essence of the Roman Civilization : Circus games, and its summum of expression with sacrificial victims to Ferocious Animals coming from Africa (crocodiles of Egypt, or rhinoceros and leopards of Numidia), and Minor Asia (lions of Syria and Armenia, and tigers from Hyrcania around Zadracarta, the famous city of Alexander the Great and Thalestris' love).
Notwithstanting the Financial costs, rhinoceros of the ex-Carthago area and crocodiles of the Nile appeared quite difficult to handle. Above that, they had difficulties acclimatizing in Roma and Gaul.
The impact of this shock was so strong and long that it ended to affect totally Roman history and development, by modifying in depth certain aspects of everyday life.
In fact, the world has never been the same since !

"Panem et circenses" (bread and the circus' games) was the practical motto of the Roman Empire. As a matter of fact games were considered as a cardinal necessity to content the People (a bit like soccer nowadays). This distraction took then a tremendous importance in the Roman civilization as a bulwark and safeguard against any rebellion temptation.
Strangely, it was considered by certain people that the Ferocious Animals' crisis started from the ex-empire of Egypt, through an old malediction of Cleopatra.
Egypt had become effectively a Roman province since the death of Anthony (83 BC - 30 BC) and Queen Cleopatra (c. 69 - 30 BC). And in a last resort when killing herself with holly snakes, Cleopatra made a magic ritual against their common enemy Octavius (63BC - 14 AD), and his nascent "Roman Empire" with Principate : she used an extremely old ritual called "the malediction of the snakes", dating back to Pharaoh Aha (Ist dynasty, XXXIst century BC) !
Cleopatra VII had a Macedonian origin, as the last descendant of Pharaoh Ptolemeus I Sôter (c. 366 - 283 BC), founder of the Lagid dynasty and officially cousin of Alexander the Great (356 - 323 BC), but most likely his half-brother !
This idea of an Egyptian malediction of Queen Cleopatra expanded throughout the Roman Empire till Lutetia (Gaul), which symbol became the "Nave of Isis", as the Egyptian religion was highly popular in the Roman legions and garrisons. As a matter of fact, Gaul was becoming during this period the pearl of the Roman Empire. This can explain why the medium of power of Roma, the "Palladium" - a restored statue of Goddess Pallas Athena, coming originally from Troy -, was transported for safety overthere, to Lutetia, in 14 AD at the death of Octavius Augustus, by the famous and influential Patrician Quintus Curtius. As his ancestor before, the Roman hero Marcus Curtius, he wanted to save Roma. Above that, Curtius family had a firm establishment in Gaul for around three centuries already, from Gaul Transalpina.

Later, the final triumph of Christianity over Roman Paganism is certainly owing a lot to the Ferocious Animals' crisis of the Ist century AD. There was a strange synchronicity at work.
De facto, the Roman imports of rhinoceros or crocodiles quickly dropped down. And they were the ones not hesitating to kill, or eat for the second ones human beings offered to them as sacrificial victims.
As it appeared far less costly and easier to capture, transport, feed and accommodate lions particularly, a change occurred in Circus and Shows. About tigers and leopards, they were rather considered as unreliable, with their totally unpredictable and capricious behaviour, which made them so dangerous for their raptors, and finally their masters themselves.
However, more and more often, the lions or lionnesses - which in a way are just very  big cats - were reluctant to attack and kill Christians.
The first explanation is coming from the power of prayer, which was able to move those very big cats' souls.
Another one is connected to the fact they didn't like much human flesh taste, which could cause them terrible toothaches, and digestive problems difficult to get rid of.
And a third one looks linked to what they thought about human beings, considered as a whole when they killed for pleasure and not for food, at their difference : as they didn't seem to have a soul, they could be rather stupid, vicious, and crual, especially towards their own brothers or sisters !




While the Roman Empire was entangled in its down-to-earth problems created by the crisis of Ferocious Animals, another civilization was developping quickly, silently, and cleverly, the Chinese one.

Two thousand years after the first crisis of Ferocious Animals, another one is raging. Quite recently, an African country (Namibia) delivered a permit to a Texan to hunt just one old, non breeding, black rhinoceros for the huge amount of $ 350,000.00, according to Time magazine.

Coming back to Lutetia where the Roman Palladium was transferred in the first century AD as mentioned above, this one has probably disappeared nowadays from the under-basement of Notre Dame de Paris, which was previously a temple dedicated to the major Egyptian Goddess Isis. You are not surprised then to realize Paris is losing showingly its radiance over the world.

In contradiction with the famous sentence of Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662), about the nose of Cleopatra which could have changed the face of Earth if it was smaller, the magic of this famous Queen of Egypt is reoperating now : her nose was thus certainly nicely small, against all odds !

Even her enemy, Octavius Augustus felt so uneasy and worried about her ritual Reptilian Death, that he ordered "Psylles" (Egyptian snake charmers) to suck off the asps' venom from her body, officially for her to appear as his prisoner in his triumph. But it was in vain. The venom and her spell were irreversible, and she got the last word which was in that very case, AHA !

Sunday, January 5, 2014

2014 : will it be the year of an Earthian sparkling science ?


by Jean-Jacques COURTEY, Doctor in Economic Geography, Ph. D
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We  just read an interesting article on Time magazine about Fear index for 2014, untitled "Asteroids, no, sharks, yes ?"
According to it, the fact an asteroid may strike Earth frontally this year is unlikely, and is given a mark of only a "mild anxiety", when shark's attacks on the globe are attributed a mark of "complete panic".
Yet the article doesn't give the reason why last year was so exceptional for shark's attacks, for instance about what they can sense with their natural infra-red captors. It doesn't quote they could feel a strange threat affecting Earth from the Sky or the Moon, which is so influential on the oceans' tide - not noticing then they could be the ones on panic first, before human beings of Earth !

Since last year, it is true that an effort has been made on the observation of asteroids threatening Earth. Before, it was concentrated on huge ones, which are rather rare and thus easy to detect and follow.
The problem about smaller celestial bodies is they are undetectable and rather unpredictable, on the contrary.
Last year, a celestial bolid exploded above Chelyabinsk in Ural (Russia), on February 15th : it parted over suddenly in three with a terrific noise, damaged badly 3000 buildings and injured around 1500 people completely panicked. Because of the gigantic area it covers, Russia can statistically be a main destination for celestial bodies falling from the sky, after oceans and seas. The shock wave of the explosion was the biggest one ever registered on Earth in modern times (with an equivalence of around 460 kilotons of TNT, against 15 for Hiroshima).

Yet, this catastrophe happened exactly at the same time another celestial body was narrowly avoiding Earth, the asteroid 2012 - DA 14, before becoming the second Moon of our planet since. Oddly, when 2012 - DA 14 was discovered in 2012 by the Spanish observatory of Granada, eight days already passed since it could have hit dramatically Earth !
So, it appears important to be able to detect such celestial bolids before they possibly strike our Blue Planet, and not to realize it eight - or now seven - days after.
About them, the probability they may fall in the Oceans or Seas of Earth is quite higher than hitting directly solid ground, as Water covers around 71 % of our planet.
There, we come back easily to the Squales' panic about this type of threat, which might kill them massively if it was unexpectedly occurring.
To us, specialists of sea biology should cooperate with astrophysists to be able to improve the Earthian forecasting of future massive catastrophes. About that, they should take on account the global human unability to use any potential sixth sense, which is not the case of sharks - or other species - for instance : the Earthian limitation is obviously a data to start from scratch.




Human beings are usually talented for "bla-bla-bla", and a good part of them behave often as "sharks" towards others, except when they are frightened.
Even when they preach about God, they habitually do it for other people to follow and submit. But themselves, they don't believe or apply much their own great principles... to simply create joy in life. They have an inclination for rituals and are then just superstitious : God could be saddened !

Human understanding and then science really need to be more sparkling this year.
And for the first time in many millenii, it can be at last.
What is necessary is just to change our glasses and try to see beyond the artificial filter of the Moon.
Let's be like "Moonrakers" if we can, and we could say Sunnyside is sunny once again !

The advantage of 2012- DA 14 is that next time it comes back, on mid-February 2014, it can be observed with binoculars in the concerned area.
Nobody knows why it doesn't go away into the far space, instead of staying as a tiny second artificial Moon of Earth, by trying to disturb it deeply with its intermediary position in between our two planets.

It is above our head constantly now, needing just around 33 minutes to reach Earth at the high speed of 7.8 km/s, if it wasn't a simple asteroid and could be rather called ZEDEREZA !
Strangely, even "L.U.C.I.F.E.R.", the ultra-modern radiotelescope of Vatican in Arizona (Mount Graham, USA), which is operational since 2011 was not able to detect it, when it narrowly avoided Earth for the first time in 2012 !