Boy History and Girl History

In case you’re wondering where I stand on various histories. None of these have very good reasons, it’s just a sense and feel I get about them. Obviously I have some backing, knowing a lot of people who are at least interested in history, if not obsessive about it.

Greek Philosophers and Government – Girl History
Greek Warfare – Boy History
Greek Mythology – Androgynous, but girls seem to enjoy the gods while boys enjoy the heroes.

Romans – Boy History
Egyptians –Girl History
The Celts – Could go either way. Ancient Celtic art seems to be pretty evenly enjoyed by both sexes.

Medieval Literature – Girl History. While not exclusive, I’ve found girls are fare more likely to have read Chaucer and Geoffrey of Monmouth than boys are.
Medieval Knights – Strangely, another biunisexual group. However, girls are much more into the myth and romance of knights while boys are more into the solid facts.
Medieval Architecture – Boy History. Again, not exclusive by any standard, but only about one in ten girls will give a shit about castles and such while boys are nine out of ten. Everything changes when the Gothic cathedrals are broken out though, everybody loves a bit of gothic.

Skipping the Renaissance because it’s fairly evenly balanced on almost all points. True, girls are more into the pretty dresses and boys are more into the cannons, but beyond that they’re all over the place.

The Enlightenment…
Philosophy and social movements – Girls
Science – Boys

The American Revolution – Girls
The American Civil War – Boys

The Founding Fathers – Girls… EXCEPT!
Ben Franklin – Boys (Cause Benny was a pimp and we respect that)

Teddy Roosevelt – Boys
The rest of those Victorian and Edwardian ponces – girls

Gangsters – Boys
The Jazz Age – Girls
Jazz Music – Either

And from there I sort of run out of things. I think because the 20th Century is been pretty easy to split. You know who is interested in cars and wars and who is interested in musicals and Audrey Hepburn.

Now that you know where your gender expectations are, it’s up to you to defy them. Boys! Now is the time to express your interest in the Regency Period with all the pretty dresses and racism that goes along with it. Girls, now would be a lovely time to express the joy that you have in looking at suits of armor in the museum and pointing out which of it was battle, which was display and which was tournament armor. After all the only reason to have gender roles is to smash them with hammers.

Sadly you can probably guess that I am completely on the boy side of this list, but then I would be. It’s a list of my impressions on which gender is interested in which parts of history. I’m hardly going to say that an interest in the machines and science behind the Industrial Revolution is girl stuff. If I, as a boy, am interested in it than it is ipso facto boy stuff. The effect the Industrial Revolution had on society can be girl stuff though.

Can’t We Get a Man to Talk About This?

Someone suggested the Stuff You Missed in History Class podcast to me last week. Actually, they suggested it to a friend on facebook and I got a note and… this part isn’t important. What is important is that I really hope this show gets better as they go on. The first few episodes were amazingly short, but as they went on the shows got longer. The problem starts with the fact that as they shows got longer, the lackadaisical attitude towards preparation becomes more and more obvious. One of the girls, um, talks, um, like… you know, um, this. I can hardly begin to express how frustrating it is to listen to someone um and you know, their way through what is supposed to be an informative program.

The second problem is, they’ve got some facts, but it seems like they have little understanding on many subjects. It’s pretty clear in places that they read a wikipedia article, and maybe glanced at one or two other sources, and then sort of stopped looking into the subject at hand. It’s that sort of thing where you can tell when they’re skating around the edge of their knowledge by getting some pretty basic things either wrong or at least not quite right in a way that makes it clear they’re guessing.

I was doing okay though, for the most part, but their Crusades podcast just left me ranting. I’m a pretty sensitive new age sort of guy. I cry at long distance phone commercials, I cuddle kitties, and the fact that I once owned something pink proves I’m in touch with my feminine side. I’m not a misogynist by any standard, in fact I think women should be given far more important jobs so that I don’t have to do them. HOWEVER! I spent the whole of the Crusade podcast just saying… “Can’t we get a man in here to discuss this?” Mostly because the Crusades are BOY HISTORY! There are no pretty dresses, no egalitarian discussions on the importance of democracy, no clever fellows for girls to have history crushes on, none of that shit. It’s blood and sand and stupidity and war. It’s all the things boys like.

As proof, listen carefully for the story of men having to cut open their horses and drink their blood to try and survive in the desert. One of the girls says, and I motherfucking quote “Oh, ick!” Which just proves that these two should not be discussing this subject. If you ever find yourself saying something so moronically prissy as “Oh, ick!” then you need to step away and let someone else take care of this section.

What really got me was the end though, where they decided that The Crusades are not historically significant. Now, I think what they mean is the trendy poly-sci theory that to the political situation between the West and the Middle East, the Crusades aren’t significant to the political situation. Whoever says that is wrong, and stupid by the way, since they still celebrate King Baibars to this day in the coffee houses of the Arab world. The problem is, they don’t talk about it in those terms. They say “Are they historically significant?” “Um… no.” which left me shouting… “Except that the Crusades more or less brought algebra to Europe, along with new advancements in architecture, weapons technology, armor, tactics, language, food, understanding of the spice trade, art, literature, history, clothing, smelting, political changes across the board, and got Europe on the road of knowledge that would kick start the Renaissance! Yeah, if you ignore all of that, maybe they aren’t significant. I mean, Thomas Jefferson never fought in one and there were no pretty dresses at the Battle of Acre.”

You can maybe see why I’m sort of annoyed. I wouldn’t mind women talking about the crusades, I mind these two under-aged little girly-girls umming and oh icking their way through an examination of their ignorance. It just strikes me how much we sometimes divide history into channels, either deliberately or just by nature. It hadn’t struck me before, but I’ve clearly always regarded the Crusades and the Roman Empire as Boy History while thinking of the Regency Period and the Revolutionary War era as Girl History.

Also, the goddamned crossbow* was developed about 200 years after the crusades were over, it wasn’t invented for that adventure!

*The gastraphetes and Chinese Automatic variant not withstanding.

Edit: Forgot to add… Astronomy, navigation, heating and cooling technologies, asskickers, shitkickers and METHODISTS!

Not historically significant. You must be fucking kidding me.

The Buddha Day Request

Tomorrow is Buddha Day! In remembrance of that, let’s have an essay I wrote a couple of years ago!

Let me explain this for those of you who are Christian or live in primarily Christian areas as to why many non-Christians get fed up with Christmas and the forcing of Christmas upon us.

Let us imagine for a moment that you live in an alternate Universe where the Chinese used all those inventions that they came up with first and that Eastern Culture took over the world instead of Western Culture. Now let us imagine that there is a holiday at the end of December called Buddha Day. Now imagine that for two months solid, every store you went into, every ad circular, every commercial break on every TV and radio station had tons and tons of Buddha Day reminders. The Buddha Day music starts in mid November, the little red resin Buddha statues start being sold before Halloween, the big light up Buddhas start showing up before Thanksgiving. You start seeing Buddha Day things in August and the rumble becomes a huge blaring noise that just builds for four god damn months. By December you can’t go out of your house without seeing all sorts of Buddha Day decorations and being told to “Be Peaceful, Buddha Day is coming” and even when they don’t mention Buddha, you know that’s what they mean. The thin man in the green robes who delivers cakes on Buddha Day Eve might be an old throw back and more commercial than religious, but you KNOW what day he’s for. All the specials are for Buddha Day, all the commercials are for Buddha Day, all the “Holiday Editions” are always sold with traditional (if non-religious) Buddhist symbols on them.

And now here is the clincher, here is the part that gets you. No one knows a thing about Christmas or Christianity, in fact, they’re kind of dismissive about it. You tell people you don’t celebrate Buddha Day because you’re Christian and they say things like “Oh, but you must do something for it, right? I mean, for the kids at least.” Or they say things like “Oh, Christmas right, that’s the one where Moses comes back from the dead after being drowned in the big flood right?” and then they change the subject about this great gift they got their brother for Buddha Day. Anytime you try to say “Merry Christmas”to someone they give you a dirty look like you’re tying to corrupt their children with your evil Jesus thing, or they complain about these filthy minorities always having to have their own stupid minority holiday that’s just a cheep rip off of Buddha day. No one outside your little community sells anything (and I mean ANYTHING) for Christmas, you can barely find a little statue of Jesus for the dashboard of the car outside of the “Jesustown” shops. You felt lucky in the mid 90s when multiculturalism was hip and a Nickelodeon show did one (1) special just for Christmas although you can’t find it on DVD because Christmas isn’t very popular.

Under this system, you might get a little sick of Buddha Day after a while, wouldn’t you? I mean even people who celebrate complain about feeling worn down by it. It might even feel a little galling when you discover that half the Buddha Day celebrations are based on (you guessed it) Christmas celebrations that were in place before the Chinese took over Europe. For all their bitching about “The War On Buddha Day” its really been a war to squash the truth that Christians started this in the first place and are still out there. In fact you come to the conclusion that the whole “War on Buddha Day” is really an excuse to shove Buddha Day down your throat even more and to remind you that as a Christian you are a small minority in enemy territory. When anyone tries to be inclusive and says “Happy Holidays” instead of “Happy Buddha Day” small groups of religious loonies stir up a huge stink and act like Buddha Day is being erased from the calendar despite the fact that the one day holiday now covers fully a third of the year.

With all this in mind, don’t you think you might get a little hyper-sensitive about Buddha Day?

Maybe those who celebrate Buddha Day should confine it to December, at the very least?

I mean, I like Buddha Day, but I also like Christmas, Hanukkah, Dogbert Day, Yule, Kwanzaa, and all the other early winter holidays as well.

Respect for others and an understanding that not everyone celebrates Buddha Day would be nice at this time of year when we’re supposed to love our fellow humans.

Let’s not let Buddha Day take over and destroy all the other holidays, okay?

War through Film

So, let me tell you the history of War through the medium of movies.

Civil War is analogous to a movie you see.

The secessionists are snakes.
The blacks are a witness being transported.
Grant & Lincoln are a federal agent
The country is a plane.

For the early part, the snakes win. Some heroes rise, others fall, and no matter how competent Samuel L. Jackson might be, there’s just not enough of him to go around. The cranky asshole businessman? He’s Mcclellan. The dog he throws to a snake? That’s his career. The blacks wanted to help, but kept being told to stay up in the front of the plane by Lincoln. Snakes keep winning, until about Gettysburg. That is when Grant stands up and says “Enough is ENOUGH! I have had with these motherfucking Rebels in this motherfucking country! Everybody strap yourself in, I’m about to open some fuckin’ windows.” Then Grant and Sherman land the bitch and save the day.

And THAT is likely the last time you will ever hear anyone claiming that Kenan Thompson played Gen. Sherman in a movie.

World War Two is also a movie

The bullies (Axis) start fights, beat up a lot of people. America sits back and lets them, just wanting not to be part of it. A few fights happen, America has a mental struggle about wanting to fight back. Then, something happens. Might be smashing a car, might be destroying a prized possession, might be the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It doesn’t matter. The bully goes too far and America decides that they’ve had enough and decided that fighting back is really the only thing to do. So, they work out, learn from a master, go to the tournament and kick everybody’s ass. Yup. World War Two is The Karate Kid.

The Revolutionary War is simple.

Rich kids are dicks and keep the poor kids down for no other reason than the rich kids are dicks. So the poor kids? They lose, lose, lose, and lose some more. They’ve got spirit, but who can fight these rich bullies? About the 400th time they’ve got their butts kicked and it looks like the rich kids are going to win… someone gives a speech. It’s a rousing speech, a great speech and Epic Speech of Epicness. The Poor Losers, now roused to a level they’ve never been roused to before, put in what has to be the Rock Montage to end all Rock Montages. They call some friends, get some gear, and in one wild strike win the day! The Revolutionary War is just about every Teen 80s movie ever made.

I spend a lot of time thinking about things

I actually find it pretty offensive that these guys claimed all the horrors in the world were hidden in a girl’s ‘box’ and if she opened the ‘box’ then all the evil escapes. SRSLY! This and vagina dentata comes from the same mental place don’t they?

Don’t fear the pussy, that’s all I’m saying.

KEEP GOING!

Recollection

Sometimes I consider the idea that, no matter how many people claim to have seen me there, I didn’t actually lead the Children’s Crusade in 1212 A.D. Don’t get me wrong, I remember being there, but I don’t remember being the leader.

Actually, as I recall it, I’m the one that sold everybody to those slavers. I still feel kinda bad about that, but not much.

Fashion Police

Another interesting thing about history is there are often times when jokes were real.

Take “Fashion Police” for one example. That’s a term we apply to people who have absolutely no life, and regularly have zero taste, complaining about people who have done something with their lives dressing in a way that might not fit with the approval of complete losers. To call the current fashion police powerless and pathetic is hardly touching on the tip of that iceberg. That one person should be able to tell another what they can and can’t wear is merely the flapping of lips that have no better use these days.

HOWEVER!

There was a time when there was a sort of fashion police. I believe this was just in England, but someone can correct me if I’m wrong. I can’t find it quickly online and I don’t care to search, so you’re going to get recollection and people who know can tell me where I was wrong later.

During the mediæval period, after one of the waves of plague swept through, there was a time when common people started to have money. They’d inherited everything from all the people who died and could spend quite a lot on clothes now. The problem there is that the upper classes didn’t like the idea of upwardly mobile peasants. So, they got laws passed saying that you had to be a member of the landed gentry in order to wear shoes with pointed toes, furs, bright colors, silks, or those silly cone hats they always used to sell at Ren Fairs but I haven’t seen in a while. These were also the times when a woman wearing a pair of pants was grounds for her being burned at the stake.

This means there had to be someone walking around and making sure people were following the new laws, and thus there must have been Fashion Police.

Give me a good story

You know what I like most about history? The personalities that float around, particularly the bits that people don’t think to tell you in school. I’m not talking about historical sex lives, although that does come into it a bit. I am more impressed that Voltaire was banging the smartest hottie in France than I am by all the stuff he wrote. I mean, yes, I am impressed by what he wrote, but I’m more impressed that he understood the importance of intellectual tail as well.

I can give you a better example of a guy I remember because of his story. Tycho Brahe was an astronomer, who was one of the first people to really sit down and seriously observe the skies during the enlightenment. He was one of the first people to engage in rigorous and regular observation, even bringing redundant observation into the mix in order to check figures.

He observed a star suddenly come to life in the sky, which was supposed to not happen since before that it was understood that the heavens were static and unchanging. He coined the word “nova” which would later come to mean an exploding star. This just about changed EVERYTHING because it was concrete proof that what the church was telling people about the skies was wrong.

A king gave Tycho his own island, an entire island! There he built an observatory and got down to some serious stargazing. When current tools weren’t good enough, Tycho invented his own instruments to get better observations. He more or less discovered the concept of stellar parallax and was responsible for many tools that would later be used by every astronomer to come after.

He inspired the works of people like EA Poe and was well known to be a great genius of his age. His work allowed Kepler to make many of his discoveries and the influence he had on other sciences can be felt to this very day.

…

But none of that is why I remember him. I remember Tycho Brahe because he had a metal nose. No shit! He lost his nose in a duel as a young man and had to replace it with one made of metal. Often it’s suggested that it was of gold or silver, however when his grave was opened later in life it was found that there were bits of green on his skull which would indicate copper. It’s likely that after trying several metals, the copper nose was found to be lighter, or that it was a plated copper. Either way, what matters is the man had a metal nose!

He also kept, as pets, an Elk, dwarf, woman to have his kids and not marry, and all the local peasants. Oh, and Kepler, he pretty much kept Kepler as a pet too. You might find my calling all those things pets to be troubling, but you don’t know Tycho like I know Tycho.

AND HE HAD A METAL NOSE!!!! Had the man the ambition, he could have started S.P.E.C.T.R.E. four hundred years before Blofeld. If he lived today, we would need to send Daniel Craig over there to deal with him. Even then he’d probably need to take Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and even George Lazenby for backup! It’s only by the grace of Fancy that the guy never decided to try out his ‘rocket that would destroy London’ idea because the Double 00 sector hadn’t been invented yet.

These are the people I remember, and that’s the reason I remember them.

The thing is though, while the metal nose is interesting, it only works for me because he did all the other things. If he were just a nutter that had a metal nose I wouldn’t care. I mean who cares about Charles VI of France? Sure, he thought he as made of glass, and something in his life also inspired Poe, but with one good fever I could think the cats are the agents of the Aeltia, the Queen of Mars.

It only works if he did something significant as well.

She sure was neat… I mean great!

To be perfectly honest, when I found out that Catherine the Great didn’t really die from a horse-boning related mishap, she got a little less awesome in my mind. This is because I judge all historical figures by how they bowwed their chicka-wow-wow if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

…

I’m talking about how they fuck.

Plebeians.

Where was I?
Right Cathy the Great…
But then I learned that she DID get it on with just about every hot young officer in the country, right up to the grand age of 67 and it was alright again.