Two ways of viewing history

• 1)Isaac Asimov, atheist, thinks history is at worst moved by people like Dorwin or the king of Anacreon, and at best by people like Hari Seldon.
• 2) JRRT and CSL, believing "there is an Aslan in Narnia", believing there is a Providence, they also believe there are people like Aragorn or Theoden or Faramir, and that sometimes they do a decisive thing ... even in Númenor there was an Elendil. Not that they ignore people like the Denethors or the Shifts or the Sarumans. Indeed, Haris Seldon is not quite unlike Saruman.

There is a practical consequence of this difference: Isaac Asimov thinks a Hari Seldon, manipulating and foreseeing human reactions for a decent purpose is one of the best things in history, but JRRT and CSL see such as one of the ways in which the downward route to the worst opens up.

When people knowing I like JRRT and CSL offer me Asimov to read, with a recommendation, I have fears, that they want to make me either a Hari Seldon type or a willing front man for a such.

Or, of course, they could just be considering me nuts and trying to keep me quiet with the least effort possible. But offering me a company where Asimov trumps Tolkien or where one at the table lumps them together as "sci-fi and fantasy" because they happen to be sold in same shelves in bookstores, or where a Muslim shouts down Classical Music, or where a hipster interrupts my reading to tell me how he called his former director more or less a child molestor or how he detests a certain non-socialist president of a certain country, believing me to be very much on the side of school-directors and that type of non-socialism, when in fact I would like to end school obligation both legally and practically and when in fact my non-socialism is somewhat different from that president's, well, that is not likely to change my convictions, just to damp my mood. And that has been done much enough already.

But is it not interesting that people who might be considering me nuts would be the same as those who share the convictions of Asimov rather than Tolkien? Or, if I am wrong on that one, that the people I imagine imagine me to be nuts are those who place Asimov over Tolkien?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Nanterre Université
26-IV-2012

On Real and on Supposed Paganising Syncretism

On a thread of Private Messages between myself and a moderator of Narniaweb*, just before I was excluded therefrom, I characterised Psychiatry including Counselling as "Idolatry of Apollo Delphicus, or at best Pharisaism".

Someone may have prayed, may have used magic or may simply have intrigued, though I am at present at loss to see how the intrigue could have worked without any supernatural element at all, that I get confronted with the usual rigmarole of accusations of Syncretism regularly levelled against Catholic Christianity since the 18th. C or at the latest the 19th.

As a result thereof, I came to spend some reflection on the fact that C. S. Lewis before he was a Christian argued his atheism rather - as does now Acharya S - from James George Frazer, the Golden Bough. And I picked up a French translation of the Golden Bough. And I read most of the first chapter in the King of the Wood.

External similarity in rite is everything to Frazer, because he thinks myths were only invented to explain rites.

And he thinks cruel rites must be very ancient.

And he thinks Catholics celebrating in same places as Pagans or on same dates as Pagans or in similar circumstances as Pagans are Pagans. In a certain sense perhaps we are. But in a more salient sense, as opposing Pagan error to Christian truth we are not.

James George Frazer enumerates the facts that:

• Diana of Nemi and St Leonard are invoked for childbirth and also for livestock;
• Diana of Nemi is celebrated 13th of August and the Blessed Virgin Mary, her Dormition awaiting Assumption (in the East) or simply Assumption (in the West, up to Pius XII commemorating Dormition the 14th) is celebrated the 15th of August: the difference of two days is not enough to argue against the identity of the feast says Frazer
• Hippolytus is in Nemi father of Virbius, and St Hippolytus the Martyr was, like his Pagan (or at least Ethnic) namesake, torn to death by his own horses.

Now, we will get back to my arguments for identifying Psychiatry with the cult of Apollo Delphicus, though in connection with Hippolytus I might add it is also in a way an impersonation of POseidon in the context of Theseus and Hippolytus. First I have to clean the honour of the Catholic religion.

James George Frazer was probably an atheist who wanted to explain both Mosaic and Christian religions from "immemorial" cruel or otherwise immoral cults like that of the succession of priests in Nemi. So, he was in himself not as incoherent as a Protestant citing his material against Catholicism. But he was a Protestant before being an atheist, and his material has been cited against Catholicism. So, let us try to imagine the coherence or lack thereof inherent in the Protestant argument against Catholicism from this Chapter I of Book I of the Golden Bough:

• Cruel rites like dressing up in blankets to burn houses of darker gentlemen accused of drunkenness, rape and racial mixture (some of the KKK might have liked a black man as little if he married a white woman as if he had raped her) is as recent as after the War of Secession. Boot camps like Ravensbrück and Guantanamo, death blocks like Carcel Modelo, some blocks at least in Dachau and Auschwitz, and like Abu Ghraib, not to mention a certain prevalence of similar things in Communist Russia, and for that matter school yard bullying and school compulsion for both bullies and bullied, all those cruelties are pretty recent. Whether one dreamt of them among Cro-Magnons in Dordogne, I know not, but under Alfred and Charlemagne they were unknown. So much for his assumption of "the older the worse".
• What coherence is it in assuming God to shun Diana of Nemi to the extent of refusing aid to childbirths and livestock?
• What coherence is it in assuming two days of delay in a feast, when Church feasts are regularly preceded by fasts, and stricter the further you go back in Church History, does not preclude identity of feast? THe first Christians to celebrate 15th of August must have fasted the 13th of August. And thus refused very strictly to participate in the feast of Diana and Virbius.
• And what coherence is it in assuming a Christian could not be called Hippolytus and if he was and had horses be martyred in literary reference to his older ethnic namesake?
• No coherence, no coherence, no coherence. This kind of argument is so sham it is a shame anyone could sink to it. Lollards had some kind of principle though a very mistaken one in their opposition to Feasts and Fasts and Special Intercessions: but the people who level that have nothing but prejudice.

Now, in same chapter I learn that Apollo Delphicus did not quite let off Orestes as easily as I had supposed: when he frees his sister, she brings along the Tauric Diana to Italy - and that is supposed to start the line of priests who murder each other to serve Diana.

Apollo Delphicus, better named Apollyon, destroyed the life of Akrisius, Oedipus and Iokaste, and through that also of Eteocles, Polynices, Antigone, Ismene, Kreon, Haemon. He destroyed them by making a prophecy that fulfilled itself by the superstition of those believing it, which is the opposite of the prophecy of God, which saves those believing it. He destroyed the lives of Agamemnon, Klytaimnestra, Aegistus, Orestes, Electra, Iphigenia by the orders of making absolutely odd and impious things which were done and destroyed lives through the superstition of believing one had to obey Apollo of Delphos as God Almighty. And psychiatry and counselling destroy lives precisely by the same means. Therefore they serve the same demon, even if the rites are in detail pretty different.

C. S. Lewis, in The Abolition of Man foresaw a generation (he called it generation X, and there is a generation called in media generation X), more emancipated than any previous from their parents and ancestors, more dictatorial than any over their offspring, remoulding or trying to remold what it means to be human.

He may have exaggerated the similarity between Christians and Pagans. But at least it is true that a certain generation in Christendom has a very special position: they were flattered by psychologists when rebelling against their parents, they are flattered now by psychologists when being strict against their children, the psychologists made them feel good then and make them feel good now. The psychologists hardly made their parents feel good back then, but then those already parents of young adults in 1968 were hardly their customers. The psychologists are not making the teenagers of today feel very well either, after what I have seen. And to me that proves the same demon who plotted the setting out of Oedipus when he was a child, a crime of father against son, and who plotted the murder of Akrisios when Oedipus was adult, a crime of son against father, is indeed at work again.

If anyone thinks I am wrong, take a look at whether psychologists are really predicting predictable things or are making self-fulfilling prophecies, whether they are really demanding reasonable things or demanding impieties.

For me the matter is sufficiently clear after my grandmother was mugged, offered analysis, and told at first - and therefore last - session that the mugging had only taken place in her imagination. That might have been what the shrink had been told, but what guarantee could he reasonably have had to think he had better knowledge than the very person concerned? None, obviously!

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Georges Pompidou Library
of Paris
Friday in Easter Week
YooL 2012

*Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere:
PM debate with a moderator
assortedretorts.blogspot.fr/2012/04/pm-debate-with-moderator.html

What is Mercurial about Hills and Mountains?

Well, first, why do I ask the question? Horse and His Boy is, according to Ward supposed to be the Mercury story. OK, then mountains have a lot to say in that book. Shasta is a mountain in the US, Aravis is a mountain range in France, Bree (as anyone knowledgable about Tolkien's LotR and its philological background will know) means hill in British. It is on a mountain range that Shasta meets and speaks to Aslan. Tashbaan is a hill - like Mont St Michel - and also an island between dividing and reuniting river arms, like Île de la Cité in Paris. And quite a lot of things happen there. Is there anything "hilly" or mountainous about Hwin? I came to think of Hven, an island between present day Sweden and Denmark, between Scania and Zeeland, where Tycho Brahe observed the stars (meaning he used it as Babylonians used fake hills called ziggurats, as observatories). And there is this two headed giant turned into a two piked mountain. But what is mercurial about this?

Go tell it on the Mountain,

over the Hills and Everywhere ...

But even before reflecting on second line, I searched for hills in the Psalms. Here is what I found:

I have cried to the Lord with my voice:

and he hath heard me from his holy hill.

And this is from Psalm III. Now, there are similarities between Absalom and Rabadash, notably both being sons of polygamous rulers, and both besetting someone who in a way reminds of Our Lord's anguish. In one case his own father. In another case Queen Susan. And each gets caught "on a hook", so to speak - with his hair or with his cloathes. Some reflections about the less than examplary Christian charity prevalent at King David's court in that particular moment may have become part and parcel of what we read much more cynically between Tisroc and Rabadash. On the other hand Rabadash got an easier deal than Absalon, in the end.

But between Mercury and mountains in Pagan myths? Well, here is French wikipedia on him:

Mercure est le fils de Jupiter et de la nymphe Maïa, fille de Atlas.

OK, if mythological Mercury is grandson of a mountain (Atlas), then the mountain and hill imagery in HHB someone fit. Even from a Pagan viewpoint.

H G Lundahl
day after previous article.

Some very stray comments on Planet Narnia, by Dr Michael Ward

Most of the pre-view by Amazon was footnotes, hope you remember where from in the footnotes. Either way, here goes, I quote in italics and then go forth to comment:

This author cannnot explain the Martial significance, if any, of the names Tarva and Alambil, nor even those of Caspian and Miraz.

To me Tarva and Alambil are prime evidence against PC being purely Mars: the lord of victory would indeed be Mars, but the lady of peace - most likely Venus (since the only other astrological lady is the Moon).

It made me speculate about each book being one of several conjunctions between planets.

Now, Miraz and Caspian is easier. A Roman Emperor was named Hadrian - and there is the Adriatic Sea. There is also the Caspian Sea, so ... as for Mars but also Jupiter, Emperor would tie it to Jupiter, but Roman to Mars. Miraz is a part of Spain, of the Camino de Santiago. As if the Camino del Norte, taken due to warlike Moors were not enough, it is the evening after leaving in the morning a place called Baamonde* - like the second family name of a very warlike, but not very wild, Spaniard eventually known as Francisco Franco Baamonde, por Gracias de Dios Caudillo de España. Since C. S. Lewis during the Spanish War was against Franco, unlike J. R. R. Tolkien and Roy Campbell (and me), and thus regarded him as an usurper, there might be some kind of hint there, though the character called Miraz is far closer to Shakespearean characters Claudius and Macbeth. Franco was a character who gained his self respect as a soldier on the Rif, fighting Moors, after having been seen by his father as the "dull one". There is of course a sense in which his wonderully moving Moscardó adventure can have inspired the saving of Caspian in the nick of time. But by and large, CSL regarded him as an usurper.

Already, Caspian has been relegated to the role of spectator at the single combat and prevented from avenging the father himself, because he is 'wounded'.

Now, since Jupiter has a Red Spot, woundedness is a part of kingship. Thus also Ransom who gets wounded in the fight with the unman, and in THS is seen as in his sofa, because he is wounded in the leg - like the Fisher King.

Caspian seems to be little more than a puppet moved about by other characters ...

Is that not typical of Kingship as actually often lived out? Look at the King in a chess board. It was a knight they found ... as they were to find Trumpkin and Reepicheep, but it was eventually to save the White Chess Board King against a Black much more active one.

Otherwise, my great objection to Dr Michael Ward's analysis was that obviously The Horse and His Boy must in such a case be Venus (Aravis' non-marriage to Ahoshta, eventual marriage to Cor, Queen Susan's non-marriage to Rabadash, a few other cases of people falling in love, and the luxury of Lazaraleen. Whereas the Magicians Nephew obviously had to be Mercury, due to the magic. And of course the travelling between the worlds. And Digory and Polly being sent with Fledge. And the tree in England communicating with that in Narnia.

But Ward has a point about Venus and motherliness. I was just the other day asking myself if all the divine parents of halfgods were demons, like the father of Merlin. I found it far more likely Venus Mater - mother of Aeneas - was human, but divinised by a sense of loss (one of the reasons St Thomas aquinas gives for idolatry). As for Venereal theme in two talking beasts of each kind and in Frank and Helen getting to Narnia, I confess I missed it.

HGL/Easter Week of 2012

*Xacobeo, Etapas, Baamonde-Miraz
http://camino.xacobeo.es/etapas/baamonde-miraz

Loi Naturelle ou Raison Naturelle?

Le passage fameux de St Thomas, Summa Contra Gentiles, le voici:

Secundo, quia quidam eorum, ut Mahumetistae et Pagani, non conveniunt nobiscum in auctoritate alicuius Scripturae, per quam possint convinci, sicut contra Iudaeos disputare possumus per vetus testamentum, contra haereticos per novum.	Deuxièmement, puisque quelques-uns d'entre eux, comme les Mahometans et les Payens, ne sont pas d'accord avec nous dans l'autorité d'une quelconque Écriture, par laquelle ils pourraient être convaincus, comme contre les Juifs nous pouvons disputer sur la base de l'Ancien Testament et avec les Hérétiques sur la base du Nouveau.
Hi vero neutrum recipiunt.	Mais ceux-ci ne reçoivent ni l'un ni l'autre.
Unde necesse est ad naturalem rationem recurrere, cui omnes assentire coguntur.	D'où la nécessité de recourrir à la raison naturelle, avec laquelle tous sont obligés d'être d'accord.
Quae tamen in rebus divinis deficiens est.	Quoique elle est déficiente dans les choses divines.

Un journaliste de PRÉSENT avait bien cité, d'après un dominicain, "raison naturelle" comme "loi naturelle". Ce n'est pas tout à fait la même chose. La raison naturelle se divise en raison théorique et raison pratique, et encore en raison universelle et raison appliqué aux particuliers. La loi naturelle en est juste la partie pratique et universelle. Donc, on peut par exemple disputer avec des Mahometans - on dit souvent avec des Musulman*, puisque ils recusent le vocable Mahometans, quoique ils sont les disciples (non adorateurs, mais simplement disciples) de Mahomet* de Mecque - sur la base de la raison naturelle aussi bien théorique que pratique.

On peut donc ne pas se borner à la Loi Naturelle, mais aussi parler de la Saine Philosophie. Attention: quand je dis saine philosophie, je n'entends pas Averroës* par ça! Leurs théologiens tel que Avempace* sont normalement mieux en philosophie que cet Averroës* ou encore Avicenna*. Comme, quand je parle des choses de l'Inde, il ne s'agit pas des Oupanichades pour ce qu'il y a de Saine Philosophie: d'ailleurs, il n'est pas nécessaire que tel ou tel secte ait une saine philosophie chez eux, il suffit qu'ils ne soient pas devenus insensibles à la raison - ce qui devrait être une occasion assez rare.

D'abord, on peut accorder que Mahomet et Ardjouna ont eu des rencontres comme ceux qu'ils ont racontés, l'un avec un être sur-humain qui se présentait comme l'ange Gabriel ou Djibrîl, et pour l'autre le dialogue avec son conducteur de char, nommé Krishna, mort et brûlé sur un bûcher sur lequel se jetaient quatre de ses veuves, dialogue raconté en Bhagavad-Gita, et pourtant ne pas accorder une autorité divine, ni à Bhagavad-Gita, ni au Coran. Il y a dans la raison naturelle quelque chose comme épistémologie raisonnable.

Et le fait qu'une révélation donne ou plutôt accompagne une victoire militaire autrement non miraculeuse n'est pas une raison suffisante pour le philosophe de l'accepter comme la vérité divine. Si par contre les troupes d'Omar et le prince Ardjouna ont eu tort à accorder à la divinité du Coran ou aux mystères panthéistes de Bhagavad-Gita leurs victoires, il y a eu des généraux qui ont été plus heureux dans leur choix d'invocation: mais ce n'est pas ni Clovis, ni Constantin qui ont inventé le Christianisme, il est plus vieux que ça, et ses miracles sont des vrais miracles, non seulement les victoires militaires.**

Il y a aussi un autre malentendu à propos de ce fameux texte: que raisonner à la base de la raison naturelle revient à raisonner à la base des sciences modernes, censées être d'accord avec la raison naturelle.*** C'est un peu comme si au lieu de se référer à la loi naturelle pour voir si un acte de régime est légitime ou tyrannique, on se référerait à une constitution dans l'abstrait pas contre la loi naturelle et ensuite on se demandait si l'acte était constitutionnelle ou pas. C'est à dire formaliste au lieu de rationnel.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
La Clairière, Paris II
Jeudi de la Semaine Pascale, 2012

*Mousoulmane - en Arabe ça serait un pluriel incorrecte de Mouslime. Le pluriel correct est Mouslimine. Mais Talibane est un pluriel correcte de Talibe. Mahomet - en Arabe Mouhammade (avec un H aspiré audible). Averroës - en Arabe Ibn Rushd. Avempace - Ibn Bajja. Avicenna - Ibn Cinna (?).

**Voici sur ce qu'il y a de Mecque, comparé à la révélation faite à Hésiode:
Φιλολόγικα/Philologica:
Sur Hésiode et les Héros. Et des Choses non-Grecs.
filolohika.blogspot.fr/2012/04/sur-hesiode-et-les-heros-et-des-choses.html

***Voici mes commentaires sur les thèses souscrites par Louis Eugène Bautain:
Triviū, Quadriviū, 7 cætera:
Contre le Fidéisme - et Contre le Quasi-Fidéisme des Athées
triv7quadriv.blogspot.fr/2012/03/contre-le-fideisme-et-contre-le-quasi.html

Sur Hésiode et les Héros. Et des Choses non-Grecs.

Il y a quelque temps, j'ai du discuter avec un Muslime (Musulman, c'est un pluriel, comme Taliban de Talibe), qui parlait un peu vite et m'interrompait quand je voulais répondre. Donc il n'a pas eu une bonne vue sur mes convictions, il était trop occupé de se convaincre lui-même qu'il avait le dessus dans les arguments, comme il l'avait réellement dans la vitesse.

À propos Notre Seigneur, vrai Dieu et vrai Homme, notre foi nous ne dit pas du tout qu'il était pareil aux héros comme Héraclès, Romulus, Énée et les autres. Mais nous ne sommes pas non plus obligés à croire que ceux-ci n'ont jamais existé.

Les nephelim ont existé selon la Genèse, et la lecture qui est la plus proche de l'épître de St Jude Thaddée et des textes que nous avons, peut-être en état mauvais, du livre de Hénoch (c'est pour cette incertitude que ce livre compte comme Apocryphe et non comme Canonique), quoique c'est contraire à St Augustin, nous disent que les nephelim ont été engendrés par des êtres angéliques déchus. L'histoire de Merlin l'Enchantateur nous rappelle que ces ruses pour les âmes n'ont pas cessé de corrompre vierges et femmes, et il ne nous est pas permis de comparer la Sainte Vierge aux victimes des viols démoniaques. Par contre, nous pouvons croire que les mêmes démons qui ont corrompues la femme d'Amphitryon (si ce n'était pas simplement une imagination de la part d'Héraclès) et la fille de Numitor ont été assidus à introduire des fausses cultes. Quand à Énée, il me semble possible que "Venus Mater" dans son histoire à lui soit plutôt une femme humaine. St Thomas nous dit que les démons ne sont pas la seule cause de l'idolatrie, mais il y a aussi la nostalgie envers les morts. Bon, nephelim ou non, ces trois personnes ont existé selon une tradition Grècque de l'Histoire Mythologique qui me parait beaucoup plus sûre que les traditions de la "Théologie" Mythologique: je ne crois évidemment pas que leurs parents soient "le dieu du foudre" ou "le dieu de la guerre" ou l'étoile du matin.

Par contre, il est une Histoire comment on a commencé à croire la Cosmogonie connexe à ces divinités, adorés par les idolâtres.

Hésiode était berger. Neuf Mouses - femmes très belles et indépendantes de la société humaine connue à lui et qui vivianet quand même très richement - elles lui sont apparues, elles lui ont taquiné parce qu'il était berger. Ensuite elles lui ont raconté l'origine des dieux et des choses selon cette "Théologie" Mythologique.

Est-ce leur sœur qui s'est égarée en Arabie pour se présenter comme "l'ange Djibril" à un Mahomet? Ou serait-ce leur faire injustice, vu qu'elles avaient au moins averti que parfois elles mentent pour le plaisir d'inventer, tandis que Mahomet n'a pas eu cet avertissement?

Le Coran a beau être en très bon état textuel, comme ce Muslime m'a expliqué, ça ne garantit en rien une origine divine. Non plus que la Théogonie, quel que soit son état textuel.

Et la tradition est normalement fiable en Histoire même chez les peuples égarés en Théologie. Les Grecs payens, après leur considérable oubli des choses avant le Déluge et après leur considérable abrégé des temps depuis le Déluge ont une tradition plus ou moins fiable, et elle soutient les chronologies qui séparent la famille de Moïse de celle de Notre Seigneur avec plus d'un millénaire d'années. Non, Miriam la soeur de Moïse n'est pas la Sainte Vierge, elles ont porté le même nom.

Le problème avec votre Coran, déjà sur le plan historique (sans parler de la théologie!) est cette abrégé considérable des temps pré-coraniques. Un peu comme chez les Grecs Payens. Et comme ceux-ci, vous avez eu un homme qui a vu une apparition qui a confirmé un tradition humaine - qui déjà humainement était probablement erronnée. Et ajouté pas mal - et non selon la vérité. La Bible ne se base pas en entier, ni en toute partie sur des apparitions: et là où elle s'y base, c'est très précisement vu que celle-là et conforme aux parties mieux prouvées.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
BpI Georges Pompidou
Lundi de Pâcques, 2012

How to memorise the Presidents of US ...

Well, I was seeing one page in which cramming info into one's head bit after bit was useless, because 8 (at least supposedly) is the maximum.

I wonder if some could do fourteen, as the genealogy of Our Lord from Abraham to King David, from King David to Babylonian Captivity and from Babylonian Captivity to Our Lord goes in fourteens.

Either way, here is my take on how to tackle the Presidents.

Washington was first. Not easy to forget him if you have ever come across US. Between Washington and Jimmy Carter - the first one I recall as contemporary to the news I was watching (did he beat Gerald Ford?) - there are some major landmarks: Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson (was he just after Teddy Roosevelt?), FDR and Truman just after him, JFK and Nixon. So break up the table into the parts:

• a) Washington to Lincoln;
• b) Lincoln to Wilson;
• c) Wilson to Franklin Delano and Truman;
• d) Franklin Delano and Truman to John F Kennedy and Nixon;
• e) Nixon to Carter;
• f) Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr, Clinton, Bush Jr, Obama. Check if there was a president between Carter and Reagan. Refer to this part as Carter to Obama, for short.

Break up Washington to Lincoln. I do not know them, but one landmark would be the President who made peace with England in 1813, and, if it was the same purchased Florida from Occupied Spain, i e Joseph Bonaparte and the Louisiana Purchase (much more than just the present state of Louisiana) from his brother Napoleon Bonaparte. Was it Alexander Hamilton (often a reference for Lyndon LaRouche in economic theory, but I cannot for the present remember for sure if he was a president) or one other? Then there is Polk of the fifty-four forty or fight incident. Why before Lincoln? Well, Lincoln dealt with Secession, and Secession invoked the precedent of fifty-four forty or fight about breach of agreement between slave states and non slave states. So Polk must be before Lincoln. Between Lincoln and Wilson you have the president who made the Spanish-American War and got Cuba and Philippines as protectorates.

Then fill in all of the spaces and make smaller lists. If need be make more landmarks.

Then learn each list separately until you know it as well as the list from Carter to Obama.

Or other possibility: start with the Carter to Obama list, ask your ma how many presidents she can remember before Carter in a row. Add those to the row. Then ask your oldest grandparents, add those presidents to the row. Then use lifelengths in your family as far back as your records of those go to figure out what presidents they knew or would have known if US American. And so on, till you reach Washington. For your own state, take care of Governors in same way, except that there are states that reach back before Washington or whenever they joined the union, to English Colonies, French Colonies, Spanish Colonies, and, if you like you can call Utah and Texas US Colonies as soon as Brigham Young or Alamo, since then they were no longer Spanish-Mexican or Amerindian controlled territory. But as for states getting back to Spanish times, even Texas, do not forget the Hispanic colonisers. Claro que no!

Note that in this venture I have not yet memorised more than I have mentioned here.

Hold Good Friday Holy, whatever remains of it where you are, and a Good Triduum of Easter 2012,

Hans-Georg Lundahl