A JULES VERNIAN VOYAGE TO KENTUCKY My mother was French. French-American as I look back on her lineage now. Good names. Good families. Just like yours. We all have had such similar backgrounds, or I wouldn't be writing, and you wouldn't be reading, this recitation. Congratulations to us all. My mother was a Charette, a [...]
Category: Blog
The Caves, Cane, and Coal of Kentucky
THE CAVES, CANE, AND COAL OF KENTUCKY "Paradise" is what the first European explorers called Kentucky. And Kentucky still fashions itself as a Commonwealth. But it was known to many people, plants, and animals long before Thomas Walker crossed the Cumberland Gap in 1750, Christopher Gist visited Lower Shawneetown in 1751, or John Findley showed [...]
Surrounding Munfordville
SURROUNDING MUNFORDVILLE Kentucky. In the center of that Common Wealth. At the crossroads. The Green River running west, and Interstate 65 north and south. You have driven passed Munfordville many times. Why didn't you stop? Confederate General Braxton Bragg and Union General Don Carlos Buell stopped there. Fought there. For there is where the Louisville [...]
Three Rivers in the Civil War
THREE RIVERS IN THE CIVIL WAR Why is it called "Civil?" It was anything but. Still isn't. And to me, no buts when it comes to the carnage. Lives torn away from homes and families. Then bodies. And, in Kentucky, armies lined up along three rivers. The Cumberland, Green, and Tennessee Rivers. When Confederate [...]
The Mighty Mucal Mussels of the Muddy Moving Mansions!
MIGHTY MUCAL MUSSELS OF THE MUDDY MOVING MANSIONS Lucky am I, to look after my interests. Listen to my heartbeats. Fashion my feelings. Lucky am I, to focus on meanings. Seeing the real things. Touching with reason. That moving within me. That living without. Have we too easily escaped the shallows? Where we could have followed [...]
The Sea Peoples
THE SEA PEOPLES Rarely is change so complete. So damaging. So replete. Maybe when the Neanderthals were killed off? When the Roman Empire collapsed? When Chinese dynasties died? Catastrophic change. And none greater than the destruction of the great Mycenaean Palace states of Greece and the Middle East. Empires of chariots and bronze! Who did [...]
The World Order That Collapsed Before
THE WORLD ORDER THAT COLLAPSED BEFORE We often think that new weapons change the balance of power. Chariots in old Egypt. Nuclear bombs in World War II. And now, nuclear weapons in North Korea. It is tempting to believe that the great collapse of the late Bronze Age civilizations, around 1,200 B.C. in the Mediterranean, [...]
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AKHENATEN, TUT, AND ZANNANZA!
AKHENATEN, TUT, AND ZANNANZA! "My husband is dead. I have no son. But they say that you have many sons. If you would give me one of your sons, he would become my husband." And Pharaoh! The request is in Akkadian cuneiform, but from the wife of an Egyptian King. It is written to Suppiluliuma, [...]
THUTMOSE III OF EGYPT: GREATER THAN EITHER ALEXANDER OR NAPOLEON?
THUTMOSE III OF EGYPT: GREATER THAN EITHER ALEXANDER OR NAPOLEON? Power is a growing fire. The more it consumes, the larger the slaughter. It is only bound by the fuel it finds. Opportunity found to grow and follow. Follow a Pharaoh willing to wield its power. Follow him to Canaanite Megiddo. Chariots race the Jezreel [...]