There is something about magic and wizardry that has always had a special appeal to me, even as I have grown up.  I was lucky enough to have a young sister when the first Harry Potter books came out and so I got an instant introduction.  I have an incredible amount of respect for the talent and imagination it takes to create a world so incredible and enthralling that in can capture the minds of children and adults.  This weekend I took my mom and my little sister (she's now 12) to see Order of the Phoenix.  I have been very cautious of movies.  The last couple of Pirates movies were somewhat disappointing, 300 was good but not Gates of Fire, and a whole slew of movies seemed just mediocre at best.   However, I had incredibly high hopes for Harry Potter 5.  Transformers was a great, great movie, and restored my faith that things that I considered awesome could in fact be made into stunning, entertaining, and fun movies.  For the cost of $10 a ticket + whatever else is needed, movies have to do a lot to be really worth it for me.  And Harry Potter was.  It is a very different movie from the first few.  The story is much darker, the violence in the series more real, the relationships and emotions more strained and complex.  It was a brilliant movie though, I thought every minute was outstanding and honestly can not wait for Elichia to finish reading the book so I can go see it again.

Most cultures have tales describing the end times - war, oppression, famine, plague, the return of one god or another, the war between some god and another.  We all see signs - global warming, wars, etc etc etc of the coming apocalypse, but none so telling, as a cat getting along with a mouse.

A knowledge of history is critical to the understanding of the world, there can be no question about that.  It is impossible to understand where we are and where we are going without understanding where we have been.  In the UK they are no longer teaching about the Holocaust or the Crusades out of fear of causing anger, insult, and offense.  

No nation on this earth is free from past transgressions.  Every country has engaged in its share of deplorable acts.  The lessons we learn from history are an understanding of how the acts occurred, what brought them about, how people were influenced to commit such things, all so that we might LEARN FROM THEM SO THAT THEY MIGHT NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN.  Merely ignoring events removes the worth from an education, and worse destroys and undermines the understanding of the world around us.  Without that understanding, individuals can only act in ignorance.  Without that understanding we are condemned to the inevitable repeat of past offenses and atrocities.  How can we hope to find a better future if we are unwilling to look to our past objectively and learn from it.

I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes, and it still holds true 

"The risk of insult is the price of clarity" 

 We must be willing to open our eyes, to become educated, even if it is uncomfortable and troubling, because this is how we grow as people and nations, but looking at the past with reasons so that we can gain KNOWLEDGE and act accordingly.  

I really do love Alanis, and this is the most awesome remake ever.

BRAVO 

Yesterday was the Ides of March, the day that Julius Caesar was murdered in the halls of the Roman Senate by a group of senators aimed at stopping his tyranny.  I will admit Caesar was one of my heroes.  History has gone back and regarded him as a tyrant, along with Alexander and many of the other great leaders who's conquests were military as much as political. 

Caesar, I truly believe, had a love of the Roman Republic.  A healthy ego as well, but he wanted what was best for Rome, he just also knew that at that momment, that he was what was best.  Or at least sincerely believed himself to be.  He saw the plight of many common romans and a senate that was unwilling, because of its wealthy status, to respond.  Caesar stood with the common people as the intro to Rome says, and for that they loved him.  

 Greece laid the foundation for democracy.  The Roman Republic extended the ideals.  But it was the Roman Empire, not the Republic that spread those ideals throughout the Western World from the British Isles across all of Europe.  Even when the empire fell, it was to Barbarians who only wanted to live as romans (see a lengthy, previous post on immigration and assimiliation) and maintained the same ideals as the Empire had.