Click on a "Label" Word

Instead of scrolling down through 500 posts take a look at the column to far right. At the top of that right hand column you will see the word "labels." Below that word you will see a long list of words. Those words indicate topics which may interest you. click on one a find out! 

 

                                                         RCS

 

Spiro Mounds Culture Lost and Found in Oklahoma

 

 Mago Bill YouTube archaeology of North America: Spiro Mounds  Culture Lost and Found in Oklahoma

 

 

 

 

History of mound robbing and looting in the U.S. Bad archaeology at the Spiro Mounds Complex in Oklahoma. The history of this site looting has been largely recovered thanks to the people of the great state of Oklahoma (Way down yonder in the Indian nation). This site was such a treasure trove that it was call the King Tuts Tomb of the Arkansas Valley. 

                                                        RCS

Mago Bill

Mago Bill as my great grandfather and Mago as a name in history and prehistory

 

 

 

                 My great grandfather was probably a Munsterman even though his parents brought him to the States as a toddler. Munster has long been the name of an area in the far south of Ireland.

     

                More exactly,Mago Bill is a name I have given to my great grandfather, M. William Sheehan. Sheehan is a fine and interesting surname, but Mago attracts me more.

 

                Spanish speaking friends tell me that in Spanish mago means magician and the like. Some also tell me that "the three kings'' or "three wise men" of Christmas are called magos and that each of them is a mago. This seems interesting to me but may have been of no interest at all to my great grandfather.

 

                However, I have been told that before Rome came of age and in the early days of Carthage, that Mago was an important family name among the Carthaginian Phoenicians. I see that Magos where friends and family of a famous guy by the name of Hannibal.

 

                Magos were well known traders, navigators, and military leaders of Carthage. Carthaginian traders and navigators came to Ireland for a variety of reasons. The main reason was probably tin. In the Bronze Age and beyond tin was important because without it there was little bronze. The Irish of the day were metal workers, craftsmen, and artists. They were also miners, alchemists, poets, and lovers.They seem also to have been impressionable for they heard the name Mago often from the visiting Carthaginians that a few infants were called Mago. From that time and centuries on, the name Mago was from time to time quite popular on the island.

 

                The name Mago and Mago Bill have, from time to time, influenced and inspired my research and writing of history. On this blog you may expect essays and post were so influence of Mago may be detected. You will see his influence to on my history blog and on my timeline blogs. d

 

                Thanks for your visit and thank you for reading this post so you have an idea of the source of the name for this blog which was a sort of flagship for these blogs.

                                                                        RCS

A Writing Group

 Mago Bill writing: One of the top values of a writing group is the variety of great feedback it often provides.

 

                The developing, growing, maturing writer learns to value the feedback of one's peers. Such feedback is precious and very often rare. Your writing group will be made up of fellow writers. In such a group you can have several knowledgeable readers telling you about the feelings and thoughts your writing stirred in them. They can tell you what they felt as they read a specific piece of your work. You can get regular feedback of several kinds from the members of your group.

 

                I hope to post more about feedback and other benefits of a writing group in future posts. This particular post is a short wide-ranging introduction to the subject.

 

                A writing group is usually about writing better without the use of a teacher. However, a writing group may attract more than one teacher, including teachers of writing. Don't be surprised if that happens, teachers are often learners who want to learn more about their subject.

 

                They might, however, need to be reminded that they are not there to teach. They are there as a learning reader and writer. They are there to be good readers ready to provide their honest reactions to that which they read. Each of your group members focus on telling you how she experiences the work you submit. Just as you will tell her how you experience your careful reading of her work.

 

Quickly moving forward, I here add actions you may consider taking before you choose a writing group or before making one of your own.You can:

~ Start writing and keep writing.

~ Find a writing group in action close to you and check it our.

~ Sit in a a couple of meetings to see how it may benefit or suit you.

~ Check  out online posts here and elsewhere about writing and writing groups.

~ Talk with a writing friend about forming a group.

~ Consider that most better writers have been good readers.

Once you better know your options and better know the kind of group you want, you might consider thoughts you would like potential members of your group to consider. Here are some sample points of the sort:

~ Find a time for your meeting and stick to it. Its fair to have have two writing groups each meeting at a different time.

~ Help one another to become better listeners and better readers as well as better writers.

~ Help each other to better know the kinds of feedback most needed and most wanted.

~ Decide on whether you want to handout your work to be read at home, to read your work aloud at meetings, or both, or what. 

~ When you read a piece in group, read it twice. You will find that two readings are much better than one.

~ Show up at meetings.

I enjoy and appreciate your comments about specific parts of the content of my posts. There is, I hope, a "comment" window just below. It may sometimes be marked with the words "no comments!"

 

This post appears on a new blog: Writing Better With RCS

URL: https://rcswriting.blogspot.com

RCS

 

 

 

 

 

 

Native Americans of the Hopewell Culture Its Probably Archaeology but I will call it History.

Mago Bill archaeology: people of the Hopewell Tradition of North America.

 

 People of the the Hopewell tradition were ancestral to many modern Indian Nations.          

                They may also represent an important tradition extending back in what seems a continuous line, to a time of the mega Fauna. They may even have used the atlatl as early as that. They had certainly maintained a recognizable way of living extending hundreds of years into the past.

                The Hopewell people, like many other Native American people, were matrilineal. In such cultures a man and a woman may have joined under the name of the woman's family. The children of such union may have had the responsibilities and privileges of the female line. If I, as a male, were a member of the culture, my "surname" would become that of my wife's mother, grand mother, and great grandmother. My children would bear that name. I might become known for the doings of my wife's family. 

                I am far from sure of the ways their particular matrilineality effected their culture. However even the little we can learn may help us to better consider how Patrilineality may effect a culture. 

                The Hopewell have been called Mound Builders and came from a long line of such builders. They built more than complex mounds; they built a variety of interesting earthworks.

They also made tools and artworks of stone, mica, copper, bone, wood, and much else.

                A work of theirs is called the Newark Earthworks and is located near Newark and Heath, Ohio in what is now the U.S.A. Three sections of this work have been identified and called: the Great Circle, the Octagonal, and the Wright Earthworks. As you may guess the complex was built by people we call Hopewell, The work was done between 100 BC and 500 AD. The Hopewell may have begun a decline as early as 400 AD. The Great Circle has called the biggest earthwork circle in the world or in the U.S. It is very big. It is believed to have been used as a place of ceremony, social gatherings, trade, worship, and honoring the dead. 

                Scholars have demonstrated that the Octagonal Earthwork was used as a lunar observatory for tracking the moon's orbit during its 18.6 year cycle.

                Trade: Evidence of their work and commerce has been found from south Florida and near the mouth of the Mississippi to the Great Lakes, and from the Rocky mountains to the Appalachian mountains. and some say, to the Atlantic coast of North America. Much of such evidence is concentrated in the drainage areas of the Mississippi, Ohio, and Missouri rivers.

                After 1492 Europeans were becoming aware of the earthworks of the Hopewell and Adena people. First the Spanish and later the French commented on some of the mounds being abandoned and over grown with grass, brush, and trees. The English and American colonists became curious of mounds at an even latter date, They dug into them. They found goods; goods of many kinds from pottery to gold. Some of their finds were wonders. Including skeletal remains of persons of a bigger of a size than any of the finders.

                Some of the finders were interested in that which could be sold. Others wondered who the builders could be. Certainly not the few sad Indians they saw around them. The Indians they saw around them were the children who's families had been diseased and cruelly exploited  by Europeans for over 300 years. What you see is what you get. They were not seeing the "noble redman." We are still learning about who those builders were. We still have much to learn. Most of the evidence points tot  the Native people living near us today.

                For now, I will say that it has seemed reasonable to believe that the Hopewell people experienced a peak in their culture from about 200 BC to about 400 AD. They were proceeded by an interesting and long lived culture called the Adena. Like the Hopewell they traded from the Gulf of Mexico to a bit beyond the Great Lakes and all along the Mississippi Drainage system, including the Ohio and Missouri rivers. There is much evidence that the Adena were active from about 1,000 BC to about 200 BC.

                I hope to post about the Adena When I believe there is interest among my readers.

                Experienced ones say that we have much of value to learn from the signs left by our Native predecessors, if we would dig carefully.

 

                Thank you for reading.

RCS

Search of and Benefit from This Blog

 This Mago Bill blog has a lot to offer for those willing to search it.

                You can learn a lot just by scrolling down its posts. After viewing a number of post you will find near the bottom of the pages words such as "older posts." Click on those words and you can find posts new to you. You may be able to complete that process many times.

            There is a simple search function at the top of the blog which you can use by briefly typing in your interest and clicking. The function is named by the word "search." type  in your interest and click.

                A way of searching here which I find handy and interesting is the label column at the right of the blog. Labels  in that column contain one word or short phrases topics actually available a a click. Next to some of those Labels you will find a number. That number tells the number of post in which that topic may be found!  Click on topics which interest you and be taken directly there. After you have reviewed the offered topic you may find the words "older topics." Click on those words and you may find different posts on your topic. 

Also, I imagine that you have found the section that says ""Popular Posts" and offers examples of  posts others have found interesting and valuable. Click there and be taken to the complete post.

Another feature which you may find interesting can be found at the top of the left hand column. There you will find the word "Translations." Click on it and you will be presented with a list of languages. You are very like to find one in which you are proficient there. Click on it and the post you are one will be presented in your chosen language. Perhaps not a perfect translation, but often a very helpful one.

Please record your corrections, questions, additional information, or comments in the "comment'' section below.

I wish you useful satisfaction and pleasure on this blog.

RCS 

Memories of Covid 19

 Faith, Governance, This Virus, and Lessons To Be Learned

            Poor health is keeping me from posting much these days, but just now I feel stirred to write and publish this post.

            The genesis of this stirring seems to start as follows: Yesterday evening I watched a bit of a YouTube video by Richard Wolff. I suspect that I did not even watch it to its end. Last night I had dreams about our wars and dreams about our political beginnings. Vietnam seems to have dominated those about our wars and that dreams of our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.

            This morning I awoke slowly, feeling weak, fatigued, and exhausted as has been usual in recent weeks. However, I soon remembered something of my dreams and tried to remember more of them with little success. Then I began to recall a bit of the Wolff video to which I had not paid close attention.

            It seems from my present perspectives that the video was about Lessons Learned (or learnable) from our Covi experience. I have not tried to revisit that video as I believe I would have in other days; so, some of what I write now may be more Sheehan than Wolff.

            As I remember, Mr. Wolff chose the following countries useful for comparing the quality of their dealings with The Virus. The countries he chose as good examples of dealing effectively with Covi: China and New Zealand, Taiwan and South Korea, Cuba and Vietnam. The two countries he chose for dealing poorly with that virus were the United Kingdom and the United States. Wolf, it seemed, felt that he saw evidence that the people of the first six countries also had more faith in their government than the last two I mentioned.

               I believe that such comparing of the governance of a people with their ability to deal with This Virus, could aid us in learning an important lesson or two.

            Wolf himself seemed to believe that he had evidence that the people of the first six countries demonstrated a belief that their government had the power and ability to deal well with the Virus and so cooperated in that dealing. Wolff also seemed to have thought that the people of The U.K. and The U.S. did not have faith that, at this time, their government was ready, willing, and able to deal with This Virus successfully. 

            Do you think that our dealing with The Virus has to do with our faith in our government/governance? What do you think we might learn from our experience with the Virus? What is the state of our faith in our government? What would you like the nature of our governance to be? What is our responsibility for the nature of our government? What important governance might we be able to learn? What would be a good simple measure of the quality of our dealing with this Virus? Would the % of deaths or the number of deaths per hundred be a useful measure? What could we learn, that is useful, by looking at more successful dealing with the Virus as compared with the real nature of governance of, say, 100 countries? How might the U.N. be useful in this effort? Why? How might my going back to bed and forgetting about all this be helpful?

            My questions above may be taken as rhetorical, but there is a window below called "comments" and sometimes "no comments!" I that window you may put questions of your own, or answer mine, or make comments, or one comment.

            Thanks for reading.

 

 

                                                                                        RCS

 

More Than Virus

 Mago Bill science related: More Than Virus, climate change   

    The water's ten foot high and rising; seems a good time to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and not mess with mister in between.

    We see some thought provoking happenings and doings around us these days. Some few trained expert observers, some few men and women are keeping an expert eye on the happenings in our arctic and sub arctic around what we have called the north pole and they are saying that what they see happening there is happening more than twice as fast as are the worldwide changes. Did you get that last sentence?

    I have begun to check out what they've been saying and that is what has led me to thoughts of "high water."

     I'll try to write briefly and sensibly about some of that which I have been discovering. It won't be easy, because it seems to be much worse than they seem to be saying. And it seems to be happening much faster than they have been able to say. We are beginning to see bigger changes happening in shorter periods of time than gandpa and great gradpa saw in their lifetimes. Changes we have not experienced in our lifetimes  are happening from one year to the next. The changes are big and important.

    The only good thing seems to be that these changes are not our fault. The fact is that we don't have a snowball's chance in hell of stopping them. We don't even have to survive them if we don't want to. There are things we can d to survive them and to help our children and youth to survive them.

     Just as we don't have much chance of stopping the rising flood, there are some sensible things we can do and ought to do. I would very much like to give the young a better chance of surviving and even thriving.

    For now I just offer a view of that which seems to  have begun to cross our path.

    To avoid being overwhelming, I'll restrict myself to telling a bit about melting ice and thawing permafrost, and that which is being released.

     Here goes, to begin with its water, a lot of it. Ten feet high and rising. Not surprising, but true.

    A few years ago some 75 year old anthrax was released and it killed about twenty raindeer and one boy. Merry Christmas. Some snow and ice was bulldozed over it. That snow and ice is melting. 

    Some radioactive waste has been exposed. And oh, oh. Some think more is being exposed.

    Some very old antibiotic resistant bacteria is being released and no one is stopping that release. And, other bacteria are reviving.

    Happenings keep happening.

    Who is to blame. Not me. A fair number of good scientists say that slow and not so slow shifts, and wobbles, and such of our Earth's axis have been causing changes in our climate since long before Noah. Right now the best of them are saying that such axial tipping has led to a warming of our northern hemisphere, because we are tipping so as to get a bit more sunshine each year. That's probably not the fault of anyone we know.

     Now that you might be semi-stunned, I'll put out some more thoughts, information, a couple of questions and a suggestion that you begin to check some of this out for yourself.

    There is now a rapid release of antique methane gas from arctic and subarctic melts and thaws. Could that include the release of  ancient virus?

    Could such melting and thawing turn out to be an existential threat to humanity?

    May pay us to wake up and be more aware.

     Permafrost, by the way, is frozen wet soil and plant matter that has frozen many yards down. Its been frozen so long that it has been called permafrost and houses and airports have been built on it.

    Among the matter being released from thawing permafrost are gases including CO2 and methane. We have a lot to learn. You may have to look stuff up. I did.

    Methane burns and causes burning which puts more CO2 in our atmosphere--which is our "greenhouse gas." Greenhouse gas causes warming of the Earth which causes the melting of  Earth's ice and permafrost which releases ... Of course  burning causes  the release of other stuff too. Like soot. Black soot covers white snow and frost and being as dark as soot, absorbs heat from the sun and so causes the melting of snow, ice, and permafrost which releases... You can start to figure it out.

    Methane and other stuff being release can be useful. Methane's the main part of "natural gas" widely used for cooking and heating.

    Then again methane is  suffocating, colorless, odorless and is increasing as a percentage of our atmosphere. I remember it being called swamp gas and as causing mysterious fires in swamps.

     I hope our youth find more time to learn more about chemistry than we did. There is a lot to learn. We might end up learning a thing or two ourselves. This "new" world may be a tough place for an old man and not so easy for an older woman either.

     Just about thawing and melting there is much more to learn. For example, northern ice in contact with warming sea water is melting and releasing  ancient matter into the sea and that includes mercury. Mercury accumulates in plants and animals and often does them harm. Top feeders, like humans, get harmed a lot.

    Now I find that shallow seas and not so shallow seas have at their bottom earth and vegetative matter frozen to great depths much like permafrost. And now like permafrost it has begun to melt and release methane and much else. There in the sea depths CO2, virus, bacteria, and uncounted other materials are being released into the water and air.

    The sun shines east and the sun shines west. The sun shines best on that part of the Earth tipped toward it. That's us here in our northern hemisphere. Earth's axis slowly nd not so slowly wobbles and tips a bit differently each year. The tip we are now experiencing is one of the more extreme tips of recent centuries. Lucky us.  

    Changes are a bit more extreme than we have experienced in our history. So, for example, Canada may soon have the best far north year round sea ports seen in our time on Earth. They can expect some competition from Russia. Canada may grow tropical fruit in their south. However they may both hundreds of years before either grows another good wheat crop. I may be exaggerating a bit but, great climate changes lead to great changes in growing patterns

    Some of this stuff needs to be repeated to sink in. From the thaws and melts in our north come massive emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and other gases, and also a variety of microorganisms. These emissions lead to other changes. 

    Metals are being released, among them, mercury. Mercury is toxic, causes brain damage and it accumulates in human bodies as well as in fish, fowl, cattle, etc. Mercury accumulates in seaweed I'm told. We use a seaweed product to make ice-cream.  So, one way we may help our children is to take away their ice-cream.

    Sorry, but stuff is happening and more shit is coming. Its a good thing that we can learn, We have a lot of learning to do. We still have the job of taking care of ourselves and our children. There are not only massive emissions of CO2 and methane already here, but ancient and new sources of disease are also being released. And we are still having trouble protecting ourselves from one weak little c19 virus.

     Frozen fungi, spore, bacteria, and virus are being released from 500 years ago, 1,000 years ago, 10,000 years ago, 20,000 years, 30, 40, an 50 thousand years of frozen sleep! Many are reviving. Some have been revived. Most are of little danger to us even when they are very live. Some are of value to humanity. Some others would sicken and kill us. Where did C19 come from. Weak little bugger.

    Researchers have revived one virus which had been frozen for more than 30,000 years. It was reactivated, revived right before their eyes. It is one, it seems, which does us no harm.

     There are thinks we can do to protect ourselves and our children. You can think of a thing or two yourself. With friends and neighbors, more. With the help of students of the problems and of scientists, even more. With cooperation we can do a lot. We can organize, We can handle these dangerous changes. Trying seems a lot better than calling one another names.

    Some few persons began to do what they can some years ago. They have been doing what they can to protect themselves and others. Some have been collecting and saving seeds and storing them in 'safe'' places. Crops that were once grown on one continent may no longer grow there. That's a big change which can cause massive movements of people and crops. Some people will find it useful to have seeds which will grow where they are. One of the largest and most famous of these 'safe' sites for seeds came to be called the Doomsday Vault. That vault for preserving seed has been invaded by melt water. Melting is proceeding faster than anticipated.

     Change continues at a faster rare then we have been accustomed to.

    Bacteria dormant for many centuries and trapped in permafrost and ice are reviving with warming and melting, and thawing. This release is happening much more rapidly than we were prepared for. Time to get busy.

    Some good things may happen automatically. Perhaps one of the few bacteria that can be deadly to humans will kill enough of us so that we will no longer feel the need to kill so many of one another as we have for so long.

    We know that vectors for anthrax, smallpox, Spanish flu have long been trapped in ice and permafrost. And now that some are reviving. Might we be able to learn something from our public health expert that we can use to help one another.

    We were once accustomed to cooperate to protect one another. I bet that there are some truly helpful things we can do. We could try killing fewer foreign health experts. I'm willing to try.

     Recently history seems to be catching up with us. A couple of years ago a 30,000 year old non dangerous virus revived. An 8 million year old virus is said to have revived. A giant virus has revived. Potentially dangerous virus are reviving. Recent studies suggest that antibiotic resistant bacteria many millions of years old are reviving. Holy Moly!

    It might be good to start some conversation about practical doings for interested parties to take up. We could ask experts what's what. We can get ourselves taught. We could try to arrange to cooperate to live.

    Do you think that this has been less than a pile of words. Check it out for veracity. If you don't know how to check it out, this might be the time to learn.     

    Thank you for reading.

 

 

                                                                    RCS

 

                                 

     

Let Us Work

 Put us to work testing and tracking.

Testing and tracking lets us work.

testing an tracking

Testing and tracking.

TESTING AND TRACKING!

Lebanon: Not Blown Away

Mago Bill history: Divided, dominated, and blown up. Is that a way to describe Lebanon?

 

    The people of Lebanon are Lebanese. The Lebanese deserve to be honored for who they have been and who they are. They merit our moral support for the rebuilding the nation they can be on the word stage. They can also be a profitable people with whom to do business.

     This tiny, durable, country has a history of contributions to our world. Its people have been known for their cosmopolitan diversity of culture, including that of religions. They are a modern republic and the smallest sovereign state on the mainland of the Asian continent. And I thought it was in North Africa! I have some learning to do. 

 

   There is strong evidence of a rich, well developed culture there going back to 6,000 BC. More recently Lebanon was a seat of Phoenician culture. That maritime culture was active from about 3,200 BC to 539 BC and shared that culture from Lebanon to around the Mediterranean, and to beyond the Pillars of Hercules to as far as Ireland.  In 64 BC the region of Lebanon came under the rule of the Roman Empire, where it became a leading center of Christianity.

    Mount Lebanon was home to the early Maronite Christian Church and maintained its identity through the Arab conquest. Druze took over the Maronite homeland. The Druze are, to this day, a small, but important presence in Lebanon. Druze are considered to be an Abrahamic religion which is neither Muslim, Jew, nor Christian. Maronite Catholics and the Druze are considered to by many to be the founders of modern Lebanon. Druze are only about 6% of the population of today.Still, they may be more important to their country than there numbers suggest.

    Lebanon was conquered by Ottoman Turks in the 16th century and remained under their dominion for 400 years. At the end of WWI they came under the French Mandates. Under that mandate, Lebanon grew a bit but did not grow more united.

    From 1975 to 1990 there was bloody civil war In Lebanon, which led to the country being led by Syria and Israel. 

    Despite all the divisions and dominations, this 4000 sq mi republic lives. There has never been a republic like it. It has been accepted within international law as a "unitary, parliamentary, multi-confessionalist, republic." It seems that multi-confessionalist" refers to the country's acceptance of many religions. Just below is my attempt to expand on this sentence just above.

    Others have called Lebanon a "parliamentary, democratic republic" but add, "within the overall framework of confessionalism. I learn that "Confessionalism" is a kind of "consociationalism" in which the highest offices are proportionally reserved for representatives of certain religious communities. "Confessionalism" I see, is a mix of politics and religion which usually entails distributing political and institutional powers proportionately among confessional communities. "Confession--" here refers to the profession of a certain religious belief. Goals of consociationalism are: stable government, survival of democracy, and the avoidance of violence. A "tough row to hoe." Lebanese have some work to do. 

    When a people agrees to a certain republic, the great majority of citizens must be taught it and retaught it. That teaching includes how it works and how to work it. I have said "taught," but "taught to one another" could be better.

    Lebanese are Respected in Europe, the Arab world, and where ever they are known. They are respected for their culture and for their continued existence as a nation. Lebanon has also been known for their large and influential diaspora. When it has less need to struggle against foreign intervention, it has promptly become a stable financial power. It has profited from tourism and has busy agricultural production. Its people would appreciate the opportunity to do more. Left to guide itself it cam to rank high on the U.N. Human Development index. It is a founding member of the United Nations.

    Lebanon has been around for a long time. It is mentioned in written history from about 5,600 BP. It is mentioned in Sumerian tablets and in the Epic of Gilgamesh. It was a center of the Canaanite City States. Byblos kept records of dealing with Lebanon. This tiny country can be called a source of early cultural influence on Greek, Jew, and Phoenicians, and to much of western culture as well. And, as I am beginning to understand, a home for Christian, Muslim Druze, and more.

    I have mentioned that the capital cit of Lebanon is Beirut, Haven't I? When France was was a diplomatic center of the world and the people of Paris were called the most cosmopolitan, people of Paris called the citizens of Beirut cosmopolitan.

I know we can let Lebanon be, if we will.

Talk to us. there is a "comment" section below. When You are first to comment, it may read "no comment." Click on it. You're a boss here.

 

  

                                                                            RCS

 

                                              

 

 

Around Boulder Dam

Mago Bill history: USA: Memories of an early visit to Hoover Dam.

            They begin with times during WWII. You may know WWII as The Second World War. I knew it as The War. But this is not exactly about that war.

            My father was driving us around the U.S. Southwest. It was a big deal, with gas, oil, tires, and tubes being rationed as a part of the war effort. That brings back a lot of memories. Many things were rationed and lines to get them were long. We stood in lines for meat butter, and nylons. My father may have been combining touring with looking into new work. However, I will try to stick with the "Boulder Dam" story.

            Soon we were at that new dam and parked right on it. Then we were going down on an elevator to below water level. I was wide eyed, looking, and listening, perhaps with my heart beating faster than usual. On the elevator were some workmen who were still working on the dam. My father was talking with them. I think they were talking more about the war, the depression, and the president, than about the dam. For the times, a great dam.

            We saw some plaques telling about the great Hoover Dam, the great desert lake that it formed and the electricity that it was providing. The workmen on the elevator were telling my my father that they called the dam Boulder Dam, in part because of the great boulders moved while building it. But mostly the did not like to call it Hoover Dam, because Hoover had been such a bad president that he didn't deserve to have the dam named after him. They did not wnat the dam to be named after him.

            President Hoover had been of the Republican party. The President at the time was FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, of the Democratic Party. Most people liked President Roosevelt and so did the workmen. Both parties were different then from now. FDR is the first president of which I have living memories. I am back in memories of more than 70 years ago, damn.

            I have just looked at an old newspaper online. It was dared March 4th 1929 and in it I read "Herbert Clark Hoover is inaugurated as President of the United States." A bit farher along it goes on. "He announces tht the government should assist and encourage these movements of of collective self-help." That announcement makes me think that he may deserve to have the dam named after him. 

            I do not remember those "movements of collective self help." They were before my time. Still, they have a pleasant ring to them.

            But, I acknowledge that I have liked the name Boulder Dam since that family visit there.

            FDR was our president then and he was OK.

            President Hoover may have died in 1964, I think. If so he live long and prospered. The year 1964 felt like a turning point in US history. The country felt different after that, especially the politics. About that time everyone seemed to have begun to use the word "them" when speaking of the government. Before then I remembered everyone using "us" and "we" when speaking of the government. We didn't say "the government" we said "our government."

            Anyway President Hoover was a Progressive Republican and raised a Quaker. All to the good. He was interested in getting rid of inefficiency in business and government. Sounds good to me. He was president  as our country fell into economic depression. Tough on him and nearly everyone else. He lost some points and votes because he supported the unpopular prohibition of the drinking of alcohol.

            Hoover Dam was part of a good public works program designed as a practical method to get wealth flowing and put people to work. The dam is still a useful part of our national infrastructure. Hoover deserves some credit for that program.

            I might find incentive to write about FDR later.

Writing this little piece has brought many memories to me. I remembered much of the dramatic beauty of the American Southwest, our awareness of economics and politics, the World War, the high hopes, the memories of a child

            We have a lot to learn as we continue to interpret the doings and happenings of our not so distant past. We will need all of our experience, good sense, and cooperative skills as we move into our future. 

Thank you to those who use our comment section and to you who reads our posts.

            RCS

 

 

Mago Bill History Notes

Mago Bill Inspired History Notes

 

            You may remember Mago Bill as the name of some of my earlier blogs. You may remember that I believed that the given name of my paternal great grandfather was Mago William. While that Mago may have been called Will, he may never been called Bill, but it makes me smile to do so.

            My, somewhat imaginary, Mago Bill has inspired my interest in history and supported my political vision.

            Thoughts of Bill, Mago Bill, lead me to the following. An earlier Mago and the Carthaginians had certainly heard of Atlantis, but that fabled land had been lost for thousands of years before these Phoenicians posted themselves near the Pillars of Hercules. Those pillars may have been called the Pillars of Atlas, or even the gates of Atlas. They certainly guarded the way to the great Atlantic Sea and to the isle beyond the Western Isle.

            The paragraph above leads me to thoughts of many stories, but I will stick to my notes on those who knew the name “Mago” well.

            They were a knowledgeable people whom we might now begin to call Carthaginians. They knew much of trade and navigation. They also knew of mining, metallurgy, the writing of languages, and of defense and attack on land and sea. They were seamen. They that the islands not too far beyond the Pillars not only contained gold, silver, lead, and tin, but also contained men who knew about mining and metal working. They may have known about the little people who could follow the veins of metal deep into the earth. Those Carthaginians knew that men all around their smaller sea valued tin for making their bronze.

            The name and perhaps title of Mago was well known among those Carthaginian Phoenicians. I have found the use of title among them as early as 750 BC. You may find that it was used much earlier. I do find strong evidence that they were carrying on trade with the Western Isles from 500 BC to 400 BC.

            The Magonids were a political dynasty of Carthage room about 550 BC to 340 BC. The dynasty began with Mago I, under whom Carthage became prominent among the Phoenician colonies in the western Mediterranean. Under the Magonids the Carthaginian Empire expanded to include Spain, Sardinia, Libya, and Sicily. Diodorus and Herodotus often better tell us of the doings and happenings of the Magonids more honestly than do the Romans.

            There was a Mago II and then a Mago III who led the Carthaginians. There also seems to have been A Mago who commanded, or navigated for the trading fleet which connected the Western Isles to the Mediterranean. You may know, or have guessed, that the isle beyond the western Isle is the island nation we call Ireland.

            It might have been Mago, that knowledgeable ship-master, who so impressed a Sheehan as to name his or her son Mago. My great, great grandfather called his son Mago William. That is a source of my inspiration to call a blog of mine “Mago Bill.”

            In more recent history the name Mago appears from time to time. Here are a few examples. A historian writing in Ireland in 1691 AD writes of a count Mago. Another historian writes of a Mago county in the Ireland of 1829! A barony of Mago in Kerry has been written of. The name Mago has been found in county Clair and all over Ireland for hundreds of years. It is a respectable name if not common.

            I may be inspired to post more on Mago or Mago Bill.

RCS

• Mago
• Carthaginians
• 750 Bc
• 550 Bc
• 340 BC
  

 

Active Citizen Two

Citizenship and Governance: A Brand New Political Organization.

        Many in the U.S. are considering brand new political organizations for many reasons: a new national party, a coalition, an ad hoc effort to promote a special bill or effort, for social betterment, and on and on. They want organizations capable of working with large numbers of active citizens. They are expecting wider participation in self-governance. They want to do that which effectively furthers their aims right now.

            There is much which needs to be done and many of us to do it. However, just now I will offer a list of hints which may prove helpful to an organizer. 

The hints for civic organization:

~ Be inclusive. Help anyone who wants to be a member, be a member.

~ Keep in mind that teaching one another is important. Outside help can be useful, but that which we do for ourselves is more important. Each a learner, each a teacher.

~ Clarify aims and goals. Restate them often. Better them when you can.

~ Arrange to have each member have opportunities to help in achieving those goals. How will that be done?

~ Arrange to take care of all business promptly. How will it be done.Arrange for the ongoing education of all members. That's education in the skills and understandings necessary to the organization and organizational aims.

~ Make each member an educator. You do not have to use any of these hints; but anyone of them can be very useful.

~ Demonstrate abundant and appropriate trust in each member.

~ The fewer secrets the better and "no secrets" is the best policy.

~ Let each member know that he or she is participating in the creation and nourishing of the organization, its philosophy, and its doings.

~ Lay out clear steps for accomplishing the important doable goals of your organization. 

~ Remember you are not alone. You are part of an organization. laying out, demonstrating, making, and doing are group affairs and  doings. Members want to be active. Let them be active. 

~ It is best that a goal members undertake not only be important and doable, but also ought to be attractive, challenging, and a big deal.

~ Set out a goal or two to be completed today. That is you as in you all set out a goal. You all want your orgainzation to be where the "doings" are.

~ Each member deserves a worthy job he or she can work right now. What a power house an organization can be! Your organization is a big powerful group.

~ Make clarifying the "grand vision" of your organization an ongoing activity. A grand vision for me might be the ongoing practice of active self-governance. or the ongoing practice of participatory democracy.

~ Ends, goals, objectives, aims can all be good. However, to be well done is important and the way it is done can be the most important.  

~ Aim to govern yourselves by practicing active self-governance of the whole. Begin with "how to do" teach-ins.

            May these hints/suggestions help you in your action plans.

We have a lot to learn and a lot to do. Its great that there are a lot of us to help with that learning and doing. 

As That Active Citizen and As a participant in a meeting it is fair and useful to:

~ Show up.

~ Speak up.

~ Name the problem.

~ Team up.

~ Find a partner.

~ Frame the discussion.

            That is: be there; address the group; Clarify the topic; Identify those of like mind; make a friend; listen and learn; sum up what the meeting has been about.

            It all starts with showing up and being there.

            Thank you for reading.

 

 

                                                                  RCS