Monday, September 3, 2012

Odd Politics

I am rather fond of Real Clear Politics. So, when I wanted to see what the political numbers were for the House election, I went to them. The rankings look like this:

                       Democrats        Republicans
Not Up           145                    178
Likely             21                      28
Leans              17                      23

Toss Up                      23

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/house/2012_elections_house_map.html

OK, a little more conservative leaning than I thought it would be, but there are still 23 toss up states. How does the map look without tossups?

Democrat                  Republican
261                            174

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/house/2012_elections_house_map_no_toss_ups.html

Wow, the democrats pick up all of the tossups, all of the seats leaning republican, all of the seats the republicans are likely to get, and four seats that aren't even up for election! Looks like it's going to be a big win for the democrats!

Oh, wait, no. "RCP House map (Coming Soon)"

Friday, August 24, 2012

Teaching

Looks like I'll be teaching in about a week. This is good news for me obviously, but also good news for people who have been waiting for my Sumerian materials. This is due to an easing of other concerns.  I will have quite a lot of my materials together. My resume will look better. I will be able to fund any of my projects that I need to fund.

Another big thing is that I'll be set up into a routine. This is big (see last sentence). You'd think that I would get less art and writing done when I have other things to get done, but this doesn't seem to be the case. When I'm a little bit productive I tend to be quite productive.

So, why am I telling you all this? What's my point? I don't really have a point. This is a blog. It's just an update to my life.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

I'm not a Republican

Ok, I used to be a Republican. I like the fact that the party works together to get things done. I like the fact that they have far and away better (and more) economic think tanks than the Democrats. I like their view on states rights, smaller government, and minimal regulation.

There's a lot not to like however. You see I am not a racist. I am also not a christian. I don't think the government should be expanded in general. Why would I want the government telling me what to do in my bedroom?

The Democrats want to censor what I eat, listen to, and watch for my own good. The Republicans don't like censorship, unless its to filter out immorality and people who disagree with them.

Both Parties are RACIST! (All caps for emphasis, and a "!" to be redundant.) The Republican base is racist. The Democratic leadership just wants to make decisions for people they think don't know any better. So if I were black I'd have to deal with people who think I'm a criminal on the right, and people who think I'm stupid on the left.

Gay rights is another thing. I don't think that the government should be able to tell anyone who can and cannot get married. As long as they are telling people what to do and what not to do I don't see any reason why Gays cannot marry. Thing is though, I'm not gay and my state already allows gay marriage. It's not really a big issue for me, but politicians on both sides want to make it the big issue every election.

The War on Women. Neither side is really against women. Why would they be? They have no motive for it. But I hear about it more than I care to think of it. The Right points out that the left makes many women out of work. The left makes it harder for people to find work regardless of gender. It's not targeted. The left say that the right doesn't want women to have control over their own bodies. The right doesn't want anyone to have control over their own bodies.

I have generally considered myself so far right that I'm only left of crazy. Apparently that makes me a centrist these days because the republicans have moved well right of my views.

We have a Democrat president (Hard to notice beyond both parties obsessed with his race). He got into office saying he was willing to reach across the isle and get things done. He did find common ground that both parties can agree upon. Both parties are doing everything that they can to prevent democrats from getting anything done. Both parties seem to have a greater disdain for black voters. Both parties have found that if the Republicans go right and the Democrats go left they can both fit in the category of crazy.

So where does that leave me? Apparently I'm a libertarian. I'm in the same political camp with the drug addled pot heads.

At least I'm not an occupier (A bunch of rich kids yelling, "What do we want? We don't know! When do we want it? Right now!" Meanwhile a homeless guy is taping up a sign saying, "No rapes between here and the dumpster.")

Friday, August 17, 2012

Novel: Outer Layer

I'm writing a novel. My proof readers say it's a good novel. I hope they're right. That's not what this post is about though. This post is an update on how things are going with that novel.

Ch 15: Needs a lot of work. Most of the substance is written, but I need to shift a lot of text around and do a lot of work before I hand it out to be read.

Ch 13 and 14: Need some work. There are notable descriptions absent.

Everything through 12 has been read through and given the green light by one of my readers.

Blogger 3 WP 1

So, I noticed that WP erases my tags if I'm not done typing. This clinches things for where various posts are going. Blogger is going to be my all purpose blog. If you want to know what's going on in the life of this Sumerian you come to blogger.

I'm still going to use WP though. It will be more focused on Temple of Sumer related stuff. Word Press will have Sumerian insights, updates on my Myths Comic, and anything related to the Sumerian community.

Blogger will have more random commentary like the last post about my cat and health care. You will still see Sumerian stuff here, but it will not be particularly focused. It will be properly tagged though.

Universal Health Care. . . And my cat

So I had to get an operation done on my cat. It was just a tooth pull, but it's a cat so the poor boy had to be put under while it was done.This made the procedure far more involved than it would have been for a human, and we don't have health insurance on the cat. This means that we had to spend a bit over 500.00 to get the tooth pulled, and we found out he needed a 30+ dollar prescription for antibiotics.

Ack! 500 all at once for one cat tooth! I wish I had insurance! I would have paid twenty a month just so that when things like this come up they don't hit all at once. (We charged it. We'll have to spend small amounts per month paying this off for a while, so we will not be paying all at once anyway, but darn it! There's a principal to this sort of thing.)

Ack 30 some dollars on an antibiotic? Well, actually that's not all that bad. Come to think of it, last time I was in the hospital for something that I had to go under for it cost more than 500. I wonder why cat health is so much cheaper. It's pretty much the same things being done, only I'll do what the doc tells me and I don't have a tiny body.

Well, let us say I need some medicine. Let us pretend that it takes a quarter to actually make the medicine, but if you add R&D, labor, and shipping you have to add several dollars. This makes the drug inherently worth like five bucks by the time it gets to me.

Now to get the medicine to me the drug company needs insurance, the prescribing doctor needs insurance, and I need insurance. Each time you add a middle man you need to pay a little extra because these people's time is considered valuable. This adds to the cost of the drug.

OK, so now add a government agency to the mix to make sure I have insurance. This is one more person, and it adds to the inherent value of the drug.

So now let us say that the drug is worth 50 bucks. It only cost about a quarter in materials, but a lot of people have spent time to make sure it is the right drug for me. This labor cost means that the drug really IS worth 50.00 and not 0.25.

But I have insurance. They'll pay for it. But where do they get the money to pay for it? ME! But what if I am low income, or otherwise don't have to pay thanks to some universal health care exemption / loop hole. Well the drug company isn't simply going to eat 50.00 they're going to add the cost of my medicine to everyone who does have to pay.

Who is that exactly? Well the wealthy only make up a small percentage of the people who need medicine. The upper 1% of the economy only makes up 1% of the population believe it or not. The majority of this extra cost will go to the middle class.

But wont drug costs go down since we no longer have to pay for the uninsured? No. We haven't magically made it so that people who couldn't put money into the system before can now. You think it was the wealthy who couldn't afford insurance? Noooo. It was the poor people who STILL are poor.

Only it's worse now. We aren't simply paying for the medical bills of the people who can't afford it. We're buying insurance for the poor. Think about that. We're paying someone else to pay for the medical bills of the people who can't afford it. It's worse than that. We're also paying taxes to make sure that the bills of people who can't afford it are paid. Think about that.

Bill needs 50.00 to buy meds. Ed pays Tom 60.00 to pay Bill 50.00. Ed THEN pays Joe 5.00 to keep an eye out to make sure that everyone pays who they are supposed to pay.

But back to my cat.

Bailey doesn't have prescription drug coverage. He doesn't have to go through drug companies and massive regulations. There's still some labor costs involved, but we can get his meds from another country if we want. All in all I feel much better about his vet bill after I've compared the cost to what a human would need.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Life and Education

So I thought I would do a general post on what I'm up to. If you know me from the real world you know that I recently graduated with a masters in Education. I can teach in Utah, and in a few (Days or weeks, I'm not sure) I will be able to teach in Iowa and Illinois. If you are wondering what I've been up to then that is it.

I have not done much with the Comic in quite some time, but now I'm in a bit of a holding pattern as I wait for papers to be processed. That means that I can get back to working on the comic.

I'm also writing an urban fantasy. Yes it has Sumerian gods, but no it isn't Sumerian centric. Honestly it is DC area centric. I've been fascinated by the urban myths of the place since my childhood when I used to live there. My story focuses upon an underworld demon who is investigating crimes against death committed by a Necromancer lurking in and around the city. The necromancer has his own plans though, and both must work against the clock to get what they want. At every turn our hero delves into the twists and turns of the myths and history of our nation's capital. Suffice it to say it has been fun to write.




Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Between The Rivers by Turtledove

So, I just finished between the rivers by Turtledove, and I thought I would mention whether it is any good. Only. . . I can't. I'm not saying it's particularly bad. It's just not good.

So instead I'll break it down by good points and bad points.

Plot: Slight negative. Due to the writing style and some of the story elements there was a lot of padding in this book. Simple events that should have taken a page to get through took ten pages. In fact I think that this should have been a 40 page short story rather than a 400 page novel. That being said, the story that was being told was entertaining.

Research: Strong positive and strong negative. Now I'm not expecting a novelist, even one who does a lot of alternate history, to know as much about ancient Sumer as I do. I was pleasantly surprised at how much research he put into the life of the ancient Sumerian. On the other hand the story was about a merchant who sold worked metal items in a world filled with demons and where gods could be seen towering above battle fields. You would have thought he would have done a little research into Sumerian religion or metal working.

Writing style: Slight positive. Ancient Near Eastern writing had a peculiar style to it. They would say the same thing several times so that the text was perfectly clear. This was done because one character could represent several completely different concepts. The whole book is written like this. My response was "Wow, this guy is really willing to put forth some serious effort!" . . . at first. I got sick of it when I realized that it was making the book drag. Another problem with the writing style is the clever way that they talk around things. Mortals attempting to lie to a god must speak the truth in a deceptive way. They also will not say things by name lest they draw the attention of that thing. As a result of these two things the book is ten times longer than it really should be. Still, I appreciate the effort.

Personal reaction: There needs to be more books set in ancient Sumer or with Sumerian elements, and for that reason I'm glad this book was written. I feel that way about the book Snow Crash (even though that was highly influenced by Sitchin). The depiction of the gods was so far away from anything Sumerian that I couldn't get offended. They simply weren't my gods. Only Engibil the Lazy god of the book had a name similar to Gibil god of fire.

Themes: again both good and bad. All gods are powerful, stupid and literal minded. They don't work together in any way, and are weakened in the presence of new things like metal working and writing. That's an interesting concept, but not in any way Sumerian. It's so far away from Sumerian that I couldn't even get offended. The people of the main city are innovative, value new and different things, act like real people, do not attempt to fight the gods directly, and in many ways would have made the Sumerian gods proud.

Do I recommend the book? Meh. There are worse things you can read.

One spoiler: Do the pseudo Sumerians overthrow their gods? No. They pretty much over throw the gods of the Pseudo Canaanites, and it takes them the last fifty pages of the book or so to decide to do that.

Also posted on my other Sumerian Blog and Tablet of Destiny Yahoo Group

Friday, June 8, 2012

Two / Nothing Blogger

So I haven't had much to say for a little bit and so I haven't been in for a while. This blog on Word Press was hard to format, and I had 126 pieces of spam. Not so for the Blogger version. Two points are awarded to Blogger for not being annoying.

Prelude to Gilgamesh Insight


So someone on Tablet of Destiny (a Yahoo group) commented about the Prelude to Gilgamesh. (The part in Gilgamesh Enkidu and the Netherworld where Ereshkigal goes to the netherworld.) So I took the Oxford transliteration (Pretty reliable) and the Halloran lexicon (Also rather good) and attempted to translate line 13 where it describes exactly what happened.

. . . I didn’t do so great. .  ..

See, the problem is that I was using the English transliteration with an American lexicon. Not all of the spellings quite line up. Here was the result:
The oxford translation, unfortunately those are notoriously poor, has the
following "when the nether world had been given to Ereškigala as a gift; when he
set sail, when he set sail, when the father set sail for the nether world, when
Enki set sail for the nether world -- against the king a storm of small
hailstones arose, against Enki a storm of large hailstones arose. The small ones
were light hammers, the large ones were like stones from catapults (?). The keel
of Enki's little boat was trembling as if it were being butted by turtles, the
waves at the bow of the boat rose to devour the king like wolves and the waves
at the stern of the boat were attacking Enki like a lion."
http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.1.8.1.4#

The Sumerian being translated is:
13. derec-ki-gal-la-ra kur-ra saj rig7-bi-ce3 im-ma-ab-rig7-a-ba
14. ba-u5-a-ba ba-u5-a-ba
15. a-a kur-ce3 ba-u5-a-ba
16. den-ki kur-ce3 ba-u5-a-ba
17. lugal-ra tur-tur ba-an-da-ri
18. den-ki-ra gal-gal ba-an-da-ri
19. tur-tur-bi na4 cu-kam
20. gal-gal-bi na4 gi gu4-ud-da-kam
21. ur2 jicma2 tur-re den-ki-ka3-ke4
22. nij2-bun2-na du7-am3 mi-cu2-cu2
23. lugal-ra a jicma2-saj-ja2-ke4
24. ur-bar-ra-gin7 tec2 mu-na-gu7-e
25. den-ki-ra a jicma2-ejer-ra-ke4
26. ur-mah-gin7 saj jic im-ra-ra

with line 13 being the one in question.

Using a direct translation
13: d|Ereshkigal (Kur-ra: Underworld + genitive) (Saj: I'm not quite sure what
this word translates to. Fortune perhaps?) (rig7-bi-ce3: give possession of+
its + unto) (im-ma-ab-rig7-a-ba: Previous / named + object + give possession of +
who). I translate this as "Ereshkigal was given to the underworld." or "The
underworld took possession of Ereshkigal." though I could certainly see
"Ereshkigal was given the underworld as a gift." Though this last doesn't seem
as likely as then why would Enki follow after? Why would she be unable to depart
in other myths?

At this point I would then turn to translators far wiser than myself. Namely
Dina Katz (Author of "the image of the Nether World in the Sumerian Sources."
ISBN 4883053773), though I'll look at others. That will take some work though,
so I'll get back to you.

As it stands, it's not looking like the Kramer interpretation of the Kur dragon
kidnapping Ereshkigal is looking good. Kur is not really indicated as an
individual here, much less a dragon.

Well for those of us who do not read ancient Sumerian fluently (This pretty much includes everyone on the planet.) the best way to check a translation is to look at how other people translate it. In my library and at my disposal I have the Kramer translation (Old and outdated), the Oxford translation (Unlike their transliterations I have often found problems there.) the George version (He himself isn’t confident in his understanding of Sumerian.) and the Katz excerpts (almost definitely spot on, but the book is rather hard to navigate. I’m still looking for the correct passage.)

Well, I happen to mention the dilemma to my wife and she floors me with a simple observation “It sounds a lot like the dedication of Enheduanna to the temple.” So let us say that Ereshkigal wasn’t kidnapped by a dragon and rescued by a hero as in the Kramer version. Let us also say she wasn’t given the entire underworld as a wedding gift without mentioning who she was getting married to or why she can’t seem to be able to get out of the underworld in other myths like in the Oxford version.

What if she was simply dedicated to the office of managing the underworld. She would be the absolute ruler and high priestess of the land. Not as romantic as a princess a dragon and a hero. Not as straight forward as getting Kur as a present. What it would be however is very Sumerian. Young Ereshkigal was dedicated to the underworld as its High Priestess and absolute ruler like young Enheduanna was dedicated centuries later.

Tags: Gilgamesh, Ereshkigal, Underworld, Translation, Tablet of Destiny

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Dingir: Adventures of the Gods Issue 5


Issue 4 was my foray into color, but it came just before I finished with grad school. In other words I didn’t have time to build up a buffer. I’m working on the first five pages of the comic just now. The myth will be Enki and Ninhursag: The Flaws of Man.

I have the first eight pages penciled, the first five have been inked, the first two have color, none have the final finishing touches, and none have been lettered. They look beautiful. I can finally say that I know how to draw and show off my comic art proudly.

If you haven’t read the comic you can find it here: http://templeofsumer.org/comic/ .

Friday, May 4, 2012

Introduction


OK, so what I am doing here is creating a blog to complement the Temple of Sumer (T/S) web page. On this blog I will be posting news, updates, and special features. TempleofSumer.org needs some extra features, so I will attempt to provide those in this blog rather than make my web guy want to kill me.

There are a few hundred Sumerians floating around on four continents (that I know of). These Sumerians have little in the way of a community, and some of that is my fault. I went to grad school and was AWOL for a few years.

As some of you are aware, I do not do blogs. I am fluent in rant however. Since rants can be annoying, and since Sumerians will not necessarily want to read my rants I will tag these. I’m also new to tags, so be prepared.

I’ll be posting news for any Sumerian issue that I find, but I will also be posting non Sumerian things here from time to time. When “Dingir: Adventures of the Gods” updates I’ll mention this here.

As I am new to blogs I am not really sure what format I want. Because of this I am creating http://templeofsumer.wordpress.com/ and http://templeofsumer.blogspot.com/ . For now I will be making them in parallel, but I don’t know how long that will last. When (if) one becomes clearly superior I will focus my efforts on that one.