Mark Meek's Ideas: January 2021

Thursday, January 28, 2021

Turkestan

There is no nation called Turkestan. Rather, it refers to a region, the region of central Asia that is populated by people of Turkic ethnicity. We have already visited Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, which are considered as part of Turkestan. There are also Turkic people in Siberia.

Today, we are going to visit the remaining four Turkic countries in central Asia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and, Tajikistan. Like Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, all are former Soviet republics. The suffix "-stan" simply means "nation" or "homeland".

Turkic people are much more diverse than the Arabs further south. They do not have the same language or religion. The majority of Turkic people are Moslems, but it tends to be moderate. The general attitude of the governments seems to be "We hope that our people will live as good Moslems but we are not going to enforce it by law".

Turkestan was along the Silk Road that once ran from China westward and these central Asian nations could be referred to as "The Silk Road Republics", since the Silk Road is being revived.

Turkic people are renowned as conquerors. Nader Shah, who we met on our visit to "Delhi", was actually Turkic although he was the king of Persia, which is not Turkic. Babur, the founder of the great Mughal Empire, which we saw in our visit to "Lahore And The Mughals" was also of Turkic ethnicity.

In medieval times, there was a migration of Turkic people westward. They ended up founding one of the greatest empires in history. They are known as the Ottomans. Their country is known today as Turkey, because they were Turkic by ethnicity. They are not related to the people who lived in what is now Turkey in ancient times, the Hittites and the Phrygians.

Possibly the most dreaded name in human history is that of Timur, sometimes anglicized into Tamerlane. His conquests are estimated to have resulted in the death of about one in twenty people in the entire world of the time. We saw Timur in the posting on this blog, "Why We Should Understand The Mongols". There was a succession of three empires, first the Mongols, then Timur and then the Mughals. Babur, the founder of the Mughals, is believed to be descended from Timur on his father's side and Genghis Khan on his mother's side.

Like the Arabs to the south, there has been periodic interest in a Pan-Turkic movement to achieve some degree of unity or common purpose among the Turkic people. The victories of Turkic conquerors have often been against other Turkic people. The reason that Constantinople lasted for so long, before being conquered by the Ottomans, is that the forces of Timur in the meantime attacked and inflicted a defeat on the Ottomans at the Battle of Ankara. That, as explained in "Symbolism Theory Of The Vatican And Hagia Sophis" is why I believe that three of the minarets that the Ottomans built around the Hagia Sophia are white but the other is red.

Although not near the combat, the Turkic nations that were Soviet republics were greatly affected by the Second World War. Their resources were urgently needed, they served in the Soviet military, and a lot of vital industry was relocated there for safety.

The Nazis, although they did not plan to occupy the area which was in Asia, remembered that there had been an uprising in 1916 by the Turkic people against conscription into the Russian Army while Russia was at war with Germany in the First World War. This was known as the Basmachi Movement. Seeing a chance to weaken the Soviet Union, with which they were at war, the Nazis encouraged the Pan-Turkic movement, and a rebellion against Russian rule, in the Second World War. There was a Turkic regiment, recruited from Soviet prisoners of war, but were deployed only on the Nazis' Western Front, and not against their own country.

This is not all of Turkestan. The homeland of Turkic people continues eastward into China. The vast western region of the country that China calls Xinjiang is populated by the Uighurs, who are Turkic. They sometimes refer to the region as East Turkestan.

The country on the southeastern coast of the Caspian Sea is Turkmenistan. Most of the country is covered by the Karakum Desert. The country is rich in energy resources.

The capital city of Turkmenistan is Ashgabat. Unlike much in the region it is not an old city, being founded in 1881. This is what Ashgabat looks like today.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >, After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

The Search For Antimatter

There was a recent theory that I read about which explains the mystery of why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe. Our side of the universe is matter while the other side is antimatter. Sorry but I thought of this years ago. See section 5k of "The Theory Of Stationary Space", July 2017.

For about a century, scientists have been searching for "dark matter". Our understanding of gravity tells us that, at the rate our galaxy is spinning and considering it's visible mass, it should fly apart by centrifugal force. But yet clearly it doesn't.

So, as the reasoning goes, there must be some kind of "dark matter" in space that we cannot see but which manifests gravity. The trouble is that, despite the long search, scientists have not found the slightest trace of dark matter. Complicating things further is that, to influence gravity as it does, dark matter would have to have exactly the same distribution in space as ordinary matter.

My cosmology theory, "The Theory Of Stationary Space", July 2017, does away with the need for dark matter.

But what my theory does not do away with is the need for antimatter. In fact, going by everything that we can see about how the universe operates, it is required that there be equal amounts of matter and antimatter.

This means that, instead of dark matter, what we should be looking for instead is antimatter. However, virtually all of the matter that we can see is ordinary matter.

There is nothing mysterious about antimatter. There are two electric charges, negative and positive. Antimatter is just matter with the electric charges reversed. In ordinary matter, electrons in atoms are negatively-charged and in orbitals around positively-charged protons in the nucleus of the atom. In antimatter, positions in atoms are positively-charged and in orbitals around negatively-charged anti-protons in the nucleus of the atom.

As far as I know, we could not tell if something was made of antimatter just by looking at it since both would handle light in the same way. Neither should there be any difference in mass between equivalent objects made of matter and antimatter.

Let's review a couple of simple and well-established principles in science.

First, the universe prefers an equality to an inequality because it involves less information. If there is an inequality of pressure, high pressure in one place and low pressure in another, the two will tend to resolve into an equality by flow from high pressure to low pressure. Electric charges usually balance out, which represents an equality. If an imbalance occurs, such as the result of updrafts in a storm that knock outer electrons out of atoms, a correction back to an equality will occur as a bolt of lightning.

Second, a form of this equality principle is Newton's Law of Equal and Opposite Reactions. For every action, movement of matter, there must be an equal and opposite reaction. This maintains the center of all matter in the universe.

One way that we see the Law of Equal and Opposite Reactions is in swimming. A swimmer moves forward by pushing water backward. Another way is in flight. A rocket or aircraft flies forward by opposite reaction to a propeller pushing air backward or the flow of hot exhaust gases backward.

Another way that we see equal and opposite reactions is in hot or warm objects. Heat is the kinetic energy of movement of atoms and molecules. So suppose that we have a warm object, such as a piece of metal, on a table. It's atoms are moving around. Just by random chance, what if more atoms happen to move, in a given moment, in one direction than in the opposite direction? The piece of metal would "jump around" at random on the table.

Yet this does not happen. The reason is that, when an atom in the metal moves in one direction, an equal mass must move in the opposite direction. The direction of movement of all atoms in the metal must balance out overall.

Now let's go back to matter and antimatter. If the universe definitely prefers an equality to an inequality, and opposites have to balance out, then there should be the same amounts of matter and antimatter.

The two electric charges have to be equal. For negative and positive charges to be somehow unequal, other than being opposite, they would have to be composed of something more elemental, and we cannot see that there can be anything more elemental. The two electric charges always behave if they are equal but opposite.

So when atoms form there should be no universal preference for either the negative charges to be on the outside, electrons or positions, or the positive charges to be on the inside, protons or anti-protons. According to the well-established equality principle, as described above, there should end up being an equal amount of both.

But yet just about all of the matter that we know is ordinary matter, not antimatter.

How can we explain this when we can see no possible reason why more matter should form than antimatter?

Remember my cosmology theory, "The Theory Of Stationary Space", July 2017. In that theory matter in our universe originated with a two-dimensional sheet of space that formed within already-existing background space, but was not contiguous with it.

Space is composed of an alternating checkerboard pattern of negative and positive electric charges, in multiple dimensions. The theory can explain the existence of the universe down to a single electric charge, whether negative or positive.

One charge is an imbalance so the first charge had to induce two opposite charges, one on either side of it. Since there are two electric charges, there has to be two opposite directions in each dimension of space. But that still leaves an imbalance because now we have two charges to one. The mutual induction continues indefinitely because we always have an odd number of charges. The induction continues, in multiple dimensions, and that is what formed space.

Space cannot be "nothing", it has to be something. No wave can travel without a medium. We perceive electromagnetic waves as being electromagnetic because they move through space and disturb the usually perfect balance between the checkerboard of negative and positive electric charges that comprise space.

Einstein's proven concept of "frame dragging", or the Lense Thirring Effect, that the rotation of the earth changes the position of a satellite by "dragging" the fabric of space around with it further shows that empty space must be "something".

This process of mutual charge induction, which continues on to infinity to create a vast universe, started again and produced the two-dimensional sheet of space that formed within the already-existing background space, but was not contiguous with it. What I mean by not contiguous was that the checkerboard pattern of the alternating negative and positive charges was different from that of the background space. It was like superimposing one checkerboard on another, but with the squares not aligned.

This misalignment represented energy because it was an inequality. We know that the universe always seeks the lowest energy state, and also to turn an inequality into an equality, because the two are the same thing.

The first step in bringing this incontiguous two-dimensional sheet of space to the lowest energy state was charge migration within it, positive charges to one side of the sheet and negative to the other, instead of the alternating checkerboard pattern of the charges.

But since it was not contiguous with the background space, the negative side of the sheet came into contact with the positive side. This brought about the massive matter-antimatter reaction that we perceive as the Big Bang.

One dimension of the two-dimensional sheet disintegrated into energy, releasing electromagnetic waves that we can detect today. Some of the released energy went into binding the remaining dimension of the two-dimensional sheet into the one-dimensional strings that comprise the fundamental particles of matter, such as electrons.

These strings were scattered by the Big Bang over four dimensions of the background space. We perceive these strings, and bundles of strings, as particles because we can only see in three of the four dimensions. The other we perceive as time, the spatial dimension in which the strings are primarily aligned.

Our past direction eventually leads to the site of the Big Bang. Time is our consciousnesses proceeding along the bundles of strings comprising our bodies and brains at what we perceive as the speed of light.

In my cosmology theory charge migration also takes place in black holes, which are actually portions of the sheet coming back together. A black hole is an extreme concentration of matter by gravity, but it is also composed of electric charges. The universe much prefers to have opposite charges next to each other, rather than like charges which mutually repel. The pressure in a black hole is so intense that it causes charges to move so that opposite charges are next to each other.

But this is the same charge arrangement is that of empty space. That is why black holes give off radiation ( Hawking Radiation ), and ultimately decay. The released radiation is essentially that of a matter-antimatter reaction. The energy of the Mass-Energy Equivalence in the matter comprising the black hole is gradually released as the collections of like charges comprising matter, which were held together against their mutual repulsion by the energy of the Mass-Energy Equivalence, are broken apart by the charge migration.

So back to the question of where the missing antimatter is, if the amounts of matter and antimatter should be equal. We can be sure that the universe around us is composed only of matter because so much of the matter is in the form of gas and dust that comes into contact with stars and solar systems. Stars and galaxies collide. Objects like meteors are continuously crashing into stars and planets.

If any of this matter in our neighborhood of the universe was actually antimatter, we would see the extremely energetic matter-antimatter reactions that would result, and equal amounts of both would vanish. There is an equivalence of mass and energy, which is the basis of Einstein's famous formula E = MC squared. This energy in matter actually gives matter it's mass, and this is referred to as the Mass-Energy Equivalence.

A nuclear reaction also converts mass into energy. But a nuclear reaction only converts a small amount of mass into energy. The first nuclear explosions each converted about the mass of a paper clip into energy. But a matter-antimatter reaction converts all of the mass, if there is an equal amount of each, into energy.

So we can be sure that we would see the results if any significant amount of antimatter was in our area of the universe. But if there has to be equal amounts of matter and antimatter, then where is the antimatter?

Remember that the universe prefers an equality to an inequality, meaning that there must be equal amounts of matter and antimatter. Remember the charge migration in the two-dimensional sheet, negative to one side and positive to the other. Remember the principle that, for every action, there must be an equal and opposite reaction.

There are equal amounts of matter and antimatter. But if the Big Bang threw matter across space in our direction then, according to the principle of equal and opposite reactions, it must have also thrown antimatter in the opposite direction. Electric charges must always balance out and equal numbers of positive and negative strings were thrown in each direction.

Electrons and their antimatter equivalent, positrons, are of equal charge but are much lighter in mass than protons or their antimatter equivalent, positrons. A proton has 1,836 times the mass of an electron. So it makes sense that, when atoms form from the strings, the lighter particle will be in orbitals around the heavier.

When the charge migration took place in the two-dimensional sheet, the opposite sides were either positive or negative. Charges remained mixed across the middle, with one side of the middle being more positive and the other side of the middle being more negative.

The reason that protons and anti-protons are so much more massive than electrons or positrons, but have equal but opposite charge, is that the lighter particles are of concentrated charge, held together against their mutual repulsion by energy from the Big Bang, while the heavier particles, actually composed of quarks and antiquarks, are of mixed charge, but with either negative or positive predominating in an amount exactly equal to the charge on an electron or positron.

The reason that they must balance out exactly equally is that there must be an exactly equal number of negative and positive charges in the universe, because this equality is a lower information state than an inequality.

Neutrons came later. A neutron is actually a composite particle, formed by fusion when an electron is crunched into a proton to form a particle with no net electric charge. If left outside an atom, a neutron will decay into an electron and a proton, or a positron and an anti-proton, in an average of about 15 minutes. Atoms with atomic numbers above 20 must have more neutrons than protons to be stable. Since a neutron has no net electric charge, it is essentially it's own antiparticle.

The dimension of the two-dimensional sheet with concentrated positive charge on one side, which formed positrons, and negative charge on the other, which formed electrons, is the one that disintegrated in the Big Bang. This threw the remaining one-dimensional strings in opposite directions in the dimension of space that we perceive as time.

The attraction of opposite charges and repulsion of like charges caused the positrons and anti-protons to go in one direction, and electrons and protons to go in the other direction. After being drawn together by opposite charge attraction, they formed atoms of matter in one direction and antimatter in the other direction.

So all of the missing antimatter is on the other side of the universe, but not in a direction that we can see. If we could travel backward in the dimension of space that we perceive as time, and we passed the site of the Big Bang, we would enter the side of the universe that is essentially identical to ours, but is composed of antimatter.

Here is a link to the posting that I use to introduce the cosmology theory, without reading the entire theory:

https://markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2019/05/in-cosmology-everything-just-fell-right.html

Here is a link to the posting specifically about why my cosmology theory has no need of dark matter:

https://markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2018/09/concluding-search-for-dark-matter.html

Thursday, January 21, 2021

Kuwait

Kuwait City, which is the only city in the small country of Kuwait, was founded in 1613. It was once just a village. But being right at the end of the Persian Gulf, it grew into a rival of Basra, about 120 km or 80 miles north, for trade. Oil was discovered in Kuwait in 1937 and made the country extremely wealthy.

Kuwait deserves credit for avoiding what is known as the "Resource Curse" or "The Paradox Of Plenty". When a country is blessed (or cursed) with natural wealth, what often happens is the ruling powers will use that wealth to keep themselves in power and the average person in the country ends up being worse off than if there was no natural wealth.

In other words, corruption begins by having something to be corrupt with. The rulers of a country without natural wealth are more dependent on the will of the people to stay in power, and the country is thus more likely to be a democracy.

Kuwait is what could be called a constitutional monarchy. The Emir has come from the Al-Sabah Dynasty from the beginning. But there is a parliament, the National Assembly, with the power to remove the Emir if necessary. The apparent heir to the throne is the Crown Prince.

The Al-Sabahs avoided the uprisings of the Arab Spring and, at the time of this writing, the Kuwaiti Dinar is the most valued currency in the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwaiti_dinar#/media/File:1_Kuwaiti_dinar_in_2014_Obverse.jpg

The following scenes begin near the central city area of Kuwait City.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >, After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

https://www.google.com/maps/@29.3733509,47.9720358,3a,75y,73.26h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipO8K2esKvdMXAxfNxN-A1qQCmVCKpokFEJfBSFi!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipO8K2esKvdMXAxfNxN-A1qQCmVCKpokFEJfBSFi%3Dw900-h600-k-no-pi0-ya161.49982609298223-ro0-fo100!7i13088!8i6544?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTEyNC4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Here is more of downtown Kuwait City.

https://www.google.com/maps/@29.3820358,47.9901489,3a,75y,351.89h,120t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNDusEfOJ1HmQLAMmLMd60rIm6r62M6PZ27ORRr!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNDusEfOJ1HmQLAMmLMd60rIm6r62M6PZ27ORRr%3Dw900-h600-k-no-pi-30-ya38.89224445312499-ro0-fo100!7i5760!8i2880?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTEyNC4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

No city in the world had made an art out of water towers like Kuwait City has. Water towers are what provides water pressure. Water is pumped up to the tower continuously and, when you turn your tap on, the gravity is what provides the water pressure. The level of water in the tower typically lowers during the day and refills at night. If you are in a cold climate, and wonder why the water in the tower doesn't freeze, it is because of this constant moving of the water. Water towers are sometimes still called standpipes.

The royal family of Kuwait, the Al-Sabahs, live in Dasman Palace near the water towers.

https://www.google.com/maps/@29.3841605,47.9903743,3a,75y,270h,110t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNppjv-exBF5wCfnE0lWBzWG21kluk1deeAZM2i!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNppjv-exBF5wCfnE0lWBzWG21kluk1deeAZM2i%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-16.130089-ya71.36491-ro0.826968-fo100!7i5760!8i2880

This is Kuwait City closer to the waterfront.

https://www.google.com/maps/@29.360358,47.9538021,3a,75y,149.54h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipM6XIaASlfoWp4eTYInNp9O9dTKjkzhB2dpTXB2!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipM6XIaASlfoWp4eTYInNp9O9dTKjkzhB2dpTXB2%3Dw900-h600-k-no-pi0-ya184.17175833343325-ro0-fo100!7i5760!8i2880?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTEyNC4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

The following scenes are of the area known as Salmiya, on a peninsula south of the central city.

https://www.google.com/maps/@29.33991,48.0823088,3a,75y,34.5h,92.93t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPGHdAAmQJCLrHsT22whb-sOsMYLRg8Cfm9arja!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPGHdAAmQJCLrHsT22whb-sOsMYLRg8Cfm9arja%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-2.9338646-ya245.5-ro0-fo100!7i6656!8i3328

These are new developments to the south of Kuwait City.

https://www.google.com/maps/@29.1450072,48.123993,3a,75y,214.5h,92.93t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNXyBAh-J5S03r8v-fvoAIDh_QifH_ufO3ylDM!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNXyBAh-J5S03r8v-fvoAIDh_QifH_ufO3ylDM%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-2.9338646-ya34.600002-ro-0-fo100!7i10066!8i5032

Finally, to the west of Kuwait City is the town of Al Jahra.

https://www.google.com/maps/@29.3394841,47.6730752,3a,75y,79.5h,92.93t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipN78S5eJ-4w6x8M4la0KeQWwwx-tkIm81tHDOkF!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipN78S5eJ-4w6x8M4la0KeQWwwx-tkIm81tHDOkF%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-2.9338646-ya121.5-ro-0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352

The 27 Message

We often hear about the notorious "27 Club". This is the unfortunately continuous parade of musicians who have died, due to drug usage, at age 27.

I am not-quite-pleased to say that the founder of the 27 Club is generally considered to be Brian Jones, from my native Gloucestershire.

But what do you notice about the number 27? It is the number of books in the New Testament. The New Testament refers to the approximately one-quarter of the Bible that was written after the life of Jesus. The rest, the Old Testament, was written before the time of Jesus.

We have seen in a number of postings on this blog, "The Failed Millenniums" February 2020, "Jerusalem And The Rock Music Era" September 2020, and the section "17) Crossing The Red Sea" in the compound posting "New Insight Into Bible Prophecy" October 2016, how I believe that the very special time known as the Sixties was God giving humanity a last chance to build the Millennium itself before God set the events in motion to bring about the Apocalypse, which will be followed by the establishment of Jesus' Kingdom on earth.

An explanation of the scenario of events leading to the fulfillment of the Bible prophecies in our time, the Apocalypse followed by the Millennium, is thoroughly explained in the posting on this blog, "The End Of The World As We Know It".

Could the 27 Club be an indirect message from God? With God allowing it to happen to show the destructiveness of so much of the rock music way of life, and to lead to the Bible instead?

The 27 Club was very high-profile. It began in 1969-71 when four prominent musicians of the Rock Era, Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and, Jim Morrison all died, right in a row, at the age of 27. Aside from being rock musicians the one thing that they were known to have in common was their wild way of life.

More recent musicians who have joined the 27 Club include Curt Cobain and Amy Winehouse.

We have seen in the previous postings about the Sixties, listed above, how Jesus foretold that the return of the Jews to the original city of Jerusalem would begin the one-lifetime countdown to the Return of Jesus to set up the Millennial Kingdom on earth. Before the Millennium was established there had to be the terrible Tribulation Period of the Antichrist and the Apocalypse.

The Antichrist will not be obviously evil, not at first. He will seem to have all of the answers to everything. The Antichrist will be allowed to reign for seven years, and the first half will actually be the best time that the world has ever seen. But it will all be a fantastic satanic lie and things will begin to fall apart. The second half of the reign of the Antichrist will be the worst time that the world has ever seen and the Gospels are clear that if Jesus did not Return to end the Tribulation and set up the Millennium, no one would be left alive on earth.

If a person finds themselves in the Tribulation Period, Christians will be removed before it in the event known as the Rapture, they can still be saved but will almost certainly be killed.

What I find to be significant is that the ancient nation of Israel was indeed restored, after the Second World War in 1948, but there was a nineteen-year delay before the original city of Jerusalem was added, in 1967. The period of the delay was the time of coming-of-age of the Baby Boomers, the generation that was born just after the Second World War.

My conclusion is that this delay was God allowing the world a chance to build the Millennium itself without going through the terrible Tribulation Period. The Baby Boomers were the generation that followed the one that had seen world war, genocide, economic collapse and, the development of weapons that could destroy the world by pressing a few buttons.

Maybe this could be the generation that had learned it's lesson and could build the Millennium without going through the Tribulation. God decided to give humanity a chance by delaying the inclusion of the original city of Jerusalem into the restored nation of Israel, which would begin the countdown.

But we just couldn't do it. We were just too sinful. When God saw that it just wasn't going to work, the world was only getting more sinful, the original city of Jerusalem was captured by the Jews, and added to Israel, to begin the one-lifetime countdown to the Millennium, with the Antichrist and Apocalypse preceding it.

Just after this happened is when the 27 Club began. 27 being the number of books in the New Testament. This looks like an effort by God to point the way away from the rock and roll way of life back to the Bible.

Thursday, January 14, 2021

Jordan And The Hashemites

The Hashemites are the oldest royal house in the world, outside of Japan. They claim that their founder was a great-grandfather of Muhammad. The Hashemites were rivals of, but also related to, the Umayyads who founded the first major caliphate of Islam that lasted for a long time. The Hashemites were the custodians of the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina for about a thousand years, until the area was conquered by the House of Saud and became part of modern Saudi Arabia. The Hashemites, through the government of Jordan, are still the custodians of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Abdullah I was the king of the modern nation of Jordan, and the son of the founder of the modern Hashemite Dynasty, who had been made Emir of Mecca by the Ottomans. The Hashemite Dynasty has ruled Jordan, formerly known as Transjordan because it was across the Jordan River from Palestine. Abdullah I was assassinated while attending a funeral at the Al Aqsa Mosque, in 1951. With him was his grandson, Prince Hussein, who was also shot but was saved when a medal that he was wearing deflected the bullet.

Prince Hussein went on to become the well-known and popular King Hussein, of Jordan, who died in 1999. The Hashemites also ruled Iraq as a royal family, and even briefly ruled Syria.

Has anyone ever heard of someone who has been king of two separate countries, at separate times, without one country ruling the other?

That feat was achieved by Faisal I, the brother of Abdullah I. He was Hashemite king first of Syria, and then of Iraq. His son, Ghazi, and then his grandson Faisal II followed as kings of Iraq. When Egypt and Syria proclaimed their unity, as the United Arab Republic, Jordan and Iraq proclaimed their own union as the Arab Federation, ruled by the Hashemites.

Neither union would last long, but there was rivalry between them while they did. To understand why, we have to go back to the French Revolution, which began the modern political era. Jordan and Iraq, the Arab Federation, were ruled by kings. While Egypt and Syria, the United Arab Republic, were ruled by military officers who had overthrown their kings.

The brief life of the Arab Federation, as well as Royal Hashemite rule in Iraq, came to an end in 1958 when Faisal II was overthrown and executed in a military coup. Again, we see the influence of the French Revolution as the revolution in Iraq happened on July 14, which is Bastille Day. The Iraqi officer who led the coup would ultimately be overthrown himself, by the Iraqi branch of the Baath Party, the best-known member of which turned out to be Saddam Hussein.

Have you ever wondered why Iraq and Syria have to be separate countries, even though there have been those who would like the unite them? We have to go back into history to see the answer. Remember that the Umayyad Caliphate, the first major caliphate of Islam that lasted for a long time, was based in Damascus, in Syria. The Abbasid Caliphate, which overthrew the Umayyads, built an entirely new city as their capital. This city is Baghdad, in Iraq. That history is enough to keep the two modern countries separate.

Back to the most popular of the Hashemites, King Hussein of Jordan, which is still ruled by the Hashemites. King Hussein, the one who survived the bullet on the Temple Mount in 1951 because he was wearing a medal that deflected it, is remembered as a great peacemaker as well as having made the modern country of Jordan.

King Hussein of Jordan was so accomplished at holding a delicate balancing act that, if he had lived in Niagara Falls, would surely have been the greatest of tightrope walkers. He must have been doing something right to hold onto his crown while kings were being overthrown all around him, in Egypt, Libya, Iran and, Iraq. Likewise his son, the present king of Jordan Abdullah II, avoided a fall in the Arab Spring, which brought down many of those leaders in lands where kings had earlier been overthrown.

One facet of King Hussein's successful balancing act was between Israel, to the immediate west, and it's Arab enemies all around. The king managed this with so many Palestinian refugees in his country that they outnumbered the Jordanians themselves. The Palestinians in Jordan had their own agenda, independent of the government, which culminated in what is known as the Dawson Field Hijackings, where four airliners were hijacked and destroyed, on the ground, although the passengers were released first.

Another facet of the delicate balancing act achieved by Jordan's King Hussein is between the west and the Communist bloc during the Cold War. Still another facet is between Islam and the west following Iran's 1979 revolution.

Another popular figure from Jordan is the widow of King Hussein, Queen Noor. She was born in the U.S., of Syrian immigrant parents, and continues to do a lot to make the world a better place. The present king of Jordan, Abdullah II, is the son not of Queen Noor but of an earlier wife, Princess Muna who was a native of England.

The capital city of Jordan today is Amman. Readers of the Bible will be familiar with an old rival of the Israelites to the east, known as the Ammonites. The capital of the Ammonites was the city of Rabbah, today it is known as Amman, named clearly for the Ammonites. After the Ammonites, in Hellenistic times, it became known as Philadelphia, so that the city of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania is actually named for Amman.

Amman, which did not regain importance until modern times, had been through all of the usual parade of empires and conquerors in the region, Alexander, the Romans, the Umayyad and then Abbasid Caliphates, the Crusaders, the Mamluks, the Ottomans, and then the modern nation of Jordan that has been governed by the Hashemites.

Like Aleppo and Cairo, Amman was built around a citadel. The following scenes begin in the Citadel of Amman.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >. After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.9554802,35.9341456,3a,75y,15.12h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipMbaX8v4Y_6dzPEaVvCpJTf8WpT40-lFAtZpNrn!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMbaX8v4Y_6dzPEaVvCpJTf8WpT40-lFAtZpNrn%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya12.909076-ro-0-fo100!7i2508!8i1254

Here is some more of Amman, in the area of the Jordan Museum.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.945464,35.9268985,2a,75y,165.72h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sCWPr-6nFwEkl1WtxnsFkJA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DCWPr-6nFwEkl1WtxnsFkJA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D167.81184%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

This area of Amman is west of the Citadel.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.9540547,35.9107935,3a,75y,169h,88t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPEQcatBYqk7x7kDYBw57CwGznso7967rRXNTa8!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPEQcatBYqk7x7kDYBw57CwGznso7967rRXNTa8%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-2.9338646-ya17.19701-ro-0-fo100!7i10240!8i5120

These scenes begin in the Galleria Mall, in Amman.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.9592398,35.8621725,3a,75y,124.14h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipO_4tOOSySTdRm5Pm2oM4B5v2OrsffOEOzbKrLQ!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipO_4tOOSySTdRm5Pm2oM4B5v2OrsffOEOzbKrLQ%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya128.6323-ro-0-fo100!7i5660!8i2830

This is the modern part of the city, to the west.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.9641983,35.9013081,3a,75y,181h,88t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPRrec_tIls0zoTnVhGBqGDT4JYW27x3Y9Y3-EN!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPRrec_tIls0zoTnVhGBqGDT4JYW27x3Y9Y3-EN%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-2.9338646-ya180.49998-ro0-fo100!7i10240!8i5120

Here is a residential and shopping area in the far west of the city.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.9734763,35.8442319,3a,75y,271h,76t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNK-XsScHa_faA4CRxjPv6fgF-rpwHk5GY3FHfv!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNK-XsScHa_faA4CRxjPv6fgF-rpwHk5GY3FHfv%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-14.999992-ya114.49999-ro-0-fo100!7i8192!8i4096

This is a residential area in the northern part of Amman.

https://www.google.com/maps/@32.0021984,35.956731,3a,75y,172.71h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sHiS0E4WlA8cdWIgtgdvvtQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DHiS0E4WlA8cdWIgtgdvvtQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D172.71109%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

This is what the northeastern part of the city looks like.

https://www.google.com/maps/@32.0014504,35.9420792,3a,75y,169h,88t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPa_h7-QFmYuLsBQ2D9BNLpXd7NQmQ4BNndVACK!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPa_h7-QFmYuLsBQ2D9BNLpXd7NQmQ4BNndVACK%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-3.516522-ya169.52475-ro0.40126684-fo100!7i7776!8i3888

Finally, this is what Jordan is really known for. The ancient city of Petra has buildings carved right into the rock. The name "Petra" actually means "rock". Petra is believed to have been built before the time of Jesus.

https://www.google.com/maps/@30.3287101,35.4425432,2a,75y,309.26h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1swPUsfvt5QC8_TkuT4XB05A!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DwPUsfvt5QC8_TkuT4XB05A%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D313.43784%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

The Illusion Of The Speed Of Light

The speed of light, 186,282 miles per second or 300 million meters per second, is something that we can measure with precision, and it is very important to science, yet it has got to be an illusion.

The speed of light is the centerpiece of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. Everything in the theory, including time and mass and length, revolves around the speed of light.

But yet there are complications that arise with the speed of light.

In Einstein's theory, mass revolves around the speed of light with any object having infinite mass if moving at the speed of light. This increase in mass at high velocities can be verified experimentally.

The first complication is cosmic rays. As the name implies, when cosmic rays were discovered it was thought that it was radiation. It was after Einstein's theory of the speed of light, in 1905, that "cosmic rays" were actually particles.

Cosmic rays are actually various sub-atomic particles, protons, electrons and alpha particles ( helium nuclei ), moving at or near the speed of light. These particles come from deep space.

Now back to the Special Theory of Relativity. If objects are moving at, or near, the speed of light then the particles should have infinite, or near-infinite, mass. But then if that were the case then even one cosmic rays particle should wrap the entire earth around itself with it's gravity.

Yet clearly, this does not happen.

The second complication with the speed of light is the more recent field of Quantum Physics, or Quantum Mechanics.

In Relativity, the speed of light is absolutely sacrosanct, nothing can ever move faster than the speed of light. But in Quantum Physics the speed of light is not even a factor at all. It can be shown that information moves instantaneously between two entangled photons, no matter how far apart they are, without being bound by the speed of light.

Both Relativity and Quantum Physics can verify their claims experimentally. The thought occurred to me that scientists who work with relativity and those who work with Quantum Physics probably don't hang out together very often.

The speed of light, both the speed itself and it's relativistic effects, must somehow be an illusion. But if it is an illusion then why does light apparently take time to get from one place to another?

We know that when we look far out into space we are looking backward in time. We can actually observe the universe as it was eons ago. The same goes for other electromagnetic radiation. Signals between the earth and spacecraft take time to cross the intervening space. If we bounce a radar signal off the moon, we can measure that it travels at the speed of light to get to the moon and back.

So how can the speed of light be an illusion, even though it appears so much that it must be?

My cosmology theory explains it simply. The posting that I use to briefly explain the cosmology theory, without reading the entire theory is "In Cosmology, Everything Just Fell Right Into Place", May 2019.

Everything, both space and matter, consists of near-infinitesimal negative and positive electric charges. Space is an alternating checkerboard of negative and positive charges in multiple dimensions. Matter is a concentration of like charges held together against their mutual repulsion by energy.

This is why a certain amount of mass is equivalent to a certain amount of energy, as expressed in Einstein's famous formula E = MC squared. The equivalence of mass and energy is also the well-known Mass-Energy Equivalence.

The universe can be traced, by my cosmology theory, back to a single electric charge, whether negative or positive. The two electric charges must always balance out. The first, original, charge was an imbalance. So an opposite charge had to be induced on each side of the original charge. It had to be on both sides of the original charge because two electric charges meant there had to be two opposite directions in each dimension. But this also resulted in an odd number of charges, and thus an imbalance of electric charges. So the process of charge reproduction by mutual induction continued indefinitely, in multiple dimensions.

This is what formed all of the space in the universe. It is a checkerboard of alternating negative and positive electric charges, that overall balances out to zero. The electromagnetism of electromagnetic waves comes from the wave disturbing the underlying electric charge balance.

Matter came into being when a two-dimensional sheet of alternating negative and positive charges formed within the surrounding background space. But it's alternating pattern of charges was not contiguous with that of the background space.

Since dimensions of space form right angles, this means that the two-dimensional sheet must have been aligned at something other than a right angle to the checkerboard pattern of the charges of the background space. If it would have been aligned, by the pattern of it's electric charges, either horizontally or vertically with the background space, then it wouldn't exist as a separate sheet of space.

We know that the universe always seeks the lowest information state, as well as the lowest energy state, because energy and information is really the same thing. The universe prefers an equality to an inequality because the equality is the lower information state. In everyday terms that is why high pressure and low pressure, as well as hot and cold, will seek to equalize.

So if the two-dimensional sheet cannot be aligned contiguous with the multi-dimensional background space, and the universe prefers an equality to an inequality, the only alignment that the two-dimensional sheet could have, relative to the right angled charge alignment of the background space, is to have it's charge alignment at a 45 degree angle to the background space, because 45 degrees is exactly half of a right angle.

In my cosmology theory, the matter of our universe formed when charge migration took place in the two-dimensional sheet, positive to one side and negative to the other, because it brought about a lower information state relative to the charge alignment of the background space. Not being contiguous with the pattern of charge alignment of the background space, the positive side of the two-dimensional sheet came into contact with the negative side. This brought about the matter-antimatter reaction that we perceive as the Big Bang. One dimension of the two-dimensional sheet of space disintegrated into energy. The remaining dimension had it's charges, in lines of like charges both negative and positive because charge migration had taken place in the sheet, "welded" together by the energy released in the disintegration of the other dimension. This is what formed the one-dimensional strings of matter in the universe. We see these strings as charged particles, such as electrons, because the strings of the two-dimensional sheet were thrown out, by the Big Bang, over four dimensions of the background space, and we can only see in three of the four dimensions because we experience the other as time.

This means that the strings which form matter have a 45 degree angle to the right angled alignment of the negative and positive electric charges of the background space.

We cannot sense this 45 degree angle and it usually makes no difference to us, until we do something involving electromagnetic waves.

Picture a geometric square, this represents the arrangement of electric charges in the background space. Now picture a diagonal across the square, from the lower left corner to the upper right, this represents the alignment of the strings of matter from the two-dimensional sheet because it's electric charges are aligned at a 45 degree angle to those of the background space.

Now picture a straight line from the midpoint of the left side of the square, extending across the square until it meets the diagonal.

Then picture another straight line from the midpoint of the bottom side of the square, extending upward until it meets the diagonal at the same point that the other midpoint line met the diagonal.

Both of the midpoint lines form a 45 degree angle with the diagonal. The midpoint lines represent our interaction with space with regard to electromagnetic waves.

Our consciousness moves along the bundles of strings comprising our bodies and brains, at what we perceive as the speed of light. This is where the speed of light comes from, it is actually within us. That is why we can measure the speed of light with precision but can find no reason why it is that speed, instead of some other speed.

It also explains what time is. I could find no plausible explanation anywhere as to what time is. This is the answer, it is within us as the speed of our consciousness moving along the bundles of strings comprising our bodies and brains.

A basic assumption regarding science is that we have an unbiased view of the universe. But what if that is not true? In my cosmology theory we do not have an unbiased view of the universe. We are part of the universe and see it as we do not only because of what it is but also because of what we are.

With everyday life, and ordinary physics, our perspective on the universe, as well as this 45 degree angle, doesn't make much difference. But when we deal with cosmology, the nature of the universe, it does make a difference.

When we look out into the universe we are seeing at 45 degrees into our past dimension. This means back toward the Big Bang in the fourth dimension of space, the one that we perceive as time. That is why we seem to be looking backward into time when we look out into space.

When we transmit electromagnetic waves out into space we are actually sending the waves out into our future dimension, the opposite direction of the past dimension at a 45 degree angle. This is why, when we bounce a radar signal off the moon, it seems to take time to get to the moon and back.

What is really happening is that the signal is instantaneous but, since it went out at a 45 degree angle, it also bounces back at a 45 degree angle, and arrives back at the bundle of strings comprising the earth in our future dimension. Our consciousness is moving in that direction at what we perceive as the speed of light, when we arrive at where the signal arrived back at earth the signal appears to have only just gotten back to us while moving at the speed of light.

That is why the speed of light is an illusion.

If we see at an angle of 45 degrees into our past dimension, and objects are actually bundles of strings in four-dimensional space, that actually solves another mystery.

Scientists have long been searching for "Dark Matter".

Considering what we know about gravity and the amount of mass in our galaxy, our galaxy should fly apart by centrifugal force at the rate it is spinning. But yet clearly, it doesn't.

So scientists decided that there must be some type of "Dark Matter" that is not visible to us but is contributing to holding the galaxy together by it's gravity.

The trouble is that scientists have been searching for "Dark Matter" for nearly a hundred years and have not found the slightest trace of it.

But, once again, a fundamental basis of science is the belief that we have an unbiased view of the universe. My theory is that we don't, we are part of the universe ourselves and see it as we do not only because of what it is but also because of what we are.

If we see at an angle of 45 degrees into our past dimension, and we of course gauge gravity by what we see, and objects such as the moon and planets and stars and galaxies are really bundles of strings in four-dimensional space, then that means we are looking at objects along a diagonal when we think we are looking at them directly.

This means that, in a direct line which we cannot see, objects are really closer to us by a factor of 1.414, which is the square root of two.

Since the force of gravity is proportional to the square root of the distance, this means that the force of gravity is stronger than we are perceiving it.

That is why scientists cannot find a trace of dark matter, because it does not exist and is not necessary.

If you have time for some more reading, and are interested in science or mathematics, here is a link to the original posting of "Concluding The Search For Dark Matter".

http://markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2018/09/concluding-search-for-dark-matter.html

Encouragement For My Native Britain

I have not forgotten my native country during this difficult time and would like to offer some encouragement.

Does anyone remember how crowded churches were during the Blitz of 1940? Well this is the Blitz, Part Two. Due to social distancing, obviously we cannot have crowded churches, but we can turn back to God. That is why God is allowing this difficult time to happen.

What made Britain a great country in the first place? Before the Reformation, during the Plantagenet era, Britain was less-than-important on a global scale. But after people were allowed to read the Bible in their own language, and worship freely, the country took off like a rocket for the top of the world.

That is one reason why I am a great believer in the Reformation and Bible reading, I can see what it did for my native country.

God is absolutely supreme. Nothing can possibly stand against God. As the history of Britain and other countries shows, a nation that really attaches itself to God will rise to the top of the world.

Opening the cover of a Bible is opening a doorway to the whole universe, to all of eternity. If a nation or group of people really follows God, then wouldn't God bless and promote that nation just to show everyone else that it was on the right course?

Thursday, January 7, 2021

Tel Aviv And Haifa

There have been several previous postings about Israel, but all have been about antiquities. Israel is also a modern country, and the best place to see the "modern" Israel is the city of Tel Aviv.

Jerusalem is the country's largest city, but it is very difficult to discuss Jerusalem without delving into it's three thousand years of history. Tel Aviv is a "new" city, by the standards of this part of the world, and it is there we can see what Israel is today. Tel Aviv is on the Mediterranean coast if Israel about 100 km from both Amman and Acre, both of which we have visited.

Tel Aviv is a new city, but it is actually next to a very old city, that of Jaffa (or Yafo), which is now actually within Tel Aviv. Jaffa has been very much a part of the long history of the area. The following scenes begin at the Clock Tower in Jaffa, which was built during the Ottoman era.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >. After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

https://www.google.com/maps/@32.0550617,34.7563354,3a,75y,50.13h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipM5-LugYXlYRil8tV2CvK21--t6mJTMcDTD4M4h!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipM5-LugYXlYRil8tV2CvK21--t6mJTMcDTD4M4h%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya110.414375-ro-0-fo100!7i10240!8i5120

These scenes begin on the beach. Sand is actually the reason that Tel Aviv exists. Buildings were located there because the soil was too sandy to be good for farming.

https://www.google.com/maps/@32.0737442,34.7649178,3a,75y,258.04h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1soAG1UvD8ucJRH0aJmr2xbg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D0%26panoid%3DoAG1UvD8ucJRH0aJmr2xbg%26yaw%3D258.03921218454934!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTEyNC4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

This is Independence Hall, where the independence of modern Israel was declared in 1948, and the surrounding area.

https://www.google.com/maps/@32.0629564,34.7709439,3a,75y,169.56h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1szj7jxL9iiDDfCm47GgClqQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3Dzj7jxL9iiDDfCm47GgClqQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D171.12668%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Here is the area around Azrieli Center in Tel Aviv, which is a modern business district.

https://www.google.com/maps/@32.0745392,34.7921295,3a,75y,132.43h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipMSMp6IAAdAfo7YFlVKLP4ffyV9gGtR_Je3hwAO!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMSMp6IAAdAfo7YFlVKLP4ffyV9gGtR_Je3hwAO%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya186.16946-ro0-fo100!7i8000!8i4000

I can remember well the news of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, in 1995. The site is now called Rabin Square.

https://www.google.com/maps/@32.0806749,34.7800399,3a,75y,133.27h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1swvgi37Ugtm8u3AvKNz4QcA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3Dwvgi37Ugtm8u3AvKNz4QcA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D138.00902%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Proceeding inland from the sea in Tel Aviv, we come to this neighborhood.

https://www.google.com/maps/@32.0773246,34.8189441,3a,75y,349.5h,93t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipMxOUXc4BQ_q5DHWa7iJO0Uhf9HefAgtotYMf7n!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMxOUXc4BQ_q5DHWa7iJO0Uhf9HefAgtotYMf7n%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-2.9999962-ya57.500004-ro-0-fo100!7i7168!8i3584

North of Tel Aviv, and near to Acre, we arrive at the city of Haifa. This is actually built on a slope of Mount Carmel at one of the few natural harbors on Israel's Mediterranean coast.

Israel is, of course, the land of Judaism. But other religious groups have found a safe home there as well. The following images begin at the top of the Baha'i Gardens, which is the center of the Baha'i religion.

https://www.google.com/maps/@32.8113461,34.9852078,3a,75y,314.34h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sxvx5aLNj7Rd7ugnDyoi_SQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3Dxvx5aLNj7Rd7ugnDyoi_SQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D319.30017%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

This is down in the city of Haifa.

https://www.google.com/maps/@32.8376912,35.0665216,3a,75y,1.5h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sr4_RmjZ3AGkKUsXJOIKjhQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3Dr4_RmjZ3AGkKUsXJOIKjhQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D1.5%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

The Storming Of America's Capitol

Wow. A mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed America's Capitol Building in Washington D.C. There have also been protests at state capitols across the country.

The word "capital" is spelled with no "o" and two "a"s. In America "Capitol", spelled with one "o", refers to the building that houses the national or state legislature. So that Washington is the capital of the U.S. and the domed building that houses the legislature is the Capitol.

As I have done so many times before with regard to U.S. politics, I am going to refer to the posting on this blog, "America And The Modern World Explained By Way Of Paris", December 2015.

In that posting we saw that America's Republicans are actually the continuation of the French Bourbon Dynasty, the last king and queen of which were overthrown and guillotined in the French Revolution after earlier giving America diplomatic recognition and helping it to gain independence.

The signature event of the French Revolution, which ended the dynasty that continued in France's ally across the ocean, was the Storming of the Bastille, in Paris.

The Storming of the Capitol could not have been a more perfect reenactment of the Storming of the Bastille. It was actually a reversal of the French Revolution because this time it was the Bourbons ( Republicans ) doing the storming, just as the purpose was to reverse the results of the election.

Can you believe that the protesters in Phoenix even set up a guillotine outside the State Capitol? This is the infamous method of execution that the French Revolutionaries used.

That posting is about the length of a book but it is impossible to really understand U.S. politics without it. Now you can see what I mean.

When The Middle Ages Returned

In the late Nineteenth Century the western countries were mostly at peace. It was generally a prosperous time and quite a few people had a lot of money. There was money to travel and to build.

The development of trains and steel ships made it possible for many more people to travel than ever before. Many travelers saw medieval castles. There was the widespread popularity of children's tales that were set in times far past.

There were, of course, many cathedrals in Europe from the Middle Ages. But cathedrals tend to be located in cities, often with the city being built around the cathedral, and so would already be familiar. It was the late Nineteenth Century when many more people saw castles than ever before.

The result was a fascination with medieval castles. Some people, with money to spend, went completely overboard in building their own castles. There was also the Neo-Gothic movement in architecture, although I don't think these castles would fall into that category.

Let's have a look back at that era.

Possibly the best-known late Nineteenth Century castle is Neuschwanstein, in Bavaria. Whether or not a real castle ever actually looked like this, the outstanding Neuschwanstein ended up being the model for Disney's Magic Kingdom. Medieval castles were built with security, rather than looks, as the primary consideration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuschwanstein_Castle#/media/File:Schloss_Neuschwanstein_2013.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuschwanstein_Castle#/media/File:Neuschwanstein_detail.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuschwanstein_Castle#/media/File:Hohenschwangau_-_Schloss_Neuschwanstein5.jpg

In France, there is Chateau Pierrefonds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Pierrefonds#/media/File:Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Pierrefonds_vu_depuis_le_Parc.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Pierrefonds#/media/File:Chateaudepierrefonds04.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Pierrefonds#/media/File:Pierrefonds1.jpg

In London, Tower Bridge was built as the late Nineteenth Century compliment to the adjacent Tower of London.

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3879/3734/1600/dc_250883.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_Bridge#/media/File:The_Tower_Bridge,_London_in_the_night_3.jpg

In Toronto Casa Loma was built in the early Twentieth Century. Castles of this era were usually built like a castle on the outside, but a palace on the inside.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_Loma#/media/File:Exterior_of_Casa_Loma,_June_2012.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_Loma#/media/File:DSC09003_-_Oak_Room_(36406890003).jpg

The city of Buffalo, NY built the Connecticut Street Armory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Street_Armory#/media/File:ConnecticutStreetArmory-ProspectPark.JPG

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Street_Armory#/media/File:Connecticut_Street_Armory.jpg

Medieval castles would be made out of thick and heavy stone, not of clay bricks, but Niagara Falls built it's armory like a castle, in the late Nineteenth Century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niagara_Falls_Armory#/media/File:Niagara_Falls_Armory_Jun_09.JPG

The nearby city of Tonawanda also built a brick castle armory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonawanda_Armory#/media/File:Tonawanda_Armory_Nov_2008.JPG

This is Disney's Magic Kingdom, modeled on Neuschwanstein.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney_World#/media/File:Magic_Kingdom_-_Cinderella_Castle_panorama_-_by_mrkathika.jpg

The presidential court of John F. Kennedy was called "Camelot", after the castle of the legendary King Arthur.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arth_tapestry2.jpg

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