The Clever Apprentice

What fairy tales of enchanted princesses and legendary lore of the Arabian Nights does not the mere mention of the ruby conjure up to our imagination! No stone has been more intimately connected with poetry and romance, and few gems can compare either in beauty or value with a perfect ruby. When Solomon exclaimed that “a virtuous woman was more valuable than rubies,” and Job, that “the price of wisdom is above rubies,” they both mentioned what to them was the most valuable thing in existence. And its value and rarity have not decreased since their time. Today a perfect ruby of five carats will fetch at least five times the value of a diamond of the same size and quality, while rubies without flaw or blemish, and of the true pigeon-blood variety, weighing as much as ten carats, are so rare and valuable that ten times the value of a perfect diamond would be considered a very low price to pay for so perfect a gem.

The ruby is the oldest or first known of all precious stones, dating far back in the early history of Chaldea and Babylonia. The finest specimens, as well as the largest quantities, are found in Upper Burma, and at the present time over one-half of the world’s supply comes from this locality. The rubies found in Ceylon, Siam and Australia have not the deep rich color of the Burmese ruby which is a shade of red slightly inclined to the purple and is often called “Pigeon Blood Ruby.” The value of rubies depends upon their color and transparency.

The red sapphire or ruby is the most valuable of the corundum family, and when found of a good color, pure and brilliant, and in sizes of one carat and larger, it is much more valuable than a fine diamond of the same size.

Rubies and Sapphires are scientifically the same stone, differing only in color. Corundum, the predominating mineral of both, is composed of nearly pure alumina. The coloring substance, which differentiates rubies and sapphires, is believed to be chromium. In the scale of hardness the gem ranks as No. 9 and is thus the hardest of all substances excepting the diamond. Color is the most important factor in determining the value of the ruby. The gem is always more or less imperfect, but its freedom from bad imperfections is also important. Since fine rubies of all sizes are extremely rare, the price increases very rapidly with an increase in size, and a fine ruby of more than four carats commands an extraordinary price and can be said to be the most valuable of all gems, exceeding greatly a diamond of equal weight. The color of the ruby varies from the lightest rose tint to the deepest carmine, but the rarest and most valuable shade is known as Pigeon Blood. This is the color of arterial blood. The ruby has always been greatly admired, and many say that the ruby in the British Crown is the most beautiful gem they have ever seen.

The ruby is found in limestone deposits on side hills, but the largest quantity is found in alluvial deposits of gravel and clay in riverbeds. These deposits are about fifteen to twenty feet below the surface and from a few inches to five feet in thickness. This material called “byon” is mined or removed and put through a washing process by which the rubies are recovered.

The genuine ruby is gotten from the mineral known as corundum. Emery, so much used, is an impure form of corundum. The superbly blood-red color of the perfect ruby is produced by the very tiny portions of impurity in the substance after they have been crystallized by Nature’s wonderful processes. All genuinethat is natural stones, contain certain tiny flaws and blemishes and characteristic peculiarities. The fewer these flaws the rarer the gem. Imitation stones get their imperfections during manufacture, and as the chemists are more careful than Nature, these imperfections are less noticeable. By the following differences between the real and the artificial, you can test your ruby. A real ruby contains irregularly shaped bubbles; the imitation ruby contains bubbles that are perfectly round. Natural rubies all have a silky sheen, due to a number of tiny parallel lines going in three definite directions; imitation stones never have this characteristic.

While lab-created rubies and sapphires have a distinct use in jewelry, they can never affect the sale of the real gems any more than is the case with imitation pearls. Aside from the fact that the imitation can always be ultimately detected, the person desiring to purchase a ruby, as a ruby, and as a work of beauty and distinction wants a gem which he knows is one of nature’s rarities and is therefore possessed of intrinsically great value. A good illustration of this fundamental feeling is given by Mr. Zell a noted mineralogist, who says, “Many perfect copies of the Sistine Madonna have been made by good artists, the original is priceless, the copies at the most are worth a few hundred dollars, this is the relation of a gem made in nature’s laboratory to one produced by the chemist.”

Today, the ruby is still considered one of the most valuable and beautiful of the precious stones. Artisans of fine jewelry throughout the world continue to utilize this fine gem in their creations. Ruby is the birthstone for the month of July.

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Life is too hard and too risky in the eyes of many. By contrast, others are such proponents of a virile existence, demanding great courage and giving great pride, that they are ready to leave the coziness of their home to scale Mount Everest and breast the elements for the sheer joy of conquering the summit. Whatever the perspective, the nature of things remains unchanged. There are rules, necessities and duties, and limits, possibilities and impossibilities. Until doom, one can accept them and make the best of them, much to one’s pleasure and honor, or one can do the opposite and suffer the consequences. The choice between these two options is the very essence of freedom. Personally, I have no use for the second option: a self-inflicted misery that is without the slightest doubt a pitiable way of life.

The first option, on the other hand, is a pleasurable and honorable alternative that I find compelling, though uphill. It is applicable to any situation encountered in the course of one’s living venture, provided one is not unfortunate to the point of being hopelessly unable to cope. The range of this applicability corresponds with the range of one’s adaptability. It is normally considerable, despite the tendency to cling to old gratifying habits even after they have become impracticable or unsuitable, owing to a change of situation. One can be weaned from such habits onto new gratifying habits, in the same way as a baby can be weaned onto solids. The more the change is significant and one is reluctant to adapt to it, the more the weaning process is difficult and long in producing the desired effect. Again, the only option worthy of one’s attention consists in taking things as they come and making the most of them, for one’s sake and that of others. The reverse is foolish and harmful, a deplorable waste of humanity.

On the whole, the power to live in a well-adjusted and high-minded way and the freedom to choose this way in preference to the alternate, illegitimate, way are the foundations of the life one builds. The exercise of this power does not necessarily imply a principled resignation toward the status quo. One may be faced with a remediable evil that calls for a struggle to remedy it, effectively and rightly. In that case, living in a well-adjusted and high-minded way entails accepting the need for this struggle and the means of waging it, and sparing no effort to attain one’s end. Ills are a test of will, an opportunity to show dignity.

They are also an opportunity to probe and appraise one’s inner resources. Over the years, I have improved my situation and especially my attitude, whose negativity was the most unfavorable and improvable aspect of my life. In so doing, I have discovered my true richness. Nature has endowed me with an adaptable capacity for happiness within the limits of my changeable reality. According to my observations, this capacity is not unusually great, compared with that of most people. I am even tempted to think it is somewhat lagging behind. Eleven years plus to adapt in triumph to my physical disability is no feat for the Guinness Book of World Records!

During that time, the riddle of life had more or less baffled me. Yet, laboriously, with the help of many books and much thought, I had managed by degrees to clear it up, enough to find a meaning to my life. This riddle is comparable to a mire: The slower you go through it, the deeper you get into it. Perhaps thinkers are commonly untalented in the art of living and their saving grace is their dogged determination to redeem this lack of talent by dint of studying the human soul. Amusingly enough, these untalented individuals are often perceived as gifted, once they have seen the light and reflected it with the numerous mirrors of an elaborate analysis, after a tentative and protracted search in the dark.

This sort of overcompensation is typical of people who experience difficulties in a certain area, but refuse to admit defeat. While some fare well in this area with a minimum of effort, they try hard to overcome these difficulties, with the result that they often fare better than the others. Their redeeming feature is their willpower in the face of their shortcoming, which they use as a reason to redouble their efforts, not as an excuse to throw in the towel. This is a recipe for a worthy success. They discipline and surpass themselves, and thus proudly turn things around.

Laurent Grenier’s career as a writer and philosopher spans over twenty years. During this time he has broadened and deepened his worldview, through much reflection and study, and in the end has crafted A REASON FOR LIVING, his best work to date.

Official web site: laurentgrenier.com/ARFL.html

Algebra is good at differentiating relationships between things that vary from time to time. For example, the relationship between a person’s income and rise of his expenses could be resolved and estimated using elementary algebraic equations. Mathematics is not an easy subject for most pupils. Many software applications are available with a variety of study demonstration so students able to handle any capacity of learning algebra can work around the subject without difficulty. These applications also serves students to comprehend importance of Algebra in real life as well as within industry field. Wider functions applied in algebra include Graphing non-linear inequalities , Solving compound inequalities, Solving quadratic inequalities , Adding and Subtracting matrices etc.
Although algebra is an easy to follow course of study, students may face a lot of trouble if they do not practice the basic concepts hard enough. This makes initial math skills necessary to help students successfully advance from algebra and move on into postgraduate math with authority.

How to Excel in Algebra

Instrumental algebra software programs offer more than what can be found in the students textbook, such as homework help, interactive lesson plans, games and a worksheet tool or graphing calculator. The most useful software have all of these factors - ease of use and covering of all the topics.

Such instructional tools come in handy when different forms such as audio, video, animations and games are put in to use in order to instruct the lessons. All the important topics should also be covered from Pre-Algebra through Algebra II. Important topics normally include: Finding complement of an angle, inverse of functions, finding type of polynomial, determine if line is , determine if line is parallel, determine if parabola opens down, determine if relation is a functions etc.

How to Use Algebra Software

Some algebraic software shows results only, while other (much more suitable for elementary algebra) show all the steps as well as explanations of mathematical basics that are being used. For students, ease of use of the software is the number one requirement. Thus, the software better be bundled with value added features like high quality and timely user support, coordinated help options, and easily laid out math wizards.

Something that is usually at the very bottom of the pile whilst preparing for an education is health insurance for students. At that age, the last thing on a student’s mind is how they’re going to cope with insurance needs. Young people are wont to imagine that they are immortal and naturally they can not suffer from a serious illness. The truth is, this is seldom the case no matter how healthy an individual may seem. A good health insurance policy isn’t for the comfortably off, it is an absolute necessity.

Individuals who are included in their parent’s medical insurance are in the main covered up until their 23rd birthday. For the student who does not currently have coverage on their parent’s plan, obtaining alternative insurance plans for affordable student health insurance must be an essential part of getting ready for a further education. So what should a student look for in a medical insurance plan targeted at college students? What is a deductible? A deductible is basically a yearly payment which must be made prior to your medical benefits beginning, comparable to an auto deductible. To illustrate, should your deductible be 500 dollars, you have to pay that sum before getting financial benefits connected with the plan. What precisely does co-pay mean? Once the deductible is paid, commonly for each visit to the doctor, medication, or operation you’ll have to contribute a pre-determined portion of the cost. That, in a nutshell is co-pay.

Just what will the insurance pay for? Numerous plans are Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) or Partnership for Prescription Assistance. This could mean particular doctors may not be included in your authorized medical professionals or not be covered by your health insurance policy. Most policies include a directory of participating professionals, so consider that when selecting a medical insurance plan specifically for students.

Catastrophic insurance coverage: There is frequently a limit on medical insurance designed for college students as far as serious illnesses, in most student insurance policies, the cover is generally lower than any regular medical insurance plan. What about the limitations? Student health coverage plans may include various limits. It is important to read your policy carefully to discover what may and may not be covered.

Carry your insurance cards close to hand everywhere. Illnesses are not just impossible to anticipate, but they are most likely to hit when not anticipated. Acquaint yourself with your college medical insurance plan, whether through your parent’s plan or you have your own choice of insurance.

Ian Lancaster Fleming (1908-1964), the author of the James Bond 007 novels, was the grandson of a Scottish banker and the son of a Conservative MP (Member of Parliament). His father died in the first world war. In his will, he bequeathed his property to his widow on condition she never remarries.

Ian’s youth was inauspicious. He was expelled from Eton following a sexual liaison with a girl. He left Sandhurst without obtaining an officer’s rank, having been caught violating the curfew. He continued his education in Kitzbuhel, Austria, in Munich and in Geneva where he studied languages. But the chain of disappointments continued apace. He failed in a Foreign Service exam and had to join Reuters as a journalist. There he successfully covered a spy trial in Russia (1929-32).

He then joined a British investment bank as a stockbroker and moved to live in a converted temple in Belgravia, a fashionable district of London, where he entertained the members of the Le Cercle Gastronomique et des Jeux de Hasard.

In 1939, Fleming took on an assignment for The Times in Moscow - in effect a cover. He was spying for the Foreign Office and later for Naval Intelligence where he attained the rank of Commander.

During the second world war, he worked from room number 39 in the Admiralty building in Whitehall as assistant to Admiral John Godfrey. He was involved in the evacuation of Dieppe in 1940, in the smuggling of King Zog out of Albania and in setting up the Office for Special Services, the precursor of the CIA.

As commander of the 30th Assault Unit, he sometimes operated behind the German lines, trying to secure important documents and files from destruction. But, mostly, he directed the Unit’s operations from London.

When the war was over, he built a house - Goldeneye - in Jamaica. He worked for the Kemsley group of papers and vacationed every winter in the island.

While awaiting the divorce of one of his numerous paramours - the pregnant Lady Anne Rothermere - the 44 years old Fleming wrote “Casino Royale” published in 1953. It was the first of 12 James Bond thrillers, translated to 11 languages and with total sales of 18 million copies. James Bond novels are now being authored by a new generation of writers.

In 1961, John F, Kennedy, the newly elected president, listed a James Bond title as one of his favorite books. Many movie plots were loosely based on Fleming’s novels and have grossed, in total, more than $1 billion. The 007 trademark was merchandised and attached to everything, from toys and games to clothes and toiletries.

But Fleming was also renowned for his non-fiction: tomes like “The Diamond Smugglers” and his “Atticus” column in The Sunday Times where he served as foreign manager (1945-9). He successfully branched into children’s literature with “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” (1964), also made into a movie.

Ironically, his mother died and left him a fortune in 1964 - when Fleming was already wealthy and dying. The trip to her service may have done him in. His son committed suicide in 1975 and his wife died in 1981. He left behind one heir: James Bond.

Sam Vaknin ( samvak.tripod.com ) is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Global Politician, Central Europe Review, PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory and Suite101.

Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.

Visit Sam’s Web site at samvak.tripod.com

When I was a nineteen-year-old high school student and budding poet - two years after my diving accident - many factors adversely affected my creativity. My trips in a special bus to school and back home, my courses, and my assignments, though I was spared a lot of writing and was mostly tested orally, all this was time-consuming. More often than not, my obligation to study took priority over my desire to compose poetry.

To tell the truth, I had plenty of free time. That I spent much of it uncreatively showed evidence of frivolousness, laziness, and cowardliness. I usually preferred to take my mind off things, or to daydream, rather than to express myself through poems. The satisfaction I could derive from achieving this expression seldom induced me to try. The deterring elements were the difficulty of trying and the uncertainty surrounding the outcome of my efforts.

A poem - assuming one is concerned about writing beautifully - is indeed no cinch. It requires a poet who is talented, skilled, and determined. My poetic ability was fickle; my grammar and style were faulty; my will was faint. I lacked the courage of my creative desire. This lack was not absolute. Now and then, when I felt compellingly inspired, I resisted my temptation to trifle - which amounted to taking the easy way out - and endeavored to compose a poem. I had to repeat this endeavor, over and over, to grow more capable and confident, less discouraged by the challenge at hand.

I am afraid young individuals similar to the young man I was then are not a rarity. The prospect of success turns them on; effort and the risk of failure turn them off. The contradiction is apparent, and the result predictable: Since effort and the risk of failure are essential for success, the avoidance of them precludes this success. Of course everyone knows this. The trouble is that many refuse largely to accept it. This is proof that knowledge is powerless in itself; it needs a strong will to be effective.

Young individuals, who know the rules of success, can be failures inasmuch as they fail to accept these rules. Wisdom includes this acceptance (the exclusion of which is thus foolish). It must be distinguished from knowledge. Wise people are also brave people who put their knowledge into practice and become successful for that reason. The obvious holds good in every way: Life without courage is like a bird without wings; it cannot take off.

Why is it hard to want both the end and the means? Precisely because the means are hard, not to mention the fact that they are hazardous, you might answer. If you are right, then why do some actually thrive on this hardness and hazardousness? The key to this mystery is their attitude: They regard these opposing elements not only as obstacles but also as opportunities for merit and excitement. Just as they were young once, spoon-fed and sheltered from the evils of the world, they eventually outgrew their attachment to easiness and developed a taste for challenge. In conclusion, what characterizes them is their maturity, by contrast with the infantilism of others.

Between these two extremes there is a mediocre compromise, partly mature, partly infantile. It consists in taking charge of one’s life while taking the easy way out. Small principles, small realizations, far below one’s potential for greatness, they are poor excuses for wisdom and success. Potential, that is the operative word. There can be greatness in apparent smallness and smallness in apparent greatness; the truth resides in the great or small actualization of one’s potential, whatever it is.

How does one discover what it is? By making the effort to actualize it in the ever-renewed and multifaceted act of living. This entails that one push oneself hard, at the risk of going too far. Measure is an empty abstraction for anyone who has never exceeded it. Limits should be experienced, not invented. This experience demands a serious and courageous commitment to greatness. Steer clear of frivolousness, laziness, and cowardliness; do not fall prey to them as I did so many times. They are strong temptations that can assume the form of a cunning philosophy that is unique to losers. Beware of this snare. Life is a demanding character test; come death, you will have ample time to rest!

Nostalgic for the old days at the rehabilitation facility when I wrote anyhow about anything, I once conveniently believed in spontaneous writing as a guarantee of genuineness. Fortunately I was foolish yet not a complete fool. After some denial, which involved some nonsense in justification of my foolishness, I admitted sullenly that my sacrosanct pursuit of genuineness was in fact a vile indulgence in idiocy. There is nothing spontaneous about the intelligent conception and intelligible expression of one’s true self, which is everything but simple. It is a tissue of desires, feelings, ideas, and memories, caught in a whirl of interactions between the mind and the world. Either one goes to great lengths to elucidate and formulate the truth about oneself, and one hits the bull’s-eye, or one talks bullshit - please forgive my language.

Some people shine at off-the-cuff speeches, as though they were so brilliant they could avoid saying idiocies when forced to be spontaneous. Make no mistake; their brilliance is merely one side of the equation. They have spent years polishing their manner of thinking and speaking, while their knowledge waxed through learning. Their spontaneity is studied. It is a product of numerous rehearsals, like the performance of an actor. Nothing great ever comes easily to anyone, including those who are the most gifted among us. Superior luck is not human greatness, only a steppingstone toward it. The stone is given; the stepping is done by the sweat of one’s brow and is made of a million steps, uphill. To work one’s way up to greatness is comparable to conquering Mount Everest, the highest peak of the Himalayas. It is an outstanding achievement with a sense of pride to match.

Laurent Grenier’s career as a writer and philosopher spans over twenty years. During this time he has broadened and deepened his worldview, through much reflection and study, and in the end has crafted A REASON FOR LIVING, his best work to date.

Official web site: laurentgrenier.com/ARFL.html

Hip-Hop has historically existed as a male-dominated industry. Being a reflection of urban life and struggle, past Hip-Hop artists have been forced to maintain a certain level of masculinity in order to be accepted by their urban communities. Old school rappers who talked about love were often viewed as soft or corny. Because of this perception, the existence of love in Hip-Hop is a fairly new concept.

As the movement has gained support and recognition throughout the world, love has become an increasingly common theme in Hip-Hop music and poetry. However, the taboo still exists. Even today, Hip-Hop artists and poets present their love stories in a manner that allows them to maintain socially acceptable identities. Hip-Hop stories about love must still meet the masculine ideology in which the movement is rooted in order to be perceived as real and true.

The purpose of this study is to analyze Hip-Hop love narratives and how artists present these love stories in order to construct socially acceptable identities. I believe personal narratives are closely tied to the construction of identities. It is through personal narratives that people can recount life-changing events, realize socially acceptable behavior and create individual identities.

I have researched and studied several Hip-Hop love songs and analyzed the lyrics as text and poetry. In my research, I have found five common narrative forms used by Hip-Hop poets to tell their love stories: contrasting, perceptual, spiritual, conversational and metaphoric. These five narrative forms are used not only to present the story correctly, but also to maintain positive perception among a society that might view this sensitivity as weak or disrespectable. I plan to demonstrate each of these narrative forms and show how the poets use them to tell their love stories while establishing acceptable identities.

The Contrasting Narrative
One of the most common forms of Hip-Hop love stories is the contrasting narrative. Many artists use Hip-Hop music and poetry to tell stories about the negativity surrounding their urban environments. The contrasting narrative allows the poet to express his or her love story as a contrast to this negativity while constructing an acceptable identity because that negativity is real and understood in urban communities.

A great introductory example to the contrasting narrative would be the following passage from Method Man’s “All I Need”:

Back when I was nothin’
You made a brother feel like he was somethin’
That’s why I’m with you to this day boo no frontin’
Even when the skies were gray
You would rub me on my back and say “Baby it’ll be okay”

In this song, the poet uses the contrasting narrative to show his love for someone who stood by him when “skies were gray.” He speaks of his love interest as someone who helped him get through troubled times, thus providing a positive contrast to his negative surroundings.

Another example of the contrasting love narrative can be seen in this passage from Guru’s “All I Said”:

This world is crazy, she’s supposed to help me stay sane
Supposed to help with the pain, supposed to help me maintain

In this song, Guru uses the contrasting narrative to share his view of what love should be. He admits that his “world is crazy”, and that his love interest is the one person who can make it bearable.

In “She Tried”, Bubba Sparxx uses the contrasting narrative to tell a story that actually recalls his love being there for him when he was in trouble with the law:

A fly country girl, just workin’ them gifts
She’s my queen, was a virgin I guess
But I ain’t never ask and I ain’t never tell
But Betty had the cash every time I went to jail

This song further illustrates the use of contrasting narratives to express love. Though the poet confesses spending a lot of time in jail, Betty was always there to bail him out, again acting as a positive contrast to his troubles
.
The Perceptual Narrative
Another common narrative form of Hip-Hop love stories is the perceptual narrative. Like the contrasting narrative, the perceptual narrative is based around the negativity that surrounds the poet’s life. But instead of presenting this love as a contrast to that negativity, the poet uses this narrative to explain how that love changed his or her previously negative perceptions. This narrative form also allows the poet to construct a socially acceptable identity due to the acknowledgement of the negativity of urban life.

In “Jazzy Belle”, Andre of Outkast uses the perceptual narrative to tell of how his love changed his former perception of women:

Went from yellin’ crickets and crows, witches and hoes to queen thangs
Over the years I been up on my toes and yes I seen thangs …
Now I’m willin’ to go the extra kilo-
Meter just to see my senorita get her pillow
On the side of my bed where no girl ever stay
House and doctor was the games we used to play
But now it’s real Jazzy Belle…

In this song, Andre talks about a personal change of perception caused by love. He admits that at one time he thought of women as “witches and hoes.” But “now it’s real”, and he has a new perception of women as “queen thangs.”
Another great example of the perceptual narrative can be found in the following passage of Black Star’s “Brown Skin Lady”:

I don’t get many compliments, but I am confident
Used to have a complex about, gettin’ too complex
You got me, willin’ to try, looked me in the eye
My head is still in the sky, since you walked on by

In this example, the poet admits to having relationship issues, but tells of how love helped him to overcome these issues. The poet’s love interest helped him to change his perception of love and fear of “gettin’ too complex”
.
In “Ms. Fat Booty”, Mos Def further illustrates this point by demonstrating the perception of other men and speaking to his love on how he is different:

Yo, let me apologize for the other night
I know it wasn’t right, but baby you know what it’s like
Some brothers don’t be comin’ right
I understand, I’m feelin’ you
Besides, ‘Can I have a dance?’ ain’t really that original

In this song, the poet uses the perceptual narrative to acknowledge that some men “don’t be comin’ right”, but that he has a different perception of women than these other men.

In “Come Close”, Common uses the perceptual narrative to express how love has made him change from his old ways:

I want to build a tribe wit you
Protect and provide for you
Truth is I can’t hide from you
The pimp in me
May have to die with you

Although the poet used to be a “pimp”, an urban term for a man who romances a large number of women, he tells of how his love interest has changed his actions and perceptions.

The Spiritual Narrative
A third common form of Hip-Hop love stories is what I like to refer to as the spiritual narrative. The spiritual narrative relies on the poet’s characterization of love as a kind of godly being, spiritual force or royalty, often with the feeling that the story teller has to protect that force. The spiritual narrative allows the storyteller to construct an acceptable identity by characterizing love as spiritual or perhaps even predetermined.

A great example of the spiritual narrative can be found in this passage of The Roots’ “You Got Me”:

Somebody told me that this planet was small
We use to live in the same building on the same floor
And never met before
Until I’m overseas on tour
And peep this Ethiopian queen from Philly
Taking classes abroad

Here, the poet uses the spiritual narrative to describe the time, place and emotions that his love was founded on, speaking of them as if they were somehow meant to happen. He also refers to his love interest as “this Ethiopian queen from Philly”, using the royal characterization so common in spiritual love narratives.

In “Love Language”, Talib Kweli also uses a spiritual narrative form and refers to his love as a kind of royalty:

Now if they call you out your name
Then that’s a different thing
Anything but Queen
I’ll go to war like a King

This example shows the protection aspect of common spiritual love narratives. The poet feels it is unacceptable for anyone to “call you out your name”, or in other words, use derogatory language toward his love. If someone were to do so, he would “go to war like a King”, thus maintaining his masculinity.

In “Mind Sex”, Dead Prez uses the spiritual narrative to talk about love introductions:

African princess, tell me yo’ interests
Wait, let me guess boo, you probably like poetry
Here’s a little something I jotted down in case I spotted you around
So let me take this opportunity

In this song, the poet uses the spiritual narrative to tell a story about the introductory conversation he had with a love interest. He refers to her as “African princess”, once again showing the tendency of poets who use the spiritual narrative to refer to their love interests as royalty.

The Conversational Narrative
The fourth common form for Hip-Hop love stories is the conversational narrative. The conversational narrative allows the poet to recite or recreate a conversation with his or her love and present it as play-like story about a specific love experience. Conversational love narratives are typically characterized by introductory speech and compliments, and are most commonly used as tools to tell a story about a first meeting or impression. These narratives allow the storyteller to construct an acceptable identity mainly because they often include many smoothly-structured compliments, and make the poet look like a cool ladies man.

A great example of the conversational love narrative can be found this passage from Dead Prez’ previously mentioned “Mind Sex”:

Pardon me love but you seem like my type
What you doin’ tonight?
You should stop by the site
We could, roll some weed play some records and talk
I got a fly spot downtown Brooklyn, New York

In this example, the poet is reciting the conversation between himself and a love interest. As with many conversational narratives, it is based around meeting someone for the first time. The poet is telling a story about a girl he met that “seem[ed] like my type”. He then inquires “What you doin’ tonight?”, and follows with a list of charming speech in an attempt to create a social relationship with the girl.

In a similar narrative, “Beautiful Skin”, Goodie Mob uses the following conversational narrative to retell the first phone conversation he had with his love interest:

This is Carlito from a couple of days ago, you sound tired
Forgive me if I’ve called you too late
But what better time to relate mind-states?
Where could I begin?
Has anyone ever told you ‘You got beautiful skin’?

This example further illustrates the use of introductory language in conversational narratives. The poet asks his love interest if she would like to “relate mind-states”, or get to know each other. He then tells her that she has “beautiful skin”, an often successful introductory complement given to women.

Cee Lo uses the following conversational narrative in “Slum Beautiful”:

Look at you, unbelievably, brilliant beautiful you
You’re looking deliciously divine darling you really and truly do
The very thought of has got me running at the speed of love
Exploring everything about you from the ground to the God above

In this song, the poet uses the conversational narrative to speak directly to his love interest through the song. Note the wide range of compliments offered in this passage, as well as the charm, again illustrating a common aspect of the conversational narrative.

The Metaphoric Narrative
This fifth form of Hip-Hop love stories is possibly the most fascinating. It is the metaphoric narrative. The metaphoric narrative is used when the poet speaks of love in a metaphor of some kind. The most popular and socially acceptable form of metaphoric narrative is using Hip-Hop as the metaphor. Many followers of the movement view Hip-Hop as a driving force of love and happiness in their lives. Thus, many metaphoric love narratives revolve around Hip-Hop itself.

A good example of such a metaphoric narrative is the following passage from Black Eyed Peas’ “Rap Song”:

Yo, she got hips to hop
And she ain’t goin’ pop
She like a record that I wanna rock
When I’m rollin’ in my ride cruisin’ down my block

In this example, the poet actually uses a unique play on words and speaks of a love interest as a Hip-Hop metaphor. He relates this person to “a record that I wanna rock”.

The group further extends the metaphor in the following passage:

She like a beat that makes me wanna grab the mic
She like the lyrics that I wanna recite
She like the old school mic with the cable
You can bring your records and I’ll bring the turntable

Again, the poet relates his love interest to other things he and his audience love, including “old school mic with the cable”, reciting lyrics and spinning records on a turntable.

Another great example of the metaphoric narrative is in The Roots’ “Act Too … Love of My Life”:

Learnin’ the ropes of ghetto survival
Peepin’ out the situation I had to slide through
Had to watch my back my front plus my sides too
When it came to gettin’ mine I ain’t tryin’ to argue
Sometimes I wouldn’ta made it if it wasn’t for you
Hip-Hop, you the love of my life and that’s true

This passage is unique because it utilizes both the metaphoric and contrasting narrative techniques. The poet refers to Hip-Hop as “the love of my life”, while simultaneously showing how that love created a positive contrast to the tough “ropes of ghetto survival”. The poet admits that he “wouldn’ta made it if it wasn’t for you”, showing that his love for Hip-Hop was and is a driving force in his life.

And that leads us to the most popular metaphoric Hip-Hop love narrative of our time. In “I Used to Love H.E.R.”, Common Sense uses the metaphoric narrative to express his love for Hip-Hop. He starts off the narrative with the following passage:

I met this girl, when I was ten years old
And what I loved most she had so much soul
She was old school, when I was just a shorty
Never knew throughout my life she would be there for me

In this example, the poet starts off telling a story about a girl he met when he “was ten years old”, and how she was always there for him. The poet continues to use the metaphoric narrative to speak of this girl, including the good times and hardships they faced together. Not until the end of the poem does the listener actually realize that the entire song is a metaphor. The song ends with the following passage:

I see rappers slammin’ her, and takin’ her to the sewer
But I’ma take her back hopin’ that the stuff stop
Cause who I’m talkin’ bout y’all is Hip-Hop

In this song, the poet used the metaphoric narrative to tell a story about the love of his life, the struggles she faced, and his desire to save her. In the end, he admits that this love is not a real person, but instead his love of Hip-Hop.

The presentation of Hip-Hop love narratives is a very difficult task. In order to talk about love and still construct a socially acceptable urban identity, artists tend to implement one of the five successful love narrative forms. I believe that our society’s analysis of Hip-Hop music and culture is lackluster at best. The Hip-Hop love narratives presented above could provide a great basis for linguistic and sociolinguistic studies. Not only are they presented in a variety of styled narrative forms, but they also include deep thought, perception and analysis of the urban environment that characterizes an increasing majority of American society. Through the analysis and study of these love narratives, linguists could come to a greater understanding of and appreciation for the Hip-Hop vernacular, literature and, ultimately, culture.

Works Cited / Discography
A Tribe Called Quest. People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm. Jive Records, 1990.
Black Eyed Peas. Bridging the Gap. Interscope Records, 2000.
Black Star. Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star. Rawkus Records, 1998.
Bubba Sparxx. Deliverance. Interscope Records, 2003.
Common. Electric Circus. MCA Records, 2002.
Common Sense. Resurrection. Relativity Records, 1994.
Dead Prez. Let’s Get Free. Relativity Records, 2000.
Goodie Mob. Still Standing. La Face Records, 1998.
Guru. Jazzmatazz Streetsoul Vol. 3. Virgin Records, 2000.
Method Man. Tical. Def Jam Records, 1994.
Mos Def. Black on Both Sides. Priority Records, 1999.
Outkast. ATLiens. La Face Records, 1996.
Outkast. Stankonia. La Face Records, 2003.
Talib Kweli & DJ Hi-Tek. Train of Thought. Rawkus Records, 2000.
The Roots. Things Fall Apart. MCA Records, 1999.

Nathaniel Long is the creator and editor of Hip Hop Linguistics, a website dedicated to studying, interpreting and understanding hip-hop music, language, philosophy and culture. You can read more articles and reviews at www.hiphoplinguistics.com/?Hip_Hop_Album_Reviews.

There are some in the Western World who actually believe the Al Jazeera rhetoric claiming that the United States did not win the hearts and minds of the Muslim people but rather furthered the rift and created a larger divide. These folks blame the US for the culture clash and divide. In fact one political and news analyst wrote;

“The invasion of Iraq and the underlying aggressive rhetoric against Iran is what helped galvanise the Iranians behind Ahmadinejad against a perceived threat from the US next door and in Afghanistan and with bases in Tadjikistan and other central Asian republics.”

Well perhaps it was a point of contention, but the current leadership rigged the elections and used extortion tactics to get elected, further rallied the nut cases to their cause and the real problem is the radical fundamentalism “kill all the Jews” hate battle cry. It is similar to the hate speech by the liberals against the President of the United States. Just a bunch of dumb humans running around in all their sound and fury, they will act out no matter what we do. He further states;

“Considering that the US is already fomenting unrest in Iran by sending in special forces to support opposition groups, it is hardly surprising that the Iranians in turn are supporting the Shias in Iraq and the insurgency.”

Irrelevant the Iranians started it and you cannot negotiate with Terrorist Regimes, so we must take out the leadership, destroy their military assets, nuclear weapons programs and decimate two-thirds of their army to stabilize the region with equal forces to insure Iraq can move on and that Iran cannot fulfill its promise to blow Israel off the map or fund international terrorists to hit Western World civilian targets.

I cannot buy into blaming the US for typical and consistent bad behavior or lies coming from the Nation State’s leadership which sponsors international terrorism as a way to promote their version of the world onto ours. Consider this in 2006.

“Lance Winslow” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

I hate work. But, in this type of world that we belong to, money can be useful. For the past ten years of my life, I had been completely banished from the world of finance. My first credit card was cancelled after four days. With my first checking account, I withdrew $200 from an ATM and never paid it back. I did the same thing with my second checking account at another bank. These few incidents have made it impossible for me to every have a bank account or credit card for a very long time. So, yes, I burned all the bridges and covered all the paths. I am completely expelled from the world of banking and credit. This was no problem for me, since I was already living without much income to begin with.

The memories of my first job have faded so much that I now doubt whether I’ve ever been employed. How to live without an income is a question of urban survival, especially for those of us who have special needs (i.e. alcoholism). The first time, I slept in the park, but some street kids showed me an abandoned mill they had held up in. “The cops always check the park,” one of them told me, “Stay in a dark place when you sleep at night.” From those humble beginnings, I’ve changed and evolved so much. Instead of defining myself as a human being based on what I have been through, I’ve based it on what I can and will do. I drank Bacardi in a Pasadena restaurant and smashed a window with a chair. When I passed through Las Vegas, I somehow gained $10,000 in four hours and lost it over the next six days. There’s a warrant for my arrest in Austin, Texas for Riotous and Destructive Behavior, but every cop so far has been too lazy to fill out the extradition papers. I stopped a rape in Nashville and was rewarded enough alcohol to require a hospitalization. I was the man with a blank future. My name is Daniel. If you ask my friends, they’d say I was the Beatnik drifter. Homeless, alive, and free.

Beep… Beep… Beep…

My eyes burst open to the light. I’ll never get used to that sound. I swat the alarm clock and roll over. My eyes slowly open again. It’s 8:30. I have to get to work in a hour half. I’m already dressed. And, making the bed was as easy as getting out of a sleeping bag. Surveying the scene, I discover three more bodies on the ground. There was Z, a twenty four year old, who had a friend tattoo a Z on his forehead when he was sixteen. The tragedy left him scarred and with a name he’d never lose. Donny slept in the corner, his head propped up against the wall. He had no shirt on and there was an empty beer bottle sticking out of his fly — someone was making mischief last night. And, our third contender, Rochelle, remained curled up in a ball on a chair. She had a small enough figure that she could make it a comfortable position. Small clips of metal pierced her face. Two rings were connected with a chain; and there was enough of a draft in the squat that you could hear the links make their clinking noise.

I headed down the stairs, discovering several empty beer bottles along the way. Turning to the main exit of our squat, I discover my friend Buck. Somehow, he managed to fall asleep sitting up in a chair. There was a half filled whiskey bottle held against his belly, and behind that there was hard-chunked vomit on his leather jacket. I take one second to light a cigarette. With the click of the Zippo, his mouth opens and I hear, “You’re not a punk any more.”

“Would a punk put a cigarette out on your face?”

“Yeah, but you’re not a punk, so I have nothing to worry about,” he smiled, shwilling from his whiskey bottle, then putting it on the ground.

We had this debate last night. “You lose the grit and pain of being a true street kid when you start waking up in the morning to shuffle !@#$ for some !@#$!@#$ing capitalist pig-”

“It’s a !@#$in’ family owned store,” I said, shwilling my malt liquor extra hard.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, as his face emerges from a shot of hard alcohol, “You’re working for the man.”

“He’s right,” Donny said, “You’re not a punk any more.” This god of squatters stood there, clad in the armaments of a punk: spikes and chains. For some reason, he had a polka-dotted scarf around his neck. He found it on the ground earlier that day, and has developed the ill habit of wearing it.

“!@#$ you both,” I notice Z spray painting the wall with an anarchy symbol, “Having a job doesn’t change me. I sleep in a squat, like everyone else.”

Now I’m rubbing my head in the morning, thinking about an eight hour shift, and this prick sitting in my squat just said that I wasn’t a punk in his sleep. I don’t care about names and phrases any more. Gutter punk, street urchin, runaway kid, I don’t care. I’m homeless. There’s a weird smell in this abandoned building. Coil springs pierce the one mattress I have. The wallpaper is melting. Both floors are covered in garbage: wrappers, newspapers, vomit, beer cans, abandoned clothing. Home sweet home. And this is the place that we’ve decided to live. No, this is the only place we could live. I have to make excuses to no one.

I forgot again this morning. The front door does not latch shut. That was probably the constant beating I heard last night. It didn’t keep me up — enough alcohol kills all consciousness. I walk out of the abandoned/reclaimed home, only to notice a mailman walking by. He gives me an odd look, almost unsure that anyone would have any legitimate excuse for walking out of an empty building at eight AM. There’s no need for anyone to be so naive. Being homeless doesn’t make you inhuman, but many people would believe that.

It’s early. Very early. Seven AM. The birds just started their first round of mating calls. The true alcoholics are just getting to bed now. Somewhere in this state, a group of high schoolers are just coming down from their psilocybin mushroom trip. I can feel all the working class, single moms just arriving at work, an hour and a half after waking up — I’m watching their soft exhale of stress and hope. On my way to work, there was a particularly unhealthy smell rising from the concrete. It could be a hallucination caused by a night of heavy drinking and only five hours of sleep. Regardless, I can just shrug it off.

Kleineman’s Restaurant. I arrive five minutes early for my shift. “Hey, my boy, Danny…” Mr. Kleineman greets me, “Didn’t you get my message?”

“What message?” I asked, and then with a cracked smile, “And on what phone, answering machine, or e-mail?”

“I told all my other employees to tell you that we don’t need you today,” he said, shrugging, “You got the day off.”

“But, but…. I got up early and came here, like I was scheduled, and I never heard from anyone else,” I said. The struggle was more painful due to the sleep-deprivation and hangover.

“I know, but we already have a dishwasher,” he said, “Come back tomorrow. I’ll have work for you, then.”

“Can I at least get two fifty for the bus fair of getting here?” I asked. My anxiety and agitation had made me more aggressive and assertive. He certainly gave me the money. There was no other choice. When he handed the money to me, it was almost as though he was giving it to a homeless bum who was panhandling on the side of the highway. I am homeless, but it’s not quite my identifying factor in my relationship with my boss.

Two blocks south, seven blocks east, cut through the park, and you’re in the best place to get your alcohol supplies. I’ve got two fifty. Just about enough for a forty.

“Can I help you find anything?” the manager asks, pretending not to be watching me — or maybe that’s just my unfounded suspicion that all old people distrust the young.

“You don’t have any Old English?” I asked.

“No, but we have Steel Reserve and Colt 49, if you drink malt liquor,” he said.

“I wish you had some OE,” I respond, looking through the racks, and discovering, to my surprise, a bottle of “Blue Mad Dog, the best fruit flavored alcoholic beverage you’ll find, clearly the envy of wine and champagne everywhere,” her hair was being whipped by the midnight air coming off the waterfront, “This !@#$ is chemically perfected for that sweet taste of cirrhosis.”

Irene. A beautiful girl that I used to know… a girl I used to love. We’d bark at the moon together, and giggle when everyone pointed and laughed.

My hands caress her stomach as I close my eyes, nearing her face, “Booze is booze. What’s the difference between flavorings?”

“Because this represents our culture, the culture of the wino!” she triumphantly holds bottle in the air. I fall on her shoulder, slowly drifting in to sleep.

“So, you be getting the Mad Dog?” the manager asks me with his broken Indian accent. I’m softly awakened from daydream to my present reality: the scene right before I make an !@#$ out of myself due to alcohol excess. I nod my head in response to his question.

Walking down the street with the bottle of Mad Dog, I start to think that I’m not representing the culture of the wino; I am simply living a memory. This one’s for her.

“What happened?” a slightly animating Buck opens his eyes to the day, “Did the Capitalist system fall apart and they sent you home?”

He struggled to obtain a bare grasp of reality. I walked passed him, heading on up the stairs. “Alcohol in the morning?” he references my Mad Dog with a smile, “I guess maybe you really are punk.”

“Would you please cut the !@#$ with the high school routine?” I replied cheerfully, “I’ve had my fair share of being ostracized for being different. I imagine all you –”

“Is that what you think we were doing?” Buck asked, “You’re my brother no matter what, but that means I have to give you !@#$ no matter what. Why did you take this job any way? We were enough money spanging.”

I shwilled, and passed him the bottle. “Maybe it’s not about the money,” I said, “For my entire life on the streets, I haven’t advanced one bit. I aged quickly and built memories fast, but everything I got I’ve lost. Photographs of squatmates, letters from dead friends, all of the tickets I got in LA for marijuana… Everything, I lost it all. I just wanted to do something good for myself for once.”

He passed the bottle back to me. I let the alcohol sting treat this horrible misery. “If I was a businessman making three hundred thousand a year, I’d still only want to get tanked with you,” his words are poetry.

“And that’s probably the reason that I will always be a squatter,” I replied, “Money can’t buy you a community and a culture.”

Punkerslut (or Andy Carloff) has been writing essays and poetry on social issues which have caught his attention for several years. His website http://www.punkerslut.com provides a complete list of all of these writings. His life experience includes homelessness, squating in New Orleans and LA, dropping out of high school, getting expelled from college for “subversive activities,” and a myriad of other revolutionary actions.

Lord Renfrew, Disney Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge University states:
“Archaeologists all over the world have realized that much of prehistory, as written in the existing textbooks, is inadequate. Some is quite simply wrong. What has come as a considerable shock, a development hardly foreseeable just a few years ago, is that prehistory, as we have learnt it is based upon several assumptions which can no longer be accepted as valid..”

We are not sure about many things at this juncture. The date of the Tarim Basin culture seems to have radio carbon dates as well as other data that could place it anywhere from before the Ice Age to 2000 B.C. The same can be said for many things in Peru. Poverty Point might be the origin of the Iroquois that the Canadian Encyclopedia took all the way back to 4000 BC. but we have many experts who won’t go further back than 1700 B.C. for this location. Thankfully Jennings is more in line with our proposed history that makes it a Stonehenge-era artifact when he says it does not fit in the Archaic Period. The matter of mounds that start in 5500 B.C. as burial chambers in L’Anse Amour certainly is in keeping with the New Grange complex that was used for more than funerary purposes. Mounds may have become Pyramids and certainly the Cahokia and Caral (Peru) pyramids were for more than funerary purposes.

Yonaguni has the base of a pyramid and people lived on it just as the Caral site people did near Lima. It may be as old as 17,000 years and is certainly over 9,000 years old as we will see in a later chapter. Dating games are frequent in the jungle of academics and the Pyramids in Egypt have been dated by the American Research Center in Egypt in ways the ‘official’ Egyptologists like Hawass are never reporting. The Pyramid known (falsely) as Cheops is 450 years older and even older than the step pyramid of Zoser according to their data.

The Olmec have been found in the Caribbean as far back as 5,000 B.C. even if they didn’t build huge centers at that time. My research puts the earliest Mu people coming to Mayan lands around 6500 BC. and recent archaeology has found a site through satellite photos that dates to 400 BC. When I was there in 1993 the Mexican government was stating the Mayan civilization was not earlier than Christ and few if any remained. Despite all these differing dates you will be able to make decisions. Some of those decisions will reflect on the nature of the academic morass that gets funding from the people who are directing our beliefs. In the end we hope the newer technical equipment that Dr. Robins worked on at the Getty Institute in Santa Monica after writing his book The Secret Language of Stone will enable more ancient dating just as Dr Thorne’s team has done with the Mungo Man and Nanking man. It was exciting to hear these biological remains can now be dated and analyzed to the extent that we now know Neanderthal had refined drugs 90,000 years ago.

The ziggurats may be the source of the colloquial saying that has certain descriptions of excrement flowing downhill. The nobles certainly joined the priests near the top of these urban dwellings. Is there a greater library the world has ever known than the Great Pyramid at Giza, because of its mathematical and construction precision? The astronomical and other placements, such as being at the center of the earth’s land masses; and then we should consider Time and measurements of all variety are here as well.

There is so much to be learned from all these structures and the civilizations that lived on them and in some cases (Not Giza) used them to maintain the spirit of their departed loved ones. However, the following article from May 27, 2001 in the Toronto Star gives us insight into the way academia ’spins’ the artifacts to make it seem they are finding things that add to their existing perception while fighting for their own personal glory rather than honoring the greats of human history.

“Lima, Peru

A stunning archaeological find in Peru–the ruins of what researchers believe to be the oldest city in the Americas–has sparked acrimony in the international academic community. {Nothing like the fraud of the University in Colorado who got funding to ‘discover’ Savoy’s Gran Pajaten or Villaya ruins that were already in the local tourist guide books.}

A team from Peru’s San Marcos University has painstakingly excavated the arid hillocks above the River Supe north of Lima to reveal the sacred ruins of Caral–a city with six ancient Pyramids, an amphitheatre and residential complex dated to as early as 2627 BC. ‘In these structures of stone, mud and tree trunks we find the cradle of American civilization,’ says Ruth Shady, who is leading the excavations.

The operation is being hailed as the most exciting digs in Peru since 1911, when Yale archaeologist Hiram Bingham stumbled on the ruined Inca citadel of Macchu Picchu hidden in the clouds of the craggy Andean highlands.

Anthropologists working at Caral believe the windswept ruins 20 kilometres from the Pacific Ocean will provide a glimpse of the birth of urban society in the Americas and may challenge theories that the earliest civilizations settled by the sea.

They say a priestly society built the stone structures without the aid of wheels or metal tools almost a century before the Egyptians erected the Great Pyramid at Giza.

The remains, 200 kilometres north of Lima in a coastal desert between the Andes and the ocean, predate Macchu Picchu by three millennia and are some 1100 years older than Olmec in Mexico, the oldest city in the Americas outside Peru.

Shady accuses U.S. anthropologist Jonathan Haas of Chicago’s Field Museum of trying to steal the credit for seven years of her hard work.

‘The problem is that he has presented Caral as his discovery, when my team has been investigating here since 1994, sleeping on the ground and working tirelessly to uncover it,’ an irate Shady says in her cluttered Lima office.

Haas helped Shady carbon-date reed matting from Caral last year after he became interested in the site in 1996. The two co-wrote a paper in the April edition of ‘Science’ magazine.

‘I think there has been a misunderstanding,’ Haas told Reuters by telephone from Chicago, adding that U.S. media had played up his role. ‘I never wanted to take any credit from Ruth for her discovery.’

Up to 10,000 people may have inhabited the 65-hectare site at Caral, archaeologists believe, and its construction suggests a regional capital with urban planning, centralized decision-making and a structured labour force.

For a nation subjugated by 16th-century Spanish conquistadors, who ransacked its rich indigenous culture in a frenzied lust for gold, such discoveries testify to the long heritage before the arrival of Europeans in what they dubbed the “New World.”

‘I hope this will help Peruvians understand their history,’ says archaeologist Rodolfo Peralta, 31.

‘Otherwise, people will think our history is just a tale of being conquered by the Spanish.’

One of the many riddles confronting archaeologists at Caral is why the inhabitants abandoned the settlement. Like all pre-conquest civilizations in Peru, the inhabitants left no written records and the Caral settlement was too early even to have ceramics or more than the most basic tools.

‘One theory is that a drought produced a famine which forced the city dwellers to move on,’ says Peralta, noting that the residents painted many buildings black in the final stage of habitation, {This fits with the quarantining of plagues such as the Marmot to rat-carried plagues known as the Black Death that cycled through the Altaic regions for millennia per modern research, and per the work of William of Rubruck who knew how to stop the plague years before the Catholics he reported to brought it to the Americas. Churchill acknowledges it was used as a culling societal tool.} after originally colouring them white for purity.

It appears the inhabitants of Caral believed the buildings were divine, dotting their homes and temples with tiny alcoves, filled with dried-mud figurines. {’Buildings were divine’ is a stretch. The reality of earth energy and the spiritual world was better known to these people than the archaeologist who wants to make them seem backward, I suggest.}

Subsequent civilizations never occupied the site but apparently revered it, leaving gold and silver at its perimeters.

South America’s most advanced pre-conquest civilization, the Incas, built temples on its outskirts. {The Incas had great doctors who did brain surgery and their government was the template Bacon used for his utopian ideas. However they are not the builders of Tiahuanaco and other huge constructions including 500 Ton rocks. The Spanish encouraged them to make such claims, including the Easter Island statues. It is a total fabrication as we will see. It involves very horrific deeds and genocide in the not too distant past on white people in Easter Island.}

As with the Mayans who ruled Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras around AD 300, the construction of religious pyramids at Caral– including one that stands 20 metres high and a staggering; 150 metres long–suggests the existence of a theocracy.

But the inhabitants of Caral differed from the Mayans by living in their ceremonial centres, Peralta says. {A debate exists on this point, in my mind. If he had been to Chichen Itza and if he saw the obvious markets and sports or entertainment centers, or read Thomas Merton’s descriptions; would he say this?}

Rooms and courtyards on top of the terraced mounds suggest they had both religious and administrative purposes. Varied housing also suggests a stratified society, with separate residential areas for the priestly and labouring classes. {But why not commercial and trading people rather than priestly? What real evidence for the constant sacrificial and overt religious dominance presented exists? The ‘Devoted Ones’ of the Bible as presented in Gifts of the Jews by Cahill, which was backed by various Christian churches, says they are sacrificial victims. Sacrifice of the young was common among Phoenicians and Roman women had the right to decide the issue of whether to raise a child or not. What we call abortion is not new or far different than sacrifices. The ancients often respected the soul of the child going to their death better than we do, by rituals of freeing the soul.}

There are also signs that Caral had the earliest known system of crop irrigation in the Americas. Coastal artefacts, including 32 pipes made of pelican bones and copious anchovy and sardine bones, suggests their residents may have traded their cotton and fruit crops with fishing communities in return for food. Researchers expect to learn much more about the daily lives of the people when they uncover the city’s cemetery. ‘You can tell a lot from a culture from the way they bury their dead.’ Peralta says. Excavations already have exhumed a skeleton from the walls of one home, where it was buried. Researchers say it was not a human sacrifice.”(1)

You can also tell a lot about a group of people who dig up the graves of the past and project their current immoral views of reality upon past civilizations. The matter of putting people in buildings has a long history. When we say putting people in buildings we mean just that. The person, who would ritually give their life to consecrate an edifice for posterity, may often have vied for the opportunity.

In other books I have reported various results or explorations in South America by the likes of Gene Savoy and the Heliopolitan religion his people are re-energizing. This most recent find adds to many most intriguing South American sites that need integration in any true world history. The Heliopolitan Druidic ‘travelers’ that are the Chachapoyas and elites of this region were all over South and Central America. This recent discovery adds to the work of the great discoveries of Gene Savoy as well as what is yet to be opened for international study at the Madre de Dios pyramid complex in Brazil.

“They found a plaza with ceremonial doorways aligned to Machu Picchu, which can be seen in the distance, across the Aobamba canyon. They also found a two-storey temple, which faces the rising sun.

The team believes one part of the site was a sun temple, like that found at Cuzco. They found a ceremonial passageway that seemed to have been aligned precisely on the sun and the Pleiades star cluster, used as a seasonal indicator for the planting of crops.

The only previous identification of the main part of the site had been by Hiram Bingham, the American explorer, in 1912, but he gave an inaccurate account of the position of the “Inca fortress”.

The Thomson-Ziegler expedition both re-located this sector of several square kilometres, which is much bigger than Bingham realised, and also identified as many as five sectors spread out across a hillside, making Llactapata a settlement of some magnitude.” (2)

REFERENCES:

1) The Toronto Star, May 27, 2001, by Daniel Flynn of Reuters, ‘Scientists Squabble over sacred ruins’, pg. F7.

2) From the telegraph news in the UK on November 7, 2003 we have an excerpt from an article by Science Editor Roger Highfield titled Explorers find the lost ruins of sacred Inca city.

Author of Diverse Druids
Columnist for The ES Press Magazine
Guest ‘expert’ at World-Mysteries.com