wait.

might the magician have been odin, himself?

it's interesting to note that the earliest inscription for the "pied piper" uses the latin term magus, meaning magician - or, pagan. he's not called a merchant....and the idea of being sold into slavery takes a hit, due to the specificity of the term.

if they were led out of town by a "magus", that would suggest they were taken away by pagans, whatever the context.

that it was at the solstice would indeed reasonably be of some significance.

we know they could write.

we just don't have anything that they wrote, that survived.

at least, we don't think we do; we've been able to trace technical roman documents about seafaring and agriculture to pre-roman carthaginian sources. they exist, to us, simply in latin. but, we can decode them, and figure out where they came from.

there may be things that we only know from latin that are ultimately translated german or celtic works, we just haven't figured it out yet.

to clarify a misunderstood point...

the germans and celts had a writing system, we just have almost no record of it. so, you hear christians say things like "the germans left us without a history", but this is a deeply misleading statement. what seems to be more true is that the romans completely eradicated any trace of their writing in the areas they conquered (much as they did with the carthaginians), leaving only scattered remnants in areas that never saw direct roman control, like the ogham scripts in ireland, the norse sagas in iceland and the gothic runes in the east.

so, it's true that virtually everything we know about the celts & germans was written by the romans, but it is actually rather dubious that it's because nothing was written - and more likely because their own history, as they wrote it, was eradicated as an intentional act of genocide.

it's a good example of how blurry our own history is. this isn't pre-history; it's roughly contemporary with aquinas, and marco polo. but, the christians destroyed everything...

on first glance, it sounds like a sanitation of a devshirme raid, but it seems too early for that. would the christians have rounded up kids like this? well, look at the residential school system in canada (and australia and south africa) for a parallel; it's not that crazy, but i don't know of any comparisons directly in europe. generally, the christians had the good sense to realize they could brainwash the young ones, and only killed off the adults.

could they have been sold off into slavery by italian merchants? that's not too outlandish, in this period.

but, my gut tells me that this is a late example of human sacrifice, perhaps in reaction to a lengthy period of drought. and, some cursory research does tell me that there were frequent droughts in this area of europe at the time.

sadly, we'll never know our own history, because it was purposefully destroyed or overwritten by the religious authorities. we can only guess, and warn others of the dangers of abrahamic colonization.

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20200902-the-grim-truth-behind-the-pied-piper

this seems to be what we're going to be fighting biden the hardest on, the return of militarism to the white house.

so, instead of using phrases like "brave men and women in uniform", i want to see phrases like "scared little boys and girls sent to die".

i may have been the person that invented anti-choice as a replacement for pro-life many years ago, and the reasoning underlying the shift in language was that conservatives are massive hypocrites in their rejection of abortion and their support for war.

if they were really pro-life, they'd be anti-war, too - and against the death penalty.

and, so, i allowed some christian pacifists to use the term, and started calling dime a dozen conservative anti-abortion activists anti-choice. it picked up after that.

i would like to present a similar shift in language around military service; stopping calling them men and women.

start calling then boys and girls, instead.

i don't know who is worse.

and, i'm more confused now than i was four years ago.

not much has changed, huh?

hey, here's some more:

as always, jello had the right answer 35 years ago.

yes: i support programs that give young, working class boys better options than becoming serial killers.

hrmmn.

sounds like something i might say, frankly.

the president is the commander-in-chief, so he can't be talking like that, even if the sentiment is essentially correct, and one i broadly share.

fuck the troops....

and, guess what gi joe? you don't wanna get blown up fighting for corporatism and the upper class, then don't sign up for combat. you won't see a tear from me, when you die - you fascist scum.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-said-us-soldiers-injured-and-killed-in-war-were-losers-magazine-reports/2020/09/03/6e1725cc-ee35-11ea-99a1-71343d03bc29_story.html

here's the new complaint against the police:

======

i attended the emergency room at the windsor hospital due to suicidal feelings on the afternoon of august 31st, and was removed violently from the premises around 20:30, and then placed in a holding cell. upon release, before 00:00, i was charged with trespassing, but i went right back because i required immediate care. i was arrested around 3:00, held until 8:30 and ticketed a second time, after that.

it is true that the doctor claimed i was not really suicidal, but merely a disgruntled welfare recipient looking to manipulate the system and insisted i be removed from the premise rather than treated. but, this is a position that has no basis in law, and there is a human rights complaint that will address that concern.

regarding the conduct of the officer, my position is that he had no authority to remove me from the hospital when i was there to seek treatment, and used a disproportionate amount of force to do so. this left me with a sprained leg, bruises and general soreness for several days. when an individual is experiencing a mental health episode, officers should transport them to the hospital for care, not remove them from the hospital kicking and screaming. the officer should have told the doctors that they did not have the authority to remove me from the premises when i was there to seek treatment, rather than act as hired guns to remove me on demand.

medical records & video of the incident will be available from the hospital as they are disclosed. there were also plenty of witnesses who can be identified from the video and asked to testify.

our hospitals cannot function as ongoing milgram's experiments, and cannot be run like detention centres. the rule of law must be asserted, here, and the people responsible for violent outbursts must be held accountable.

here's my new file number:
https://complaint.oiprd.on.ca/OIPRD.Estatus/check_en.aspx?number=E-202009041028022934

hrmmn.

https://books.google.ca/books/about/Edison_s_Environment.html?id=yEXyswEACAAJ&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y

polluters should pay.

and, the inventor of the light bulb should get one of the biggest fines of them all.

they should posthumously charge edison with crimes against the environment, and force his family to pay into a fund to address climate change.

they didn't finish the job, sadly, but it was a good start.

and, i'm glad they burned down the wall street in oklahoma, btw.

we should burn down the ones in new york, london and toronto, too.

i mean, you know a guy is out of touch when he starts talking about how great of a contribution to civilization that incandescent light bulbs were, in the year 2020. the guy seems to think it's the 60s, or something.

i want to talk about how we get rid of incandescent light bulbs, not about who invented them.

well, the fact is that edison actually invented the light bulb, even if latimer offered a technical improvement to it. what biden is referring to is a pseudo-science called afrocentrism that makes all kinds of outlandish, and easily debunked, claims about the primacy of blackness to civilization.

but, what i want to actually know is this:

who fucking cares what the skin colour of the person that invented the light bulb was?

it's not a question of "rewriting history".

this is a completely irrelevant, absolutely inconsequential question.

it does not matter if the inventor of the light bulb was white, brown, black, yellow....or orange. the orange used to be the silly colour, 'cause nobody was orange. alas.

what matters is that we need to phase lightbulbs out, because they're contributing to the destruction of the planet.