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 |  "Putting on the Game Face" |
  This blog is a doorway into the mind of Percy Goodfellow. Don't be shocked at the lost boys of Namby-Pamby Land and the women they cavort with. Watch as his caricatures blunder about the space between audacious hope and the wake-up calls of tomorrow. Behold their scrawl on the CRT, like graffitti on a subway wall. Examine it through your own lens...Step up my friends, and separate the pepper from the rat poop. Welcome to my abode...the armpit of yesterday, the blinking of an eye and a plank to the edge of Eternity. Note: This blog is my journal. I've no interest in persuading anyone to adopt my views. What I write is whatever happens to interest me when I start pounding the keys. |
| I asked my four (4) students to meet me in the lounge yesterday for orientation. Would you believe they all showed up. Is that an encouraging sign or what? Prior to the class starting I have asked them to prepare a Favorite Author Chapter Template. This one is from Book one, Game of Thrones, chapter 1, Bran. There were approximately 3,250 words in the chapter. Below, numbered 1-7 is the chapter template. 1. Backstory: 200 words 6% 2. Character Development: 400 words 12% 3. Scene Setting: 400 words 12% 4. Exposition that moves the story: 1000 words 31% 5. Dialogue that moves the story: 1150 words 35% 6. Foreshadowing: 50 Words 2% 7. Symbolism: 50 Words 2% The reason I have the students do this is because if I don't I tend to get a really skewed distribution on the early vignettes that will treat one component to the exclusion of the others. It is a good exercise before you begin writing a longer work to do one of these on a chapter of one of your favorite author's works. |
I think the new theme for my blog will be what I am learning as the facilitator of the Exploratory Writing Workshop. Today is Orientation and I start it as early as possible in order to get the students to thinking about how the class will work. There is a student lounge, Classroom and Library as well as Objectives which serve as mini-lectures they might get in an actual classroom. The first thing I ask for is a Favorite Author Chapter Template which allows them to look critically at why they like a chapter of a favorite author’s work. They break the chapter down into components and show the percentages of dialog, exposition, foreshadowing, backstory and symbolism. The reason for this is to peel back the onion and get them to realize why they liked a favorite author’s style in a closer and more objective sense. This class has four (4) students and I hope they have the persistence to stick with it. Anyway, as I work with a class, items of interest jump out at me that could benefit aspiring writers at WDC who are not in the Workshop. I will try and seize on one of these lessons learned and share it with my readers every day. |
| Since the King Shahryar series was a bit of a flop, and the War on Terror series has ended prematurely, I am casting about for something new to write about. If my readers have any ideas let me know and for my part I will be trying to come up with something interesting in the Writing vein. percy bob |
Before getting into assumptions, a subject I know you are just salivating to read about, allow me to digress to something I said earlier was beyond the scope of this discussion. This is the Strategic and Operational levels of the war on Terrorism. By Strategic I am referring to efforts that are worldwide in scope and by Operational, efforts that are National in scope. Information is being gathered at these levels that should trickle down eventually to the tactical level. This failure to communicate essential information between levels has resulted in past failures and breaks in the chain of prevention. However, it is not realistic to attribute an operational failure to a single broken link when there are many that are taking place. What leads to failure are the cumulative effects of many broken links. Normally the closer the broken link is to the terrorist act the more often is it pointed to as the root cause. So, like a football game which the fans consider lost by the field goal kicker at the end of the game, the reality is a lot of mistakes are made throughout the process that are every bit as causative as the last to occur. No doubt, unless my readers live under a mushroom, they have heard the truism about assumptions, “Assume: To make an ass of you and me.” If this is your view then predicting a future event will prove to be a disconcerting experience. Whenever anyone attempts to forecast they must assume facts that have yet to happen and futurity is one of the forms that assumptions take. The great abuse of assumptions is treating something you aren’t sure about as one, one that is already established, because you are too lazy to get to the bottom of. So an assumption is a fact that has yet to happen that you anticipate will take place in the future. For example, will the sun will come up on the day of the marathon. Will a moratorium on Terrorism be embraced next week? So in dealing with an element of futurity, assumptions are necessary and one is assuming that a terrorist act is going to take place. One of the great challenges to security is that the events happen infrequently. This leads to a gradual erosion of vigilance. Finally is the assumption that a terror act will take a form we are generally familiar with. For example while aircraft hijackings were well known before 9/11, using an aircraft as suicide bomb was a new twist. Still, while the exact form of the attack cannot be predicted a proxy can be used as a stand in and by using the proxy, variations can be drawn into the net. |
| Assume that the following meeting takes place prior to the next New York Marathon. The special Agent In Charge has assembled the key leaders who will be working this high profile event. “Gentleman, next month we will be responsible for counter terrorism operations at the marathon. The problem we face is to determine the best way to anticipate and prevent a terrorist attack. So, if you have any preliminary questions, now is a good time to ask.” A hand is raised in the back of the room. “Yes, Agent Jones…” “Exactly what kind of terrorist attack do you anticipate we’ll be facing?” “Good question. I recall a terrorist incident when I was a boy when the President of the United States was shot by a sniper. Then there was a case where a home grown terrorist set off a trailer bomb in Oklahoma. Then in Moscow there was a group of terrorists who took some hostages at the opera and oh yeah, in Boston, several months ago, there were these two brothers who carried off an attack using pressure cookers. Another hand raises. “Yes, Agent Smith.” “Can you elaborate on these four instances… For example which is the most likely and which one would be the most damaging?” “Well, I supposed if you rank ordered them, the most likely would be some sort of an anti-personnel explosive device delivered on foot, followed by a sniper attack, in one form or another, then a variation of the big bomb on wheels (maybe stationary) theme and last I would say is a group of militants taking hostages. With regard to part two of your question, which would do the most damage, we can define damage in terms of loss of life and limb or in terms of political or economic consequences. As a rule of thumb I’d say the anti-personnel bomb would have the least impact, followed by the sniper, then the big bomb scenario and worst case would be attack by armed militants and the execution of hostages on live TV." However if we allow any of these to take place the fallout will be huge and we will have failed in our prevention mission. (Note: I am using these four threats for illustrative purposes.) Now this sounds a bit trite and contrived but it demonstrates how facts bearing on the problem are identified and discussed. There are other facts such as the date, duration of the event and physical geography. Others would include the resources to be dedicated to the taskforce. A threat assessment in the form of a document would be another example. The point is that these relate to the conditions, resources, time, geography and manpower that will be available for accomplishing the mission. |
| I discovered in Vietnam as a small unit infantry leader that the most dangerous combatant on a battlefield is somebody who can figure out what is best and get people to do it. It is my pet definition for Leadership. The Greeks gave us a process for determining best and it is called reason. The German General Staff refined it and it is taught today in the Nation’s war colleges and one of the names it goes by is The Commander’s Estimate of the Situation. When experienced war fighters combine this process with the planning of warfighting the results give those who are familiar with its use a decided edge. Since the edge between success and failure is often slim indeed, it can spell the difference between a positive or negatice outcome. It is really no more then applying the problem solving process in order to anticipate what an enemy is likely to do. It begins with defining the problem. The problem is defined and analyzed in a way that allows for the optimization of resources based upon what the enemy is likely to try and accomplish. The idea is to predict what the enemy is likely to do in a given situation and put the grease where it will do the most good. Over generations of use this Estimate Process has been refined and is completed before any Planning takes place. Indeed the planning is predicated on the results of the Estimate. It consists of Defining the Problem, stating relevant Facts and Assumptions, laying out courses of action (CAs), analyzing these courses, reaching a conclusion that chooses the optimal approach consistent with the findings of the analysis. Defining a problem might seem like the easiest and most self evident part of the process but actually it is elusive, and requires a piece of boiler plate verbiage to get the ball rolling down the right path. Using the words, “THE PROBLEM IS TO DETERMINE THE BEST WAY TO…” is a good beginning. If this is where the problem solver starts the statement will open the study up to discrete courses of action rather than a “Yes/No” Or Go/No-Go solution. If someone were asked what the Problem Statement was in preparing for the Boston Marathon (Assuming that there was one) a good answer would be, “TO DETERMINE THE BEST WAY TO PREVENT A TERRORIST INCIDENT…) Now if you were to ask a group of experts what the problem statement is for the next New York Marathon, you will get a broad range of responses some of which might be as follows. The problem we will face is that we can’t cover twenty-six miles. The problem is that there will be a million spectators and participants. The problem is that the terrorist can pick the time and place of the attack. The problem is that the current administration is weak on terror. The problem is that we are under resourced and over committed. The problem is we need to send all the Muslims home. Yada, Yada Yada… As true or false as these suppositions might be if this is going to be the basis upon which limited resources are deployed then we are not going to optimized how we prepare for a terror attack. So the definition above in bold is a better starting point that those listed below. |
To begin, I mentioned that the Army has a two-part process that focuses on a potential event looming on the horizon. That event is an enemy attack. In preparing for an enemy attack the threat is examined at a strategic, operational and tactical level. Strategic refers to a worldwide focus, operational to a regional focus and tactical to a local focus. Strategic is winning a war, Operational is winning a campaign and tactical is winning a battle. It is important to keep these in mind. You have heard the saying, we won the battle but lost the War,” and what this is referring to is success at one level and failure on another. This discussion will not deal with Strategy or Operations. It will focus on Tactical matters which are local measures taken to anticipate and prevent an act of terror . The battle (Skirmish?) will be to anticipate and neutralize a terrorist attack prior to its taking place. Now I know what I have to say next is going to make my readers groan but anticipating something begins with someone sitting in a quiet place with a pencil (Keyboard?) and trying to think like a terrorist. It begins with defining the problem, which is important because if you get that wrong everything that follows is a waste of time and energy. For the purpose of this exercise first consider the words of Hesiod who was a contemporary of Homer. He wrote a letter to his brother saying that there are three types of minds. The first is the type that can conjure excellence out of thin air, the second is a mind that knows excellence when they see it and the third type is one that can do neither. I believe that if the last one hundred acts of terror were analyzed it would be shown that eighty percent were carried out by idiots, nineteen point nine percent by second tier intellects and less than one tenth of one percent by seriously talented thinkers. Now this is important because eighty percent of the people who are involved in these acts don’t have a whole lot of spin on the ball. They are what might be considered, “Monkey see monkey do,” actors at best. The other nineteen and some odd percent are what might be termed veterans, who have survived several battles and maybe a campaign or two and that alone gives them some claim to a tier two intellect, however that might be too generous. Suffice it to say they have a low cunning born of experience. |
I think the police are very good at dealing with a situation after it happens. This is to say that after a bank robbery they are good at finding the robbers. After a murder they are good at finding the killers and so on and so forth. The operative word here is “After the Fact.(ATF)” Unfortunately in this day and age AFT is no longer good enough. After a president is shot, after a trailer bomb goes off or a pressure cooker explodes at the Boston Marathon, is too late to meet the Standard of Prevention. Traditionally police agencies begin with an event. That is the way their culture has evolved. The Military is better at anticipation than law enforcement agencies. They have evolved differently. In planning a military operation the Army uses a two-phase process designed to anticipate what an enemy force is likely to do and then develop a plan to best deal with it. They zero in on what is most likely to happen and spread their limited resources accordingly. There are two phases, an Estimate and a Plan. From what we saw in Boston, over a decade after 9/11, we can take pride in how quickly law enforcement acted to catch the perpetrators but have to concede that despite the mountain of resources and ample time to prepare, we are still not very far along in preventing terrorism. I know, I know! The apologists are quick to point out statistics on the many acts of "terrorism" that have been prevented since 9/11. However, if you look closely, the threat is not generally all that sophisticated and for the most part, consists of amateurs who telegraph their intentions. The United States, except for one Huge Event in New York City, has been a backwater on the global stage of terrorism. The Soviet Union, Great Britain and Israel have much more big league experience. So for the next few blogs I will NOT be talking about all the good things law enforcement is doing in the War on Terror but rather on measures that should be taken to better identify and counter a threat before it happens. |
Most everyone who followed the terror incident in Boston knows the younger of the two suspects was taken into custody and is currently in the hospital. Where the matter is going from here is important because it sets a precedent for how similar situations will be handled in the future. What needs to happen is that the suspect be interrogated to determine what he knows about a possible international connection. His brother left the country for about six months traveling to Russia. There is also a possibility that the two were influenced or controlled by a terrorist element in the United States. These threads need to be explored prior to a reading of Miranda Rights. The worst-case scenario is that he be Mirandized, given a lawyer and the lawyer tell him to remain silent about anything that pertains to the case. If that happens there will be no further progress in determining a foreign connection. Next what will happen is his lawyer will allow his client to be questioned on the foreign connection in return for taking the death penalty off the table. Thus it is important that he be interrogated before being Mirandized and turned over to the criminal justice system. |
| I just finished a course called Romantica offered by House of Sensual Prose (HSP). The biggest thing I learned was the difference in a Mans and a Woman's POV. I had read some of the Book Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus and in a clinical or objective sense understood the difference. What I wasn't doing was applying that abstract understanding to my writing. Just because we understand something doesn't mean we are going to apply it to what we do. DUH! One of the chief criticisms I have read about Shakespeare was that his children characters sounded like miniature adults. Well my female characters sometimes sound like men with a wig on. Not really (So I keep telling myself) but I think you get the idea. As the instructor would comment I found that what she was hoping to see was something sweeter and more feeling than my more masculine style of expression was portraying. Amazingly, when I amped up or toned down the vignette, it never failed to benefit from the effort. It's something that every writer should think about when they find themselves in the out of body experience of writing in a POV that is not exclusively their own. |
| Like most I'm busy and don't have a lot of time to write. Fortunately I don't suffer from any type of block and time is the only constraint I have. Sometimes I wake up from a dream and I have a fire hose of ideas left by my muse. I write a quick outline to catch the major points before they fade from recollection. This was what happened with the eighteen episodes of King Shahryar Story. It was a story about how the process of reason is supposed to work, how it isn't supposed to work and how the process of "Reason" is often used in politics to justify and give credibility to a preordained outcome. It was possible to write this in short bursts where I would never have been able to devote the time to it in several long sittings. To the readers that struggled with it my heart felt thanks. percy |
| I was appalled by the latest act of terrorism that took place in Boston. I hope it serves as a wake-up call that our Criminal Justice System is not the forum for dealing with these uncivilized low-lives. We need Guantanamo Bay. These are not petty criminals we are dealing with. Random killing of civilians with bombs that throw shrapnel and ball bearings into crowds of innocent bystanders is a crime so heinous it needs to be explored and punished in a dark place, suited to the minds of the perpetrators. |
| Two weeks later it was announced that both the young women had missed menses. While it was in accordance with what the king had forecasted, this alone was not conclusive. A month later, when it happened a second time, everybody began taking note. After four months passed it seemed certain that the Scheherazade and Fatima were pregnant. This gave further credence to the credibility of the experiment because, while a relationship between the moon and a woman was common to folklore, this was the first real proof that the two were actually linked. Members of the royal court began showing the Sultan a deference that was not the result of fear, but rather one that sprang from a genuine reverence and awe. However, this was nothing compared to the acclaim that resulted when Fatima delivered a daughter. "Could it be true," the people whispered, "that the sex of a child was determined by a spirit and the relative presence of light or darkness at conception?" However, three days later, when Scheherazade gave birth to a son, the realm exploded in an outpouring that all but deified the Sultan. Not only had he produced a male heir, after a string of so many females, but he’d also predicted in advance, that it would happen. Scheherazade was delighted and her position as first wife was insured. Fatima was thrilled with a daughter after a long history of bearing boys. The realm rejoiced that the line would continue, unbroken, for another in a long line of generations. In celebration, King Shahryar discontinued his policy of marrying virgins and having them beheaded the following morning. To this day it's widely believed that having intercourse during the day is more likely to result in a male than copulating at night. In his honor a compendium of tales, that have come to be called The 1001 Arabian Nights, was written containing many examples of Scheherazade’s tales and the wisdom of the Great Sultan, Shahryar. |
| The news of the upcoming trial spread through the Palace like wildfire and then into the city and throughout the realm. Everyone discussed the problem, facts, assumptions and methodology. For many it was a first time learning experience. As the day approached many visitors came from afar to wish the king well or to gloat, as some are always prone to do, thinking the process a bunch of nonsense and doomed to failure. Sultan Shahryar, for his part stood aloof but secretly encouraged all the speculation and gossip. He knew if the outcome turned out as he predicted it would catapult his fame into the legend. So when the portentous day rolled around huge crowds surrounded the palace and extra guards had to be called in to maintain order. With a flourish of banners and blowing of bugles, El Bourke and Fatima strode proudly up the stairs into the inner sanctum. Shortly thereafter the Sultan and Scheherazade arrived and followed. There were two rooms erected next to one another. One room was enclosed and the other had no roof. In each was a bed and on a raised dais, stood a magnificent chair. Around the two structures circled a high wall to insure absolute privacy. This was, after all, to be a deeply personal union between a man and his wife. Outside, the Vizier waited with his hourglass and gong. As the subjects of the trial arrived they pushed through crowd and entered the Sanctuary. El Bourke took Fatima and led her to the bed in the dark room and assumed his seat. Sultan Shahryar took Scheherazade to the bed in the room ablaze with light. He kissed his wife lovingly. When the sands showed the appointed hour the Vizier struck the gong. The participants donned their blindfolds and gags, except for the Sultan. He proceeded into the dark room and took El Bourke by the arm, leading him to the bed of Scheherazade. Then he went into the dark room. When the gong sounded a second time both husbands mounted and copulated with the women beneath them. After less than a half hour, the gong was struck a third time. The Sultan arose and went to the lighted room and collected El Bourke and guided him back to his seat in the dark room. Then he returned, taking his own place, overlooking his wife. The gong sounded a final time and everyone removed the gags and blindfolds. The Sultan thanked the participants and exhaled with a huge sigh of relief. |
| The next day the Sultan sent for his Vizier and Scheherazade. The reason for his summons was to explain the trial he had in mind. “As you know I ‘ve given thought to the importance of producing a male heir. It is my belief that by defining the problem and closely examining all the facts and assumptions a solution will present itself.” “How have you defined the problem, facts and assumptions?” asked Scheherazade. “Well, the King answered, “the problem is to determine how to conceive a son. Most everything else are assumptions, supported by what we know.” “And what are these assumptions?” she asked with interest. “The first is that a woman will conceive on the fifteenth day after the onset of her taint.” “Does this mean that if a husband and wife copulate only on that particular day of the month that a child will be conceived?” “Yes, that is the first big assumption. Second that during sexual intercourse a spirit is summoned from the netherworld. This can be a male sprit or a female spirit but it enters the woman through an orifice and thereby determines the sex of the infant.” “Please Continue.” “Third that the male spirit will gravitate to a womb, inseminated in a bright place while a female spirit will be more inclined to enter where the intercourse happened in a dark place.” “Is this all?” “This is the seminal thinking upon which the trial is based.” “So how do you envision the details of this trial taking place?” “I see two rooms, one lighted and one dark. On a raised platform at the end of each room is a chair. In the center is a bed. On the bed in each room will recline woman who share the same moon cycle. “ “Fatima and I share the same cycle.” “How do you know that?” Scheherazade rolled her eyes. “It is common knowledge that the woman of a harem, living in close proximity, come to share the same moon. Since Fatima and I are always together we find this to be the case.” “Then I propose that the two of you be the subjects in the trial. Summon Fatima and El Bourke… I want them to hear all that I have in mind.” So the two were summoned and brought up to date on what was being proposed. “El Bourke and Fatima will be the subjects in the dark room,” said the King, “and Scheherazade and I will take the light room. We’ll all wear blindfolds and have our mouths sealed.” “Blindfolds and gags?” Scheherazade exclaimed in dismay. “It is common,” said the King, “to conduct a trial thus. That’s why it’s called a Blind Trial. We don’t want what one pair is sensing, to compromise the results of the overall test.” “Compromise the Results?” “Yes… If the spirits can know from afar what we are seeing or hear the words we speak they might be moved to act contrary to their natural inclinations.” “So you want the female spirit to enter the dark room and the male spirit to enter the bright room,” clarified El Bourke, showing his clear grasp of the situation. “Yes,” replied the king, “and I don’t want them to know which of us is where until they arrive on the scene.” “So how will this work?” asked Fatima. “After the gags and blindfolds are in place, a gong will sound. I'll lead El Bourke to your bed in the dark room and then I’ll proceed over to Scheherazade. All of us will copulate as we normally do. After twenty minutes the gong will sound again. I’ll arise and go lead El Bourke back to his seat and resume mine. When the gong rings a final time we’ll remove the gags and the blindfolds and the trial will be completed.” “So what is this supposed to prove?” asked Scheherazade. “First that if you both conceive, we are right that the cycle of the heavenly moon and the cycle of a woman’s moon are related and that a woman’s moon is full of the fifteenth day.” “It will definitely prove that,” said the King’s wife . Second if you conceive a male and Fatima a female we will know that a spirit has a gender and they are attracted to the light and darkness. The Queen jumped up and down excitedly. “How I do hope it turns out you're right.” “Finally we will know that the spirit enters the woman from the ears or nose, since the eyes and mouth will be sealed.” “When do you propose to do the trial?” “When is your taint expected to begin?” “It started this morning.” “And you Fatima?” “The same.” “Then we will conduct the trial fifteen days hence and in the meantime, now pay attention everyone, Scheherazade and Fatima will be locked up in the Harem and neither myself or El Bourke will have intercourse with our wives until the day of the trial.” Everyone agreed that they understood the plan and the royal carpenters were called in to construct the two rooms. |
| The next morning King Shahryar took a long walk in his garden. He was troubled by the Fable of the Songbird and his dream. When he had collected his thoughts he returned to the palace and summoned his Vizier. “I had a dream last night that gives further credence to a supposition that a woman conceived in darkness is likely to bear a daughter and one conceived in the light, a son.” “Tell me more of this dream,” asked the Vizier. And so the King related in full, the substance of his dream. “I see the direction, but don’t know where your thinking alights,” replied the Vizier. “I THINK we have gathered enough facts and assumptions to formulate a hypothesis… that’s where it’s heading.” “And what might that hypothesis be? “ “Well it contains several parts. First is that a Woman’s moon comes the fifteenth day after the onset of her taint.” “Go on.” “Second that a spirit enters the womb shortly after the man ejaculates or a woman has an orgasm. “ “Yes.” “That if the copulation is taking place in a dark room the conception will tend to be a female and if in a light room a male.” “I see how your thoughts travel.” “The only question I now have is how the sprit enters the woman.” “I would hazard to say it would be through the vagina, however this door could be blocked…” “Go on.” “So if this is the case I suspect the next most likely orifice is one of the senses. Most likely it would be the eyes but then perhaps the ears, nose or mouth.” “So after being summoned by a cry of euphoria the spirit answers the call.” “Yes like the scent of a bitch that attracts the hounds.” “And when the spirit arrives on the scene, it looks about for the source of whence the call came?” “Exactly.” “And if it enters through the eyes it can see if it is night or day?” “Why would that matter?” “Because the female spirit will originate from a dark place and if it is day will arrive squinting her eyes…. And the male spirit coming from a place out of doors, will not be accustomed to the dark…” “Where are you going with this?” “Don’t you see? In my dream there were two parts of the temple where the maids were being conceived.” “Yes, you told me that…” “So, if the spirits can reach from afar, they could use the eyes of the lovers, to know beforehand if the place is dark or light.” “What am I missing?” “Don’t you see? If they knew the conditions of the hour or the place they could prepare in advance rather than follow their inclinations.” “Are you saying that the state of light or darkness should come as a surprise.” “Yes, because otherwise they would have time to prepare and have a preconceived notion.” “So your contention is that if they arrived without warning, the female spirit would gravitate to the dark place and the male to the light.” “Exactly!” “I’m beginning to follow your train of thought.” “So, I think I have a trial in mind that begs our hypothesis.” “I’m all ears replied the Vizier. “ |
| After hearing the Fable of the Songbird the King yawned. Midnight was close at hand and he clapped his hands for the servants to turn down the bed. Crawling in with Scheherazade, they spooned and were soon fast asleep. As the Sultan slept he had a vivid dream. He was dressed in white, on a city street, following a group of young women. Two, from behind, were similar in appearance and the Sultan suddenly realized by their conversation and laughter that they were Scheherazade and her friend Fatima. He continued along as they ambled towards the temple of Anahita, goddess of fertility. Outside the entrance were two long lines that extended up the stairs and between the columns. The girls separated and got in either line. Shahryar continued up the stairs and saw that the lines entered two portals. Through one, the room was dark and nothing could be seen but the other was open to a courtyard. In the courtyard was a long slab of polished granite of about waist height. The girls were leaning over on their stomachs as a minotaur moved from one to the next. Addressing each, he lifted her robe and futtered. When he finished he moved so on down the line. Once a maid had been serviced she continued on and descended a staircase. At the bottom was a confluence where the two lines were once more side-by-side. One came down from the dark room and the other down from the courtyard he’d just visited. These lines led up a second long staircase to the summit of a hill. The lines moved slowly so the King skipped up the steps between the two and finally reached the top. There he saw a distinguished looking man and elegant lady handing out infants. Down two chutes from behind, made of purest alabaster, slid an unending stream of newborns. Shahryar gazed into first one and then the other. Descending down one of the chutes were males and from the other females. “Oh my Gawd! He cried out in anguish, “my wife’s in the wrong line!” |
| That night Dunazad crawled into the bed and ingratiated herself beneath the King’s arm. She was very beautiful, had the most delightful curves and her nipples perked up with compelling invitation. Despite this the King had heat only for her sister. Scheherazade was tall and lanky, all kneecaps and elbows, with little of the shapeliness sought in a woman. True, her breasts had grown larger after delivering, but without seeing her nurse, one might easily have mistaken her for a boy. That is until she spoke. Her voice was captivating and there was a sparkle that radiated from her eyes that would make a listener marvel and she could describe things perfectly, in few words, that would require long discourse from others. When she talked the sharpness of her nose and jutting jaw disappeared into a visage that made a listener's eyes grow wide in awe and the ears tingle with delight. As the three settled into the mattress, the king and Dunazad lay propped on pillows, their backs resting on the headboard while Scheherazade faced them sitting cross-legged. “Any requests?” asked the King’s First Wife. “Lets play the Fable Game,” pleaded Dunazad excitedly. “You tell the Fable and then judge whether it’s me or the King who first comes up with the moral.” “Do you feel up to the challenge?” inquired the Scheherazade, smiling at her husband? He rolled his eyes and bid her to begin. Once there was a songbird who lived in the forest. She had the most beautiful voice and sang with the most enchanting chirping melody. One day a hunter heard her singing and decided it would be nice to have such a bird in a cage at his house so he could listen to the singing whenever he was home. So he set a snare, catching the bird and put her in a beautifully wrought cage next to the windowsill. To his dismay the bird quit singing during the day and only at night would warble, and then only mournfully. The song did however, put him right to sleep so he kept the bird around and woke up refreshed each morning. “This is going to be a hard one,” Dunazad remarked, “I can always tell when a fable is going to be a zinger!” Scheherazade continued. One night as the Canary sang a bat flew up and perched outside. “Why are you singing all the night long when you used to sing only in the day?” The songbird replied, “I was captured during the day, as I was singing, and don’t want that to ever happen again.” Scheherazade looked up. “Is that all?” asked Dunazad. Her sister motioned with her eyes that it was so. “This is the dumbest fable I ever heard," said Dunazad in disgust. “Then you should have no difficulty explaining it,” said the King. “The moral is that the world is full of dumb birds, just like this one. They lament their hardships, but are too stupid to understand that they're mostly to blame.” “Excellent,” said the King…. “Go on.” “Well the rest is obvious enough. The final part is that it’s too late to weep, over leaving the corral door open, after the Stallion has bolted the stable.” The King applauded, “That is an incisive conclusion, however allow me to add my own interpretation.” “Did I miss something?” “What if the stallion has yet to be born and the truth of its gender remains a mystery? What if the Sire was taken from the wild and made to lead the herd, bearing the weight of a harsh and demanding master? The sire might indeed be “A dumb bird” for allowing himself to be captured, and ridden hard, and who remains in the corral regardless of the condition of the gate. And he might pace the stable at night pawing his hoof and lamenting his captivity…" He looked deeply into Scheherazade’s eyes. “… but as he grows older his only hope rests in the womb of his favorite mare and what the future holds in store.” A tear ran down Scheherazade’s cheek. “You have spoken truly," he said, "that its too late, after opportunity flees, to chide ourselves for what might have been, but I say verily onto you that while opportunity remains, the gateway is forever accessible to those who understand how the latch works. “ |
A week later the Sultan’s Vizier returned looking tired. “Tell me of your travels,” inquired the King. “We went far beyond the Euphrates, conducting the trials you commanded. Particularly difficult was finding a dead and living twin but we managed it and conducted the test as you set forth.” “And what were your findings?” “Almost exactly as you predicted. The panel was able to distinguish between the living and the dead twin. In the second, the observers rank ordered the spirited children, with an amazing consistency, and for the most part the two-year-old boys and girls chose the sword and the flowers as you predicted they would.” “Can you be more specific?” “All the ten panel members correctly identified the living and dead woman.” “Go on.” “With only minor variations the lists of the spirited children showed the same ranking.” “Yes.” “And in eighteen of the twenty trials the boy children chose the sword and the girls the flowers. In one trial for each gender, this was not the case.” “Very well. The proofs are not absolute beyond the shadow of doubt but are meeting the reasonable doubt standard.” “We’re in agreement.” “Since you’ve been thinking a lot of late about spirits, describe for me, as best you can, how they manifest themselves.” “A spirit is amorphous like a cloud. It is like a mist that rises as the morning fog from a river or the sweet smell of freshly cut hay the scent of which is carried by a breeze.” “Yet a cloud, a mist or a scent is like a gas that is one of the three elemental forms a state of nature can take.” “Yes, for example moisture can come in the form of a foggy mist, snow and ice, or the water in a pool. “ “These are all different states of the same thing that exist in our world.” “Yes, however, to conceptualize something we must use the senses at our disposal and while a spirit is none of these, it is most like a gas.” “Elusive and invisible?” “Yes, we can’t sense a spirit.” “Yet the spirit can sense us.” “Yes. “How is this possible if a spirit has no senses?” “Because it simply KNOWS, as we sometimes form an intuition that we can’t attribute to any particular sense.” “So at conception this amorphous something, which KNOWs in ways we can’t describe, enters the womb. “ “Yes.” “Whereupon it acquires the ability to sense as we do?” “Yes, and it loses the KNOWINGNESS it brought with it, except for that elusive vestige we call INTUITION.” “So it would seem.” “And when we die it returns to the place from whence it came and reacquires the KNOWINGNESS it had to begin with, but lost… once it was conceived and found itself bound and shackled into a living human being?” “This I believe to be true.” “Now you said earlier, that the spirit of a woman is the child of darkness while the spirit of a man is the child of light.” “This is generally acknowledged. A woman was formed from the rib of man, which is elemental, while man was created after GOD ordained, ‘Let there be light.’ “So a woman is inclined to the earth and forces that are dark and elemental, buffeted by the wind and rain and driven to seek shelter in caves, while a man is inclined to the out doors, fresh air and warm sunshine? “ “So I have often noted.” “Thus to prove this, we could place a group of equal gender is a room on a rainy day and when the sun comes out, record who leaves the room first.” “This would be an easy test to perform.” “Then do it and report to me the outcome you observed. “ |
| Satisfied, Shahryar continued to question his Vizir. “So we have three questions for which the answers appear obvious but by their nature must be classified as assumptions. These questions are: Does the spirit leave the body after death? Do children have a spirit? Do spirits have a gender?" "These are the questions we discussed." "And to promote these to a more factual status, we need to conduct trials to determine their liklihood?” “Such would be a reasonable step.” “So for the first, we could take a pair who were twins and when one dies… conduct a trial.” “What sort of trial?” “Well, we could drug the one who still lives making him appear to be sleeping soundly, and take the dead one and have the mortician make him appear as alive as possible. “ “One who is actually alive and the other made to appear alive?” “Yes, then we could ask a panel, who never knew them, to choose the one who is living and the one who is dead. If the outcome is that everyone makes the correct choice then we can conclude that the difference between the living and the dead man is the absence of a spirit.” “…and the second?” “We could take a group of children and have a magician perform tricks in front of the group. We then have a panel of observers look at their eyes and rank order the ten from most spirited to least spirited. If they agree, generally on the ranking, we have evidence that the intensity of a spirit is discernable, and if that can be measured... it follows that a spirit must be present.” ”…And the third?” “We could take a second group of children, of equal gender, say, two years old and able to walk. In front of them set two tables. On one table place a sword and on the other place a vase of flowers. See which item they choose to play with. If the boys choose the sword and the girls choose the flowers we will have evidence that the spirits of a child share the same gender.” “I see how this might be done.” “The outcomes will not prove anything beyond a shadow of a doubt but would support the framing of a hypothesis that can be further tested. “I see… the outcomes will only give evidence of a reasonable doubt but this is enough to point the pathway to the truth.” "Yes, Now take some time and do these trials and report back to me, on the results." |
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Love it! Especially the safety measures for us homo sapiens...
