Complicated Knots

Shoelaces

Shoelaces are my enemy. I hate them. In my ideal world, we all wear electronic shoes that tighten securely once you put your feet in them, and you can hit a button to release the tension for taking them off. Unfortunately, I cannot buy this shoe yet, so I have to deal with all the hellish knavery that shoelaces bring to my world.

No one really knows when shoelaces first came into existence. However, a recent discovery of a Bronze-Age denizen called Otzi the Iceman reveals that they were in use as of 3000 BC. It wasn't until the 20th century that shoelaces rose in popularity (I always said I was born in the wrong century). Before this, shoes tended to be slip-ons, or else were fastened with buckles.

My new word for the day: Aglet.
This is the annoying tip of your shoelace that inevitably rots away and leaves you with crummy laces that fall apart and cause you to trip over yourself on the way to class. They are usually made of plastic or metal in modern shoes. Anyone who has ever had the miserable experience of trying to relace shoes that have had their aglets fall off knows exactly how horrible life can be. The feeling I wind up experience is akin to that of trying and failing repeatedly to thread a needle, your arms turning to a fiery jelly that makes you want nothing more than to stop what you are doing and hammer your head against a wall multiple times.


Not to mention having some jerk tie your shoelaces together.

Apparently, though, on a shoe with 6 eyelets there are over 6 trillion possible ways to lace your shoes. I cannot fathom this.

Ancient Babylon

Hey there everyone. Its time to begin our journey.

And where better to begin than the Seat of Civilization itself, Babylon?

1. Ancient Babylon
Babylon was the capital city of the nation of Babylonia. It began as a city state, and eventually became the capital of Hummurabi's empire in the 18th century BC. He expanded Babylonia's territory by several hundred miles up the Euphrates River, ranging from Mari in the northwest to Ur and Lagash in the southeast.


In modern America, we dont give much thought to Ancient Babylon other than the following assorted facts:

1) High school government students learn about the Code of Hammurabi, one of the earliest records of established law in the world. The document serves as a basis for much of Western legal thought.
2)Babylon is the site of the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Nothing more remains of the Gardens than the ruin of the foundation, and there exists still great debate about whether or not these Gardens were in fact located in Ninevah.
3) Biblical scholars will remember Babylon for its lengthy enslavement of the ancient Jews, and its symbolic place in the book of Revelations.


Which brings me to an interesting crossroads. The Bible has a fair amount to say about Babylon, and it ranges from amusing to absolutely enraging and terrifying:

Nebuchadnezzar II
To begin with, Mad King Nebuchadnezzar has earned a special place in my heart from my many years of bible study. Because of his haughtiness, the poor man was driven insane by the wrath of God, and was forced to live his life like a beast of the field for seven years, after which he is humbled and honors the Hebrew God above all others - a process he seemed to enjoy repeating throughout his interregnum.

King Nebby also had a prophetic dream of a statue. He saw a huge statue made of different materials: a head of gold, arms and torso of silver, legs of bronze, and feet of iron and clay. The statue was then smashed to pieces by a mountain. Being raised as a Jehovah's Witness, we were taught that the dream symbolized the rise and fall of the world powers throughout history. The golden head was Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian Empire. The Silver represented the Medo-Persian Empire. Copper for the Greeks, and then iron and clay represented the combined Roman Empire and modern Anglo-American world Power. The holy mountain was Christ's Kingdom smashing evil out of the world, etc etc. We all live happily ever after.

Nebuchadnezzar also constructed an enormous statue made of gold for his people to worship - one thing about the Babylonians, they loved their idol worship. Three of the Jewish slaves, known to us as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, refused to worship the image, so they were thrown into a fiery furnace. The flames of this furnace were supposedly so hot that many men were killed in the process of heating it up. But, miraculously, their captors look inside and see that not only are the three jews alive and walking around, there seemed to be a fourth person - God's angel - in there with them. So Nebby orders them out, and exclaims how powerful the God of the Hebrews is. (A fact he might have done well to remember before being struck with Mad-Cow-Grass-Eating Disorder).

King Belshazzar and Cyrus the Great
My other favorite Ancient Babyonian story.

Belshazzar is the source for the great phrase 'the writing on the wall.' During a drunken feast, Belshazzar (Mad King Nebuchadnezzar II's successor) is alarmed to discover a disembodied hand appear and etch the words "Mene Mene Tekel Parsin" on the wall of the banquet hall. All the kings sorcerers and all the kings men couldn't interpret the meaning for him, so he summoned Daniel (the Jewish captive that was raised to a high political office by Nebuchadnezzar, who includes all of the previous accounts and the following stories in his biblical Book) to tell him what was up. Daniel tells him:

"This is the interpretation of the matter: MENE, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; TEKEL, you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting; PERES, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians"

That night, Darius the Mede conquers Babylon. Or at least thats who the Bible tells us did the conquering. The historical account attributes the victory to Cyrus the Great. And I must say, his battle plan is one of the more badass moments of biblical battle badassery that Ive come across.

Babylon was supposedly surrounded by high, impregnable walls, and encompassed by the mighty Euphrates river, giving would-be invaders a near impossible challenge should they ever wish to make war. During Belshazzar's drunken feast, Cyrus uses the lack of guards as an opportunity to take his soldiers upstream, and divert the god damn Euphrates River.
Cyrus then marches his troops through the dry riverbed surrounding the city, enters UNOPPOSED through a gate, and decimates the drunken Babylonians, beginning the Medo-Persian rule of the city (and fulfilling state one of the Transition-of-the-world-rulers Prophesy from Daniel Chapter 2)


Babylon in Revelations
Babylon plays a very prominent symbolic role in the book of Revelations, and the interpretation seems to be hotly contested - as is to be expected with Biblical prophecy.
When I was a kid, we were taught that the Babylon mentioned throughout Revelations represented the collected mass of False Religion. And for JW's, that means every other religion. Which seems a little harsh at first, but I always wondered if other religion's openness was a sign of their lack of faith.

After all, Christians believe that their god is the same god as is located in the Old Testament. This is the same god that said 'thou shalt have no other gods before my face.' And in the New Testament, Jesus saying he is 'the way.' But this is a question that will probably be addressed in another post pertaining more to faith as a whole.

The List

Howdy.

Thanks to the clerical wonders of Ryan Glenn, I once again have a copy of my list. It is as follows:

JON’S 99 THINGS!

1. Ancient Babylon
2.Shoelaces
3.Love triangles
4.Lord Kelvin
5.Agatha Christie
6.John Wilkes Boothe
7.Plutonium
8.The Trail of Tears
9.Imperialism
10. The Aquaduct
11. Magna Carta
12. The Beatles
13.Castles
14.Snails
15.Ivan the Terrible
16.Mussolini
17.The Renaissance
18.Voltaire
19.Jean Paul Sarte
20.Caulking
21.Tamales
22.Hell
23.Key Lime Pie
24.Feudalism
25.NATO
26.Tammany Hall and political Graft
27.Ethanol
28.Desert Storm
29.Dick Cheney
30.Guns
31.Bear Traps
32.Dali
33.Jean-Loise David
34.The Triumvirate
35.Ironclads
36.Galileo
37.Atomic structure
38.Globalization
39.Dogs
40. Baseball Bats
41. The Mongols
42. Sunless Tanning
43. Follicles
44.Stuffed Animals
45. Butter
46. Football
47. Kites
48. Electricity
49. The Lost Generation
50. Edgar Allen Poe
51. The Small Intestine
52. Speciation
53. Velociraptors
54. Graffiti
55. Linguine
56. Vitamin C (the rapper)
57. Tennis Shoes
58. the Saxophone
59. Styx (the river)
60. Happiness
61. Bumble Bees
62.Bessie Smith
63. Jackson Pollock
64. Light switches
65. The Thesaurus
66. Isaac Newton
67. Wal-Mart
68.Laissez-fare economics
69.Sun Tzu
70.Bob Rauschenberg
71.Tasmanian Devils
72.Chocolate
73.Jack London
74.Robin Williams
75.Rocks
76.High School
77.Kissing
78.Rocketships
79.The Khmer Rouge
80.Yugoslavia
81. Yeshua the Christ of Nazareth
82. Business Conglomeration
83.Acne
84. Romance Novels
85. Marc Chagall
86. Chess
87. Gypsies
88. Ancient India
89. Gettysburg
90. Global Warming
91. Political Action Committees
92.Bicameralism
93.Sock puppets
94.Physical fitness
95. The Arthurian Legend
96.Pre-Diluvian humans
97.Sneezing
98.Single-celled Organisms
99.Acting

Look for the first bits of info soon.

The Idea

Once, many months ago, I requested from my friend Ryan Glenn a list of 99 random subjects. My intention was to take this list and create some form of narrative, while simultaneously providing some bit of new knowledge to myself and perhaps others through my writings on these subjects.

However, I have misplaced my list of these topics. So as soon as I find them, we will commence our journey!