Catching Up with the News

Jerry is on his way to work sitting on a subway train which is mostly empty, and he decided to look at his phone to see what is happening in the news today.  The major headline discussed President Donald Trump’s decision to pause bipartisan Russian sanctions, which triggered intense friction with Ukraine and sparking sharp blowback from lawmakers in Congress.  Over the weekend, the conflict escalated sharply as Ukraine launched a massive wave of more than 1,000 drones into Russian territory, striking a St. Petersburg oil terminal, a VK data center, and major transit bridges, which Russia countered with an overnight missile blitz on Kyiv that cut electricity to over half a million homes.  Jerry shook his head wondering how much longer this idiot was going to remain in charge of his country, as all he saw was military escalation and no diplomatic solution, and it looks like Iran is prepared for a long-term conflict where strikes will most likely ramp up after the November mid-term elections.  Nobody can make a mess out of things like Trump, as he is a master at dividing people and getting one group to hate another, and now we have Houthi rebels launching ballistic missiles, vessels being attacked in or near the Strait of Hormuz, while Vice President JD Vance is just making things worse because he has no clue about what the hell he is doing.

Several other major national and global stories caught Jerry’s attention, so he kept on scrolling in his newsfeed.  Mass protests in France resulted in widespread violent rioting and looting over education cuts and living costs have shaken the country this past weekend.  More than 2,400 people have been arrested, and Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has called for local curfews to protect people and shops.  Protesters were hurt during clashes, and around 1,000 police officers were also injured.  While hundreds of thousands marched peacefully, masked and hooded fringe elements and ultra-left groups hijacked parts of the demonstrations, leading to widespread looting, damaged businesses, burned public buildings, and Jerry saw all of this as being senseless, wondering why people just can’t get along with each other.  Jerry continued reading about the National Guard member who was shot and wounded late Sunday night while attempting to break up a street fight in Washington, D.C.  Trump has almost 3,000 troops stationed on the streets of the capitol city because he thinks he needs to crack down on violent crime, homelessness, and restore public order, because he want to make himself look like he is being tough on crime.  The suspect was shot in the abdomen and taken to the hospital for non-life-threatening injuries when Guard members returned fire.

The Canadian military is mourning four soldiers killed and 39 others hospitalized after a devastating grass fire swept through a live-fire exercise at a base in Wainwright, Alberta.  Jerry knew that wildfires are a regular and frequent occurrence in Canada, but 2026 is shaping up to be one the most destructive and active in modern Canadian history.  Jerry ran across a hopeful story next reading a Vatican update about Pope Leo announcing his plans to slowly resume official public duties following a successful surgery to remove a cancerous lung tumor.  Jerry smiled thinking that there was still some hope left in the world.  Jerry’s smile didn’t last long as his next newsfeed indicated that classes are canceled today in Bend, Oregon, as the tight-knit community remembers a teacher and three young children killed in last week’s tragic shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School.  Jerry blurted out, “Another senseless school shooting that thoughts and prayers are not going to heal”, which made the woman sitting across from him say, “Oh yeah that is just terrible that so many innocent lives have been lost to guns, and nobody has an answer for it.”

The woman asked Jerry if that was his suitcase sitting on the seat just to the left of him.  Jerry looked over at it, and replied that it did not belong to him, and he suggested that they should try and find the conductor and report the abandoned suitcase to him.   The lady said she thought the unattended suitcase looked suspicious, and she always believed that if you see something you must say something, but her phone was dead, otherwise she would have called 911.  Jerry said he was getting off at the next stop and that he would call 911 to report it, but he hoped it was nothing, although living in this crazy world you never know.

Written for Sadje at Keep It Alive What Do You See #363.

Half of Us Are Dead

‘Land Ho!’ is a song by The Doors released on their 1970 fifth studio album Morrison Hotel and it was written by Jim Morrison and Robby Krieger.  This is a rollicking sea-shanty-style track from that uses the old sailor’s cry of sighting land as a metaphor for returning to earthly desires, roots, and home.  The word “ho” is used to draw attention to something spotted in the distance.  After spending weeks or months surrounded only by water, seeing solid ground meant the dangerous voyage was nearing its end.  Saying this phrase signaled a chance to get fresh water, food, and rest, and hearing it confirmed the ship was on the right path toward its destination.  Guitarist Robby Krieger knew that Jim Morrison’s father George Stephen Morrison was a Rear Admiral in the US Navy commanding the U.S. naval forces in the Gulf of Tonkin during the pivotal August 1964 incident that escalated U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, and this may have inspired this sea-faring song.  ‘Land Ho’ was adapted from a poem written by Jim Morrison, featuring a whimsical, storytelling narrative style about an old whaler grandfather, but not his grandfather, as Jim Morrison’s grandfather Paul Raymund Morrison worked as a laundry manager and owner in Leesburg (just North of where I live) during the 1930s, though he had earlier worked in a brick manufacturing yard in Alabama.

The opening verse directly sets up the tale, “Grandma loved a sailor who sailed the frozen sea / Grandpa was that whaler and he took me on his knee.”  The grandfather laments that living on dry land is driving him crazy, prompting a desire to return to the sea.  The Grandpa’s yearning for the sea and foreign sands, establishes a contrast between a free life of adventure and the boredom of ordinary life.  The song paints a vivid, nostalgic portrait of a graceful old man with “silver in his smile” who smokes a briar pipe, walks four country miles, and sings songs of “shady sisters and old time liberty”.  The shout of “Land Ho!” in this song, marks the emotional or physical return from a long, dangerous voyage and finally back to safety, basic pleasures, and love.  The final verses pivot from high-seas adventure down to basic human cravings, such as getting a dollar bill, buying a bottle to drink, coming back home, and being with a lover.  During concert tours, Morrison frequently improvised and shouted out snippets of his poetry randomly before or during songs, and in the video that I included he is using the beginning of his poem “Awake” as a prelude to the song.  I made a last-minute switch on the video I intended to use, because YouTube said it was unavailable, so this is from the tribute band Lizard King.

Grandma loved a sailor who sailed the frozen sea
Grandpa was that whaler and he took me on his knee
He said, “Son, I’m going crazy from livin’ on the land
Got to find my shipmates and walk on foreign sands”

This old man was graceful with silver in his smile
He smoked a briar pipe, and he walked four country miles
Singing songs of shady sisters and old time liberty
Songs of love and songs of death and songs to set men free
Yeah!

I’ve got three ships and sixteen men
A course for ports unread
I’ll stand at mast, let north winds blow
‘Til half of us are dead
Land Ho!

Well, if I get my hands on a dollar bill
Gonna buy a bottle and drink my fill
If I get my hands on a number five
Gonna skin that little girl alive
If I get my hands on a number two
Come back home and marry you
Marry you, marry you, alright!

Eyyy, land Ho!
Eyyy, land Ho!
Well, if I get back home and I feel alright
You know, babe, I’m gon’ love you right
Love you right
Love you right
Eyyy, land Ho!
Eyyy, land Ho!
Eyyy, land Ho!

Written for Song Lyric Sunday where the theme is to find a song about fishing, a mariner, sailing, seafaring, or ships.

There She Blows!

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On October 18, 1851, Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville was first published under the title The Whale in a three-volume edition, and only 500 copies were printed for the initial London edition.  The term white whale became an idiom, because of this story where Captain Ahab drives himself to madness hunting the giant white sperm whale that maimed him.  A fully white or albino whale was extremely rare in the mid-1800s, much like it is today, occurring through genetic mutations like albinism or leucism.  People use the term white whale to describe a long-sought prize, a persistent dream, or a fixation that is extremely difficult, or even impossible to attain.  In the novel, Ishmael joins the whaling ship Pequod, commanded by the obsessed Captain Ahab who seeks revenge against Moby Dick, the giant white whale that took his leg.  After a three-day chase, the whale rams the Pequod smashing its hull, and as the ship takes on water, the sinking wreckage forms a whirlpool, pulling every crew member down with it.  Ishmael is the lone survivor, which makes sense, as he was the narrator of this story and if he would have perished with the others, then there would not have been any story to tell.  Whales were hunted for their oil, because it burned brightly and cleanly without heavy smoke or odor, making them ideal for home lamps, streetlights, and lighthouses.  Sperm oil and standard whale oil retained their viscosity in extreme temperatures, making them vital lubricants for industrial machinery, textile looms, and delicate instruments during the Industrial Revolution.  The discovery of petroleum in the mid-19th century provided a cheaper, more efficient alternative to whale oil, causing the whaling industry to collapse.  As whale populations plummeted due to overhunting, international pressure grew to protect these species.

Last week we had International Day of the Girl Child where the theme was to find a song that mentions girls.  This week the theme is to find a song about fishing, a mariner, sailing, seafaring, or ships.  Take some time to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this music challenge, and even better, read as many of them as you can as you will probably find many enjoyable songs and it is quite possible that you will learn a thing or two.  Share your music with others and post a video, try do some research and let everyone know something about the song that you post.  Tell everyone why you like the song, whether it was a hit, or what you think the song is about.  Show the lyrics, let’s all listen to our favorite songs and explore some new music.  Try to find a song that fits the theme, then write your post and create a pingback, or you can just place your link in the comments section.

Suggestions
• If the song you select does not meet the criteria, then please explain why you chose this song.
• It would be good if you could post the lyrics to the song of your choice, as this is helpful for the people that want to follow along with the music.  Warning: Bloggers make posts at their own risk, and since song lyrics are copyrighted, you may be asked to take them down from your post if you don’t have permission.  It is highly unlikely estates or artists will sue regular people (although it has happened) especially if the bloggers that do this are not making money from their site, but an artist or a publisher can ask you to remove the lyrics from your post.  I am not a lawyer and there are no rules for Song Lyric Sunday, as we are all here to have fun and hopefully get to listen to some good music.
• Please try to include the songwriter(s) – it’s a good idea to give credit where credit is due. It would also be a good idea to give credit to the singer and the band associated with your song.
• Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be, but please try not to include too many videos as that just makes it take longer for me to look at all of the other posts.
• Link to the YouTube video, or you can pull it into your post, so others can listen to the song.
• Read at least one other person’s blog, so we can all share new and fantastic music and create amazing new blogging friends in the process.
• Feel free to suggest future prompts.  Have fun and enjoy the music.

This week I will be writing about the Doors song ‘Land Ho’, and next week, I will be writing about the song ‘Broken Down Cowboy!’ by John Fogerty.  The upcoming prompts will be:
October 25, 2026 – Song about the American West, or one that mentions cowboys, a sheriff, an outlaw, horses, cactus, or tumbleweeds
November 1, 2026 – Song written or performed by someone who was born in the month of November
November 8, 2026 – Song that references image, picture, scan or view
November 15, 2026 – Song that references light or space

Maxwell’s Equations

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James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) was a Scottish physicist who formulated Maxwell’s equations in the 1860s, mathematically unifying electricity, magnetism, and light into a single electromagnetic theory.  The basic rules that determine how light behaves, current flows, and magnetism functions can be boiled down to four elegant equations, the foundational pillars of classical electromagnetism, optics, and electric circuits.  The mathematical and conceptual underpinnings of Maxwell’s theory were so complicated and counterintuitive that his theory was largely neglected after it was first introduced.  Maxwell connected visible light to electricity (and magnetism) by mathematically deriving that oscillating electric and magnetic fields travel through space as electromagnetic waves at a speed identical to the measured speed of light.  Maxwell built his landmark electromagnetic theory by mathematically synthesizing and expanding the experimental and conceptual discoveries of several key scientists.  Maxwell envisioned a kind of molecular medium in which magnetic fields are arrays of spinning vortices.  Each of these vortices is surrounded by small particles of some form that help carry spin from one vortex to another.

The term electricity was first coined in the early 1600s by William Gilbert.  In 1881, an international convention started the naming process for electricity terms.  The Volt was named after Italian chemist and physicist Alessandro Volta Alessandro Volta as the standard unit for electromotive force.  The Ampere was named after French physicist André-Marie Ampère as the unit of electric current.  The Coulomb was named after French physicist Charles-Augustin de Coulomb as the unit of electric charge.  The Ohm was named after German physicist Georg Ohm as the unit of electrical resistance.  The Farad was named after English chemist and physicist Michael Faraday as the unit of electrical capacitance.  In 1889, the Watt was named after Scottish inventor, engineer and chemist James Watt as the unit of electrical power.

Maxwell was a pioneer in dimensional analysis breaking down physical laws into the fundamental dimensions of Length (L), Time (T), and Mass (M), which he declared to be “The Three Fundamental Units” of all the other significant physical quantities.  The CGS (centimeter–gram–second) system was originally proposed by the German mathematician and astronomer Carl Friedrich Gauss in 1832, and later formally introduced and extended in 1874 by a committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) including physicists James Clerk Maxwell and William Thomson (Lord Kelvin).  Coulomb’s law defined the electrostatic force of attraction and repulsion and that is how we got the electrostatic unit (ESU), the unit of electric charge.  Electromagnetic units (EMUs) were developed in the 19th century by linking mechanical and electrical phenomena through the work of André-Marie Ampère, Carl Friedrich Gauss, and Wilhelm Weber.  ESU and EMU measured electrical and magnetic quantities separately, they had different dimensions.  Gauss and others realized that the ratio between the ESU and EMU units for charge equaled a fundamental velocity, being the speed of light.  Maxwell compared the ratio of a unit of charge defined electrostatically (ESU) to a unit of charge defined electromagnetically (EMU), and he found that ESU divided by EMU was the same ratio that was derived when you divided Length by Time, so this was a velocity.  Maxwell later proved mathematically that light itself is an electromagnetic wave.

Maxwell’s four equations include Gauss’ Law on flux, Gauss’ Law on magnetism, Faraday’s Law on induction, and Ampere’s Law on circuits.  Gauss’ Law on induction can be used to derive Coulomb’s Law and vice versa.  Michael Faraday provided the crucial experimental foundation, introducing the concept of electric and magnetic “lines of force” in fields, which Maxwell translated into a comprehensive mathematical framework.  In 1820, Hans Christian Ørsted discovered that electric currents create magnetic fields, proving a direct link between electricity and magnetism.  André-Marie Ampère mathematically formulated Ørsted’s observation into Ampère’s circuital law relating magnetic fields to electric current, which Maxwell modified by adding the “displacement current” term to account for changing electric fields.  Carl Friedrich Gauss established foundational laws for electricity and magnetism (Gauss’s law and Gauss’s magnetism law) that Maxwell incorporated into his set of equation.  I am going to spare all of my readers the math involved in Maxwell’s equations, as this is useless unless you are studying to be an electrical engineer.  These equations involve (Divergence), which measures how a field spreads outward from a point.  Curl which measures the twisting or rotational behavior of a field.  Predicting how magnetic and electric fields behave across space and time requires calculus, so these equations involve the Partial Derivative with respect to time that shows how a field changes over time.

Written for FOWC with Fandango – Electricity.

Farcical Ruse

1. For whom the bell tolls
Mike Ditka.

2. Knock Three Times

3. Lyin’ Eyes
The Tokens.

4. Pink Cadillac
Clint Eastwood and Bernadette Peters.

5. If you leave me now
Sean “Diddy” Combs.

6. Fool if you think it’s over
Patty Loveless.

7. I close my eyes and count to ten………..
Counting Crows.

8. Money, money, money
Elon Musk.

9. White Rabbit
Alice in Chains.

10. I don’t wanna play house
Your mother.

Written for Di’s Fibbing Friday.

Very Perplexing

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I tried to understand the heat kernel, and it took me down a rabbit hole.  The rabbit hole I entered just kept getting deeper and deeper introducing other things like eigenvalues of the Laplace operator, so I started pulling all of my hair out, and although that did release some of my stress and anxiety, it was not a helpful or healthy solution.  I ran across dilemma after dilemma trying to follow this continuous unbroken chain that was taking me no place, trapped in a relentless cycle where every effort led me to a new hurdle.  I was writing a book about calculus, and this was one of my ending chapters after I had already covered several advanced topics such as partial differential equations (PDEs), Fourier transforms, the Jacobian matrix, Abelian groups, and the Poisson bracket so I figured I would tackle this next.  Many teachers and students of calculus are not able to explain what the heat kernel is, even though it plays an important role in so many things.  Figuring out how I could explain the heat kernel was like hearing a drum in a song and trying to determine the shape of the drum from its sound alone, which I knew was impossible, because differently shaped drums can share the same vibrational frequencies, but I kept digging out information, because that is what I do.  I realized that the heat kernel is misunderstood, because it lies far beyond standard calculus.  In higher math, a “kernel” acts like a building block, and the kernel literally means the essence, core, heart, essential part, quintessential, fundamental or most basic important part of something.

The heat kernel sits at a massive intersection of physics, calculus, probability, and geometry.  The heat kernel is the fundamental solution to the heat equation, which describes how heat (or any diffusing substance) spreads out over time.  The heat kernel originated as a tool to describe how thermal energy diffuses through a material over time.  If you start with a single, highly concentrated spike of heat at one specific point, the heat kernel tells you exactly what the temperature distribution looks like at any future moment.  To visualize the heat kernel, imagine dropping a tiny drop of dark ink into a glass of still water at time t = 0.  Mathematically and physically, the dispersion of ink in water and the dispersion of heat through a medium are governed by the exact same fundamental principles of diffusion.  Both processes rely on a gradient (a difference between two points) to move from an area of abundance to an area of scarcity.  At the very beginning (t → 0): All the ink is concentrated in one microscopic spot.  In mathematics, this infinitely sharp spike is called the Dirac delta function.  As time moves forward (t > 0): The ink naturally diffuses outward.  It forms a perfect bell curve (a Gaussian distribution).  The heat kernel is the mathematical formula for that expanding bell curve.  It takes in three things: where the ink started, where you are looking now (x), and how much time has passed (t).  It outputs the exact density of the ink at that spot.  Because the heat equation is linear, you can use the heat kernel to solve the heat equation for any messy, chaotic initial temperature distribution.

The heat equation describes the evolution in time of the temperature of an object.  If you have a complex initial heat distribution f(x), you can treat it as a collection of thousands of tiny individual “ink drops”.  The heat kernel adds and integrates curves together through a process called a convolution to simulate how heat spreads out and smooths over time.  Convolution may sound convoluted, but it is a simple mathematical operation which is fundamental to many common image processing operators.  The heat kernel describes what happens when you introduce a perfect, infinitely sharp spike of heat at a single exact point at time, when t=0.  In standard calculus, a function that is zero everywhere except at one point, where it is infinitely tall, is mathematically illegal, being a logical contradiction and completely invalid.  What is mathematically illegal in standard traditional calculus, becomes perfectly legal using the Dirac delta as that is not defined as a traditional function, and it is used as a linear functional that acts on smooth test functions.  I needed to open up Pandora’s Box in order to describe the heat kernel, and as a result, I let all of the evil out into the world making it tremble and explode, but hope remained in its place that maybe some of the students that would read my book would actually end up understanding the heat kernel.

Written for the Great Minds Think’s Friday Challenge, which is hosted by Rohini and Sarah, and this week we are asked to consider things changing, transitions happening as we shift and pivot to deal with life.

Inherited Fractions

My mom learned how to use a Comptometer, which was a heavily used key-driven mechanical calculator that transformed the accounting industry starting in the late 19th century.  It was invented by Dorr E. Felt in 1887 and manufactured through the mid-1970s, widely used by accounting, payroll, and bookkeeping staff.  It featured columns of keys (digits 0 to 9) where each key press immediately added or subtracted its value straight to the mechanical accumulator gears.  Skilled operators could press multiple keys across different columns simultaneously using a touch-blind method, often working faster than early electronic calculators.  Keys had alternate markings featuring large numbers for addition/multiplication and smaller nines-complement numbers for subtraction/division with distinct flat or hollowed key shapes so operators could feel their position without looking.  My mom valued math and when I got a C in Algebra class, she made me go to Summer School to raise my grade.  The only way I could raise my grade from a C which I received for the regular term to a B for the year was to get an A in Summer school, as they averaged the term and Summer school grades together.  I knew I needed to get an A, otherwise I was just wasting my time, so I tried hard and did all of my homework.

When I was young, my mom bought me a lot of these Connect-the-dots puzzles (also known as dot-to-dot or join-the-dots games) which required me to draw straight lines from one numbered dot to the next in ascending order (so I would draw a line connecting 1 to 2, and then 2 to 3 and so on) until the hidden picture was revealed.  These puzzles were designed to help children improve number recognition, concentration, and hand-eye coordination, but what I got from them was pattern recognition and that is the secret of math, because this allows you to move past rote memorization (repeating information over and over to store it in memory) to see the underlying structure, meaning or context of a problem.  Once I started paying attention in Math class, this subject went from being overwhelming to manageable, as all the pieces seemed to fit together.  I probably owe a lot to my Eighth Grade math teacher Sister Laurentine, as she walked around the class with a yardstick in her hand, and if she saw a student was not on the right page, she would whack them on their knuckles with her stick.  After I got whacked a few times, I learned to get on the right page, and you can’t learn a thing if you are on the wrong page.

Math is loaded with rules, formulas, steps, procedures and problems, but math cannot be learned by solving problems unless it is paired with conceptual understanding.  Once you are able to see the pattern in math, then you can identify the right approach for solving the problem.  Math makes more sense than a lot of other subjects, as it is logical and it yields straightforward answers that are clearly either right-or-wrong.  Even abstract math makes sense like where topology tells you that a coffee cup is a doughnut due to homeomorphism.  Math has been around for a long time ever since the first sheep herders started counting their flocks, but it keeps on evolving and getting better.  For centuries, advanced calculation was hindered because civilizations like the Romans lacked a symbol for nothingness.  Switching from working with Roman Numerals to the Hindu-Arabic numeral system made math much easier to work with.  The plus sign was devised in the late 15th century, but it took a long time for it to gain popularity.  As students learned addition the plus sign + was explained as representing the notion of something being positive.  When students advanced to subtraction, they became familiar with the minus sign -, multiplication introduced and explained the times sign X or *, division and the divisor sign ÷ or /, exponents became numbers that were raised to a power and the square root sign √ all made sense.  Proper and improper fractions are both allowed in math, but you should convert the improper fractions into mixed numbers.

Written for Reena’s Xploration Challenge #452 where today she gave us two similar prompts that focus on fractions and I selected PROMPT 2 – Inheritance where we inherit fractions – one third of a song, half a secret, quarter of a map, one-sixth of a story.  It is in our DNA.  We spend the rest of our lives piecing together the fractions.

Tunic Tee

Lofi Girl (originally known as ChilledCow until 2021) is a French YouTube channel and music label established in 2017.  It provides livestreams of lo-fi hip hop, synthwave, jazz, and lofi house music (an electronic music subgenre that blends traditional 4/4 house beats with low-fidelity production techniques and a nostalgic, vintage aesthetic) 24/7, accompanied by a Japanese-style animation of a girl studying or relaxing in her bedroom with a cat on the window.  The Lofi Girl animated character is officially named Jade, and in this picture, she is wearing over-the-ear headphones sporting her new Bob-cut hair sitting at a desk with dual monitors, looking out a large window at a city skyline under a starry night sky.  She is killing it softly wearing a gray tunic tee that provides coverage over her lower body while she is seated lounging at home and it features a standard crew neck with a loose-fitting hoodie, and elbow length short sleeves.  Jade spends most of her time studying for her exams and she loves learning about new things, as long as she can have background noise to concentrate.  Jade has a ginger orange tabby cat named Pocky that enjoys looking out of the window.  Jade and Pocky disappeared last night, and it is thought they were abducted by aliens.  A blinking blue light was spotted coming from the building opposite Jade’s home and police are still gathering evidence and investigating if that had anything to do with her disappearance.  The sky took on a strange orange glow just before that happened.

Written for Thursday Art Inspiration #3 hosted by Fandango.

Oholah and Oholibah

Around 931 B.C., the unified nation of Israel split into two separate nations following the death of King Solomon, and this was driven by high taxes and the harsh policies of his successor, King Rehoboam.  Solomon was Israel’s third King, the 17th of 19 sons of king David.  He possessed great wisdom and reigned during Israel’s golden age.  He excelled as a diplomat and statesman, securing peace and immense wealth for his kingdom through strategic international alliances and trade networks.  Through his diplomatic and political alliances, he accumulated 700 wives and 300 concubines as marrying daughters of foreign monarchs and chieftains was a standard Ancient Near Eastern practice to seal peace treaties, non-aggression pacts, and trade routes.  In his old age, these foreign wives turned his heart away from the God of Israel.  To please his wives, Solomon built high places and altars for pagan deities such as Chemosh (the god of Moab), Molech (the god of the Ammonites), and Ashtoreth (the goddess of the Sidonians) East of Jerusalem. (on the Mount of Offense).  These sites accommodated practices like burnt offerings, incense, and detestable customs associated with surrounding cultures, sending a message that the God of Israel was merely one among many gods.  The Book of Deuteronomy warned kings not to acquire great numbers of horses, not to take many wives, and not to accumulate large amounts of silver and gold and Solomon broke all three of these rules.  Because of his disobedience, God announced that the united kingdom of Israel would be divided and torn away from his dynasty after his death (during the reign of his son, Rehoboam who was born to his wife Naamah the Ammonite).  Naamah came from the neighboring nation of Ammon (descendants of Lot), making her one of the few foreign queen mothers in the history of Judah.

King Solomon initially ruled over a united kingdom of all twelve tribes of Israel, but due to his idolatry, God prophesied that ten of the tribes would be taken away and given to his servant, Jeroboam.  Jeroboam was the son of Nebat who was an Ephraimite from Zereda and an industrious servant or superintendent whom King Solomon that was placed in charge of the labor force for public works, including the fortification of the Millo in Jerusalem (a 23-foot-thick limestone structure protecting Jerusalem’s primary freshwater source the Gihon Spring).  The Northern Kingdom of Israel was comprised of the ten tribes under King Jeroboam, which Ezekiel referred to as Oholah representing Samaria.  The Southern Kingdom of Judah was composed of the remaining tribes under Rehoboam, which Ezekiel referred to as Oholibah representing Jerusalem.  After Jeroboam conspired or rebelled against Solomon, Solomon tried to kill him, forcing Jeroboam to flee to Egypt under the protection of Pharaoh Shishak.  When King Rehoboam succeeded Solomon, a delegation led by Jeroboam asked him to lighten the heavy forced labor and taxes imposed by his father.  Rehoboam told the people he would make their yoke even heavier and discipline them with scorpions.  Ten northern tribes rebelled and recalled Jeroboam from Egypt to be crowned as the first king of the northern Kingdom of Israel (Samaria).  Only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin remained loyal to Rehoboam, forming the southern Kingdom of Judah (capital: Jerusalem).  Rehoboam mustered 180,000 soldiers to retake the north, but he turned back after the prophet Shemaiah delivered a divine command not to fight their own brothers.

The prophet Ezekiel tells an allegory of two sisters named Oholah and Oholibah to condemn the spiritual unfaithfulness of Israel and Judah and to warn of Jerusalem’s coming destruction.  Oholah the older sister represented the northern kingdom of Israel and its capital, Samaria (meaning “her own tent”, signifying self-invented worship) because Samaria abandoned God’s designated temple in Jerusalem and instead created its own rival places of worship, such as the golden calves set up at Dan and Bethel under King Jeroboam.  She lusted after Assyrian political and military alliances, adopting their idols.  God delivered her into the hands of the Assyrians, who executed her and destroyed her nation.  Oholibah the younger sister represented the southern kingdom of Judah and its capital, Jerusalem (meaning “my tent is in her”, referring to God’s actual temple residing there) the Tabernacle and the authorized Temple on Mount Zion in Jerusalem where God’s covenant the stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments presence resided.  Despite witnessing Samaria’s destruction, Oholibah acted even more corruptly by chasing political and religious alliances with Assyria, Babylon, and Egypt.  In the story, the sisters’ political alliances and adoption of foreign gods are framed as spiritual adultery and prostitution.  Because Jerusalem failed to learn from the fall of Samaria, God announced that He would turn her former political allies specifically the Babylonians and their confederates against her.  This prophecy pointed to the Babylonian siege and destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, when the city and Solomon’s Temple were burned and the population was taken into exile.

Ezekiel says that these two sisters Oholah and Oholibah lived in Egypt when they were young and they became prostitutes and they became his wives and gave birth to his children.  While Oholah was his wife, she continued to be a prostitute having sex with everyone, so he gave her away.  They ripped off her clothes, then captured her children and killed her.  Her younger sister Oholibah saw what happened to her sister, yet she becomes more depraved and a bigger tramp, wanting even more sex, and doing vulgar things.  She let everyone see her naked body and didn’t care if they knew she was a prostitute, so he turned my back on her also.  In Ezekiel 23:20 it is written, “There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.”  The comparison to donkeys and horses is an extreme, shocking way to describe how much these cities desired political and religious alliances with powerful empires like Egypt and Assyria.  The comparison with animals is meant to disgrace what Jerusalem admired. Egypt’s strength looked desirable, but the desire itself was low and corrupt.  The nation God had rescued from Egypt kept looking back to Egypt for help and kept returning to the sins tied to its youth.  Research shows that size does matter for most women and they would prefer a penis size that is long enough to satisfy them, but shorter than a donkey.

Written for FOWC with Fandango – Long.

Derelict Basement

I entered the corridor wearing a surgical mask and gloves not knowing what I would find in this underground hallway of the cellar.  I pressed my back against the damp, mold-covered concrete wall in this deteriorating basement after I made my way through the rusted chain-link fence.  I navigated my way across the wet floor with debris scattered everywhere and stopped under the exposed wiring which was overhead.  There was an old gritty, dark rusted utility sink filled with murky stagnant water that had two mostly submerged vintage medical syringes which looked like they could have been used on an elephant sticking out of it.  The extreme moss growth, dramatic lighting and shadows, and wet floor created an eerie aesthetic, but it was the perfect place to hide contraband, and I knew this had to be the place where my cellmate hid the loot from his bank heist.  He had this habit of talking in his sleep, and a slip of the tongue in the dead of night completely changed the game for me.  I herd him describe it as, “a basement so creepy that not even spiders would enter.”

Written for Simply 6 Minutes hosted by Christine Bialczak.