Grand unified books thread

[Malthus]

Masturbating with your mom? Ewwwww.

I would skip church that day.

No - just married to mom. The masturbation is of the God Amun (allegedly, in the private recesses of the sanctuary). It was evidently all the thing to have the king's wife (and only the king's wife) assume also the title "God's Wife of Amun", so Hatshepsut - who apparently wanted her daughter to assume her powers - had to marry her daughter to "the king", namely herself.

Evidently Egyptian kings were flattered by having their wives married to the God at the same time. 

[Valmy]

Oh wait so King Mom had her daughter go and ritualistically rub a statue's phallus or something? Well hell that probably happens in churches all over America. You know how those Jesus Freaks get.

[Malthus]

Oh wait so King Mom had her daughter go and ritualistically rub a statue's phallus or something? Well hell that probably happens in churches all over America. You know how those Jesus Freaks get.

I think they were supposed to do a striptease while shaking a taborine-like instrument first, but yes. 

[crazy canuck]

Read a book entitled The Woman Who Would Be King, a bio of Egyptian "King" Hatshepsut, and "his" glorious, cross-dressing, incestuous career as a female "king".  In ancient Egypt, there was no word for "queen" - only "king's wife". So when Hatshepsut took the throne herself, on the death of her brother-husband, she used the male title - and gradually assumed the male gender, in her depictions at least. 

One interesting part was how she very gradually changed her iconography - from fully female, through a woman wearing a man's crown, to a woman wearing an entirely male outfit, to a woman wearing a male outfit and sporting a beard (but still having boobs), to a completely male image - outfit, beard, no boobs and all.

Allegedly, the colours chosen to paint her image went through the same metamorphosis--in ancient Egypt, women were painted yellow, men were painted red: she went from yellow, though a unique orange, to red.

Despite becoming, in iconography, a "man", she retained the feminine name and grammar in inscriptions about her, oddly enough.

Another oddity: she ended up "marrying" her own daughter, at least for ritual purposes (the daughter also took on the role of "God's wife of Amun" that Hatshepsut had held prior to becoming King. Oddly, the rituals associated with that role involved - getting naked, playing a rattle while dancing, and masturbating a statue of the God Amun (his orgasm is supposed to re-create the universe). You won't see that one in Church these days. 

Give me that old time religion
give me that old time religion
Give me that old time religion
It's good enough for me

[Sophie Scholl]

Read a book entitled The Woman Who Would Be King, a bio of Egyptian "King" Hatshepsut, and "his" glorious, cross-dressing, incestuous career as a female "king".  In ancient Egypt, there was no word for "queen" - only "king's wife". So when Hatshepsut took the throne herself, on the death of her brother-husband, she used the male title - and gradually assumed the male gender, in her depictions at least. 

One interesting part was how she very gradually changed her iconography - from fully female, through a woman wearing a man's crown, to a woman wearing an entirely male outfit, to a woman wearing a male outfit and sporting a beard (but still having boobs), to a completely male image - outfit, beard, no boobs and all.

Allegedly, the colours chosen to paint her image went through the same metamorphosis--in ancient Egypt, women were painted yellow, men were painted red: she went from yellow, though a unique orange, to red.

Despite becoming, in iconography, a "man", she retained the feminine name and grammar in inscriptions about her, oddly enough.

Another oddity: she ended up "marrying" her own daughter, at least for ritual purposes (the daughter also took on the role of "God's wife of Amun" that Hatshepsut had held prior to becoming King. Oddly, the rituals associated with that role involved - getting naked, playing a rattle while dancing, and masturbating a statue of the God Amun (his orgasm is supposed to re-create the universe). You won't see that one in Church these days. 

Kara Cooney!

[Malthus]

Kara Cooney!

World's hottest Egyptologist.

Except in Egypt itself, where Zahi Hawass awarded himself that title. 

[Eddie Teach]

Kara Cooney!

World's hottest Egyptologist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS0uOXfVhzI

[Razgovory]

I picked up the novel Flashman (several posters have mentioned that the series is excellent), and the series is excellent.  It's a sign of a good author that you find yourself rooting for a totally deplorable character.  After this I'll probably read up on the First Anglo-Afghan war.

[Admiral Yi]

I picked up the novel Flashman (several posters have mentioned that the series is excellent), and the series is excellent.  It's a sign of a good author that you find yourself rooting for a totally deplorable character.  After this I'll probably read up on the First Anglo-Afghan war.

The coverage in "Queen Victoria's Little Wars" didn't go much further than Flashman.  One of the great things about Flashman is that you are told in the footnotes where he deviates from history.

[Malthus]

I was reading "Washington's Spies" (the book on which the TV series "Turn" was based), and I came across this account - written to Washington by a spy, excusing his own failure in an incident that, alas, is forever lost to history:

"I had gone through all those dangers that awaited me in getting a regular plan laid, and was beginning to carry it on with every appearance of success, but the Jersey man fell in love with his horse, the doctor narrowly escaped with his life, and the whole scheme was frustrated".

The author's comment: "the mind boggles". 

Will this show up in season 3 of Turn?  It is hilarious to imagine what this sentence refers to. Was the "Jersey man" an American ancestor of the Brain, perhaps? 

[The Brain]

Shore why not.

[jimmy olsen]

Shore why not.

[Admiral Yi]

In a review in the NYT on a handful of books discussing income inequality, I came across the rather surprising quote "income inequality is not necessarily a bad thing."  It's from Thomas Pinketty.

[crazy canuck]

In a review in the NYT on a handful of books discussing income inequality, I came across the rather surprising quote "income inequality is not necessarily a bad thing."  It's from Thomas Pinketty.

Why is this surprising to you?  His point is that the degree of income inequality and lack of social mobility is a bad thing. He does not argue that everyone should earn the same amount.

[The Minsky Moment]

There is a lot of commentary about Piketty's book but a lot less actual reading of its contents.