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An excursion in Philosophy, History, Economics, Mythology, and other Subjects

Subjects

  • Episodes of Covertness [in the spirit of secret signatures]

    Antiquity and the classical world Literature and scholarship Art & design Espionage and resistance Erasure, cover-ups, and what time reveals A List of a Hundred Episodes Antiquity and the Middle Ages Early Modern, and Artful Disguises Literature and Wordcraft Music and Sonic Ciphers Maps, Encyclopedias and Traps Coins, Currency and Craft Espionage, War and Resistance…

  • Other Great Epics of West Africa: Kings, Warriors, and Wonder

    We Cover the Epic of Sundiata here, and the Epics of Ozidi, Dausi, and Askia Muhammad here. And now to the other great epics. Preface: A Map of Many Fires From the Sahel’s amber horizons to the green corridors of the forest and the salt breath of the Atlantic, epic song smoulders in many hearths.…

  • Three Major Epics of West Africa: Ozidi, Dausi, and Askia Muhammad

    I. THE OZIDI SAGA Cultural and Historical Background Along the mangrove-laced creeks of the Niger Delta, among the Ijaw (Ijo) peoples, epic does not sit politely on a page; it walks, drums, dances, and wrestles with spirits in the open air. The Ozidi Saga belongs to this riverine world. It is a full-body performance tradition—mask,…

  • The Lion of Manden: The Epic of Sundiata

    I. CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Long before “Mali” was a country on a modern map, Mali was an empire of memory stretching from the forest belt to the sand’s edge, its lifelines the Niger, the trade routes to the Sahara, and the stories sung in its towns and courts. In that world the Mandinka (Mandé)…

  • The Living Epics of West Africa: an Introduction

    A NIGHT OF STORY AND SOUND Night gathers over the Sahel. The sun leaves a last golden seam on the horizon and the air cools enough for breath to feel like silk. People drift towards the compound: not in haste, but with the sure-footedness of those who know exactly where their history will appear. A…

  • Hidden Names and Secret Signatures in History

    Introduction History is full of secret signatures and hidden marks left by creators who longed to be remembered. Throughout the ages, artists, builders and even bystanders have embedded their names or symbols in their works—sometimes openly, but often in clever or concealed ways. In periods when open self-promotion was frowned upon or credit was officially…

  • The Voyages of the Moana: Pacific Ocean Sagas

    In nearly every Polynesian language, moana simply means the open sea or vast ocean. It evokes not only the physical expanse of water but also ideas of horizon, depth, and the domain of Tangaroa/Kanaloa—the great Ocean‑God who links all islands. The word appears in: Because Polynesian cultures see the ocean as highway, larder, and ancestral…

  • Maori Whakapapa and Cultural Narratives Across Aotearoa

    Introduction Whakapapa (genealogy or lineage) lies at the heart of Māori world views. It is more than a family tree – it is the thread that weaves people, land, sky and all living things into one great whānau (extended family). In simple terms, whakapapa means the layering of one thing upon another. As Māori elder…

  • Myths and Folktales of Oceania

    1. Introduction The peoples who call Oceania home are sailors of mind and spirit. From the coral crowns of Micronesia to the green volcanoes of Melanesia and the wide‑flung triangle of Polynesia, they interpret the world not through stone monuments or written parchment but through moemoeā—dream‑vision—and through the pulse of oral story. To sit in…

  • An Introduction and Retellings of Foundational Aboriginal Narratives

    Preface This work offers a sweeping yet respectful journey through some of the most revered narratives of the Australian Aboriginal Dreaming—stories that breathe life, law, and landscape into the world’s oldest living cultures. Although they are arranged here in a single volume for ease of reading, each narrative properly belongs to specific language groups whose…

  • The Great Slavic Myths and Wonder Tales

    Preface Slavic myth is a forest at dusk. Step in and the path you thought was straight bends behind birch trunks; a clearing you glimpsed vanishes in mist; a hut turns on its own feet to face you. There is light, but it comes from embers, glow‑moss, the burning gaze of a skull on a…

  • The Rule of the Thumb, and Wife-Beating in Seventeenth Century England, [which the Americans immediately threw out.]

    Abstract “Rule of thumb” is a seventeenth‑century English expression meaning a rough‑and‑ready guideline based on practical experience—literally, on what one could measure with a thumb. It has nothing to do with any law about wife‑beating; that story is a much later myth. Earliest appearances and literal sense In an age before precision tools, many crafts used the…

  • Best-known Curves in Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences

    Public finance and the size of the state Inequality, growth and the environment Macroeconomics, labour and money Trade, debt and external balance Innovation, technology and marketing Business operations and product life Psychology, memory and performance Society, crime and population Quantitative linguistics and information Narrative structure and the arts

  • Entropy tends to Zero, at the Boundaries

    Testing and Evaluation Philosophy Psychology Economics Physics & Engineering Chemistry Biology & Medicine Computer Science and Data Science Statistics and Measurement Theory Linguistics and Semiotics Music and Acoustics Visual and Plastic Arts Law and Ethics Sociology and Survey Design Theology and Liturgical Studies

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology

    It was only befitting that I said a few words about the place where I studied before I conquered. MIT in Popular Culture MIT’s prominence as a top science and engineering university has made it a recurring symbol in global popular culture. Writers and creators often invoke “MIT” to instantly convey genius-level intellect, technological prowess,…

  • The Sorites Paradox, Ship of Theseus, and the smoke that broke the Planet’s back.

    Introduction The Sorites Paradox, often called the paradox of the heap, is a classic philosophical riddle that arises from the vagueness of our language. It asks: at what point do small changes make a big difference? If removing a single grain of sand from a heap leaves it still a heap, and repeating this seems…

  • The Song of the Blade that Slits the Air

    In dawn-lit bloom where peach hues flare,A maiden stands with midnight hair;Her katana gleams in morning’s glare—A silver hymn that cleaves the air. Sakura petals stitch her gown,Soft pinks that drift yet won’t fall down;Their fragrant dance in spirals roundIs hushed when tempered steel is found. Mount Fuji’s crown of ghost-white snowLooks on the seas…

  • Ten weary, footsore travelers

    Anonymous Ten weary, footsore travelers,All in a woeful plight,Sought shelter at a wayside innOne dark and stormy night. “Nine beds — no more,” the landlord said,“Have I to offer you;To each of eight a single room,But the ninth must serve for two.” A din arose. The troubled hostCould only scratch his head,For of those tired…

  • My daughter’s smile

    Fatima would come and sit on my lap; my worries suspended for that valuable moment. I was surging to the vergeof diverging from my urge;my relentless, hot desireto merge and to acquire. Boardrooms throbbed with savage trade,tickers flashed, decisions made;spreadsheets hissed a neon choir,fueling bids that edged up higher. Deadlines pounded like a drum,steel-heeled seconds…

  • A Positive Reminder

    James Albert Lindon (b. 1914, d. December 16, 1979) A carpenter named Charlie Bratticks,Who had a taste for mathematics,One summer Tuesday, just for fun,Made a wooden cube side minus one. Though this to you may well seem wrong,He made it minus one foot long,Which meant (I hope your brains aren’t frothing)Its length was one foot…

  • The Deeds and Death of Yamato-Takeru (Japanese Myth Paper 8)

    1 — A Wild Cub in the Imperial Litter Long after Jimmu’s sun-bound march, the Yamato court has thickened into lineage after lineage of princely timber. From one such branch comes Prince Ōusu, second son of Emperor Keikō. Where elder brother Prince Ōusu-no-Miko is measured and courtly, Ōusu himself is volcanic: wrestling palace guards for…