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Mugwumps, Elon Musk, & #LongCovid

On By katespitzmillerIn disabilities, History, long covid, social media, UncategorizedLeave a comment
"Mugwumps!!" U.S. Senate Collection.
“Mugwump!”

From:
Puck, America’s first political satire magazine
June 23, 1886
U.S. Senate Collection

I spent several years tutoring economics. Not exclusively, thank God, but kind of wedged in between US history, world history, and government/civics. I have exactly zero interest in economics as a stand-alone discipline, and, frankly, it gives me headaches. But I do find economics interesting and necessary to understanding the subject areas I prefer: history, geography, political science, and sociology.

In all the hours I spent trying to help teenagers understand mind-numbingly boring economic graphs and charts, only two concepts piqued my interest in any way: scarcity and opportunity cost.

Which is interesting because those two concepts are inextricably linked.

Scarcity in economics is just what it sounds like. There are only a finite amount of resources on our planet and all of humanity is in competition for those resources. This, obviously, causes a vast amount of problems for us as we try to share our planet, hopefully/ostensibly in an equitable and sustainable way.

I always found opportunity cost tricky to explain to high school students when I was tutoring. I sort of feel like it’s a concept that you either “get” intuitively or you don’t. So because my job as a tutor was in the service of a junior elite hockey team, I usually started there–with hockey.

For example, if you play the center position and you have the puck in your opponent’s zone, you have a few choices.

  1. Head straight for the goal and try to score unassisted.
  2. Look around to see where the other forwards are and evaluate if they are in a better scoring position than you and pass the puck to the player with the best position.
  3. Give up and pass the puck to a defenseman, who may skate back behind your team’s net for a moment in order to allow your coach to make a line/shift change.

“Opportunity cost” in economics means “every time you make a choice…you are also choosing to forego other options.”

So if a hockey forward chooses to head straight for the net and tries to score unassisted, she is foregoing the option of giving someone else a chance to score, possibly someone who is a better scorer or who is in a better position on the ice strategically. If we were to put a moral value on this decision, we could say “that player wanted to score for herself/her stats/to impress her coach.” She sacrificed teamwork for her own success. Of course, that’s a bit of a judgmental way to look at it. Most hockey players I have known were “team players,” but I think you get my point. The opportunity cost (philosophically) in this scenario is valuing individual glory over teamwork. Possibly at the expense of/to the detriment of the group’s shared success.

Which brings me to Elon Musk.

I strongly believe that the best way to deal with a narcissist is to delete them from the conversation. So I am pretty reluctant to give Mr. Musk any of my oxygen.

However, I have Long Covid. I’ve been living with it–the medical/scientific term is post-acute sequelae SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC)–since March of 2020 following a covid infection that became symptomatic on February 21, 2020.

There is pretty much zero easily accessible support for people with Long Covid. I have survived this illness (plus my intitial covid infection) for 1,001 days now. Probably 75% of the “support” I received for dealing with and living with Long Covid has come from myself. About 20% came from a handful of my friends. The remaining 5% came from Twitter.

It was the #LongCovid community on Twitter that, finally, gave me some hope. On Twitter, if you say “I’ve been in bed for two-and-a-half years and can only manage a shower once a month” and then add the hashtag #LongCovid, you will be immediately supported and will receive the gift of hearing other peoples’ stories, advice, insight, and humor. If you make the same statement to a person or group that doesn’t believe Long Covid “exists” because they have not personally experienced it, you can expect some pretty dire and painful consequences.

Which is interesting because the latter group is therefore operating at Piaget’s first stage of cognitive development which, generally, occurs in humans between birth and 24 months of age. According to Piaget, it is not until an individual reaches the space between ages seven and eleven years old that s/he/they become “less egocentric, and more aware of the outside world and events.” And human cognitive ability to grasp abstract concepts and “make hypotheses” again according to Piaget (a stage which he called formal operational) only begins to occur once the individual reaches adolescence.

I’m not as big a nerd as that paragraph makes me appear, although I am a pretty big nerd. My master’s degree is in middle school education, and the concepts above regarding human cognitive development were the backbone of my graduate work. As a teacher, I taught seventh grade exclusively for many years. The beauty of seventh graders is that cognitively and socially they are the ultimate “mugwumps.”

What is a mugwump?

The Guardian newspaper put it this way in a 2017 article about Boris Johnson, who, as Britain’s foreign secretary, had just entered the general election campaign and was targeting Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn:

“One 1930s humorist…define[d] mugwump as ‘a bird who sits with its mug on one side of the fence and its wump on the other’.”

Boris Johnson, a Conservative, called Jeremy Corbyn a “mutton-headed old mugwump.” Which, obviously, was not meant as a compliment.

The Guardian, citing Merriam-Webster, notes that historically the word “mugwump” was used in two ways in American politics:

  1. “A bolter from the Republican party in 1884.”
  2. “A person who is independent (as in politics) or who remains undecided or neutral.”

In terms of the original etymology of the word, Merriam-Webster says: “Mugwump is an anglicized version of a word used by Massachusett Indians to mean ‘war leader.’” And “The word was sometimes jestingly applied in early America to someone who was the ‘head guy.’”

The Guardian’s 2017 explanation of the meaning of “mugwump” as a bird sitting on a fence is also how the term was first explained to me at my summer camp in Vermont, where a Mugwump is a young woman in the counselor-in-training program. She is neither camper nor counselor. She is a former camper learning how to become a counselor. The ultimate in-betweener whose strength as a valuable member of the camp community comes from her unique perspective on both primary camp roles: camper and counselor. She is neither of those things–camper nor counselor–but she was recently a camper, and therefore “gets” the camper experience, and, simultaneously, she is learning how to be a counselor with new responsibilities, training, and partial inclusion in the leadership community.

Any Buddhist reading this will immediately recognize a mugwump as a concrete manifestation of The Middle Way, which, like scarcity in economics is exactly what it sounds like. The Middle Way can be considered one of the “prime directives” in Buddhism, insofar as Buddhism has directives. In the simplest terms, it means a practitioner should avoid extremes. One should pursue the moderate path whenever possible. It is a bit more complex than that but I hope that makes sense for our purposes here.

In my opinion, the reason seventh graders, mugwumps/Mugwumps, and Buddhists who work to adhere to the Middle Way are valuable in our society is because we, as humans with a “civilization,” have become astoundingly dualistic in our thinking, actions, and planning. And I say that in the context of Merriam-Webster’s third definition of dualism:

“A doctrine that the universe is under the dominion of two opposing principles one of which is good and the other evil.”

I’m fairly certain that I do not need to provide examples of this from 2022. Or 2020. Or 2016. Which is good because, frankly, I’m exhausted by all the black-and-white thinking/arguing, etc.

So what’s my point?

Elon Musk. Twitter. #LongCovid.

There are two people I follow on Twitter who are devoted leaders/guides to our rapidly-growing #LongCovid community. Dr. Alice and D.Dave the L.C. Barbarian.

This morning, I woke up and saw this:

And this appeared on the same day as fears that Mr. Musk was planning to dissolve or radically change Twitter. For some people, that would just mean an annoying switch over to Mastodon. But for others–many, many others–it would mean losing their only support system for their chronic illness. And I don’t just mean people with Long Covid. I mean people with MS, MECFS, Lyme Disease, POTS, and a myriad of other conditions that have been swept under the rug by society and a large chunk of the medical community.

These people finally have a voice. We should protect that space at all costs. As someone said today on Twitter, the platform is almost like a “public utility” for millions and millions of people all over the planet.

We, collectively, don’t need Mr. Musk’s issues/moods to manifest in such a way that makes Twitter, the center of #LongCovid grassroots organizing, evaporate.

We don’t.

We need to stop the dualism.

We need to work together if we are going to beat covid and begin to repair the lives of the millions and millions of people worldwide who have Long Covid. Many of whom don’t even realize they have it because government messaging globally about the single most likely bad outcome from a covid infection is, frankly, horseshit/nonexistent.

In closing, a few words from Samuel Clemens.

MUGWUMP
“I was a mugwump. We, the mugwumps, a little company made up of the unenslaved of both parties, the very best men to be found in the two great parties–that was our idea of it–voted sixty thousand strong for Mr. Cleveland in New York and elected him. Our principles were high, and very definite. We were not a party; we had no candidates; we had no axes to grind. Our vote laid upon the man we cast it for no obligation of any kind. By our rule we could not ask for office; we could not accept office. When voting, it was our duty to vote for the best man, regardless of his party name. We had no other creed. Vote for the best man–that was creed enough.”

MARK TWAIN’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

North American Review, December 21, 1906

The Women of The Iliad

On By katespitzmillerIn ancient greece, historical fiction, History, literature, Troy, Uncategorized, Women, Women's History, Womens History, Writing5 Comments

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In honor of my upcoming novel, Companion of the Ash, I would like to provide an introduction to the women whom Homer included in his epic eighth-century B.C. work, The Iliad. There are many women in The Iliad, but I am focusing on four–the four who I have included in my novel.

Bearing in mind that women in ancient literature were often treated as “extras,” serving the needs of men and as a sort of window-dressing for the author, I will do my best to illuminate the characters as they were revealed to us by Homer. We have a sorceress, an unpleasant woman, and women who are incessantly sad. These were pretty much standard roles women were relegated to in ancient literature.

Women were also only given roles in relation to men–they were the mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters of heroes and villains. Women did not appear in ancient texts as free-standing characters, unanchored to men. One exception to this is Penthesilea, the Amazon Queen, who does appear in The Iliad and other ancient works. It should be noted, however, that the Amazons as a group were described as “man-like,” and thus were given a sort of license to stand on their own as characters devoid of male counterparts–other than the centaurs, who were not fully men.

Kassandra
Kassandra was sister to Hector, Paris, and Helenus. She was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba. Thus, she was a princess of Troy. She was single, and, as such, served in the only real capacity a single woman could in the ancient world–as a priestess. She was also a “seer,” with the gift of prophecy. For this, she was considered insane. It is Kassandra who warned Paris not to go to Sparta because he would meet Helen, and it was Kassandra who predicted the fall of Troy at the end of the Trojan War. But she was cursed–no one believed any of her prophecies, even though they were all true.

Hecuba
Queen Hecuba appears in several ancient works, but I will focus on her role in The Iliad here. She is best known, perhaps, for being a mother–of nineteen children. These children include the heroes Hector and Paris, and the scholar and prophet (who people believed), Helenus. She was also mother to Kassandra, who she dismissed as insane. She appears in Homer’s work at prayer, and as–variously–a doting, anxious, and grieving mother.

Helen
It is on Helen’s shoulders upon which the entire Trojan War rests. We know now the famous quote, “the face that launched a thousand ships.” Well, it was also the face that brought down a great city. Helen returning to Troy with Paris was the literary cause of the Trojan War (but almost definitely not the historical cause). Homer paints her as sorrowful and regretful–perhaps even as a woman who misses her husband Menelaus in Sparta. In The Iliad, she is reunited with Menelaus in the end, after the fall of Troy and the death of Paris. She is a rather pathetic figure, considering the war is her fault.

Andromache
Andromache is the wife of the hero Hector. This connection is so central to her character that in Book 22 of The Iliad, Andromache is not even named. She is simply referred to as “the wife of Hector,” despite being a relatively major character in the work. Throughout the epic, Andromache is seen weeping and carrying on over deaths and deaths-to-come. She is portrayed as a weak woman; a woman who exists only for the purpose of providing emotional responses to her husband’s deeds. She is never given a full character of her own.

And it is to Andromache that I turned in writing my novel. I was taking a writing class in Derbyshire, England, in 2003, and the instructor asked us to answer the question, “What if?” After much scribbling and musing, I came up with the question: “What if Andromache was a strong, capable, fully-developed character?”

And, thus, Companion of the Ash was born. It is set for release this year from Spider Road Press. The story is a sequel to The Iliad, starting at the death of Hector. It is told through the eyes of a strong, courageous Andromache.

I thought, after twenty-eight centuries, she deserved as much.

The Lost Children: Vietnam

On By katespitzmillerIn adoption, birth fathers, Family, History, Uncategorized, Veterans, Vietnam War, Writing2 Comments

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“Rejoice O young man, in thy youth…”
– Ecclesiastes (from Platoon)

 

I had a strange thought today.

Those of you who have been reading my blog know that I have two fathers: my Dad, George, who raised me; and Jim, my birthfather.

My strange thought today was about Jim.

Jim was in Vietnam from 1969 to 1970. He was based at Lai Khe, headquarters of the 1st Infantry Division and an important base for the outer defense of Saigon. The base had a sign over its gate that read, “Welcome to Rocket City”–in part because by 1970 it was, along with Khe Sanh, one of the most heavily-rocketed bases in South Vietnam.

My strange thought came as I was watching the film Platoon this afternoon. I thought I remembered how many American soldiers died in Vietnam, but I wanted to be sure, so I Googled it. It was as I remembered: 58,220. I remembered the number from my teenage years, when I was fascinated by the Vietnam War and consumed anything I could find related to it–books, movies, TV shows, magazine articles.

But I never thought about the number. I knew it was a horrific amount of people, but I never thought until today that the majority of those killed in action were just kids–average age nineteen–who would never become husbands and fathers. I thought today about all the children that weren’t born because those 58,220 men were killed.

And then I thought of myself.

Jim survived. He wasn’t shot down. He didn’t crash. Despite being in a light, slow-moving aircraft far out in front of the main group for a full year, he did not go down. He survived.

Which means I survived, too.

A strange thought, like I said.

I’m here, but the children of thousands of other soldiers are not. This is devastating.

But this also means that I may have some role to play in the world, some purpose. As many Vietnam veterans themselves say, why did I make it when so many others did not? There must be a reason.

I suppose the children of veterans of World War II and Korea may feel the same way. A certain sense of grace or luck. Just one well-aimed rocket-propelled grenade, just one loose screw on a wing or engine part, and I would not be here.

I guess, in a way, we can all say that about ourselves. We would not be here if not for the ones who came before us. But there’s something about knowing your DNA survived a war when others did not that makes it different. They are the lost children of Vietnam–the ones who were never born.

As I said, I was always fascinated by the Vietnam War, even decades before I knew Jim served there. I cried at The Wall as an eighth grader, drawing stares from my classmates on a school trip. I felt something back then, staring at the black granite, I just didn’t know what.

Maybe now I do.

Operation Babylift

On By katespitzmillerIn History, Uncategorized, Vietnam War, Women, Women's History, Womens History3 Comments

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Following on the heels of my post about First Lieutenant Sharon Ann Lane, I wanted to write about the heroism of another group of women at the end of the Vietnam War.

In the spring of 1975, commercial aircraft leaving Saigon were filled to capacity. The military, out of necessity, began offering seats on cargo planes to American civilians in an effort to get them out of the country.

But there was a special group of civilians, not quite Americans—yet. Vietnamese orphans, who had families eagerly waiting to adopt them in the United States.

Orphanages in South Vietnam were suffering gravely from a lack of basic medical supplies and food, and aid workers were scrambling to try to get as many orphans back to the United States as they could. The problem was transportation.

USAID (Unites States Aid to International Development) eventually came through and promised three Medevac flights for the orphans to be sent from a base in the Philippines.

But the day after this promise was made, April 4th, 1975, aid workers were told that one of the world’s largest planes was to be sent instead—the C-5A cargo plane. President Gerald Ford had heard about the plight of the orphans and authorized the use of the giant plane for what was soon termed “Operation Babylift.”

The plane was massive—six stories high. Under normal circumstances, it carried helicopters and tanks. It was not suited to carrying passengers. For this reason, aid workers decided that only children three years of age and older would be sent out on the C-5A, because only they could be properly secured.

Twenty-two infants were sent, however. They were chosen from among the very strongest, and were secured in the seats of the troop compartment of the plane.

Fifteen minutes after take-off, as the plane was approaching its cruising altitude, the back doors blew out. The pilot was skilled enough that, despite a lack of rudder control, he was able to turn the plane around and head back to Saigon. But he was unable to control his rate of descent, and the plane impacted in a rice paddy outside Saigon at 350 mph.

Approximately 130 passengers and crew were killed, including an estimated seventy-three children and thirty-eight women. All of the women who died worked for various U.S. government aid agencies at the time of the flight, with the exception of Laurie Stark, who was a teacher, and Captain Mary Therese Klinker, an Air Force flight nurse assigned to Clark Air Base in the Philippines.

The goal of these women was to get a group of orphans to loving homes in the United States, and they died in service to that goal. They should be remembered for their heroism. And the children should be remembered, too, for the lives they could have lived here in the States, after spending their early years in a country marked by war.

I was three years old in 1975, and I’m adopted. Were I born in another place and in other circumstances, I could very well have been on that plane.

To the women and children of Operation Babylift: we remember.

The Women:

Barbara Adams 
Clara Bayot
Nova Bell
Arleta Bertwell
Helen Blackburn
Ann Bottorff
Celeste Brown
Vivienne Clark
Juanita Creel
Mary Ann Crouch
Dorothy Curtiss
Twila Donelson
Helen Drye
Theresa Drye (a child)
Mary Lyn Eichen
Elizabeth Fugino
Ruthanne Gasper
Beverly Herbert
Penelope Hindman
Vera Hollibaugh
Dorothy Howard
Barbara Kauvulia

Captain Mary Therese Klinker
Barbara Maier
Rebecca Martin
Sara Martini
Martha Middlebrook
Katherine Moore
Marta Moschkin
Marion Polgrean
June Poulton
Joan Pray
Sayonna Randall
Anne Reynolds
Marjorie Snow
Laurie Stark
Barbara Stout
Doris Jean Watkins
Sharon Wesley

Virtual Wall

Operation Babylift Memorial

 

Sharon Ann Lane

On By katespitzmillerIn History, Nursing, Uncategorized, US Army, Veterans, Vietnam War, Women, Women's History, Womens History4 Comments

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I usually write about ancient women on this blog—women from Classical times—because I’ve always felt like their contribution to history has been forgotten. But I recently came upon the story of another woman, a modern woman, whose story I think has also been forgotten. And I want to share her story with you because I think it deserves to be told.

Sharon Ann Lane. First Lieutenant in the United States Army. A nurse stationed at the 312th Evacuation Hospital, Chu Lai, Vietnam in 1969.

Sharon was born in 1943 in Ohio. She graduated from high school in Canton in 1961. After high school, she attended the Aultman Hospital School of Nursing, where she graduated in April of 1965. She worked at a civilian hospital before joining the U.S. Army Nurse Corps Reserve in April of 1968.

She received her army training at Fort Sam Houston in Texas, where all army nurses trained in the 1960s, graduating as a second lieutenant in June of 1968. Her first assignment as an army nurse was on a tuberculosis ward at the Army’s Fitzsimons General Hospital in Denver, Colorado.

On April 24th, 1969, she received orders sending her to Vietnam.

Sharon was sent to Chu Lai, the home of two army hospitals in the first half of 1969—the 27th Surgical Hospital and the 312th Evacuation Hospital. Sharon was originally assigned to the Intensive Care Unit of the 312th, but a few days later was moved to the Vietnamese ward. There, she cared for women, children, and the occasional POW. It was not an assignment most staffers wanted, but Sharon repeatedly declined offers of transfers to other wards.

In addition to her twelve-hour shifts on the Vietnamese ward, Sharon spent her off-duty time working with critically injured American soldiers in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit. According to those who served with her, she was “adored and respected” by everyone in the hospital.

Early on the morning of June 8th, 1969, the Viet Cong attacked the 312th with 122mm rockets. Sharon was just finishing up her night shift on the Vietnamese ward, when one rocket struck Ward 4—her ward. Sharon was struck with shrapnel in the chest and throat, and killed instantly.  She was twenty-five years old.

Sharon was the only female American military member killed by enemy action in the Vietnam War.

Although seven other nurses died in Vietnam, their deaths were the result of accidents or illness. Sharon gave her life the way so many of her patients had—at the hands of the enemy.

Following her death, Fitzsimons General Hospital renamed its recovery room in honor of Sharon, and a statue of her was erected in front of Aultman Hospital, where she had been a nursing student. Roads in Denver, Colorado and in Belvoir, Virginia have been named for her.

Approximately five thousand nurses served in-country over the course of the Vietnam War, most living in tough conditions doing a brutal job. They have been dubbed “Angels of Mercy” for their work.

But Sharon truly is an angel, if you believe in that sort of thing. She would be seventy-four today, retired from a long career as a nurse, most likely. But instead, she lost her life at a young age doing hard work for a country that, at the time, had little in the way of gratitude.

Thank you, Sharon. And God bless.

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The Virtual Wall

Army History

Defense Media Network

Livia, Empress of Rome

On By katespitzmillerIn Ancient Rome, History, Rome, Uncategorized, Women, Women's History, Womens History3 Comments

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Two weeks ago, I sat in Livia’s dining room.

Not her actual dining room, but within the four painted plaster walls that lined her dining room two thousand years ago and now are located at the Museo Palazzo Massimo in Rome.  And as I sat there surrounded by those four walls, I wondered what those walls had heard, what they had seen.  I wondered about the woman who called upon the Imperial painters to create a dining space that gave the illusion to her guests that they were eating al fresco.  I was mesmerized by the paintings; drawn to this woman whose taste was so much like my own.  Who was she?  What was she like?  What did she and her women friends discuss in this room?  Their children?  Their men?  Their joys and their sorrows?

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And so I decided to write about Livia, one of the most famous women in Roman history.  Wife to Augustus, first emperor of Rome, mother to the emperor Tiberius, grandmother to emperor Claudius, and great-grandmother to emperor Caligula.

When she married Augustus (at the time, Octavian), she already had a son (Tiberius), and in the fifty-one years of marriage to Augustus, she had no other children.  Her role, however, was that of counsel to her husband, and she gave him wise political advice and support throughout his reign as emperor.  This was wildly unusual for the times, as women were considered to be outside the sphere of politics for much of the span of Roman history.  For this alone, we should admire Livia.

Livia lived humbly, despite her status as empress.  She was the role model for the Roman “matrona” or matron.  She wore very little jewelry or makeup, often made her own clothing and that of her husband.  Augustus even gave Livia the (then) outlandish right to govern her own finances and dedicated a public statue to her.

When Augustus died in AD 14, he bequeathed one-third of his estate to Livia, and he also adopted her into the Julian family dynasty, giving her the honorific title of Augusta.  All of these things meant that Livia was able to maintain her power after her husband’s death, and as the mother of the new emperor, Tiberius, she still maintained a position of importance in the empire in any case.

There are tales from ancient sources that tell of tensions between Livia and her son Tiberius during his years as emperor.  It is even said that Tiberius’ retirement to the island of Capri was an attempt to get away from his mother.  At Livia’s death in AD 29, Tiberius refused to return to Rome and vetoed all the honorifics the Senate wished to bestow upon Livia.  However, thirteen years later, during the reign of Livia’s grandson Claudius, all of her honors were restored and her deification was completed.

Women spoke her name during their sacred oaths, her statue was erected beside her husband’s at the Temple of Augustus, and races were held in her honor.  Her ashes remained beside her husband’s in his temple until the Sack of Rome in AD 410, when they, like his, were scattered.

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Painted wall from Livia’s dining room, Palazzo Massimo, Rome, Italy.  Author’s photo.

 

Read More: Empress of Rome: The Life of Livia by Matthew Dennison.

Book Review: “Field of Mars” by David Rollins

On By katespitzmillerIn Ancient Rome, Book review, historical fiction, History, Rome, UncategorizedLeave a comment

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I was recently told by a literary agent that ancient Roman settings were “a very tough sell” in the publishing world.  Perhaps said agent should read David Rollins’ Field of Mars and reconsider her opinion.

If you want to be thrust backward full-force into the drama, order, chaos, smells, tastes, and sensations of the Roman Republic, then this is the novel for you.  This reader (and writer) of historical fiction has fallen in love with the genre all over again thanks to Rollins’ masterful work.

The premise is irresistible: In the far west of China today, there are men and women who have blond or red hair and blue or green eyes.  How did this happen?  The author connects this modern mystery to an ancient one — the disappearance of 10,000 Roman legionaries after a devastating defeat at the hands of the Parthians in May of 53 BC.

I hesitate to even give away the slightest bit of the story lest I ruin it for you, but it must be said that Rollins captures the details of Roman city life and Roman legionary life exquisitely.  From the very start of the novel, when a white bull is being sacrificed in the streets of Rome for the god Mithras, the reader is hooked.  Having written a similar scene  myself, I know how difficult it is to convey a scene which is unheard of in modern times, and thus impossible to observe and write down details of in order to use in one’s own novel.  But Rollins paints the scene perfectly — it’s as if the reader is in the streets with the narrator, seeing every detail of the sacrifice, every smell, every sound, every ripple of the hot Roman air through the surging crowd.

And then there are the battle scenes, of which there are two major ones.  Rollins obviously has an expert’s grasp on the armament and stratagems of the Roman army, and he uses his knowledge to great affect in the great battle between the Romans (under Proconsul Crassus) and the Parthians.  The author isn’t shy about the ravages of war, providing the reader with a realistic look at what life in the midst of battle would have been like for a legionary.  But he does not go over the top with graphic violence, as lesser authors might do.  He finds a realistic middle ground and sticks to it.

The characters are varied and well-fleshed out, each with their own motivations and story arcs.  We are sad, even, when a Parthian character dies, because Rollins has us so invested in his story.

The women in the novel hold the traditional roles of women in an ancient history tale, which is unfortunate.  They are a witch and a prostitute, both of whom seem to exist only to serve the male main characters.  But if you can will yourself to ignore these imperfections in the storyline and characterizations and forgive the author for falling into this traditional trap, you will be able to enjoy the novel.  It is, after all, difficult to create more positive roles for women when you are writing about such a male-dominated topic as a Roman legion.

This is a story about Rome, but it is also a story about the world beyond Rome, and about the weakness of Rome — about Rome’s arrogance.  And yet the characters are so real, one can separate the Roman legionaries from their leaders — from Crassus, from Pompey, from Caesar — and see the legionaries for what they probably were:  simple men doing a difficult job serving their country.

This is a marvelous book.  Highly recommended.  My only wish is that the author would continue on and write a sequel, as I am dying to know the rest of the story!

Buy it on Amazon (Kindle Edition)

Kittur Rani Chennamma

On By katespitzmillerIn History, Uncategorized, Women, Womens History1 Comment

Kittur Rani

Many of those of us who grew up in the United States studied the British East India Company in school, but what we learned was only part of the story. The truth, for the Indian people, was that the East India Company represented an oppressive force, colonialism, and the taking of freedom.

The first Indian to begin an armed rebellion against the British East India Company was Kittur Rani Chennamma. A woman.

Rani Chennamma was born in the small village of Kakati on October 23, 1778. From a young age she was trained in horseback riding, sword fighting, and archery. She rose to be Queen of Kittur in Karnataka, southern India, and married Raja Mallasarja.

Rani Chennamma and the Raja had one son, who died in 1824. Following the death of her son, Rani Chennamma adopted a son named Shivalingappa, and named him heir to her throne.

The British East India Company refused to acknowledge Shivalingappa’s legitimacy as Rani Chennamma’s heir and exiled him, using a policy stating their complete authority over all things political in India, but Chennamma defied the order. She sent a letter of protest to the British leadership in Bombay, requesting a reinstatement of her adopted son, but she was refused, leaving her without an heir.

In response to Rani Chennamma’s perceived rebellion against the East India Company, the British attempted to confiscate the treasure and jewels of Kittur, which we can value today at around 1.5 million rupees. The British attacked Kittur with a force of 20,000 men and 400 guns.

At the start of the war, in October 1824, Rani Chennamma’s forces prevailed and the British took heavy losses. One of their leaders, John Thackeray, was killed and two British officers were taken as hostages.

A deal was made, and Rani Chennamma released the hostages under a truce with the British that stated that the war would end. But the British continued the war with even more soldiers. Chennamma fought fiercely, but was captured and taken prisoner.   She was brought to the fort at Bailhongal, where she died after five years of captivity on February 21, 1829.

Rani Chennamma grew to become a legend in India. During the freedom movement, her resistance to the British became the subject of plays, folk songs, and stories.

A prestigious girls’ school was founded in honor of her, with a mission statement that includes the goal to “impart sound learning for girls…in a social context where the cause of women was totally neglected.”

On September 11, 2007, a statue of Kittur Rani Chennamma was erected at the Parliamentary Building in New Delhi. The statue was unveiled by Pratibha Patil, the first woman President of India.

RaniStamp

Sources:

Hindu Janajagruti Samiti

Hindu History

DigPlanet.com

Queen Nzingha

On By katespitzmillerIn History, Uncategorized, Women, Womens HistoryLeave a comment

queen anna nzinga

The slave trade.  European kidnapping and murder of millions of Africans over hundreds of years.  But one woman fought to save her people from such a fate.

Queen Nzingha of Ndongo.

She was a member of the Mbundu, an ancient ethnic group that lived in modern-day Angola. The Mbundu were made up of clans descended from bloodlines traced through the mother’s side of the family.

Nzingha was born in 1582. Her father was Ndambi Kiluanji, the ngola, or king, of the Ndongo tribe and territories. Her mother was Kiluanji, one of several of the king’s wives.

Nzingha grew up to be a great athlete and highly intelligent. The only problem is that she was a female and that her mother Kiluanji had been brought to the king as a slave, and therefore did not have royal blood. In a matrilineal society, one’s mother’s history mattered, and for Nzingha, her mother’s past as a slave was a hindrance to her chances to rule. But nevertheless, she was educated in the fields of hunting and archery and in the skills of diplomacy and trade.

The Portuguese slave traders tried to destroy the Mbundu culture. In the 1400s, Portuguese traders set up ports along the African coast, such as Luanda, a city meant solely as a center of the slave trade. The Portuguese goal for centuries was to capture Mbundu people to sell and ship off to the New World. Starting in the 15th century, the Portuguese set out to capture and enslave as many Mbundu people as they could. Some Mbundu tribes made deals and alliances with the Portuguese, but Nzingha’s father Kiluanji refused to make such a bargain. He wanted to protect his people. And because of this, the Portuguese advanced into Ndongo territory. Thousands of the Ndongo people were captured, and Kiluanji led his people into war with the foreigners.

Nzingha’s brother Mbandi rose to power at the death of their father and proved to be a useless king. With the Ndongo now essentially leaderless, the Portuguese attacked the Mbundu’s main city of Kabasa and burned it to the ground. Nzingha fled to the mountains with her people and organized an army to fight back.

In 1624, 42-year-old Nzingha led her people back to take control of their homeland. Nzingha was declared Ngola Kiluanji — leader of the Mbundu of Ndongo. The Mbundu had never had a female in charge of their government, but Nzingha proved more than capable.

For forty years, Nzingha led her people into battles against the Portuguese from the slopes of the mountainous Matamba region. Her sisters were captured during a battle, but with the help of slaves in the port of Luanda, they escaped from slavery.

Nzingha was never able to return to the ruins of Kabasa, and many remember her as the “Queen of Matamba,” because she ruled from the Matamba mountains and countryside, never from the Ndongo territory.

When she died in 1663 at age 82, her sister Mukambu took over leadership of the Mbundu people. Nzingha was laid to rest in leopard skins and with her bow over her shoulder and arrows in her hand.

Her death created a vacuum of leadership, and opened the door for the massive Portuguese slave trade in the region of modern-day Angola.  But for forty years, she and her people fought back — fought back against oppression and kidnapping and the terrors of the slave trade.  She should be remembered for her efforts, for the lives she saved, and for the hope she gave to her people.

Sources:

Nubian Queens Society

Nzingha, Queen of Ndongo