
Dinner followed at the always wonderful Capri Restaurant, and I was honored to present a reading of an appropriately scary Halloween story with a Masonic connection, H. G. Wells' "The Inexperienced Ghost," first published in The Stand in 1902.
Boo.
"The chronology and geography of Khirbet Qeiyafa create a unique meeting point between the mythology, history, historiography and archaeology of King David."
...the decision was not related to the delay in the delivery of the next novel by Dan Brown, the author of The Da Vinci Code, the blockbuster best seller published in 2003. Back in 2004, Doubleday said the target release date for the next book was 2005, but Mr. Brown has yet to deliver a manuscript. Sales from even a single title — if it is as significant as The Da Vinci Code — can make a substantial difference to a publisher’s sales.
Nevertheless, "the changes we've made are quite separate from anything to do with Dan Brown," Mr. Drake said.
Thomas Levy of the University of California San Diego, who led the research, said carbon dating placed copper production at Khirbat en-Nahas (Arabic for 'Ruins of copper") in the 10th century -- in line with the biblical narrative of Solomon's rule.
"We can't believe everything ancient writings tell us," Levy said in a university statement. "But this research represents a confluence between the archaeological and scientific data and the Bible."
I-69 (Exit 19) Masonic lodge keeps history alive in new building
PENDLETON — For most of its 166-year history, members of Madison Lodge 44 held regular meetings in downtown Pendleton. But in 1989, the group moved to a brand new building west of town near Exit 19 to take advantage of the open space and better access to the interstate.
Robert Himes, a 37-year Mason and lifelong area resident, said future development at the exit should help, not hurt, his organization and area residents “as long as it’s done properly.”
Instead of more antique stores and gift shops, he’d like to see nicer restaurants open on that end of Madison County. The fast-food restaurants and subdivisions don’t concern him yet, but he would like to see more upscale businesses that offer a greater variety of services.
“I guess you can’t argue with progress,” he said.
Himes, who wears a leather cell phone case on his belt showing the emblem of the Free Masons, said his lodge is the oldest order of Freemasons in Madison County. The group has helped start 10 more lodges in the county.
Membership at the lodge is holding at 200, Himes said, down from about 400 in 1980. Despite the declining numbers, the group continues to meet monthly.
1646, Oct. 16, 4.30 P.M. - I was made a Free Mason at Warrington in Lancashire with Coll: Henry Mainwaring of Karincham in Cheshire; the names of those that were then of the Lodge, Mr Rich. Penket Worden, Mr James Collier, Mr Rich. Sankey, Henry Littler, John Ellam, Rich. Ellam & Hugh Brewer.
Judge Marlon Polk threw out Nebraska Sen. Ernie Chambers' lawsuit against the Almighty, saying there was no evidence that the defendant had been served. What's more, Polk found "there can never be service effectuated on the named defendant."
Chambers had sued God in September 2007, seeking a permanent injunction to prevent God from committing acts of violence such as earthquakes and tornadoes.
Although the case may seem superfluous and even scandalous to others, Chambers has said his point is to focus on the question of whether certain lawsuits should be prohibited.
"Nobody should stand at the courthouse door to predetermine who has access to the courts," he said. "My point is that anyone can sue anyone else, even God."
Chambers, an avowed atheist, said he decided to make that point after at least two attempts in the Nebraska Legislature to limit "frivolous lawsuits."
Because of the wild popularity of secret societies – especially the Freemasons and the Odd Fellows – in the 1800’s, it was inevitable that parody groups would arise. One such group was E Clampus Vitus, a Latin name that meant, well, absolutely nothing. It isn’t even real Latin. The group’s motto, the Credo Quia Absurdium, gives a clue as to its ultimate goal: take nothing seriously unless it is absurd.
In 1848, there were just 2,000 people in California. After the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mills in 1849, 53,000 greed-crazed ‘49ers poured into the territory within just one year. Many from the East were looking for, or founded, fraternal lodges like they had back home. Others decided on a different path for their fraternalism.
E Clampus Vitus seems to have been brought to the California Gold Rush village of Hangtown (now more delicately called Placerville) by Joseph H. Zumwalt from Virginia in 1850. Zumwalt founded the first “lodge” in Mokelumne Hill, and the group quickly spread throughout Western mining towns and camps. Members were called Clampers, or Clamperers, depending on whom you ask, and the head of the organization was the Sublime Noble Grand Humbug. Officers included the Grand Iscutis, the Grand Gyascutis, the Clamps Petrix, the Clamps Matrix, and the Royal Platrix. Their “secret” sign of recognition was to extend the palms vertically, facing out on either side of the head, stick the thumbs in each ear, madly waggling their fingers. They would occasionally march in parades with the other fraternal organizations, carrying their banner – a ladies hoop skirt, festooned with the message, “This is the flag we fight under.”
Meetings were held in “Halls of Comparative Libations” (saloons). The initiation ceremony was essentially designed to give far more enjoyment to the members of the club than to the new candidate, and involved the sort of serious horseplay that only a crowd of drunken miners tormenting a poor dope in a blindfold could cook up. Hauled in “The Expungent’s Chair” (a wheelbarrow full of wet sponges) across the rungs of a ladder on the floor, the candidate “crossed the rugged road to Dublin.” He was often tossed onto a saddle that was attached to ropes looped over ceiling rafters for the ride of his life. And sometimes lack of imagination simply knocked him in the head and flattened him into a pile of horse dung. The point was to make it so raucous and unpleasant that the new recruit would keep the tradition alive, if only to seek revenge on the next initiate.
E Clampus Vitus thrived until the 1890’s and the death of the mining towns. It seemed to be completely gone from the West by 1916.
In 1931, the order was revived by Dr. Charles Lewis Camp and members of the California Historical Society, and became devoted to preserving the lore of Western history – a strange turnaround of a completely ridiculous group becoming a serious one. Commemorative plaques installed by the Order can be found on buildings of noteworthy status (frequently having to do with alcohol) all across the West.
The first in the series, titled Templars of Legend and Reality, will analyze the phenomenon of the Templars popularity in the literature of Europe over 700 years and the Order's more recent portrayal in the movies especially the Da Vinci Code and National Treasure.
We may live without her {architecture}, and worship without her, but we cannot remember without her. How cold is all history, how lifeless all imagery, compared to that which the living nation writes, and the uncorrupted marble bears! How many pages of doubtful record might we not often spare, for a few stones left one upon another! The ambition of the old Babel builders was well directed for this world: there are but two strong conquerors of the forgetfulness of men, Poetry and Architecture; and the latter in some sort includes the former, and is mightier in its reality; it is well to have, not only what men have thought and felt, but what their hands have handled, and their strength wrought, and their eyes beheld, all the days of their life. The age of Homer is surrounded with darkness, his very personality with doubt. Not so that of Pericles: and the day is coming when we shall confess, that we have learned more of Greece out of the crumbled fragments of her sculpture than even from her sweet singers or soldier historians. And if indeed there be any profit in our knowledge of the past, or any joy in the thought of being remembered hereafter, which can give strength to present exertion, or patience to present endurance, there are two duties respecting national architecture whose importance it is impossible to overrate; the first, to render the architecture of the day, historical; and, the second, to preserve, as the most precious of inheritances, that of past ages.
What we have ourselves built, we are at liberty to throw down; but what other men gave their strength, and wealth, and life to accomplish, their right over does not pass away with their death ; still less is the right to the use of what they have left vested in us only. It belongs to all their successors. It may hereafter be a subject of sorrow, or a cause of injury, to millions, that we have consulted our present convenience by casting down such buildings as we choose to dispense with. That sorrow, that loss we have no right to inflict.