so every once in a great, great while i'll get stuck up on one type of mythology. usually it's the same type - norse mythology, because the norsemen were amazing, and some of them became vikings, who were pretty much pirates, and we all know i love pirates. (fifteen men on a dead man's chest? no wonder he's dead.) the thing about norse mythology, though, is the humanity present in their entire pantheon. granted, the greeks were the first to picture their gods with human forms, but the norsemen took it further: when they pictured their gods as humans, the gods inherited human weaknesses as well. of course they had amazing and awe-inspiring powers, but they were immortal only in the sense of an infinitely long lifespan. norse gods could be hurt, they could be scarred, they could die. odin sacrificed his eye to drink from the well of wisdom. baldur, the most beloved of all the gods, was killed, and try as they might, the aesir couldn't convince hela to return him to the world of the living. indeed, all the gods would eventually die, and the entire universe would cease to be.
what a grim ending.
so, yeah, the greeks, even though their gods were, as a demographic, complete fuckwads, were just a teeny bit more optimistic - at least in the way that they never foretold a ragnarok ever occurring. as far as i know, anyway.
so they've got this goddess. her name is nike. she of course is the namesake for you-know-what. let that not be mentioned anymore, except for the fact that it's ridiculous to pervert something so majestic for your idiotic shoe brands. god dammit.
so i don't really know what the deal with nike is beyond the fact that she's the winged goddess of victory. you may have seen the statue of her, the very famous one, which is housed in the louvre. housed very impressively, of course. you see, there is a set of marble stairs that leads up to it, and atop the platform, there she stands, very impressively indeed. of course, she has no head or arms, but somehow that adds to general effect, at least to me. her posture, apparently, suggests that she was in fact blowing a trumpet - you know, of victory.
it's kind of funny how this whole train of thought of mine started, this epic quest of mine to find the picture of nike at the top of the daru staircase. i actually began the evening thinking about winston churchill and cursing the existence of no real leaders today, at least in our country. how sad it is, indeed. i read some excerpts of churchill's speeches, and he began talking about how one moment was not the beginning of the end, but possibly the end of the beginning. he was truly blunt and more or less honest about most of the things he spoke about, i think. of course all the members of parliament hated him, and probably the queen as well, because he knew what he was doing, and they didn't, and he knew it and they knew it and each knew the other knew it, and he did not hide this fact, though they probably wished he did. add that to the fact that he was pretty much a tactless drunk and made no attempt to hide that fact either and you've got one leader who by any definitions should not be a leader: he had spine, and he did not attempt to hide behind his position. he wasn't a fucking hypocrite. for the love of god, we need another churchill. at the very least we need people who realize the truth of what he said. he may have been a bastard, but he really had his shit together, and that's what counts, you know. i heard people, upon asked why they voted for george bush, say that they did it because he's apparently someone who would look you in the eyes when you shook his hand. what the fuck ever. sir winston probably would have been too drunk to grasp your hand weakly, but he sure as fuck would have known what he was doing. how does a handshake make a fucking politician? i am disgusted, and i told the guy so. i asked him if he knew that a handshake wasn't going to be running the country, and he told me to fuck off. oh ah.
this got me good and angry and so i immersed myself in images of hellenistic sculpture. it worked, i think. i feel less motivated to kill a man, so that's something. i will now commence my studies of discordianism, which i encourage you all to check out as well. and for those of you who need a friend, don't come to me, come to this. the friendly panel might care marginally more than i do.