h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Star Wars i don't mind as much as The Noble Savage - The sequel: The Ecological Native (not to mention the peaceful native) got into a fight about that with some indians, more narrowminded smug disagreable characters i never met aside possibly from 19th century Puritans..., The Only True Natives, The Guilty White Race, Democracy, Freedom, The Golden Age of Matriarchy ... have i forgotten something? Looks like i'm a bit of a cynical

No, you're a fellow reactionist against political correctness! I can't stand it either.

I also can't stand it when women get all upset about the way it was - that was then and that was the way it was. This is now, just thank your lucky !

No use to fool oneself ... After all, forewarned is forearmed.
It's also interesting to see what the human mind is capable of, for instance i once saw a study about happiness, the scientists could find no difference in happiness values between men and women, independed from the society model they lived in ... having said that, I devoutly thank my s that i'm born in the 20th century in a more northern place...

Me too...

I have a theory though (well, I've got lots). I suspect that women in those days didn't want the same things as men. I think they were a lot more...well, feminine. They probably felt differently from us.

It's just a theory...

oh you are one of those people with theories ... me too ...

And you don't have to go into the past, i've met lots of women who felt different from me, particularly in the south, but you can find them in Europe too.

In my case they feel differently in all directions! But I do get tired at the 'Lilith is a feminist icon' stuff I must admit.

*shudder* that's another one. What i can't decide is whether all those agenda people make up their lies consciously or unconsciously...Also makes research very difficult, i have come to not believing a thing where certain agendas are concerned. And that may well lead to not seeing the truth, should it be there for once.

Well, that's back to what our friend Yeshua would say 'the kingdom of heaven is within you.' (pretentious, moi?). We can only hope to become balanced and sense 'the truth' within us.

I actually suspect that a lot of it doesn't matter. It's the 'World of Ought' as my teacher calls it. All that really matters is one's self and how one lives. All the projections onto how it should have been or should be, just waste precious time creating it to be happy now.

Sermon over!

The word "ought" ought to be abolished anyway.
I can see now why i like your book, great minds and all that sort of thing, oh yes...

I'll look forward to reading yours

Love your nick-name by the way!

well if you can abide sword & sorcery, you may wake up one day and find yourself taken at your word , but in a year at the very earliest, so don't you panic, that is, not very much.

Which part of my nickname do you like, Delicia was bestowed on me by my Irish friends, of which i got lots, and the rest is a mis-quote from Garfield ... i love Garfield comics ...

The acutest bit...because I misread it to start with - as most people will and it's actually correct, because the word cute does come from acute doesn't it?

if it's correct, it's purely accidental

Still out there? I got the proofs for 'Into the Kingdom' and it's lovely (doesn't everyone say that about their babies?!)

What babies?

Seeing your book published is like having a baby (or so I gather!). You've created it all yourself and there it is for real at last instead of just a pile of paper.

It's soooooo exciting!

That's so cool!

I'm still reading the book, i confess i had some difficulty with the Kabbala part, particularly interpretation from woman's point of view. I wish i could have some indication about if and how women were really reflecting on their position and situation in times past. Particularly the idea of Judaism being a "mens religion" intrigues me very much, have you any indication that a woman might have viewed it thus?
We do know so very well how men thought in the past, but there seems next to nothing to tell us how women thought, very disheartening.

And how are you?

I'm fine thank you

Well the simple answer is that nobody knows. Women didn't write much down in those days (if anything) whereas religious scribes did. So, as you say, the picture is distorted.

There are some historical clues - in Josephus's books and in Cassius Dio and other writers of those times and it's obvious that Greek women had it worst with Romans and Jews coming in a close second!

But given that the average life expectancy for a woman in those days was 27 years (mostly due to death in childbirth) women probably had enough to do just staying alive.

I've got an excellent book called 'Women and Religion in the first Christian Centuries' which outlines pretty much what women could and couldn't do. Clues include a gravestone in Ephasus which is of a woman who, the inscription says, was president of a synagogue. That 'should' have been impossible but it's rather irrefutable evidence that it did happen.

But basically, in Deborah, I've researched what I could and wrote the story I felt inspired to write. Where there's anything factual mentioned it can be verified but no one can verify feelings. I tend to look at it from the view that 'people are people' and they don't change that much. Just because the men who wrote about women bitched about them a lot doesn't mean that the women weren't bitching about the men in the Mikvahs. Of course they were!

And if you've read Pride and Prejudice, which of the two men out of Mr Darcy and Mr Collins would you say was the most likely to write a treatise on the nature of women? Quite. And would you take his view as being an accurate one of womankind??

Oh - the Kabbalah stuff is based on pre-16th century teachings, not the current ones which are becoming so famous. There is a distinct difference - but this posting is quite long enough!

what do you mean, post long enough, now that you tantalized me thoroughly with the mention of your sources, you just stop. Not fair!
What was the name on that gravestone?
And where could i find pre-16th century cabbalistic writings? So difficult to distinguish, always.
I agree with your saying people being essentially the same over the centuries. That is indeed one of my pet theories. What i'm wrestling with is to what extent women would have imbibed the thought of their own inferiority? When one can not change something, one does tend to incorporate it into one's fibre, to deal with it? That also is a universal psychological process, isn't it?