History Now

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I won’t pretend I’m an economics major. I won’t pretend I know exactly what is happening and what is going to happen to Wall Street, or how, exactly, we got to this point. I won’t speculate as to why, after years of “the country is in recession” this is the first time I’ve heard anything about why and how it is in recession. I won’t pretend that all those who spoke out about the recession aren’t suddenly eerily quiet. I also won’t pretend that I don’t know it was government interference that may not have pushed it in this direction, that interference, that policy, definitely nudged it toward the wall like Dale Jr. I won’t pretend I don’t see the pattern, and I will definitely not pretend that I’m not reading Atlas Shrugged and it is more than a little creepy—considering.

But I will ask: What the fuck, people? Seriously?

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Top 5 Villains on TV:

So, just to mix things up a bit and keep things interesting for everybody, I’m going to do something fun today and list the top 5 greatest villains in television history. I know this has been done many, many times before, but in recent years lists like this have gotten… well, dull and predictable. We’re all sick of hearing about the Others or Cylon Number 3 or Sylar or the Borg. So, this list should be just a little different than what you’re used to.

One can hope, anyway, right?

5. Lilly Cane – Veronica Mars

As any fan of the underappreciated Rob Thomas show about a perky, quick witted, teenage blonde detective knows, Lilly Cane never makes an appearance on screen in anything other than a flash-back or a dream sequence. Why? Because a year before the show’s storyline takes place, the innocent Lilly Cane was murdered, sending her best friend Veronica’s life into spiraling shambles. Throughout the course of the first season, as Veronica tries to solve the mystery of her friend’s murder, we find out that Lilly Cane… Well, she was not so innocent. In fact, it becomes clear pretty quickly that Lilly is, in fact, the cause of most, if not all, the Mars family problems, and… Well, she just wasn’t a very nice person. Conniving bitch might be more accurate. 

4. The Replicators – Stargate Atlantis

While the format of the show itself may have thrown a kink into pacing of the Replicator story arc (not to mention a certain actress not reprising a certain role), whenever we got one of those great three-part episodes… Well, they were the high point of an always solid show. Unlike their SG-1 counterparts, the Pegasus Galaxy’s version of the Replicators were used for more than just super cool computer graphic battles, but also had a complex and, from a fan’s perspective, thought provoking story line. Also, any group that a certain Friendly Replicator Android (FRAN) might belong to… That’s a villain that deserves mentioning. 

3. Number 2 – The Prisoner

If you haven’t seen The Prisoner, you need to. Twin Peaks gets a lot of credit for its innovation and how it inspired current shows (like Lost and Veronica Mars), that’s just because these people haven’t seen The Prisoner. Unfortunately, the show, like most great shows that end before their time, we never got to figure out what was really happening. All we knew was that Number 6 was being played and whoever Number 2 happened to be that week was the one doing the playing. 

2. Lilah Morgan – Angel 

Unlike the other Big Bads of Angel and its parent show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Lilah Morgan had a certain human aspect that was noticeably lacking otherwise. Mainly because she was human. Lilah was, by far, the best fleshed out villain on either show. She always stayed true to character and didn’t fall victim to the villain faux pas that plagued Buffy and Angel. If Joss Whedon ever got something wrong, it was that turning a good character evil and an evil character good is NOT character development. That, my friends, is called a plot device. Interesting plot device? On these shows, yes, it was very interesting. But you didn’t need to do that with Lilah. She always stayed true to character. She was always conniving. Everything she did was calculated to work against Angel, and she was one of the few people that walked the line between Wolfram & Hart and free will until the very end. The one thing you knew for sure, no matter what, was that if Lilah was on screen, plotting her plots, something interesting was going to happen in this episode. 

1. The Smoking Man – The X-Files 

For 9 years, nobody really knew what the hell was going on with the X-Files, but they did know one thing: Whatever it was, the Smoking Man was behind it.

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I started by telling you about one of the strongest rulers ever who just happened to be female, and now I will tell you about one of the weakest rulers ever, also female.

Marie de Medici was the second wife to Henry IV of
France and mother to Louis XIII. Her marriage with Henry IV was unhappy and tedious—she was conniving and Henry refused to play her Medici mind games.

Marie’s weak nature caused her to grow fat and lazy—so lazy that all her political decisions would eventually be made by a man named Concino Concini because Concini’s wife, Leonara, whom was Marie’s maid, was able to manipulate the queen into being she and her husband’s puppet. When Henry IV died, the throne passed to Marie’s son, who became known as Louis XIII, but because Louis was underage, Marie de Medici ruled in his place as regent.

Regent Marie, knowing very little of anything other than palace politics, quickly brought the kingdom to a state of conflict. When the noble class of France revolted, instead of asserting her (and the crown’s) authority, Marie folded quickly, she let herself be pushed around for fear of going against what she believed to be the public opinion, and successfully bought off the nobles with titles and policies—effectively weakening not only the crown in the eyes of the people, but causing unrest throughout the kingdom.

Lucky for France, a cardinal by the name of Richelieu stepped in and in 1617, Louis XIII took the power of the French crown into his own hands. Louis XIII first acts of business, at the urging of Richelieu, his new , to re-strengthen the crown were to have Concini assassinated and Marie de Medici exiled.

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I promised to write about Marie de Medici (one of the lesser remembered members of the amazingly complex and powerful Medici family and mother/regent to Louis XIII of France) but after my very brief lesson on Catherine the Great yesterday a couple people found it necessary to accuse me of being a Russian sympathizer. They were, of course, referring to recent events concerning the invasion of Georgia by Russian military. I feel no need to address this particular problem, but I realize now that if I am going to be writing a blog based in both the mythology and fact of history, I should state a couple things that I probably should have mentioned earlier in some sort of mission statement post:

1) While I do have both strong and weak political views, I will write, to the best of my ability, this blog from an unbiased standpoint. Meaning, while my opinion might come out on certain… events, the purpose of this blog is not to force them upon you but rather to provide you with the information (or the beginnings of information that may inspire you to do further research) and allow you to come to your own conclusions. If you wish to debate, I’d love that, but just know that what I write here is not done in a confrontational manner.

2) You have to remember that while talking about history, lines cannot always be drawn between the past and now in such a clear cut fashion (at least when it comes to talking about the identity of a country). Russia in the 1700s is not the same Russia as the 1970s. And the Soviet Union is not the same as Russia now. Admitting that I admire Catherine the Great as a leader in no way tells you if I approve or disapprove of recent events in Russian history. While events from the past (for instance, the 30 Years War) end up affecting the present or recent history, a country from a hundred years ago cannot be measured using the same yard stick as one from today.

Think about how much America has changed in the past 100 years. There are people out there who would try to convince you otherwise, but they do it merely for political gain. America is not the same place as it was even 50 years ago. Russia is not the same place as it was under Catherine the Great and her personal history has absolutely nothing to do with Georgia or my feelings on the matter.

I hope that clears things up just a little bit. Depending on how many readers I get, and how many people comment, I might step aside and write a blog like this from time to time, but it shouldn’t be too often, so don’t worry. I just felt I should state this at the beginning.

Long Live You Shiny Happy People!

[Tomorrow: Marie de Medici]

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Today I’m going to give you the briefest histories of a capable female ruler who would, under the eye of the American public today, would not get the feminist vote of approval and would probably have more scandal stories out about her than even Sarah Palin, the current Vice Presidential nominee and yet did not ride the coat tails of her husband into power.

After Peter the Great (who ruled for 30 years and brought
Russia into the foreground of world affairs) died, the country went through 40 years in which it experienced seven different tsars (‘tsar’ supposedly has a purely male connotation): Four women, a pre-teen boy, an infant, and an insane man. The first six rulers were, for lack of a better word, progressive idiots.

It appeared that the stability and greatness of
Russia formed under Peter the Great would fall into ruin less than half a century after it had been achieved because if there was one problem with Peter’s system, it was that it only worked under the rule of a strong leader.

Then, the fourth woman in as many decades took the throne: Catherine II (1762-1796), whom was then and is still now known as Catherine the Great. I’m not afraid to say that out of all the “Greats” throughout history, she, like her very distant relative Peter, is one of the few that earned the title. Unlike modern day politicians, Catherine freely and openly adopted the ideas of what would not be known as conservative and liberal ideals and created a hybrid that would take Russia into a Golden Age, and she did it all without once worrying about public opinion.

Like many eastern European leaders of the time, Catherine looked to the west for inspiration. The relatively new French ideas of social justice and the nobility of the human race intrigued her, and influenced many of her policies. However, she also believed, and rightly so, that her country must be ruled in what was then traditional Russian ideas of absolutism and the utter rule over an enserfed and subhuman population.

While to modern day non-thinkers, this might seem like a contradiction and hypocrisy, the social system worked under Catherine and the country stabilized. She advocated the abolition of capital punishment and torture while completely reconstructing the local governmental social structure, first introducing the idea of independently operated “states” governed by their own body whom were in turn governed by Catherine (a governmental system, I’m sure you are all familiar with). Catherine also advocated the necessity of a large standing army and deplored the idea of standing idly by while her country was threatened by political enemies.

Perhaps the clearest picture one can get of Catherine (for there is so much history that I couldn’t possibly describe it all to you in the form of a single entry blog) can be derived from her first two acts as tsar, which were: 1) She had her husband assassinated for being corrupt and weak, and 2) she lowered the salt tax for those of “lower income”.

[Tomorrow: Marie de Medici]

Hello Blog World!

Considering the attention the media has given future women leaders such as Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton, and every underachieving government worker who’s mother informed her at an early age that she would, in fact, be the first female president, I felt it would be fitting to begin my blogging career not with modern politics and stories and scandals about potential powerful women from the future, but powerful women from the past.

(And I don’t mean Sarah Connor, either, though I may get to her someday.)

Every time I hear someone on television or on the radio spew the line, “She will be the first woman to break the gender barrier in a male dominated world,” I cringe a little on the inside. Not because I believe modern history has been anything but mainly patriarchal but because it has been. Mainly. Yet, there have been more than a few moments that could easily be described as matriarchal, and despite the biased thoughts and over annunciated words of certain members of NOW (National Organization of Women), it was not always… [insert gender neutral adjective meaning ‘pretty’ here].

This will not be the only subject I cover in this blog, far from it, but it is as good a place as any to start. If I’m starting a band wagon, I may has well jump on one that’s already rolling to get an added boost, right? Well, probably not, but it’s where I’m starting anyway.

Actually, a better place to start would be here: Hello, my name is Jack, and I’ll be the person that hopefully one day will write something about history and how it pertains to modern politics, culture, and pop-culture that inspires you to get an idea, and then run with it.

Long live the Shiny Happy People.

[Tomorrow: Catherine the Great]