Rick Kinnaird

April 7, 2024

My daughter sent me a text saying my grandson Emmett asked her why I, Gabba, liked old mamas, and why were they in museums and not outside?

It’s a good question and one that deserves a serious answer. 

There are at least three immediate lessons to learn from this question:

1. Obviously, Emmett is asking about “mummies,” not mamas. However, it is better that you ask the question than not. Yes, your terminology might not be what everyone else uses but so what? Get your question out there. Damn, the terms. Now, I’m not advocating you should continue to speak improperly or use the wrong terminology. However, the job of helping a person learn the proper wording is that of others. Parents and elders may think a child’s ill conceived words are cute. However, the child will not forgive you if you don’t tell them the truth, the actual word. On at least two occasions I have heard how a young woman went to a fancy Italian restaurant and overwhelmed by the occasion decided to play it safe and ordered “Pasquetti.” Her friends laughed at her. Her first thought was “Thanks Mom.” Why didn’t mom or dad tell her it’s “spaghetti?” I guess they thought it was cute. But when you are seventeen and sitting in a restaurant on prom night it’s not cute. And another pet peeve of mine is people, especially teachers, talking to kids in a baby talk voice. How do you expect them to learn how to speak correctly if they don’t hear proper diction ad speech?

2. Emmett’s use of the term momas lead him to a conclusion that is incorrect, but proper given his frame of reference. Again, helping him understand what is being talked about will not doubt help him to realize why.

3. The fundamental question being raised by my grandson is an age old one. “Why?” or perhaps “Who cares?”

I’ve heard it voiced different ways but it comes down to “So what?” These questions are fundamental ones.

Let me begin by giving the answer Sir Edmund Hillary gave when asked why he climbed Mt. Everest, “Because it is there.”

I think people have a sense of wanting to know, to understand, and to do that they must. To go on quests to understand. What will it teach us? We don’t know until we go. It is only when standing atop the moutain that we get a glimpse. 

Those who seek that glimpse, that understanding, are the ones who can change the world, and by that I mean change our understanding of the world and how it works, (or worked at one time.)

Civilization and its changes over time is keen to our understanding of ourselves and how to form “more perfect” means of living together. Various forms of governance have been tried. Most are more beneficial to a few. Those at the top of these systems use various forms of coersion to keep it that way: religion, armies, courts, police, customs, stories and myths. All these things can be used to keep power, especially if you have the ability to control the outcome.

If you want to create a system that benefits the most people then you need to make sure no one has absolute authority. It’s a tricky business and prone to failure. It depends on honesty and the truth.

So why do I like old mamas? Old mummies give us a hint into the past. Into a system of belief that although changed over time, never really questioned the fundamental ideas. The ideas that the Egyptian had thousands of years ago, and held for thousands of years, still are with us today and influence our culture, our religions, and our very sense of who we are. It is worth learning to learn who we are and where we came from.

Can we do better? I don’t know. I’m not sure. Yes, I guess we could. Will we? That is the question.

Friday, April 5, 2024

I was “tombed out” three days ago.  I could have done more. Gone somewhere. Done something. But I didn’t. I hung out at the hotel. Rested and began the process of unloading my cameras to a disk drive.

I am beginning to understand the flow of this place. The morning light, the air – cool – giving way to hot, the quiet interrupted by the clarion call of the loud speakers of the mosques.

There is much to study and learn. I am now at the point where I recognize most of the scenes in a tomb. Like the Stations of the Cross or an artist’s painting of The Annunciation, these scenes are stylized and one can look for the same elements in each. There’s “The Weighing of the Heart.” “There’s the dead as Osiris,” “Anubis overlooking the mummy”, “The Opening of the Mouth ceremony,” etc.

What I keep asking myself, Did anyone ever question these ideas?

The short answer I have gotten is, “No.”

There’s also the problem that it all doesn’t make logical sense, but that doesn’t seem to be an issue.

But isn’t that true of most, if not all, religions? Isn’t there something in every religion that says, “you gotta believe!” even if every sense in your body says, “What? No.”?

How many religions have their savior rising from the dead or returning? Last count I had was five.

And what’s with The Lamb of God business? I never understood why his dying forgave my sins. I understand the extrapolation from sacrificing an animal to your god, but your own son? How does that work? Well, it doesn’t. And there’s the raising of the dead. A story from Egyptian times, but it was the pharaoh doing the raising. Just a quick substitution.

Then I get to the more scientific questions, which basically ask for evidence. Where’s the winged horse, the magic underpants, the golden: tablets, scrolls, calf etc.? Somehow they always get lost.

Like UFOs – never in focus.

I think what makes a nonsensical belief become believed is grandmothers and maybe parents. Kids ask, “Why?” Constantly, and in frustration a parent will say anything. Grandparents will say something with more conviction. It sticks. I remember hearing of an old woman from West Africa talking about guneroos (maybe my spelling is off. Yeah. Most probably.) They are ghosts that can be anywhere instantly and can be very dangerous. They can cut off your head. Imagine a kid listening to that? Terrified, huddling under their blankets at night.

Or what of the oft-repeated story of “Why did grandma cut the end off the ham?” (We don’t know, but she did, so we do it. Finally, we ask Grandma and she said her oven was small and that’s the only way to make it fit.)

Belief systems can be dangerous things. Look at our world. Three major religions, all descended from the same god; all fighting with each other. It’s the same god!

As I sit on this hotel balcony I see a tranquil world. Outside these walls it is not. The pharaohs’ main job was to bring order to the world. To combat chaos. We haven’t made much progress. There are glimpses of a better world. How many people want to come to America because of what they see on television? Green lawns, big houses, two cars, a clean house, wide streets, and most of all not being under the thumb of some corrupt authority?

Henry Kissinger went to South America and reported back to Nixon. He said that in order to prevent a huge wave of immigrants coming to the United States we needed to help those countries develop systems that ensured people’s freedom, their peace of mind. It would be costly, but cheaper than the alternative. We needed to build democracies in other countries. Did we? Not too much.

But as I travel the world I find people who love the U.S. Who admire what we have. They want the same thing. Can we help them? Yes. Will we? that question remains unanswered.

Thursday April 4, 2024

It’s early morning. The heat of the day has not driven me inside, but it will soon. I can see the hills of the Western Valley from my balcony. The hot air balloons are up and drifting across my view between two rows of palm trees. The garden below is being tended by the small phalanx of gardeners. No doubt the flamingoes have been released from their pen to wander the grounds. Such odd ungainly creatures.

There’s a haze. It seems to be every morning the same. A gray bluish color, I’m not sure if it’s humidity from the Nile or dew or sand. Whatever it is it lends a mystical timeless quality to the view of the deep ravines of the hills beyond. 

Timeless Egypt. I think about the long history of this place. Three periods of pharaonic rule, three periods of tumult. Any one of those periods of tumult are equal to the whole history of the United States. After those times Alexander entered Egypt, became a pharaoh and the Greeks came to rule. The country slipped into decline. The last real hoorah was Cleopatra, then the Romans, Christianity, and finally the Arabs and Allah. The end of ancient Egypt. The knowledge of the hieroglyphs was lost, as was the history. Slowly, it’s been regained. We still struggle to understand what they thought; what they knew.

A few weeks before I left I got a text from Martin. He wrote, “Get this book.” I have learned it is good to follow his advice. I got the book: Dendera, Temple of Time, The Celestial Wisdom of Ancient Egypt by José María Barrera. Barrera is an engineer. He was drawn back to the temple to photograph the Outer Hypostyle Hall. He took thousands of beautiful photographs and stitched them together to form panels to describe the ceiling. He took the time to describe the astronomical progression of the stars and their meaning in terms of the Zodiac and in terms of the motion of the Earth and its 40,000 year wobble.

I had to go to Dendera on this trip. I did so after the group left. My friend, Ahmed Ayasha who calls himself Laird Hamilton because of his resemblance to the Formula One driver, and I left at 6am to beat the heat. We arrived at eight. I spent time wandering and photographing the ceiling. I did a 360 video of the hall. The temple is dedicated to Hathor. She is often depicted as a cow and is associated with fertility. Each column is adorned atop with her bovine features.

This forecourt, called a pronaos, is a hypostyle hall, which means it stands before the naos (the holiest part of any Egyptian temple housing in a small stone box the temple’s god) and hypostyle refers to the fact that it is a stone covered pillared enclosure. This book only dealt with the pronaos, the forecourt. The rest of the temple complex is left for others to describe.

There are 24 columns in the pronaos, split down the middle by a center hall. The interior has nine columns on each side with six columns built into the front wall. The temple sits on a north south axis facing the Nile, which is odd, because most temples facing the Nile would be oriented east west, however, due to the fact that the river takes a huge jog at this point to face the temple toward the river required this ninety degree shift in orientation. As the Nile is the life blood of the country, now and back then, it is always a focus of whatever one is doing.

The forecourt is divided in half by a center hall. The ceiling describes day and night. There are three long panels running north and south on each side. On the east side working out from the center the panels describe day, light, and life. The west panels describe night, darkness, and death. This is in keeping with the Egyptian belief system that the sun rising in the east represents life and rebirth. The west where the sunsets represents the setting sun darkness and death. 

The central hall of the pronaos represents the present. The first east panel (the day side) represents the hours of the day, the west (the night side) the phases of the moon.

Unlike our idea of an hour, which is divided into sixty minutes, the ancient Egyptian hour was based upon the movement of the sun, and as the day lengthened so did the hour. The day and the night were divided into twelve hours. It seems that the day hours began at dawn (not sunrise) and ended at dusk. About an hour before sunrise and sunset. Night time was measured by phases of the moon and or by water clocks.

Each hour on the day side was represented by a boat with the sun (Ra or Re) in the middle of the boat being worshipped by various gods in different forms. The bow of the boat had a creature sitting. Each hour had a specific creature. The early morning hours had a youth sucking his thumb to signify the new young day. As the day progressed other iconic forms took the bow. The helm was steered by various gods as well.

The second panels moving outward represented the decans. Decans are the grouping of 36 stars. Each decan represents ten degrees longitude. The decan is used to measure the passage of time during the night and also the passage of time during the year, as a decan will advance ten days. The Egyptian calendar was made up of three seasons of four months each. Each month being thirty days. Plus a five day period. The decans advanced throughout the year marking the solar calendar.

The third panels, the outlying ones, measure the procession of the Zodiac throughout the year. Because the Zodiac is slightly delayed each year these panels also measure The Great Year (of 26,000 years). For astrological purposes it was important to know what Zodiac sign was behind the sun at the vernal equinox (ie the time in which the sun passes the equator and day and night are equal. March 20th.)  Each constellation having a period of some 2,166 years in that position, known as an astrological age. But the Zodiac falls behind each year a little bit, known as retrograde motion. In ancient times Taurus was the constellation behind the sun at the vernal equinox, then Aries. We are now entering the Age of Aquarius. (thank you Hair.)

This temple was built on the remains of an earlier temple. It was constructed during the Ptolemaic period with Cleopatra being one of the main proponents and finished under the Roman Emperor Claudius.

So there is a mixture of ancient Egyptian symbology along with Roman/Greek Zodiac symbology.

What makes this temple so intriguing is that it is in wonderful condition. There was some defacement by Christian fanatics, but by and large it is in excellent shape. The colors are all original.

It is stunning.

And that is just the forecourt. There is the rest of the temple, but that is a story for another time.

Sunday, March 31, 2024

When people ask me if I’m scared to go to this place or that I reply, “No, they aren’t shooting their children in schools like we are.” That seems to end the conversation. I don’t know why.

The other wonderful thing about being out of the country is the level of noise about certain people in the U.S. lime light is greatly reduced. 

Today we returned to The Valley of The Kings. There are two branches: East and West. Most of the tombs are located in the east branch. Few go to the west branch. There is only one tomb open, Ay. It is stunning. But the other thing the west branch is known for is its silence. My guide book said that it is so quiet you can hear a raptor’s wings beat. Our group stood in silence for five minutes and it is impressive. The only bird I heard sounded like a pigeon. Of course, come for the silence and get a New York pigeon.

When I got back to my room I spent some time trying to catch up on news. Yes, I know about the ship. 

There was an article about our Virginia governor. He was touted as an up and coming Republican star. He was part of the Carlyle group. They’re the kind of folks Richard Gere played in Pretty Woman. Rob, rape, and pillage companies. I’m sorry. I mean – make deals, like Mitt Romney did. You know buy the company on the cheap when it’s in trouble, sell off it’s assets load it up with debt and then do the Pontus Pilot thing and wash your hands of it.

Well, Glenn was going to revitalize Virginia’s economy, just like he did for Carlyle. Blah, blah, blah. He was going to move the sports teams out of Washington and bring them to Alexandria. How this was going to re-vitalize anything is beyond me, but Glenn’s the man, right? Well, the deal fell through. Turns out the legislature wouldn’t go for a two billion dollar something to re-vitalize Alexandria into a football and hockey town. They didn’t like it. The legislature didn’t like it. No one liked it. Glenn did the “Aw Shucks, all I can do is present options” jive.

A person who has studied Virginia governors for decades said, “He has shown tremendous political inexperience.” That’s being polite. I always found him to be a two faced toady. He’s got that Brett Kavanaugh shiny scrubbed face look. Just not a lot going on inside. Apparently, he had no idea how you sell such an idea. But first you’ve got to have a good idea, which this clearly wasn’t. Then you have to go around the state convincing people, which he didn’t do, because – gosh – that’d be a lot of work, wouldn’t it?

The two Democratic governors before him knew how to do this and they earned Virginia a reputation as being good for business. Under wonder boy that status has dropped. Aw shucks.

Monday, March 25, 2024

I read a piece last night that said Jared Kushner spoke at Harvard. Wow. Harvard? Really? Oh well.

He didn’t disappoint. I mean he did, but what did anyone expect? When he was in The White House reporters spoke of how “transactional” he was. Even more so than his father-in-law. I’m not really sure what transactional means. I take it to mean they’d sell their grandmother for a nickel.

Jared was given the whole portfolio, maybe a little was left out, but Donald didn’t want to deal with anything and his mental capacity was limited so JK got the whole ball of tar. While he had it a Washington Post reporter was dismembered by the Saudis. Thirty of our Chinese assets were found out and murdered. That was about the time his wife got several patents from the Chinese. The Israelies under Netanyahu continued their occupation and settlement of the West Bank and divided Gaza and the West Bank into a situation that Jimmy Carter called the worst case of aparthied he had ever known.

The Saudis were struck by how transactional he was. I guess they were surprised for the price of grandma. Let’s remember that when Netanyahu used to come to the U.S. (before Trump was President) he would visit the Kushners and sleep in Jared’s bed. Jared slept on the couch in the basement. Some wondered if Jared was doing the work of the U.S. or Isreal. The slant was towards Israel (Slant? More like a cliff.) Jared also tried to set up a back channel to Putin and Russia, avoiding CIA and FBI surveillance. 

So it was quite a trick to get two billion from the Saudis. Especially, because he has no background in finance and investing. Even the royal Bank of Saud tried to stop it. But then when you are worth $1.3T (that’s trillion) $2B ain’t much.

So his comments at Harvard included the mind blowing statement that Gaza is a valuable waterfront property. It rivaled his father-in-law’s comment about North Korea, that the waterfront would make a great place for condos. I mean you’d have to ignore the people in cages nearby, but … Eh.

However, I think the Maga folks should get behind Jared. Trump Tower Gaza! Yes sir, a new gleaming glass structure born out of the rubble. Maybe – Trump Tower Phoenix at Gaza? Hopefully, Bebe won’t bomb it. I think Jared can slip him the good word and it will be taken care of. They’ll need concertina wire around it to keep the riff-raff out. But the view! And the beach should be spectacular. Naturally, there will be no windows facing east, or north, or south. Only glorious large glass windows facing west – set deep, that to prevent shrapnel from hitting them, or at least lowering the odds of it happening. And to keep the guests focused on the important things – the glorious view! Perhaps, noise cancelling speakers to drown out the bombing runs and laments?

It’s hard to imagine how f’ing stupid this guy is, but he got two BIG ONES from the Saudis. I wonder if Dad-in-Law has made the call. “Jared, All I want is …”

I’m betting on a Russian billionaire bailing out Donnie. Why not?