King Tut

I will admit to not knowing a terrible amount about what's going on in Egypt right now. I'm actually quite eager to ask my native-Egyptian coworker tomorrow what her take on all this is. It seems like the world is just going to hell in a handbasket these days. Even a couple of years ago, that would have caused me great anxiety. Now I can look at it from a comfortable distance, recognize that it's probably a big deal, but then realize that nothing I can do - least of all worrying about it - can alter what is going to happen. If only I had been able to do that in late elementary/junior high when I was sure that Russian nukes would rain down on us in the middle of the night! From the sounds of it, events over there are shaping up to be similar to the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, minus the Islamic component. But then again, who really knows?

It was with great interest that I read about the security of all the Egyptian artifacts in the Cairo Museum, which is not far at all from the epicenter of the riots and protests. I remember seeing a documentary once that mentioned how a lot of the artifacts were not under the most ideal of storage in the museum to begin with due to structural defects in the building, but I could see something like what is currently going on over there causing irreparable damage to things that represent 4,000 years of history. Like many other people, I thought of all the treasures recovered from the tomb of King Tutankhamun as many of those are among the most iconic of Egyptian antiquities.

I remember seeing a touring exhibit of The Treasures of Tutankhamun in 1977 when I was five years old. If memory serves me correctly, my dad had gotten discounted tickets through either his work or somewhere and even though we were living on a teacher's salary in the 70s, we found the money to go. It was showing at the Field Museum in late summer and this trip to Chicago is one of my earliest memories of a vacation. My brother got to stay with my grandparents, but I was lucky enough to get to go. I still remember my dad carrying me around on his shoulder, sharing the earpiece with me so that I could listen to the descriptions of the various items. You couldn't take any photos in the exhibit itself, but I can remember the golden funeral mask like it was yesterday - it was the centerpiece of the exhibit. When another exhibition toured the U.S. in the mid 2000s, stopping again at the Field Museum in 2006, I really wanted to try to get to it again but time and circumstance really didn't allow for it. As it turns out, the previously mentioned golden funeral mask was not on that exhibition, as the Egyptian government has decided it is to fragile to withstand the rigors of international travel. So I guess I'm glad I saw it when I did, as the chances of me getting to Egypt are pretty damn slim.

So far, looters have smashed a couple of mummies and damaged some displays. It was initially thought that the artifacts of Tutankhamun were untouched, but this blog shows that this may very well not be the case. The museum is now under 24 hour armed guard, but who knows if it can withstand angry rioters and looters.

Nothing I say or do can change what will happen, but I can only hope that 4000 years of history isn't flushed down the drain during what looks very much like an Egyptian revolution. All of that history is irreplaceable and if it is lost during this time of unrest, it will be a sad state of affairs.

I will say, that if the golden mask had looked like this when I saw it in 1977, I would have been scarred for life.

Georgia on my mind

The title is cliched, but I'm sticking with it. Deal with it.

I really want to write this post, but words are failing me. I have been watching with a closer-than-usual eye the violence and war in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. For what is not the first time and what will certainly not be the last, a powerful country has unilaterally invaded one much weaker, with little regard for the sovereignty or borders of that country. I have to admit, what basically amounts to a Russian invasion of its neighbor Georgia has me more than a little bit worried. I know there is nothing that I can do about it, but still, it has me worried, feeling much like I used to when I was in junior high school, sure the world was about to ignite in a nuclear fireball from every little skirmish that erupted in some remote part of the globe.

I'm sure that there has been a lot leading up to what appears to me to be a very abrupt and intense over-reaction on the part of Russia. Many innocent people are dying for reasons that I'm sure I know next to nothing about. The Georgians are pleading with the West to help them. But there is no way on God's green earth that's going to happen. To do so would be to engage what is still a nuclear armed superpower and, well, that's just not going to happen. Still, I can't help but wonder what may lie ahead and it has put me in a funk that I didn't really anticipate.

As an early adolescent, I was so scared of nuclear war that it almost bordered on the ridiculous. It certainly didn't help that at the time, I was watching a lot of Herbert W. Armstrong and his Worldwide Church of God. Armstrong had a lot stuff on his program about how "a nuclear war will happen in my lifetime!" (he's been dead since 1986) and scary pamphlets you could order with titles like "When The Red Phone Rings" that made you feel like nuclear war was just around the corner. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War (not to mention growing up and becoming an adult), a lot of those fears fell by the wayside.

But still, you can't take the boy out of the man. In light of all that's happened, a lot of the same fears have welled up in me again. Could this spread? Could this be the event that sparks what is the end of the world? Stranger things have happened. I would like to think that we're all smarter than that, but with our current president, I sometimes wonder. The Huffington Post was reporting that the UN ambassadors to Russia and the US were "trading barbs" today and that the violence "could have a significant long-term impact on US-Russian relations." And then Dick Cheney goes and says something supremely helpful in "Russian aggression must not go unanswered." Whatever THAT means.

It would, of course, be helpful if we had any kind of higher ground to stand on. We have pretty much sent the message to the world that it's okay to invade a sovereign nation against the will of most of the world, so why would the Russians even give a shit what we think? To them, I'm pretty certain that our calls for respect of borders and the sovereignty of a country are the height of hypocrisy.

Ultimately, the answer is what will be will be. In a former version of myself, I thought that prayer would work, now I know it is pretty much worthless. I guess we just keep on living our lives and hope for the best. While there are a lot of things that we can control in our lives, there really are a large number of things outside our sphere of control and influence. Worrying about these things accomplishes nothing but ulcers and I'm not really interested in that. So it's time to stop worrying and as Dolly would say, get to living.

All I know is that I am more eager than ever to talk to my Russian sister-in-law later this week. She always has an interesting take on Russian current events. Olenka, consider yourself warned. I'll want to know everything.