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I spent yesterday (and seem likely to spend today) reading Wikipedia. I just get caught up in that sort of thing, sometimes.
Because one of my co-workers complained the other day about people keeping "those little rodents" (ferrets), and I corrected her and said they weren't rodents, but mustelids, and related to otters, weasels, mink, fishers and badgers, I then decided to look it up in Wikipedia to make sure I was right. I read about ferrets and the other Mustelidae - did you know that the common domestic ferret was bred from the European polecat around 2,500 years ago, and has never been a wild animal? There is no wild form of the domestic ferret and never has been. From there I went to the entry on the painting Lady With Ermine, which is now supposed to be a ferret (as owning white ferrets was legally restricted at that time to people who made above a certain amount of money). And there they mentioned that "Leonardo's painting is the inspiration for the parody Woman Holding Ferret by Leonard of Quirm in the Discworld series of books." Yesterday I restrained myself from reading the Leonard of Quirm entry. Today I couldn't restrain myself any longer.:) *hugs Wikipedia!*
But, again back to yesterday - I remembered that another co-worker had asked me to find out about the definition of the word 'epic,' so I looked that up, then did a sort of drunkards walk on to an epic I'd never heard of, The Knight In The Panther Skin, which it turns out was written for The Queen of Georgia, Tamar. Since I'm so vague on history, this was all news to me. :) She was canonized by the Georgian Orthodox and Apostolic Church - which probably means she won't be among the Catholic Saints - and I suspect a lot of that had to do with the campaigns she led against the Muslims. Which led me to reading about Muslim sects....
Today I've bounced around so much on the pages on Islam that I can't even tell you what I've read. I was curious about the schism between the Shi'ites and the Sunnis, which can originally be traced to them disagreeing as to who should have been the successor to Muhammad. After that, though, it all becomes so confused. The Shi'ites continued to split into ever smaller factions, as far as I can see. It reminds me of the arguments that break out at work every time we start reading the Standard Operating Procedure. The SOP goes into so much detail over how we should do our job that people feel an imperative to work out exactly what interpretation should be used. If the damned thing didn't go into so much detail, if it was more vague, we could all stand back from it a bit and say, "You do it your way, I'll do it mine - so long as we're aiming for the same goal we're fine." Unfortunately people think that each point needs to be clarified, which causes even MORE detail.
Which leads me to the conclusion that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
camwyn is right: "One commandment will be added to every religion that operates in my empire whether they like it or not. That commandment will be: Don't Be A Jerk. If a religious variant is predicated upon being a jerk- like, for example, Fred Phelps' freaky-ass brand of religion- it forfeits its right to be called a religion and instead becomes a bunch of people being jerks."
So, now, because this is a long and basically content free collection of links, I must add one more, completely unrelated, stolen fromjimdes...
NOTICE TO ALL PASSENGERS [on the London Tube] :
Please do not run on the platforms or concourses. Especially if you are carrying a rucksack, wearing a big coat or look a bit foreign. This notice is for your own safety.
Thank you.
Because one of my co-workers complained the other day about people keeping "those little rodents" (ferrets), and I corrected her and said they weren't rodents, but mustelids, and related to otters, weasels, mink, fishers and badgers, I then decided to look it up in Wikipedia to make sure I was right. I read about ferrets and the other Mustelidae - did you know that the common domestic ferret was bred from the European polecat around 2,500 years ago, and has never been a wild animal? There is no wild form of the domestic ferret and never has been. From there I went to the entry on the painting Lady With Ermine, which is now supposed to be a ferret (as owning white ferrets was legally restricted at that time to people who made above a certain amount of money). And there they mentioned that "Leonardo's painting is the inspiration for the parody Woman Holding Ferret by Leonard of Quirm in the Discworld series of books." Yesterday I restrained myself from reading the Leonard of Quirm entry. Today I couldn't restrain myself any longer.:) *hugs Wikipedia!*
But, again back to yesterday - I remembered that another co-worker had asked me to find out about the definition of the word 'epic,' so I looked that up, then did a sort of drunkards walk on to an epic I'd never heard of, The Knight In The Panther Skin, which it turns out was written for The Queen of Georgia, Tamar. Since I'm so vague on history, this was all news to me. :) She was canonized by the Georgian Orthodox and Apostolic Church - which probably means she won't be among the Catholic Saints - and I suspect a lot of that had to do with the campaigns she led against the Muslims. Which led me to reading about Muslim sects....
Today I've bounced around so much on the pages on Islam that I can't even tell you what I've read. I was curious about the schism between the Shi'ites and the Sunnis, which can originally be traced to them disagreeing as to who should have been the successor to Muhammad. After that, though, it all becomes so confused. The Shi'ites continued to split into ever smaller factions, as far as I can see. It reminds me of the arguments that break out at work every time we start reading the Standard Operating Procedure. The SOP goes into so much detail over how we should do our job that people feel an imperative to work out exactly what interpretation should be used. If the damned thing didn't go into so much detail, if it was more vague, we could all stand back from it a bit and say, "You do it your way, I'll do it mine - so long as we're aiming for the same goal we're fine." Unfortunately people think that each point needs to be clarified, which causes even MORE detail.
Which leads me to the conclusion that
camwyn is right: "One commandment will be added to every religion that operates in my empire whether they like it or not. That commandment will be: Don't Be A Jerk. If a religious variant is predicated upon being a jerk- like, for example, Fred Phelps' freaky-ass brand of religion- it forfeits its right to be called a religion and instead becomes a bunch of people being jerks." So, now, because this is a long and basically content free collection of links, I must add one more, completely unrelated, stolen from
jimdes...NOTICE TO ALL PASSENGERS [on the London Tube] :
Please do not run on the platforms or concourses. Especially if you are carrying a rucksack, wearing a big coat or look a bit foreign. This notice is for your own safety.
Thank you.
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