Might Have Made a Mistake

He wept. It was actually pretty embarrassing to watch. Here was a man so great, history remembered him thousands of years later. A man that so many others would wish to emulate, it was shocking to meet the real man.

He was bright and intelligent as history recorded him. He did get a bad reputation by some, but so many tried to tie their legitimacy to him and his proverbial descendants. But for such a historical giant, he was so short. To be sure, amongst his people, he was not actually short: he was a mere 170 cm. Compared to myself, he was very short and I was of average height in my time at 191 cm.

Small he might be, but he had a presence I could not match. Few could. Even the most charismatic of politicians of my time could not touch this man even without knowing his accomplishments.

He closed the book. His tears were still streaming down his face. Stoicism was still in the future and not every ideal of manliness matched the American ideals. Even in our time and we were soft, sensitive compared to the men of our great great grandparents' day. Even so, his emotional display had made me uncomfortable.

He sat for a moment and examined the book. Codices were new for him. Scrolls were what were used on a regular basis in his time. He was intrigued and impressed. So strange, yet so useful. It was easy to see the gears turning his head as he considered the implications and the stream of tears slowly receded. It was a bit of a screw up on my part. I did get the contents translated, but...a codex, not a scroll. damn.

"This is true? This...book...claims I am a great man of history. One remembered through the ages? One remembered as a great?"

I could see his eyes were calculating.

"Yes. Men would create titles based on your name. Men would seek to recapitulate what you set in motion. You are one of the great men of history."

"More than Alexander of Macedonia?"

"In many ways. No one claimed, other than his feuding generals, to be Alexander's heir. None made their title his name. He was viewed as an overreacher. You are not."

He nodded. The gears again. It made me wonder what analogy he and his of his time would use. Gears and machines were not the ubiquitous things of the future. As a result, people thought differently. The universe was not yet viewed as a machine...it was something rather different. Even amongst those not so superstitious.

"I noticed the narrative ended before my end. Did you cut it short? Why? Who was this Shakespeare?

"What of my expedition to Persia? What of my attempts to reform the Republic and lands?

"And most importantly, what is the reference to the Ides of March?"

Jurassic Pork: What Could a Jewish Time Traveler eat? Dinosaurs are NOT Kosher!

Jurassic Pork: What Could a Jewish Time Traveler Eat?

Authors:

Plotnick et al

Abstract:

Paleontologists use multiple methods to reconstruct the anatomy and behavior of extinct animals, including direct observations from well-preserved fossils and inferences from the phylogeny of modern and extinct relatives. We illustrate these techniques by reference to the biblical definitions of kosher and non-kosher animals; that is, how can we apply these approaches to the hypothetical question of whether an extinct form would have been kosher. The biblical categories do not readily map to modern understandings of systematics, but are heavily based on life mode. When given, distinguishing characteristics, such as the presence of fins and scales in aquatic animals, can be readily seen directly in fossils. In other cases, such as cud chewing, they need to be inferred from the phylogenetic relationships of the fossil forms. Dinosaurs (other than birds), unfortunately, are not kosher. A kosher “paleo diet” would be increasingly difficult further in the past. The use of biblical content as a way of introducing concepts from paleontology and evolutionary biology, such as crown groups and stem groups, should be of broad interest.

No, not a joke.  A weird scientific paper.

A Good Thing I am not Drinking Grape Juice