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Rock The Vote 2008.


Steve E

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Hmmm. Interesting that we haven't heard from Isaac or Steve on this thread.

 

I was out at the local sports pub cheering for my team. We got there a little after 4:00 PST, and it was kind of strange to be packed to overcrowding for five hours with a bunch of stats junkies. Anyway, I've mostly got my voice back...

 

-Steve

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Steve:

Glad to hear you have your voice back. You sound good. And it's always good to hear from you. I trust you found time to vote yesterday. Any polling stories? Its been raining hard here in NYC most of the afternoon today. Window shaking hard. But it leaves the streets smelling fresh and clean. Ah rain--Mother Nature's little scrubwoman.

 

M:

Right. Yeah. Umm. Trading ideas in the Writers' Lounge. Speaking of which, How did "Timur the Lame" get lame in the first place? Was it his infirmity that inspire him to conquer much of Asia? Have you read Edgar Allan Poe's poem Tamerlane.

 

-Thoth.

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M:

Right. Yeah. Umm. Trading ideas in the Writers' Lounge. Speaking of which, How did "Timur the Lame" get lame in the first place? Was it his infirmity that inspire him to conquer much of Asia? Have you read Edgar Allan Poe's poem Tamerlane.

 

Hey, I can bring this back to my NaNo! ;)

Physical infirmity is what drives Circe to grab power.

 

Totally on topic,

- Calli

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Steve:

Glad to hear you have your voice back. You sound good. And it's always good to hear from you. I trust you found time to vote yesterday. Any polling stories? Its been raining hard here in NYC most of the afternoon today. Window shaking hard. But it leaves the streets smelling fresh and clean. Ah rain--Mother Nature's little scrubwoman.

 

M:

Right. Yeah. Umm. Trading ideas in the Writers' Lounge. Speaking of which, How did "Timur the Lame" get lame in the first place? Was it his infirmity that inspire him to conquer much of Asia? Have you read Edgar Allan Poe's poem Tamerlane.

 

-Thoth.

Welcome to my world. Wildly varying stories abound. The most widely agreed-upon version (not the same as the truth) follows.

 

In his youth (20s) Amir Timur, as he is rightly called, received crippling injuries to both his right arm and his right leg while stealing sheep from a rival tribal leader (my Border Scots ancestors would be so proud! ;)). Either he fell off his horse and suffered an injury to his hand that caused him to lose his pinkie and ring fingers, or he had his shoulder crushed by one of the warriors guarding the sheep and took an arrow in the thigh. Accounts, as they say, differ.

 

The injuries, however, are real. Some Soviet scientists dug the old boy up and verified them. And Timur lasted longer than Michael Crichton, being almost 70 when he popped off on his way to invade Ming China. That in the 14th century! His boys had to carry him everywhere on a litter, including over the Himalaya when he decided to invade Delhi. Some jobs are tough.

 

Which perhaps qualifies as proof that only the good die young. ;)

 

I haven't read Poe's poem. I'm not focused on Timur per se. I'm trying to find out how Tatars lived, and especially what Islam looked like in practice among them (it didn't, for example, exclude raucous wine-guzzling banquets, albeit ones without pork).

 

Steve, welcome back! Glad you were feeling better enough to go out and root for the team.

Best,

M

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Very informative.

Thanks M.

I wish I had a 14th century Muslim Tarter culture reference at my fingertips for you but the best I have (or could recommend) is Science And Civilization In Islam by Seyyed Hossein Nasr. I found it useful but it's probably not quite what you're looking for; not really 14th century Tartar specific.

-Thoth.

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Hey, I can bring this back to my NaNo! ;)

Physical infirmity is what drives Circe to grab power.

 

Totally on topic,

- Calli

Not sure this will help RE Circe, but Timur had to conquer half of Asia (since I forgot to answer this question) to keep his boys in loot. They got paid out of the spoils of the cities they conquered, and as T's grandson discovered to his cost, if you ran out of worlds to conquer, you soon ran out of dough, got bumped off, and were replaced by a more aggressive type.

 

You could ask, why was Timur seeking power in the first place, but the sheep-stealing suggests he already had it in for rival khans even before he was injured. So in his case, being a Mongol/Tatar (he was not a descendant of Genghis, which is why his title is amir, not khan) is probably explanation enough.

 

That and not wanting to find himself on the wrong end of a knife. ;)

Best,

M

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You could ask, why was Timur seeking power in the first place, but the sheep-stealing suggests he already had it in for rival khans even before he was injured. So in his case, being a Mongol/Tatar (he was not a descendant of Genghis, which is why his title is amir, not khan) is probably explanation enough.

You may be getting disgruntled e-mails from the Mongol Anti-defamation League. ;) But I hear MAL can be re-gruntled with a heaping helping of Blueberry Overmuffins.

"Explanation enough" indeed.

-Thoth.

 

BTW: This thread was supposed to be about the vote. How did we get to 14th Century Mongolia?

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BTW: This thread was supposed to be about the vote. How did we get to 14th Century Mongolia?

We were trying to get back on topic, remember? ;)

 

I suppose someone could be writing a novel about an Alaskan mayor, more recently governor, who got picked for the second most powerful position in the world--with a chance of promotion if her elderly leader kicked the bucket sooner than expected--even though she thought Africa was a country, not a continent, and was appealing to the extreme fundamentalist right with family values that included a pregnant, unmarried teen daughter. Then the party that picked her gave her a blank check at Nieman Marcus until she ticked off the campaign staff of said elderly boss and they started dissing her in public, calling her a diva and so on. But she'll be back to run her own campaign four years from now.

 

Or you could write the one about the Kenyan/Kansan raised in Hawaii and Indonesia who became president despite having a middle name that is apparently anathema to a large chunk of the population in the country that then elected him because it wanted a steady hand on the tiller instead of an experienced war hero who seemed incapable of deciding which message he was endorsing this week. Result: hysterical rejoicing among all those citizens of the mythical Blue Planet who had given up hope that anyone else in the world would ever again hear the name of their republic without booing (and, no doubt, a degree of gloom among their compatriots on the neighboring Red Planet).

 

But really, don't you want to stick to rather less bizarre plots? ;)

 

I don't think the MAL will come after me. If Uzbekistan is anything to go by, the general belief among Timur's descendants is that Great-great-etc.-granddaddy had just about the right idea; and if anything, he should come back and do it again. According to the book I was reading, there's now a huge statue of Timur in Samarqand and another in Tashkent, and newly married couples show up there for the patriarchal blessing on their union. (Little do they know that Timur would have dragged off any brides that took his fancy--he didn't buy the whole "4 wives only" business either.)

 

But just in case, I've a stockpile of chocolate chip overmuffins handy. Thanks for the tip. :lol:

Best,

M

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Good to hear from you, Isaac. Do you have 2¢ you're not using? We could probably use your input over at Feature Requests, or anywhere else you have a mind to plug into.

 

Ahk. So demanding.

 

I vote no on all your guys's features, and yes to all mine. Does that help? ;)

 

IF

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