Architecture. Pyramids. Grain stores. I know it is a long way away from Wellington Architecture and Urbanism, but we do have a link – we have a Pyramid in Civic Square (sort of), so I reckon we can stretch the bounds of reason to get in a story about this.
The stupidity of the average American public amuses the heck out of me, no end. On the other hand, the stupidity of the American politicians being put forward by the Republicans scares the heck out of me. The boufant-headed buffoon that is the Trump is bad enough, although as a joke candidate he has surely passed his Use-By date. But now the poor old American public – and by association, the world, has a new buffoon to deal with. But it is surely stretching the bounds of credulity to believe, in any way or form, that you could be President of the United States of America, with a view as stupid as this 1998 one by Republican hopeful Presidential candidate Ben Carson: I laughed – until I cried….
“My own personal theory, is that Joseph built the pyramids, in order to store grain. Now, all the archaeologists think that they were made for the Pharoahs’ graves, but, you know, it would have to be something awfully big, when you stop and think about it, and I don’t think it would just disappear over the course of time, to store that much grain, and when you look at the way the pyramids are made, with many chambers that are hermetically sealed… various scientists have said that alien beings have came down, and they had special knowledge, and that’s how.. you know, it doesn’t require a special knowledge when God is with you…”
Listen and watch…
and more recently, in 2015, he foolishly repeated the claim:
“Yes, that is still my opinion. The pyramids were made in a way with hermetically sealed compartments, and you wouldn’t need hermetically sealed compartments for a sepulchre (???), but you would need hermetically sealed compartments if you wanted to store grain for a period of time…”
That’s the danger right there, of commenting on things that you know absolutely nothing about, and also the dire problem of refusing to admit when you are clearly, 100% wrong. The same problem, right now, in fact, with our very own political airheads John Key and David Carter, who keep refusing to understand that they have screwed up in a very big way. But: back to the pyramids.
Thing one: the Pyramids are very big.
Thing two: the Pyramids are almost entirely solid.
Thing three: there is no room inside to store grain.
Sorry, I just can’t stop laughing. Yes, it is true that if you pour grain into a pile, it makes a sort of pyramid-ish shape (actually, no, it makes a cone), but really, that anyone could even think, for more than two seconds, about the ridiculousness of this statement, and believe it to be possibly true, smacks of two things:
One – pure ignorance.
Two – pure religious blindness to the bleeding obvious.
Now, I’m a reasonable person. I’ve been lucky enough to have traveled, and gone to Egypt, and climbed up, over, and inside the Pyramids, which clearly Dr Carson hasn’t. So I can forgive Ben for his comment if it is down to pure ignorance, despite his evident high wage packet and brilliant medical mind.
But the problem is that the reason he thinks, as he does, is that this view has been stated before, and is “justified” by passages in the Bible. Genesis 41-42 states:
“Joseph was thirty years old when he entered the service of Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from Pharaoh’s presence and traveled throughout Egypt. During the seven years of abundance the land produced plentifully. Joseph collected all the food produced in those seven years of abundance in Egypt and stored it in the cities. In each city he put the food grown in the fields surrounding it. Joseph stored up huge quantities of grain, like the sand of the sea; it was so much that he stopped keeping records because it was beyond measure.” source: Bible
Doesn’t mention anything about the building of the largest stone buildings the world has ever seen, or how this project probably took a lifetime (and many lives) to build. Apparently this positing of the pyramids as a possible place for grain storage was around in the Middle Ages – also known as the Dark Ages, ie Dark from lack of knowledge… And so, in the same way that the Right wing seem incapable of choosing a sensible person for potential government in some electorates (John Banks, John Palino, Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Sarah Palin, etc), the supply of idiots fronting up for electoral office knows no lower limits. I just can’t believe that Carson’s credibility has not sunk to Zero overnight – I’d like to think that the NZ public would react that way, if we had someone similarly stupid run for office. But I’m not holding my breath….
Speaking of Civic Square pyramids, there is a proposal out from WCC to seek feedback on ways to enliven the Civic Square.
Clearly, one option could be: to turn the Pyramid into a grain store! It already has the inwards shute wide open, waiting….
Uh-oh.
“On the IQ and intellect scale, Carson is probably the smartest person on the republican stage. Yet he seems routinely incapable of forming a single coherent thought. It’s not that his words are jumbled, it’s that there’s no thought behind the words to begin with. If you didn’t already know he was a brain surgeon, you’d listen to his childlike assessments of the world and assume he had an IQ of below fifty. ….. We’ve all encountered super-smart people who are just spacy and aren’t always present because they’re lost in thought. This comes off as something entirely different.”
“At first I thought it was merely because he’s under the influence of his religious cult. His fundamentalist faux-christian church certainly accounts for his extremist views on the issues. But this goes far beyond any political views, and I’d be forced to draw the same conclusion about Carson even if his political views were perfectly mainstream. As more of his words surface from his past, his actions over a period of time can’t all be explained by mere religious fanaticism. Instead it appears he descended into full blown mental illness a long time ago, and in turn his insanity has led him to become attracted to religious extremism, not the other way around.”
http://www.dailynewsbin.com/opinion/ben-carson-is-almost-certainly-suffering-from-a-mental-illness-its-time-we-address-the-matter/22741/
And more, this time from the New Yorker… “There are theories, out there, that the pyramids of Egypt are really giant batteries, or even electric generators. Think about it: their granite blocks were originally encased in limestone, almost as if they had been insulated, as a power conductor is, with rubber. They once had golden capstones, a bit like the copper-tops on Duracells. All that granite piled up creates a magnetic field or a radioactive one, depending on which engineering schematics one favors—this reading of the pyramids takes a number of forms—and has a profound effect on negative ions. The King’s Chamber in the Great Pyramid contains what may look like a sepulchre but is really where all the gold wiring that ran through the pyramid met—a pharaonic circuit board. The pyramid is a cross between the Tower of Babel and the Tesla Tower: a massive source of wireless power, which explains why the torches that figures carry in Egyptian wall paintings aren’t plugged into anything. Delve too deeply, and the question seems less whether the pyramids are big and intricate machines built by ordinary hardworking Egyptians than whether they were built (perhaps, originally, upside down) by extraterrestrials, who might someday return to activate their force fields or laser beams. But that might be a bit much, as Ben Carson, who is running for President, would be the first to tell you.”
http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/ben-carson-among-the-pyramids
OK – now I’m thinking he is just a very droll comedian…. The New Yorker also includes snippets from his autobiography “Gifted Hands” (he’s so modest too!):
“The summer after my junior year at Yale, I decided to backpack through Europe. When I got to London, I ran into an old British lady who told me that I was the tallest man she’d ever seen. “You’re so big,†she said, and that is a direct quote. Her name was Elizabeth, and she was a Queen, which is like a President, only more so. She ended up naming a clock tower after me. (“Gifted Hands 2: Gift Hander,†page 60)”
…and
“One day at Johns Hopkins medical school, I ran into a man who was very upset over a breakup. I consoled him by explaining that no pill was going to cure his ill, and when he asked me, “Doctor, doctor,†to “give [him] the news†about his disease, I told him that he had a bad case of loving someone. That patient’s name was Robert Palmer, and a few years later he recorded a song about the experience. (“Gifted Hands,†page 93)”
pure fantasy. http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/more-true-tales-from-dr-ben-carson-life
The Republican field have collectively shown that they are
Not Serious People
Remember it is a whole year to go til the election and it is Hillary’s to lose – Bernie Sanders may be attractive but the US will not elect a Socialist
thanks for that 60 – and yes, i totally agree – but surely the ‘Publicans still have to put someone up on the gibbet? Assuming that both Trump and Carson get ditched at some stage when the great unwashed have finished playing with them, who is going to be left? Jeb? omg, its going to be Bush vs Clinton all over again !