Strange Board Game Origins

I grew up playing all kinds of board games. To this day, I still love a good board game night - Monopoly, Clue, Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, and so many more. I don't get as much time to play these days, but when I do get a chance, it's tons of fun. But have you ever considered the origins of some of the best board games. Let's take a look:

The Game of Life

If you've never played this game, you don't know what you're missing.  The game simulates a person's travels through his or her life, from college to retirement, with jobs, marriage, and possible children along the way. The original version of Life was somewhat more pessimistic than the one we play today. Some of the board's original squares included "Disgrace," "Poverty," and "Ruin," as well as "Crime," "Prison," and -- no joke -- "Suicide." 

So who was the psychopath behind this grim game? Milton Bradley himself, who was going through a bit of a rough time when he made it. Bradley was a professional lithographer at the time, and was driven to financial ruin, solely because Abraham Lincoln grew a beard. I'm not making this up. Mr. Bradley was making a good living in 1860 selling lithographs of a then-beardless Abraham Lincoln until a little 11-year-old girl named Grace Bedell sent Honest Abe a letter asking him to grow a beard, which he did. This unprecedented presidential fashion statement basically destroyed Bradley's business after all his unsold portraits of clean-shaven Abe were judged "so yesterday."

At the end of his rope and probably out of alcohol, Mr. Bradley sat down and sketched The Checkered Game of Life. As a result, for decades children throughout the country actually had fun killing themselves in a board game.

Clue

So right away you can see that you can learn a lot about the state of mind of the creator from the finished product. This brings me to one of my favorite board games, Clue. It's a dark subject for a game if you think about it -- some of the murder weapons (i.e., the candlestick) would only work by splashing the brains of the victim all over the floor of the fancy mansion. So under what circumstances would someone think this was an appropriate game for kids?

The game was released in England in 1949 under the name Cluedo, which is an amalgamation of Clue and Ludo (Latin for "I play"). And, while most board games enjoy the reputation as something you save for a rainy day, the rainy days that brought you Clue were rains of Nazi bombs on British households. Clue is the only board game on this list made possible because of Adolf Hitler.

In 1944, Anthony E. Pratt, an English solicitor's clerk, filed for a patent of his invention of a murder/mystery-themed game, originally named "Murder!" The game was originally invented as a new game to play during sometimes lengthy air raid drills in underground bunkers during the war. Shortly thereafter, Pratt and his wife presented the game to game manufacturer Waddingtons's executive, Norman Watson, who immediately purchased the game.

There are some difference between the original game and today's version. Most notably, the weapons not only included the classic gun, rope, knife and three makeshift de-brainers, but also an axe, fireplace poker, syringe, poison, a bomb and a shillelagh (walking stick/cudgel).  That's right, in the original Clue you could totally kill a dude with a bomb. It took a lot to shock that generation, and understandably so.

Monopoly

Released in 1935, Monopoly is the most popular board game in the world behind, well, chess. It has sold more than 275 million copies, been played by more than a billion people, and prompted people such as Wall Streeter Derk Solko to describe it as one of the most amoral experiences in the history of entertainment: Solko stated, "Monopoly has you grinding your opponents into dust. It's a very negative experience. It's all about cackling when your opponent lands on your space and you get to take all their money." I played this game a few months ago and my friend's husband totally cackled as he wiped me off the floor.

The official story according to Hasbro is that during "the height of the Great Depression" an unemployed salesman named Charles Darrow proposed Monopoly to Parker Brothers in 1934, was first rejected, but eventually closed the deal. This is the official legend as told by -- no joke -- Mr. Monopoly, the robber baron on the box.

Since anyone should be suspicious of any company that leaves their official truth-telling to their mascots, several people have smelled a rat big enough to investigate the story. It turns out that, in a strangely appropriate revelation, Monopoly was actually pirated wholesale from a board game called The Landlord's Game which was patented in 1904 by a Quaker named Elizabeth Magie.

This game was very much the Monopoly we all know and hate, except it included a crucial second round designed to teach "just how unfair monopolies can be." That's right, Monopoly is actually supposed to be a lesson on unscrupulous business practices comparable to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, but the monopolistic bastards at Parker Brothers deliberately kept it evil to appeal to the darker angels of our souls.

How did they get away with this? Easy. According to PBS' History Detectives: "a large firm which manufactures games" bought out Ms. Magie's patent for $500.

As for that "legend" on Hasbro's website, that was even easier for Parker Brothers. They just had their fictional spokesperson Mr. Monopoly make it up to better suit their image of a family-friendly monopoly. The fact that they pulled all this off during the Great Depression takes some seriously big balls.

Trivial Pursuit

It's that infuriating family trivia game that your annoying know-it-all uncle always wins.

Long before Trivial Pursuit famously became the bane of George Costanza, its distributors found themselves in the middle of a damning lawsuit. It turned out as many as one third of the questions in the game were lifted from the book Super Trivia, vol. II by Fred L. Worth. You see, Worth deliberately slipped an error into his book to catch any would-be plagiarists. Sure enough, when Trivial Pursuit hit the stores, that one bad answer turned up on the cards (Detective Columbo's first name is Frank, not Philiip). This seemed like a key point to Worth, since, you know, trivia was the entire point of the game. In 1984, he sued the inventors.

Unfortunately for Worth, his clever plan was foiled by the game's creators, Scott Abbott and Chris Haney, who successfully convinced every lower court that being both lazy and stupid was not a crime now that they were rich. Worth took his case all the way to the US Supreme Court, figuring that writing a third of their material for them entitled him to a cut of the game's gargantuan profits.

But the creators' argument (which the court agreed with) was that you can't copyright facts. It's the same reason you can't copyright a phone book -- those numbers belong to everybody, even if somebody else spent hundreds of hours assembling and researching them.

Still, it'd have been nice if they had at least thanked the man.

Chutes and Ladders

A favorite with preschoolers, Chutes and Ladders is billed by Hasbro as a game about "rewards and consequences." Do good deeds and you get to ascend up the board on some ladders. Dick around and down the chutes you go.

For those of you who are British, you may be familiar with the game's foreign incarnation: Snakes and Ladders.

The British Empire was once in the business of terrorizing India and subsequently robbing it of everything good to come out of that country. Snakes and Ladders was one of those things. Over there, the game was known as Vaikuntapaali or Paramapada Sopanam, which meant "the ladder to salvation."

Sure enough, all this "salvation" business has to do with Hinduism, and all those snakes scattered across the board are temptations. Except that, in this version, landing on a snake's head didn't just send you back a few squares. The idea is that for each temptation you land on you die and have to go through life all over again.

Vaikuntapaali was meant to illustrate how even a successful life can be ruined at the zero-hour due to one small screw up. Some of its original squares of "evil" included disobedience, vanity, vulgarity, theft, lying, drunkenness, and debt. As you advance through the game, you have to contend with still greater challenges such as rage, greed, pride, murder, and, yes, lust.

As though the game we know today isn't frustrating enough, in the Indian original, it is virtually impossible to advance to the end without landing on at least several temptations. It's almost as if whoever came up with this fun party game viewed everyone as some kind of a Hell-worthy sinner, especially those with the unfortunate luck to land on temptation after temptation for eternity.

Free College and University Courses

Have you ever wanted to take a course at MIT? How about at Stanford? Have I got news for you. In recent years, massive open online courses ("MOOCs") have become a trend in online education. The term was coined in 2008 by David Cormier, manager of web communications and innovations at the University of Prince Edward Island. 

MOOCs are designed like college courses but are available to anyone anywhere in the world, at no cost. Sadly, you do not receive a college credit, but you will receive a certificate of completion when you complete all coursework. The courses span a myriad of subjects, often are taught by some of the leaders in those fields, and are available in many languages.

Coursera is perhaps the most well-known of the online education facilitators. As of April 2014, Coursera has 7.4 million users in 641 courses from 108 institutions. Coursera offers courses in physics, engineering, humanities, medicine, biology, social sciences, mathematics, business, computer science, and other subjects and are available in 12 different languages. They even has an official mobile app for iPhone and Android.

EdX is a non-profit course site, which is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts and is governed by MIT and Harvard. EdX offers MOOCs and interactive online classes in subjects including law, history, science, engineering, business, social sciences, computer science, public health, and artificial intelligence (AI). It has partnerships with institutions in the U.S., Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Japan, China and Korea. It currently has over 2.1 million users in 176 online courses.

MIT has their own open courseware, where most of the materials used in the teaching of almost all of MIT's subjects are available on the Web - free of charge. They have more than 2,000 courses available. Stanford also has their own online and open courses. These sites are both great options if you prefer to work at your own pace, as compared to structured classes like those offered at Coursera and EdX.

European institutions are also getting in on the act. Germany-based Iversity offers courses in both English and German and the first courses went online in October 2013. Future Learn is a subsidiary of the British Open University and has partnerships with universities across Britain, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.

For those looking to learn a language, Duolingo offers completely free language education. As of January 2014, Duolingo has 25 million users, out of which about 12.5 million are active. If you're interested in learning a valuable skill, Codecademy teaches programming and coding with interactive online courses. Other sites, like Open Culture, are not affiliated with institutions. On Open Culture, the editor finds the free courses and audio books on the web and hosts them on the site. The courses are available in audio and video, and can be downloaded straight to a computer or mp3 player. They currently have 950 courses available.

For the geeky and whimsical, there is the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry, in which "a Hogwarts education has now become available online to all aspiring witches and wizards. You are now able to enroll at Hogwarts, collect your textbooks and begin taking our 9-week courses online. You can now progress through all seven years of schooling and be assigned a professor, homework assignments, quizzes and more." All for free...or at least until Universal gets a whiff of the site and closes it down! Better enroll quickly.

This is by no means a complete list of all site and institutions that offer free online courses. MOOC List has many more listed. These MOOCs are a great way to expand your knowledge at a cost that anyone can afford.

The Most Extreme Cases of OCD

Last night, I attended the closing ceremonies for the 9th annual Newburyport Literary Festival. I fully expected to enjoy the panel which consisted of four well-respected and best selling authors, Jenna Blum, Andre Dubus III (this year's honoree), Wally Lamb, and Richard Russo and was not disappointed. Unsurprisingly, all four of these literary powerhouses were amusing and engaging storytellers.

One of the stories really resonated with me. An audience member proposed a question to the authors about how and why they write. Their responses ran the gamut as to why and how, but it was Richard Russo's response that was the most interesting. He regaled us with a story which told of his obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) that became apparent when he was in college. He became obsessed with playing a pinball game; so much so, he was using all of his food vouchers to play. He admits as far as obsession go, this one was pretty innocuous and other than feeling the pangs of hunger, it was better than becoming a drug addict. Russo also noted that obsessions can never actually be eliminated but they can on occasion be refocused. For Russo, writing is his panacea for his OCD and he stated that if it hadn't been for writing, he might very well be in a psych hospital.

As someone who has a mild form of obsession, I found his story fascinating. Fortunately, my form of obsession is more of a mild mental obsession. I can never seem to turn my mind off of a couple of issues and they just roll round and round in my head - taking up way too much space and causing all sorts of issues, i.e., sleeplessness, sadness, anger, etc.

Curiously, Russo's story led me to wonder about what extreme cases of OCD have been documented. I conducted some research and here's what I found:

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943)

A Serbian America, Tesla is considered one of the greatest inventors of the 20th century. He was also an electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist, and futurist.

In addition to being a germaphobe, Tesla probably suffered from OCD in his later years. He developed a hatred of jewelry and round objects, could not bear to touch hair, did not like to shake hands, and became obsessed with the number three. He often felt compelled to walk around a block three times before entering a building and demanded 18 napkins (a number divisible by three) to polish his silver and glasses and plates until they were impeccable whenever he went dining. He would bewilder guests by estimating the mass of his meal before taking a bite and counting jaw movements while he was eating and would not eat alone in the company of a woman. If he read one of an author's books, he felt compelled to read all of their books (I do this!).

Although an obstacle to social relations, Tesla's obsessions also fueled some of his scientific ideas. Consequently, he left a legacy behind him of impressive accomplishments.

"Jean" - Obsessions and Psychasthenia (1903)

Pierre Janet (1859-1947), a French psychiatrist, published a book concerning obsessions and compulsions in 1903, entitled Obsessions and Pyschasthenia. In the book, he presented case studies of his patients who suffered with OCD. Patient "Jean", a 30-year old man, avoided wearing a certain pair of shoes because they made him think of a woman with whom he was obsessed. The connection was that the shoes had the number "49" on them, and the woman had been age 49 when his obsession with her had begun. If Jean upon waking, happened to view a red object on his right, he needed to find one on his left.

Additionally, Jean was obsessed with health and the possibility of his own death. Janet noted that his patient felt the need to constantly check his own heartbeat and that he became anxious at the slightest irregularity. Despite his healthiness, he was unable to attend funerals or pass in front of his local town hall when the announcements of deaths were taking place.

Jean also had an obsession with his own genitals - suffering great pain as a result - and he would spend days at a time rubbing ointments on the area.

The William Hammond Case (1879)

William Hammond (1828-1900), who served as surgeon general of the U.S. Army during the Civil War and later helped to found the American Neurological Association, coined the term "mysophobia" to describe an obsessive fear of contamination. In a psychiatric treatise, he described a "young lady, aged eighteen" who sought treatment from him for such a condition in 1879. This case is one of the earliest documented cases in history.

The patient’s obsession of contamination increased to the point where she was unable to make contact with any surface without washing her hands. According to her mother, she would do so over 200 times each day. Remember, this was the 19th century, when people weren’t nearly as fastidious about cleanliness as they are today.

Whilst on the street, she had to gather her clothes up to avoid touching other people, as she considered them sources of contamination. When questioned, the woman admitted that her compulsions made no sense but still found that she could not stop acting on them - a common OCD experience.

Martin Luther (1483-1546)

It’s a little known fact that Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther suffered from obsessions and repetitive patterns of thought, which has led many modern researchers to believe that he was afflicted with OCD.

Luther described feelings of “fleshly lust, wrath, hatred, or envy against any brother,” which constantly “vexed” him and would not leave no matter how hard he tried to block them from his mind. He also experienced periods of “blasphemous” thought that left him confused and disturbed - one of the classic symptoms of OCD that commonly causes sufferers to experience uncontrollable mental images that oppose their normal desires.

Martin Luther also suffered from obsessive doubts; in his mind, his omitting the word enim ("for") during the Eucharist was as horrible as laziness, divorce, or murdering one's parent.

Richard Wallace (1950 - )

Compulsive hoarding is a form of OCD that involves cluttering a living space with items to the point where it can become uninhabitable. UK resident Richard Wallace is an extreme case, a man with a collection of junk so large that in 2011 it took up an area larger than his house. This junk pile was so large that it could even be seen on Google Earth.

Wallace’s hoarded goods included six rusting classic cars and stacks of newspapers going back 34 years. He was unable to use any of the space inside his house and had to sleep and eat in his chair.

A senior planning officer from the Mole Valley Council in Surrey served an order on Wallace in 2009 instructing him to clean up his garden. But Mr Wallace fought the order, explaining that it was his “human right” to hoard.

Still, with the help of his neighbors, Wallace did clear up his garden, removing 30 tons of junk in just one afternoon. Finally, he could walk to his front door again. He has since sought an appointment with a psychologist to deal with his hoarding issues. Wallace's hoarding makes the Collyer Brothers seem almost normal...almost!

"Rat Man" (1907)

A patient who first came to Sigmund Freud in 1907 became a classic case for the founding father of psychoanalysis. "Rat Man" was the nickname given by Sigmund Freud to a patient whose case history was published in 1909. This patient's condition was marked by a number of obsessive thoughts, the most notable of which was an intense fear that his father would be tortured using a bizarre Chinese method involving a rat, as described to him by an army colleague. He also feared a female friend (whom he eventually married).

Rat Man also complained of other obsessive thoughts, such as cutting his own throat with a razor. Freud interpreted the symptoms as the patient identifying himself with the rat and thus having fantasies involving both his father and his female friend.

The patient was later used as a showcase for the psychiatrist’s newly developed method of psychoanalysis, but Freud heavily exaggerated when he claimed to have cured Rat Man completely. A letter to Carl Jung written in 1909 revealed that the patient’s problems continued to trouble him. There is some dispute on the identity of the Rat Man. Recent researchers have decided that the "Rat Man" was in fact a clever lawyer named Ernst Lanzer (1878–1914); though many other sources maintain that the man's name was Paul Lorenz.

Budapest between 1890 and 1900

Johanna H. (1895)

In 1895, Dr. Julius Donath of the University of Budapest treated a young woman who suffered from obsessive and compulsive symptoms, including one symptom that revolved around her fear that she might cheat on her husband. A telegraph employee, Johanna H. was 23 years old and happily married for one year. She went to see Dr. Donath who noted the following: "For the past six months she has developed the compulsive fear that she might commit an indiscretion with a man she has just met or seen; and cannot dismiss from her mind this most improbable situation, given that she is happily married; hence, if someone were to tell her that she has had sex with a man, she would immediately believe it."

Her husband added important details which she had omitted. "The compulsive idea of sexual intercourse with other men can be so intense that she has worn knickers made of strong linen, tightly fitted, closed at the front and back [a sort of chastity belt]; in order not to reveal her condition to anyone else, she made this underwear herself." Whenever the husband had to go out, she asked him to lock her up in the house and take the key with him. If another man was in the house, the husband had to reassure her repeatedly that she had not been near him.

Donath attempted to treat this patient using hypnosis, but indicated that she stopped coming to her appointments after only four hypnosis sessions.

Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882)

Eminent evolutionist Charles Darwin is now also widely accepted to have suffered from OCD. Darwin wrote about various obsessional thoughts and how he could not get away from them. In a letter to a friend he wrote "I could not sleep and whatever I did in the day haunted me at night with vivid and most wearing repetition". The thoughts, as he himself put it, were of "horrid spectacle" including thoughts that his children would inherit his kind of illness and to stop them he would try "closing his eyes firmly" but they would not go away. The bad thoughts during the night were more persistent than those in the day, because at night he was not distracted from them by activity.

Darwin also craved reassurance from others and was self critical and also felt himself to be ugly and would repeat himself hundreds of times the mantra "I have worked as hard as I could, and no man can do more than this".

Mad’lle F (1838)

The case of 34-year-old Mad’lle F was recorded by French psychiatrist J.E.D. Esquirol, and apart from being bizarre, it’s notable for being the first compulsive checking behavior described by a medical authority. Mad'lle F made frequent visits to her aunt's house, habitually wearing an apron. One day, at the age of eighteen, without any known cause, upon going out of the house of her aunt, Mad'lle F was seized by the idea that she might accidentally take something that belonged to her relative. After that day, she would deliberately not wear an apron when visiting her aunt.

This symptom was an early indicator of what would come later -- a complex series of rituals. Upon waking, she would rub her feet for ten minutes in order to make sure that nothing had been caught in her toes or between her nails. She would then turn her slippers over and over, shook them, and would then hand them to her chamber-maid, in order that after having carefully examined them, the maid would assure her that they conceal nothing of value. Next, she would run a comb through her hair numerous times to ensure that nothing was trapped there. Every article of her clothing was examined successively, a great number of times, inspected in every way, in all the folds and wrinkles, and rigorously shaken. Finally, she would vigorously shake her hands and rub her fingers until she was convinced that there was nothing on them. The sheer force of these actions exhausted Mad’lle F as they sometimes would take anywhere from an hour and a half to three hours to complete.

Like many OCD sufferers, Mad’lle F was very aware of the ridiculousness of her condition and rituals but was unable to stop making her compulsive checks. Small wonder, then, that Esquirol described OCD as a kind of “partial insanity.”

Howard Hughes (1905 - 1976)

When it comes to OCD, no one suffered more than legendary aviator, filmmaker and businessman Howard Hughes who was perhaps the closest thing the mid-20th century had to a Renaissance man. Yet his obsessive drive to tinker with mechanical objects (he once re-designed his bed to be more comfortable during a stay in hospital) may have been related to the OCD symptoms he developed later in life. These symptoms included a morbid fear of germs and a bizarre obsession with peas in which used a special fork to sort them by size.

Although Hughes had suffered mood swings and obsessions as a younger man, following his near-fatal plane crash in 1946, the symptoms seemed to get worse. In 1947, he refused to leave his screening room for four months, living entirely on milk, chocolate, and chicken and relieving himself in the empty containers.  He was surrounded by dozens of Kleenex boxes, which he continuously stacked and re-arranged. He wrote detailed memos to his aides on yellow legal pads giving them explicit instructions not to look at him, or speak to him unless spoken to. Throughout this period, Hughes sat fixated in his chair, often naked, continually watching movies.

In a bout of obsession with his home state, Hughes began purchasing all restaurant chains and four star hotels that had been founded within the borders of Texas. This included, if for only a short period, many unknown franchises currently out of business. Ownership of the restaurants was placed in the hands of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and all licenses were resold shortly after.

Another time, he became obsessed with the 1968 film Ice Station Zebra and had it running on a continuous loop in his home. According to his aides, he watched it 150 times.

Hughes insisted on using tissues to pick up objects, so that he could insulate himself from germs. He would also notice dust, stains or other imperfections on people's clothes and demand that they take care of them.

Towards the end of his life, Hughes’s condition worsened, and the former womanizer began to shun all social contact. At the time of his death from kidney failure, his beard and fingernails had both grown out of control making him practically unrecognizable. He also suffered from malnutrition and reportedly had a body weight of just 90 pounds.

Freakiest Deaths of Historical Figures

I mentioned a few posts back about my new obsession with a podcast called Rex Factor, which rates the reigns of all the kings and queens of England. I'm only about halfway through the 70+ episodes and am still loving every moment, but who knew that so many English monarchs died in bizarre ways. Many of the very early monarchs died in battle, but there were a few others whose deaths were a little strange. For example, Edward II of England quite possibly died very cruelly - by having a horn pushed into his anus through which a red-hot iron was inserted, burning out his internal organs without marking his body, thereby hiding the assassination. YOWCH!!!! Of course, there is no proof that this event actually happened, but that doesn't stop the rumors flying.

One would imagine that people of prominence would die with perhaps a little dignity. However, such is not always the case. Inspired by the story of Edward II of England, I decided to research what were some of the craziest deaths of historical figures. Here's what I found:

Death by Mercury:

In 210 BC, Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China, died after ingesting several pills of mercury in the belief that it would grant him eternal life. He was wrong. The prime minister, along with the Emperor's eunuch courtiers, concealed the death while they plotted the succession and placed carts of rotting fish in front and behind the wagon of the Emperor to disguise the smell of the decomposing corpse. They also pulled down the shade so no one could see his face, changed his clothes daily, and even brought food. He was then buried in a fantastic city-sized mausoleum which is still being excavated. His artifacts and treasures include the famous life-sized Terracotta Army which was created to protect him in the afterlife.

Death by Food:  

In Normandy in 1135, Henry I, King of England died from complications of eating a plethora of his favorite food, lampreys (an eel-type fish). Often warned by physicians to avoid eating this dish, Henry I died from post-binge food poisoning. After Henry died and was embalmed, servants sewed the body of the king inside the hide of a bull to keep it from rotting on the journey to his home in England. The body was brought to Reading where in January 1136 he was buried in front of the High Altar of the abbey that he had founded in 1121. But due to the dissolution by Henry VIII of all monasteries, his tomb's location remains a mystery.

In 1771, Adolf Frederick, King of Sweden, died of digestion problems on 12 February after having consumed a meal of lobster, caviar, sauerkraut, smoked herring and champagne, topped off with 14 servings of his favorite dessert: semla served in a bowl of hot milk. He is thus remembered by Swedish schoolchildren as "the king who ate himself to death."

Death by Sex:

The 58 year old, French president, Félix Faure died suddenly from apoplexy in the Élysée Palace on 16 February 1899, while engaged in sexual activities in his office with 30-year-old Marguerite Steinheil. It has been widely reported that Faure had his fatal seizure while Steinheil was fellating him, but the exact nature of their sexual intercourse is in fact unknown and such reports may have stemmed from various jokes made up afterward by his political opponents. One such pun was to nickname Mme Steinheil "la pompe funèbre" (wordplay in French: "pompes funèbres" means "death care business" and "pompe funèbre" could be translated, literally, as "funeral blow-job"). Who says the French don't have a sense of humor?

Death by Wildlife:

In 458 BC, Aeschylus, the ancient Greek playwright, traveled to Sicily to visit the city of Gela where he died in 456 or 455 BC. Valerius Maximus wrote that he was killed outside the city by a tortoise which had been dropped by an eagle. The eagle had mistook Aeschylus's head for a rock suitable for shattering the shell of the reptile. Pliny, in his Naturalis Historiæ, added that Aeschylus had been staying outdoors to avoid a prophecy that he would be killed by a falling object. His plan backfired.

Death by Beard:

Hans Steininger, the burgomaster of Braunau, Austria, was famous for having at that time what was the world's longest beard (it was 4.5 feet long) and for dying because of it. One day in 1567, there was a fire in town and in his haste Hans forgot to roll up his beard. He accidentally stepped on his beard, lost balance, stumbled, broke his neck, and died instantly! A tragic, yet bizarrely humorous way to die.

Death by Gangrene of the...:

King of Judea, Herod the Great suffered from not only kidney disease but a rare infection of the male genitalia, called Fournier's gangrene, which is described as "symptoms that include intense itching, intestinal pain, shortness of breath, convulsions, and gangrene of the genitalia." Does that mean that his sausage just rotted away??? YYYYYYOOOOWWWWCH!!! That's got to hurt!

Death by Coats:

First legislator of Ancient Greece, Draco is responsible for creating one of the first written sets of laws, a set of rules governing 7th Century BCE life in Greece. In 590 BCE, Grecian authorities held a celebration to commemorate his hard work. Unfortunately, Draco died from suffocation due to audience members tossing hundreds of coats and shirts on top of him, a common custom during that time performed to show respect. I think I'd rather they didn't show their respect.

Death While Urinating:

Roman emperor, Caracalla is remembered as one of the most notorious and unpleasant of emperors because of the massacres and persecutions he authorized and instigated throughout the Empire. He was assassinated while urinating at a roadside near Carrhae on 8 April 217 (4 days after his 29th birthday), by Julius Martialis, an officer of his personal bodyguard. There were two differing thoughts on why Martialis killed the emperor: the first, Martialis' brother had been executed a few days earlier by Caracalla on an unproven charge; the second, Martialis was resentful at not being promoted to the rank of centurion. Either way, it's pretty ballsy to kill an emperor while he's peeing.

Death by Decapitated Head:

Sigurd Eysteinsson (aka Sigurd the Mighty, ruled circa 875–892) was the second Viking Earl of Orkney. He was a leader in the Viking conquest of what is now northern Scotland. Bizarrely, he was killed by the severed head of one his enemies, Máel Brigte (nickname Máel Brigte the Bucktoothed because of his protruding teeth). Sigurd strapped Brigte's head to his saddle as a trophy of conquest, and as he rode, Máel Brigte's buckteeth grazed against Sigurd's leg, causing injury. The wound became inflamed and infected and Sigurd died as a result. How embarrassing is that?

Death by (i) Poison, (ii) Gunshot Wound (4x), (iii) Beating by Clubs, and (iv) Drowning:

According to legends, Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin (1869-1916) was first poisoned with enough cyanide to kill ten men, but he wasn't affected. So his killers shot him in the back with a revolver. Rasputin fell but later revived. So, he was shot again three more times, but Rasputin still lived. He was then clubbed, and for good measure thrown into the icy Neva River. Rasputin was finally dead for good.

Lovers On The Run - The Continuing Story of Zakia and Mohammad Ali

If you remember, approximately 6 weeks ago, I posted a blog about a modern day Romeo and Juliet story that was taking place in Afghanistan.  To recap, two young adults (Zakia, 18 and Mohammad Ali, 21) had fallen in love but because they are from different sects, their families would not allow them to wed. 

Here's an updated story:

On the first day of spring, Zakia and Mohammad Ali eloped and were wed by a mullah. But despite their marriage, all is not well. This lovely young couple are on the run from both their families - who have threatened to kill the couple and the police who have trumped up charges of bigamy and "attempted adultery." Because of these issues, the newelyweds cannot truly enjoy their honeymoon as they are constantly on the run from authorities. In the past month, they have stayed in homes of friends when they could and even slept in caves when they could not find shelter. For awhile, they were staying with distant relatives and former neighbors of Mohammad Ali in the mountains of central Afghanistan, but they were seen by another distant relative who told Mohammad Ali's father where the couple were staying. Nosy old biatch! 

Running short of money, constantly on the run, and unable to escape Afghanistan has not lessened the love this couple feels for each other. They remain committed to their relationship and want nothing more than to live their lives in peace with each other. I am glad The New York Times in continuing to follow the story.  You can read the full article here. There's a video on The New York Times website where Mohammad Ali shares his thoughts and feelings.

Zakia and Mohammad Ali, my thoughts and best wishes for your safety!!

"Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" Is So Much More Than Peculiar!

Being an English teacher, I am always on the lookout for books that I can introduce to my students in the hopes of making them lifelong readers. One of the ways I accomplish this task is by giving them books that I think they might enjoy, but of course, this can be an expensive endeavor. Last year, I discovered World Book Night - "a celebration of books and reading held on April 23, when 25,000 passionate volunteers across America give a total of half a million books within their communities to those who don’t regularly read." It's simple enough. You sign up to be a 'volunteer giver' (someone who hands out books), choose a book from the WBN list that you would like to give, and why you want to do this event. If approved, WBN sends 20 copies of the book you requested and you then gift them to others. My students are the recipients of these books. Last year, I picked Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street and they went like hotcakes. This year, I chose The New York Times bestseller Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2011) by Ransom Riggs. Having never read the book, I decided to check it out before passing copies onto my students. I am glad that I did.

Synopsis: "A mysterious island.

 An abandoned orphanage.

 A strange collection of very curious photographs.

 It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow -- impossible though it seems -- they may still be alive. 

A spine-tingling fantasy illustrated with haunting vintage photography, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children will delight adults, teens, and anyone who relishes an adventure in the shadows." (Amazon.com)

Review:  Mr. Riggs's debut novel, Miss Peregrine's, reached #1 on The New York Times Best Sellers list for children's chapter books on 29 April 2012 after being on the list for 45 weeks. It remained there until 20 May, when it dropped to the fourth spot on the list. The book dropped off the list on 9 September 2012, having spent a total of 63 weeks on the list. Pretty impressive start to what looks like a promising career.

Part fantasy, part adventure, part eccentric photo collection, this coming-of-age story received a lot of well-deserved attention after publication for the way it incorporates unusual antique photographs into the narrative. Even without the photos, this would be a gripping story, but the photos add an irresistible element of mystery. Mr. Riggs is clearly a gifted writer who decided to create a magnificent story around his collection of weirdly wonderful photographs. The first-person narration is authentic, funny, and poignant. Enthralling, magical, and spooky, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is one of the most original and captivating books I have read in a long time. A must read. The movie rights have been sold to 20th Century Fox with Tim Burton slated to direct. I cannot imagine a better choice for director.

I’m looking forward to the next volume in the series, Hollow City, which was released earlier this year!

Rating:  4 out of 5

Why Is True Happiness So Elusive?

I've been contemplating this question for...well...hmmm...my entire life. Okay, my entire ADULT life. I just cannot understand why it seems that some people (i.e., yours truly and a few other people that I know) just can't seem to find true happiness. Oh, we have moments of enjoyment and fun, but that is almost always fleeting. Four years ago, I thought I had found true happiness -- I actually stumbled upon it when I wasn't looking, and the unfortunate fact is that this happiness lasted only a few months. Then later, I figured out that it was built upon a web of lies; therefore, I question whether it really was true happiness? Can you have actually have happiness when it's built on deceit? I cannot even look back on those days with fondness because the memories are tainted by all the dishonesty and the hurt and pain that went along with it.

So I repeat the question: why is true happiness so elusive? What exactly is happiness and how do we achieve it? Is it a gift we give to ourselves or is it part of a reward system? The intangible state of simply being happy is hard to find and there are no maps or GPS trackers to help us chart a course.

My douchebag ex-therapist once told me that I don't allow myself to be happy. The word "allow" grates on my nerves and annoys me to no end. "Who doesn't allow themselves to be happy?!" I asked. "You don't," he said. "Being simply happy is difficult for you and it shouldn't be. Everyone deserves to be happy but you don't allow it."

Stated like that, I grudgingly concede that there might be a modicum, just a very small kernel, of truth in what he said. Happiness is always "somewhere, out there" in my future. It isn't that I don't enjoy ever my life. To a certain extent, I do. It's just that I don't feel content with my life pretty much all the time. My dumb mindset is that happiness should be a reward -- for meeting that deadline, for losing those 10 pounds, for doing everything right, in finding that person who will make my life complete, etc.

Many people have a hard time permitting themselves to be happy. Like myself, they tend to be 'people-pleasers' and, while that is great for their families, co-workers, and friends, it is not at all good for the individual. These individuals don't, won't, or can't find happiness. We are too busy being "the good little girl or boy," who must make sure everyone around us is happy first. Or worse, we see ourselves as unworthy, not deserving of happiness until certain goals, usually totally unattainable and defined by others, are met. For example, I can't really begin to be happy until my life meets certain conditions and those conditions vary according to where I am. Home, work, leisure -- every area has its own unique criteria for how and when I might attain happiness. Naturally, I never actually accomplish my goals because they are often unattainable so then I punish myself over these failures.

We can also fall victim to what I call the "Goldilocks Syndrome". Everything in our lives must be "just right" in order for us to be happy. Of course everything is never "just right." Life isn't like that. Nothing is ever "just right", because life is imperfect.

How we view happiness is a prime factor in achieving it. Are we looking for ecstatic, "jumping for joy" happy? Are we saying that once a certain thing "happens" we won't ever be unhappy again? That is fairy tale thinking.

Despite whatever is going on in our lives, happiness isn't something we should be putting on hold. Happiness should be attainable. It should be a feeling of satisfaction and joy for the good parts of your life and the knowledge that you are not just hanging around, waiting for something fantastic to happen.

But all too often that is exactly what we do.

Making happiness conditional will never work. Trying to reach some unrealistic goal set by someone else won't fly either. Conditions and other people cannot define or create happiness for us, only we can. It should be as natural a state as breathing. It should be, absolutely, but that is not how it is. What sinister marker in our DNA makes us gluttons for the punishment of sacrificing our goals or for believing we must postpone happiness until the exact right time?

If happiness is an intangible state of being, then, for some of us, it may very well be ever elusive and hidden from sight unless we begin to make our own happiness our priority.

Of course, all of this contemplation goes under the "physician heal thyself" category. I don't know how to find my happiness without it being tied to other things. <sigh> I don't suppose I'll ever figure this issue out during my lifetime. Therefore, I am back to hoping that my next life is some sort of animal where I don't have to worry about these types of things.