Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Heads-up for 29 December 2010

Mahabharata Podcast
The Markandeya Sessions Pt. 2
The Sage Markandeya continues with his storytelling. He begins with his own version of the Four Ages or Yugas. One interesting point is that in his reckoning, the Kali Yuga lasts 1,200 years in total. Since we are told elsewhere that the Kali Yuga began for us on the death of Krishna, then the Kali Yuga must have ended centuries ago, and we happy people have made it into the next Golden Age! After an apocalyptic vision of the future, Makandeya gives us the Tale of the Frog, which culminates in a showdown between the brahmin Vamadev and a pair of stubborn kings. The brahmin, of course, comes out the victor! There are more stories to come in the next episode, so the Markandeya Sessions will continue...
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Europe from its Origins
Episode 19 AD 1347 - 1396
The long secular rise of Christendom, unbroken since the 10th century, suffered severe setbacks during the 14th. The society had reached a high level of wealth, for the elite; those working the land had a standard of life better than in some regions of the 3rd World today. There were major gains on the peripheries: in Spain the last major invasion from Morocco was successfully repulsed; in the east pagan Lithuania opted to join the European cultural realm.

But internally the society was fracturing on several levels, as new ways of thinking and new forms of claims to authority collided with one another. Civil war was the result, and from it spewed forth chaos. While this almost paralysed Christendom, the Roman Empire at Constantinople was entering its final years, as the Ottoman Turks emerged as an enormous military power and tansplanted their centre to continental Europe.
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Rear Vision
The Mossad
The story of the Israeli secret service the Mossad.
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