On this day:
53
Roman Emperor Nero marries Claudia Octavia.
62
Claudia Octavia is executed.
68
Roman Emperor Nero commits suicide, after quoting Homer’s Iliad, thus ending the Julio-Claudian Dynasty and starting the civil year known as the Year of the Four Emperors.
721
Odo of Aquitaine defeats the Moors in the Battle of Toulouse.
1924
In the second attempt to climb Mount Everest, George Mallory and Andrew “Sandy” Irvine disappear, possibly having first made it to the top.
1973
Secretariat wins the Triple Crown.
***
Pentecost means "fifty," as the fiftieth week of the year. In the Old Testament, it refers to the giving of the Ten Commandments and signifies the new direction of the New Testament. Christ reappears to the fearful apostles, reinvigorates them, and then breathes upon them, infusing the spirit of the New Testament and the abilities to carry out their evangelism. "Whose sins you forgive..." essentially creates a church structure.
In England, it is--or was--the feast of Whitsun, so changed after the Norman Conquest. Whitsun is a contraction of "White Sunday," attributed to the white vestments catechumens wore on the day. Eventually, white (hwitte) began to be confused with wit or understanding, not entirely inappropriate for the occasion. It was a significant holiday and celebration in its time and began to substitute for more secular spring celebrations.
The word for "Spirit" in Greek has several meanings; it also can mean "wind" and "breath." Christ does breathe on the apostles, and the Spirit is often described as a great wind. One ancient writer describes the Holy Spirit as Christ's last expired breath on the cross.
Breath is, of course, different from wind, which can be destructive, even in the scorching Middle East. But Christ's breath is gentle; it seems there is no downside here, no risk. Unless to the recipient who internalizes it. Of the apostles--who all, save John, abandoned Christ to die alone--after Pentecost, all (except maybe John) died for Christ's message.
In our cautious and uncertain world, Pentecost might be more safely observed from a window.
62
Claudia Octavia is executed.
68
Roman Emperor Nero commits suicide, after quoting Homer’s Iliad, thus ending the Julio-Claudian Dynasty and starting the civil year known as the Year of the Four Emperors.
721
Odo of Aquitaine defeats the Moors in the Battle of Toulouse.
1924
In the second attempt to climb Mount Everest, George Mallory and Andrew “Sandy” Irvine disappear, possibly having first made it to the top.
1973
Secretariat wins the Triple Crown.
***
Gretta Thunberg, Time's 2019 Person of the Year, was diverted along with her aid ship, to Israel.
Her net worth is estimated at 1-2 million dollars.
***
A remarkable story out of Russia. A Moscow-based disinformation network named “Pravda” — the Russian word for “truth” — is pursuing an ambitious strategy by deliberately infiltrating the retrieved data of artificial intelligence chatbots, publishing false claims and propaganda for the purpose of affecting the responses of AI models on topics in the news rather than by targeting human readers, NewsGuard has confirmed. By flooding search results and web crawlers with pro-Kremlin falsehoods, the network is distorting how large language models process and present news and information. The result: Massive amounts of Russian propaganda — 3,600,000 articles in 2024 — are now incorporated in the outputs of Western AI systems, infecting their responses with false claims and propaganda.
This infection of Western chatbots was foreshadowed in a talk American fugitive turned Moscow-based propagandist John Mark Dougan gave in Moscow last January at a conference of Russian officials, when he told them, “By pushing these Russian narratives from the Russian perspective, we can actually change worldwide AI.”
***
This infection of Western chatbots was foreshadowed in a talk American fugitive turned Moscow-based propagandist John Mark Dougan gave in Moscow last January at a conference of Russian officials, when he told them, “By pushing these Russian narratives from the Russian perspective, we can actually change worldwide AI.”
***
Pentecost
Pentecost, observed 7 weeks after Easter, is a complex day in the Church's history and meaning.Pentecost means "fifty," as the fiftieth week of the year. In the Old Testament, it refers to the giving of the Ten Commandments and signifies the new direction of the New Testament. Christ reappears to the fearful apostles, reinvigorates them, and then breathes upon them, infusing the spirit of the New Testament and the abilities to carry out their evangelism. "Whose sins you forgive..." essentially creates a church structure.
In England, it is--or was--the feast of Whitsun, so changed after the Norman Conquest. Whitsun is a contraction of "White Sunday," attributed to the white vestments catechumens wore on the day. Eventually, white (hwitte) began to be confused with wit or understanding, not entirely inappropriate for the occasion. It was a significant holiday and celebration in its time and began to substitute for more secular spring celebrations.
The word for "Spirit" in Greek has several meanings; it also can mean "wind" and "breath." Christ does breathe on the apostles, and the Spirit is often described as a great wind. One ancient writer describes the Holy Spirit as Christ's last expired breath on the cross.
Breath is, of course, different from wind, which can be destructive, even in the scorching Middle East. But Christ's breath is gentle; it seems there is no downside here, no risk. Unless to the recipient who internalizes it. Of the apostles--who all, save John, abandoned Christ to die alone--after Pentecost, all (except maybe John) died for Christ's message.
In our cautious and uncertain world, Pentecost might be more safely observed from a window.
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