Balladeer’s Blog presents another examination of an ancient Greek political satire. This comedy by Aristophanes was one that I was planning on covering very soon when I started posting my reviews of Attic Old Comedy years ago. For various reasons it kept falling by the wayside.
Where am I going with this? For Aristophanes’ line “In Cloud-Cuckooland things become what they are called rather than being called what they are” make it “In Ivory Towerland things become what they are called rather than being called what they are.” But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The Birds is Aristophanes’ lengthiest surviving comedy and also the most analyzed (some would say over-analyzed). So much has already been written about this particular work that I’ve decided to forego my usual intensive examination of every scene. Instead I’ll go with a brief synopsis followed by a way I feel The Birds could be adapted (as opposed to translated) for the present day.
SYNOPSIS
More than 2,300 years before George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984, Aristophanes was dealing with some of the same political themes.
Pisthetaerus and Euelpides, Athenians feeling alienated by the increasingly restrictive laws and lawsuits of their home city have left Athens behind to start over with a new society. Part of the comedy centers around the ages-old theme of how those who seek to overthrow oppression often wind up becoming the new oppressors themselves. (Think of the 1960s generation of American liberals who became just as oppressive as they claimed previous generations had been)
Another Orwellian theme finds Aristophanes satirizing the way in which the ruling class in any society uses and corrupts language to strengthen the subjugation of the populace. The Birds even features the importance of religious and historical myths in any culture as the leaders of the new civilization conjure up an all-new cosmology with “the birds” at the center to justify their own rule. Continue reading
ONE SEED 
TWO SEED 
MOSHIRI – Also called Moshiri-Kara. This Ainu deity falls under the global mythological category called Divine Geographers like Inugpasug from the Inuit pantheon, Khong Lo from the Vietnamese pantheon, Halmang from the Korean pantheon and Rapeto from the Merina pantheon in Madagascar. 
NOR-CAL ROUND ONE – GAME ONE – The COLLEGE OF MARIN MARINERS welcomed their First Round opponents the CANADA COLLEGE COLTS. After a scoreless 1st Inning the Colts took a 1-0 lead in the 2nd and 2-0 in the 3rd before the 4th Inning ended with Canada College leading the Mariners by a score of 3-2. Neither team scored again until the 7th, when the College of Marin belted in SIX runs and rode them the rest of the way for an 8-3 victory. Mariners Pitcher Cooper Casad picked up the win. 
KALTHAR THE GIANT MAN 
TOHONO O’ODHAM COLLEGE JEGOS 
MEN 
Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of the grand and exciting Hawaiian epic about the goddesses Pele and Hi’iaka. 
Balladeer's Blog 