Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Happy REAL Lincoln's Birthday
Well my birthday was less boring than I'd feared, in fact it was enjoyable. Two friends of mine who keep a small shop in Bascarsija came over for coffee. They brought me a lovely pashmina for my birthday, and we hung out drinking coffee, eatting bits of suho meso and just chatting. Then because one of the two has kind of a long commute, they left. I really enjoyed having them over, and hope they will come again.
The latest news here is the border police and the SIPA police have threatened a job action. They are not exactly well paid, and they do very hard work. SIPA busts organized crime and war criminals. So they need to be properly compensated, that is dangerous work.
Border police need to be paid well enough that they won't be tempted into corruption. I don't care what country we are talking about, border police face temptations.
Ah here is my fun stuff about Lincoln.
Abraham Lincoln was one of a very few GOOD Republican presidents, Eisenhower makes the cut, but aside from him or Eisenhower, Republican presidents have as far as I am concerned, either been disastorous or with God's Grace, they have been mediocre. Mediocre isn't so bad. In fact mediocre means no wars, no disasters, no having to save the nation because the stock market crashed.
I think I have mentioned before that the United States has more ties with the Balkans than people generally think. 1. Democracy, a Balkans invention, it started in Greece, which is in the Balkans.
2. Anyone with royal blood probably has some Bosnian ancestry, either from Jelena Grub, who really was Serbian, or from Jelisveta od Bosna, who really and truely was Bosnian. She was power hungry, but very learned.
She was the mother of Queen Jadwiga of Poland, and Maria of Hungary.
Quite a few famous Americans descent at some point from Jelisveta.
No LIncold was NOT one of them.
There is in America a little known and rather secretive minority group called Melungeons. There have been DNA tests on Melungeons because they have diseases which occur primarily among people of Turkish descent, and people from Bosnia. Mostly Melungeons have Irish, or English names, they don't however look all that Irish or English. Their coloring is darker. They were discriminated against, and another thing, they did not have problems with inter-racial marriage. They tended to go far ahead of the Anglo-Saxon settlers and the settlers of Celtic descent, into the woods. They intermarried with Blacks as well, so some Melungeons are Indian enough to be enrolled in various tribes, others look Black.
Famous people with probable Melungeon descent include Elvis Presley, and Abraham Lincoln, on his mother's side.
The Melungeons are thought to be descended from people on a slave ship that broke up in a storm off the Carolinas. They made it ashore and were helped to survive by local Native Americans.
Melungeons began to organize themselves in the late 1990s. There is also a lot of nonsense written about them.
The solidly known information is that they do have certain DNA ties to Turkey, and to the Western Balkans, and they have been in what became the United States a very long time. I first heard about them from my late mother, who sent me a few short articles about them.
Since now the U.S. marks the birthdays of Washington and Lincoln, and honors all presidents in one day, President's Day, the 15, rather than have two three day weekends in February, I am honoring Melungeons today. :)
The latest news here is the border police and the SIPA police have threatened a job action. They are not exactly well paid, and they do very hard work. SIPA busts organized crime and war criminals. So they need to be properly compensated, that is dangerous work.
Border police need to be paid well enough that they won't be tempted into corruption. I don't care what country we are talking about, border police face temptations.
Ah here is my fun stuff about Lincoln.
Abraham Lincoln was one of a very few GOOD Republican presidents, Eisenhower makes the cut, but aside from him or Eisenhower, Republican presidents have as far as I am concerned, either been disastorous or with God's Grace, they have been mediocre. Mediocre isn't so bad. In fact mediocre means no wars, no disasters, no having to save the nation because the stock market crashed.
I think I have mentioned before that the United States has more ties with the Balkans than people generally think. 1. Democracy, a Balkans invention, it started in Greece, which is in the Balkans.
2. Anyone with royal blood probably has some Bosnian ancestry, either from Jelena Grub, who really was Serbian, or from Jelisveta od Bosna, who really and truely was Bosnian. She was power hungry, but very learned.
She was the mother of Queen Jadwiga of Poland, and Maria of Hungary.
Quite a few famous Americans descent at some point from Jelisveta.
No LIncold was NOT one of them.
There is in America a little known and rather secretive minority group called Melungeons. There have been DNA tests on Melungeons because they have diseases which occur primarily among people of Turkish descent, and people from Bosnia. Mostly Melungeons have Irish, or English names, they don't however look all that Irish or English. Their coloring is darker. They were discriminated against, and another thing, they did not have problems with inter-racial marriage. They tended to go far ahead of the Anglo-Saxon settlers and the settlers of Celtic descent, into the woods. They intermarried with Blacks as well, so some Melungeons are Indian enough to be enrolled in various tribes, others look Black.
Famous people with probable Melungeon descent include Elvis Presley, and Abraham Lincoln, on his mother's side.
The Melungeons are thought to be descended from people on a slave ship that broke up in a storm off the Carolinas. They made it ashore and were helped to survive by local Native Americans.
Melungeons began to organize themselves in the late 1990s. There is also a lot of nonsense written about them.
The solidly known information is that they do have certain DNA ties to Turkey, and to the Western Balkans, and they have been in what became the United States a very long time. I first heard about them from my late mother, who sent me a few short articles about them.
Since now the U.S. marks the birthdays of Washington and Lincoln, and honors all presidents in one day, President's Day, the 15, rather than have two three day weekends in February, I am honoring Melungeons today. :)
# posted by Katja R. @ 1:41 AM 
