Sunday, October 18, 2026
Saturday, October 17, 2026
It's a pilot--no wonder it is so short.
In the 1963 unsold television pilot Alexander the Great, the character you are looking for is named Karonos (sometimes spelled Coronos or Coronus in scripts and captions).
He was famously played by acclaimed actor and director John Cassavetes.
In this rare "sword-and-sandals" epic, William Shatner stars as Alexander the Great, and Adam West stars as his companion Cleander. Cassavetes' character, Karonos, is one of Alexander’s key military leaders. In the plot, Karonos is a central figure who spars with Alexander over military strategy while they find themselves boxed in by the mountains and facing an ambush by the massive Persian army.
Production Details & Where to Watch
• The Project: Originally filmed in 1963 as a high-budget pilot for ABC, the network ultimately shelved it because they didn't think American audiences were interested in a weekly series about ancient Macedonian geopolitics.
• The Release: Following the massive success of Shatner in Star Trek and West in Batman, ABC dusted off the pilot and finally aired it as a standalone TV movie in 1967 to capitalize on their newfound fame.
• Where to Find It: Because it has fallen into the public domain, you can watch the entire Alexander the Great (1963) TV Pilot on YouTube. You can hear Alexander shouting out tactical orders to Karonos ("Coronus") and his infantry about midway through the battle strategy meetings!
Would you like help tracking down specific scenes between William Shatner and John Cassavetes in the pilot, or more details on
Adam West's role in the project? Try without personalization
More Critobulos--
AI Overview
In ancient history, Critobulus (also spelled Critodemus or Kritoboulos) was an eminent Greek physician of the 4th century BCE. He belonged to the famous family of the Asclepiads on the island of Kos and is most famous for serving as a military surgeon to Alexander the Great and his father, King Philip II of Macedon.
🗡️ Key Historical Milestones
• Saving King Philip II (354 BCE): Critobulus gained great renown for extracting an arrow from King Philip II's eye after the king was severely wounded during the siege of Methone. Though the king lost his eye, Critobulus successfully prevented infection and minimized facial disfigurement.
• Treating Alexander the Great (326 BCE): Years later, during Alexander's campaign against the Malli in India, the young king was shot through the chest with a deep, barbed arrow that pierced his lung.
• Defensive Medicine Pioneer: Historical accounts note that Critobulus initially hesitated to perform the high-stakes operation on Alexander. Fearing he would be executed or punished by the Macedonian army if the king died on his table, he only agreed to extract the arrow after receiving explicit immunity and formal verbal guarantees from Alexander and his generals. The surgery was a success, and Alexander survived.
Renowned Greek physician/surgeon--Critobulos--
Including results for Greek physician Critobulus
Search only for Greek physician Critabulos
AI Overview
Critobulus (often transliterated as Kritoboulos) was a renowned ancient Greek physician from the 4th century BC. He belonged to the prestigious medical family of the Asclepiades of Cos Island and practiced medicine following the traditional Hippocratic School.
Brill +2
He is most famous in history for serving as the royal physician to King Philip II of Macedon (the father of Alexander the Great).
National Institutes of Health (NIH) | (.gov) +1
The Treatment of Philip II's Eye Injury
Critobulus’s most celebrated medical achievement occurred during the Siege of Methone (355–354 BC). While inspecting siege engines, King Philip II was struck in the right eye by a stray arrow.
ScienceDirect.com +2
Critobulus performed a highly delicate and critical surgical operation to save the king's life. Using specialized ancient instruments—historically referenced as the "spoon of Diocles"—he successfully extracted the arrowhead from the orbital cavity. He managed the postoperative care using anti-inflammatory herbal treatments. Although Philip was left blind in that eye and bore a prominent vertical scar, Critobulus was widely praised by ancient historians like Pliny for completing the operation with minimal facial disfigurement.
National Institutes of Health (NIH) | (.gov) +5
Association with Alexander the Great
Historical and medical texts sometimes connect Critobulus to the campaigns of Alexander the Great as well. According to Roman historian Quintus Curtius, a doctor named Critobulus was present in India in 326 BC and extracted a deeply embedded, barbed arrow from Alexander’s chest after a battle against the Malli tribe. While some ancient accounts treat this as the same physician, modern scholars note that given the 30-year timeframe, this could potentially have been his son or a closely related physician of the same medical lineage (sometimes noted as Critodemus).
Brill +1
Aristotle on dreams--copied and pasted from wikipedia--
Dreams
Further information: Dream § Other
Aristotle describes sleep in On Sleep and Wakefulness.[135] It is a result of overuse of the senses[136] or of digestion,[137] and is vital to the body.[136] While a person is asleep, the critical activities, which include thinking, sensing, recalling and remembering, do not function. Since a person cannot sense during sleep, they cannot have desire. However, the senses work during sleep,[136] albeit differently.[135]
Dreams do not involve sensing a stimulus. Sensation is involved, but in an altered manner.[136] Aristotle explains that when a person stares at a moving stimulus such as the waves in a body of water, and then looks away, the next thing they look at appears to have a wavelike motion. When a person perceives a stimulus and it is no longer the focus of their attention, it leaves an impression.[135] When the body is awake, a person constantly encounters new stimuli and so the impressions of previous stimuli are ignored.[136] However, during sleep the impressions made throughout the day are noticed, free of distractions.[135] So, dreams result from these lasting impressions. Since impressions are all that are left, dreams do not resemble waking experience.[138] During sleep, a person is in an altered state of mind, like a person who is overtaken by strong feelings. For example, a person who has a strong infatuation with someone may begin to think they see that person everywhere. Since a person sleeping is in a suggestible state and unable to make judgements, they become easily deceived by what appears in their dreams, like the infatuated person.[135] This leads them to believe the dream is real, even when the dreams are absurd.[135] In De Anima iii 3, Aristotle ascribes the ability to create, to store, and to recall images to the faculty of imagination, phantasia.[119]
One component of Aristotle's theory disagrees with previously held beliefs. He claimed that dreams are not foretelling and not sent by a divine being. Aristotle reasoned that instances in which dreams resemble future events are simply coincidences.[139] Any sensory experience perceived while a person is asleep, such as actually hearing a door close, does not qualify as part of a dream. Images of dreams must be a result of lasting impressions of waking sensory experiences.[138]
Friday, October 16, 2026
Zagros Mountains near the Strait of Hormuz--from wikipedia
See also: Geology of Iran
SRTM shaded relief anaglyph of Zagros Mountains
The Zagros Mountains from space, September 1992[4]
The Zagros fold and thrust belt was mainly formed by the collision of two tectonic plates, the Eurasian Plate and the Arabian Plate.[5] This collision mainly happened during the Miocene (about 25–5 mya) and folded the entirety of the rocks that had been deposited from the Paleozoic (541–242 mya) to the Cenozoic (66 mya – present) in the passive continental margin on the Arabian Plate. However, the obduction of Neotethys oceanic crust during the Cretaceous (145–66 mya), and the continental arc collision in the Eocene (56–34 mya) both had major effects on uplifts in the northeastern parts of the belt.
The process of collision continues to the present, and as the Arabian Plate is being pushed against the Eurasian Plate, the Zagros Mountains and the Iranian plateau are getting higher and higher. Recent GPS measurements in Iran[6] have shown that this collision is still active and the resulting deformation is distributed non-uniformly in the country, mainly taken up in the major mountain belts like Alborz and Zagros. A relatively dense GPS network which covered the Iranian Zagros[7] also proves a high rate of deformation within the Zagros.
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
Alexandros--
Alexander the Great (born 356 bce, Pella, Macedonia [northwest of ThessalonÃki, Greece]—died June 13, 323 bce, Babylon [near Al-Ḥillah, Iraq]) was the king of Macedonia (336–323 bce), who overthrew the Achaemenid Empire, carried Macedonian arms to India, and laid the foundations for the Hellenistic world of territorial kingdoms. Already in his lifetime the subject of fabulous stories, he later became the hero of a full-scale legend bearing only the sketchiest resemblance to his historical career.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alexander-the-Great
First invasion of Thrace--
Left in charge of Macedonia in 340 during Philip’s attack on Byzantium, Alexander defeated the Maedi, a Thracian people. Two years later he commanded the left wing at the Battle of Chaeronea, in which Philip defeated the allied Greek states, and displayed personal courage in breaking the Sacred Band of Thebes, an elite military corps composed of 150 pairs of lovers. A year later Philip divorced Olympias, and, after a quarrel at a feast held to celebrate his father’s new marriage, Alexander and his mother fled to Epirus, and Alexander later went to Illyria. Shortly afterward, father and son were reconciled and Alexander returned, but his position as heir was jeopardized.
Tuesday, October 13, 2026
AI overview--which is del Toro's best work? I preferJustin Cronin--and books--
AI Overview
Pan's Labyrinth (2006) is widely considered Guillermo del Toro's greatest and most defining masterpiece.
Key Contenders for Del Toro's Best Work
Pan's Labyrinth (2006): A dark historical fantasy set in post-Civil War Spain that uses fairy-tale iconography to examine fascist oppression and childhood escapism. It holds a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
The Shape of Water (2017): A romantic cold-war fantasy that won Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director.
The Devil's Backbone (2001): A haunting ghost story set during the Spanish Civil War that established his signature mix of political weight and supernatural melancholy.
Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022): A stop-motion animated dark fable that won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008): A vibrant, monster-filled comic book adaptation prai
Del Toro--all the movies are vampires? or Kindle or audio versions (books) so
if I were you I would buy a used copy of Cabinet of Curiosities--wh is some what like Leonardo's notebooks.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F956QSH1?lv=shuf&hvlocphy=9007767&hvptwo=&hvnetw=g&mcid=&hvext=372714064624&hvadid=813007538639&language=en_US&hvpone=&hvlocint=&hvcampaign=23946688021&hydadcr=11254_13903796_2508725&hvpos=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvocijid=11262225408168234997--&hvqmt=a&hvexpln=0&tag=smgglusdsadts-20&hvtargid=kwl-2484167636399&adgrpid=195855868725&hvrand=11262225408168234997&channelId=500&ref_=&plpRedirect=mhFallback&asin=B0F956QSH1&revisionId=&format=4&depth=1
Just 2 days ago--
The latest flood follows another major flood-generating event in the same valley in April 2024, when a massive ice avalanche from the snout of the Manaslu Glacier plunged into Birendra Tal and triggered a sudden overflow into the Budhi Gandaki River. A detailed ICIMOD-led assessment found that event was caused by displacement of lake water following the ice avalanche, rather than a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF). Together, the two events highlight the range of hazards capable of generating destructive floods in Himalayan river systems and the importance of monitoring multiple sources of risk.
https://www.icimod.org/press-releases/landslide-dam-breach-may-have-triggered-budhi-gandaki-flash-flood/
“Coming so soon after the Gyirong-Rasuwa disaster, this event is another reminder of how exposed mountain communities and river corridors remain to sudden, cascading hazards,” said Pema Gyamtsho, Director General of ICIMOD. “While response efforts must remain the immediate priority, understanding what triggered this flood will be critical for reducing future risks and strengthening resilience.”
The Budhi Gandaki flood also highlights the vulnerability of settlements, transport networks, energy infrastructure and essential services located along mountain river corridors. As response efforts continue, a better understanding of how slope instability, river dynamics and downstream exposure interact will be critical for risk reduction, infrastructure planning and recovery efforts in the Himalaya.
Monday, October 12, 2026
Saturday, October 10, 2026
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)