From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V6 #9 Reply-To: chakram-refugees@smoe.org Sender: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk chakram-refugees-digest Wednesday, January 11 2006 Volume 06 : Number 009 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [chakram-refugees] 203UB313 (was Planet Xena) [KLOSSNER9@aol.com] [chakram-refugees] [chakram] Legacy - not Arabs [KLOSSNER9@aol.com] [chakram-refugees] OT: Second Reminder Free Xena Comics at Burbank Con [] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 20:20:17 EST From: KLOSSNER9@aol.com Subject: [chakram-refugees] 203UB313 (was Planet Xena) I am watching NOVA Science Now on PBS. This program has short pieces on several subjects. One subject was Planet Xena. They said that the correct name for the object is 2003UB313. That will remain the name until the authorities who decide these things decide whether it is a planet or not. The program said that Xena/UB313 is an icy object and that if it was as close to the sun as Earth is, it would partially melt and would have a tail like a comet. This is a strong argument that it is not a true planet. See-- _http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3302/01.html_ (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3302/01.html) They interviewed a guy from the team which named it Planet Xena and showed brief clips of Xena fighting and of Gabrielle not fighting. Boeotian ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 20:44:53 EST From: KLOSSNER9@aol.com Subject: [chakram-refugees] [chakram] Legacy - not Arabs The long thread on Legacy included a post which referred to the North Africans as "Arabs." But the episode took place in the 1st century A.D. - probably. It took place during the Roman Empire, so it was before North Africans became Arabs. The people shown in the episode were Berbers, the ancient people of North Africa. Arabs are people who speak Arabic as their principle language. In the ancient world Arabs lived only in the Arabian Peninsula, the only place where Arabic was spoken. In the 7th century Mohammed proclaimed Islam and soon after his death Arabs Muslims defeated the Byzantine and Persian Empires and made the Middle East both Moslem and (in most places except Iran) Arabic-speaking. The Arabs conquered North Africa about 700 A.D. A Berber queen called the Kahina (a title, not a name) opposed the Arab conquest. She was defeated and killed. Melissa Good used her title as the name of her character. Only after 700 did Berbers begin to speak Arabic and therefore became Arabs. Today some North Africans still speak Berber languages, while most speak Arabic. I wrote two articles about this for Whoosh. Whoosh 85 has my article on the historical Kahina. Whoosh 90 has my article Middle Easterners in Xena: Warrior Princess, in which I argue that while Renaissance Pictures was fair to other ethnic groups they treated Middle Eastern, non-Jewish groups, the groups which most viewers would take to be Arab, in stereotyped ways. Since Arabs lived only in Arabia in ancient times, it is likely that there were no real Arabs in any Xena episode. The non-Jewish Middle Eastern groups seen in Xena, including the North African Berbers in Legacy, were the ancestors of people who (mostly) became Arabs later. These pre-Arab, non-Jewish Middle-Easterners and North Africans are often assumed to be Arabs by viewers. Boeotian ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 22:03:41 -0500 From: "bookdaft" Subject: [chakram-refugees] OT: Second Reminder Free Xena Comics at Burbank Con Announcement take 2: I am sending this out to remind those people who are going to Burbank that I am prepared to take some of the Xena comics I have and give them away to those who request them. Send me an e-mail privately and I will get back to you. If you have already contacted me from my prior posting, there is no need to contact me again. I will try to send instructions to you privately, but I may run out of time. So I am including the following information: Here's what I'm doing: my seat number is B-37. You can stop by and make arrangements to pick up the comic if I'm there. I'm also planning on sitting in the Hilton hotel lobby with the comics probably in the morning before the each day's opening (except Friday) and possibly before Friday and Saturday night's entertainment. You can recognize me by the Harley-type Xena jacket I'll have with me. And I'll post something to the message board if it's there. If you have any questions, get back to me by Wednesday. I'm flying out Thursday morning, Eastern time. bd ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ End of chakram-refugees-digest V6 #9 ************************************