17 March 2009

You know it's a no-fly day

With the arrival of the hot season marks the beginning of sandstorm season. With some days having visibility of roughly 100 meters, that means no flying. Even the birds declare maintenance days.

I noted that you can instantly tell when a sandstorm is in the area by the conversation in the tactical operations center. For example, when there's a sandstorm in the area, and flying ceases, you will get conversations like the one I had the other day on Joseph Campbell and Mithratic cults.

Me: "You ever think that Mithratic Cults are to Christianity what The Hidden Fortress was to Star Wars?"

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

A valid observation, but there were other influences. The worship of Sol Invictus being the most important; it's why we commemorate the sabbath on 'sunday' and celebrate Christmas on December 25.
That said, a lot of the seeming imitation in Christianity just reflects attempts by the early church to directly replace the older mystery religions that were popular at the time. How better to get the message across that you are the new and only game in town than to take over the old religions' holy days, sacred spaces and rites? It enables an easier transition from old to new as well, because people feel don't feel like there have been radical changes in their lives. So what might look like syncretic adoption of customs from another mysterious gnosis is really just good marketing. The early church was good at that stuff.

So you managed to combine Army aviation, weather and Late Antiquity into one blog post. Very cool! You must share the genius of this blog with a wider audience somehow.

Starbuck said...

"Syncretic"

That was the word we were looking for! Someone was trying to think of that word and kept saying "Synergistic", "synapsis, eh, wait, let me get the dictionary".