Heavenly Beautiful Helen Mirren

I am going to be disobedient only for today and write because of a statement I saw in the newpaper this morning.

Last night I did not watch The Academy Awards. Actually I have not viewed the show since the early 1990s, and that was when I was in Peace Corps in Botswana. There a condensed two hour version of the show was beamed in from South Africa. Those Batswana with television sets soaked up the program.

Over the years I have become less and less of a TV watcher since there is so little on the tube that interests me. Also TV watching is so passive, and I love to partake in activities where I can participate and contribute. The fare on US television is so pedestrian or too salacious nowadays that I really do not want to waste my time.

Anyhow, this morning when I glanced at the section of my town's/city's newspaper, I rather liked the comment made about award winning actress Helen Mirren (62), "A-A-R-P and H-O-T!" AARP is an abbreviation for the American Association of Retired Persons a non-profit organization whose mission is to enhance the lives of people over 50. My parents receive their monthly magazine. Dame Helen Mirren is a British citizen, so she would not qualify for the organization's services.

I have been fascinated by Helen Mirren since I first saw her playing the part of King Arthur's evil sister Morgana in the 1981 movie Excalibur. She could easily pass for an older sister of my Russian friend Tanya. As it so happens, Ms. Mirren is the paternal granddaughter of a Russian nobleman, soldier, and diplomat who was stranded with his family in England when the Russian Revolution broke out in 1917, and her great great grandfather Mikhail Kamensky was a hero during the Napoleonic Wars. Dame Helen's stage name is Helen Mirren but her birth name is the very Russian Ilyena Vasilievna Mironov. However, she is not fluent in Russian.

It is said that as wine ages it gets better. Helen Mirren shows that this can also be true with some people. She was stunning and stately last night as more photos which can be seen here can attest.

Helen Mirren describes herself as being "famous for being cool about not being gorgeous."

Baghdad In the Past

This is a video of sights in old Baghdad. Most of what is seen here is long before the Saddam era.

Night Ride Across the Caucasus

The photo above was taken by the Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorski in the early 1900s in Dagestan in the Caucasus.

Though small the Caucasus or Caucasia is one of the most linguistically, ethnically, and culturally diverse regions on earth. The region is bordered by Russia, Turkey, Iran, and the Caspian and Black Seas.

The following video is called Night Ride Across the Caucasus. The singer is Loreena McKennitt.

Some Americans may remember what some call Russia's equivalent to 9/11, the Beslan School Massacre, where over 300 civilians who were mostly children were killed by Chechen militants on September 1, 2004. Beslan is in the northern Caucasus.

Also for the readers of this blog, I plan to write posts here only on weekends.

Enjoy this positively breathtaking video.

Three Romantically Handsome American Actors

Three Romantically handsome American actors who give me chills not solely because of their good looks but also because of their immense talents are Denzel Washington, George Clooney, and Johnny Depp.

Denzel who is the eldest at 53 is a two time Academy Award winner.

George, who is 46, has received an Oscar once. Johnny (44) has been nomimated three times.

In tonight's 2008 Oscars, both Clooney and Depp are nominees, with Clooney for his role in Michael Clayton and Depp as Sweeney Todd.

Like me Clooney and Depp are southerners. Both were born in Kentucky. Also like me, Depp is of partial Native American ancestry. As for age, I am right in the middle between Clooney and Depp.

I see all three gentlemen as Renaissance men who are different and unique in their own way and with qualities that I admire. Clooney is not only an actor, producer, director, and screenwriter, he is also an activist. Depp has chosen to go his own way not only in the roles he chooses to play, but he has decided to not live the typical lifestyle of existing in vapid Hollywood, but resides in France immensed in old world charm with his lover French actress and singer Vanessa Paradis. Washington is also a director now, and unlike his counterparts he is married and has never been divorced, an extreme rarity in Hollywood. His church going grounds him, for he is a devout Christian. His father, Denzel Washington, Sr. was a Pentecostal minister He was born in New York, but his mother came from Georgia, my state.

Looks are not everything, but if I could pick a man with all the accoutrements that I like, I would pick one of these three. It is not about money for me either. It is about hard work, dedication, charisma, and sophistication, and all three have these qualities.

With the state of the African-American male being so pathetic with high incarceration rates, illiteracy, and irresponsibility, Denzel Washington is a rarity in so many ways just like Barack Obama. My mother has said several times that if I had been able to meet Denzel before he married and we had been attracted to each other, he would have been the perfect man for me.

An American and Napoleonic Romance: Jerome Bonaparte and Elizabeth Patterson

In my post on Prince Charles Napoleon the great great nephew of Napoleon, I promised to write about the great grandfather of the "latest Bonaparte" on the scene.

Prince Charles Napoleon's grandfather was Jerome Bonaparte the youngest sibling of Napoleon. He was born in Ajaccio, Corsica in 1784. Jerome entered the French navy, and while on a stop over in Maryland, he was welcomed into Baltimore high society where he met a beautiful young woman named Elizabeth "Betsy" Patterson (born 1785).

Betsy was the daughter of the second richest man in the state, William Patterson, a merchant who was an immigrant from Ireland. When they met in August 1803 it was love at first sight for the handsome, dashing Jerome and the lovely, witty, and cultured Betsy who was fluent in French. The two were captivated with each other, but Betsy's father was extremely cautious. Though he did not entirely doubt the sincerity of Jerome's love for Betsy, he doubted that the ambitious Napoleon who was rapidly rising in Europe would approve of his young brother marrying an American without noble blood and without his permission. Jerome's prospects seemed too good for him to get bogged down in America, so Betsy's father hesitated for at least for awhile. However, by Christmas Eve 1803 William Patterson's reluctance had evaporated, and Jerome and Betsy were married. Jerome had just turned 20, and Betsy was 18.

Once Jerome's family had learned about the union, almost everyone seemed to approve, except Napoleon. Even though Napoleon was not the eldest Bonaparte child, he had long before pushed aside his older brother Joseph to establish himself as the family's head. He made the final decision on everything including whom his brothers and sisters could marry.

When Napoleon declared himself Emperor of the French in May 1804 he ordered Jerome to come home, "without the young person to whom you have connected yourself." Sympathic to your younger brother's plight, Joseph and another brother Lucien encouraged Jerome to get American citizenship, as did also Betsy's brother. However, Napoleon was having none of it and ordered Jerome to come home immediately and for Betsy to not even think of setting foot in France.

The couple finally realized that they could not continue to ignore Napoleon's demands, so they sailed from America in one of William Patterson's ships. Betsy was pregnant. Once they arrived in Lisbon, Portugal, they saw to their dismay that Napoleon had sent a French frigate to prevent Betsy from disembarking. During their journey, Betsy had been convinced that with her charm and learning she might be able to plead their cause with Napoleon since Jerone had told her that his older brother was very susceptible to feminine beauty. But adamant, Napoleon had shown by sending a frigate to block her way, he did not want to see or speak to Betsy.

Reluctantly, Jerome left his wife to go on alone to Paris to beg Napoleon to allow them to stay together. In the meantime, Napoleon had been working fiercely to get the marriage annulled. He had gone to the pope with his demands, but had been rejected. Nevertheless, cowed by Napoleon, the imperial council of state had agreed to have the marriage declared null and void. On hearing that Jerome was on his way to Paris to see him, Napoleon wrote this letter to him:

My brother,

Your letter of this morning informs me of your arrival in Alexandria. There are no faults that a true repentance will not efface in my eyes.

Your union with Mademoiselle Paterson is null, alike in the eyes of religion and of the law. Write Mademoiselle Paterson to return to America. I will grant her a pension of 60,000 francs during her lifetime, on condition that she will under no circumstances bear my name,--she has no right to do so owing to the non-existence of her marriage.

You must yourself give her to understand that you are powerless to change the nature of things. Your marriage being thus annulled by your own consent, I will restore to you my friendship and continue to feel for you as I have done since your infancy, hoping that you will prove yourself worthy by the efforts you make to acquire my gratitude and to distinguish yourself in armies.

After Jerome's departure, Betsy's ship sailed to Amsterdam, but once again she was not allowed entry on land since now two men-of-war ships blocked her way. Seeing that she could not receive entry on this route as well, Betsy's ship sailed to England where she gave gave birth to a baby boy, Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, whom she called "Bo."

Jerome and Betsy were to never see one another again. Jerome was remarried on Napoleon's orders to a German princess, Catherine of Wurttemburg, and he was crowned King of Westphalia also in Germany. Prince Charles Napoleon whom I wrote about comes from this union of Jerome and his German princess.

Betsy never remarried. After the fall of the Napoleonic dynasty under Napoleon I, she left America for awhile and traveled in Europe being welcomed and feted in European high society as a beautiful, tragic, and intelligent curiosity. For decades she fought to have her marriage to Jerome recognized as legal and her son listed as legitimate. Oddly enough, Jerome seemed to had forgotten all feeling he once had for Betsy because he actively fought against Betsy's son having the surname of Bonaparte. With three children from his royal wife, he wanted Betsy's son to be known only as Jerome Patterson. After Jerome's death in 1860, Betsy's case was resolved and her son was recognized as a legitimate child of France. Still Betsy's long time desire that her son be accepted as a member of the Napoleonic dynasty of Europe would never come to pass. She died in 1879.

Because of the short lived union of these star-crossed lovers, there was the American Bonapartes, the line of which ended in 1945 when the last male Bonaparte died. Betsy's grandson, also named Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, was a soldier who served on the Texas frontier and who also joined the imperial French army. He received medals for his valiance in the Crimean War from not only France and the queen of England, but he even received a medal from the sultan of Turkey. Another grandson, Charles Joseph Bonaparte, served as US Secretary of the Navy and US Attorney General and was the founder of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).