Math, Memory, and Medes

"All the talks about nationalities, etcetera, well, the new age has very little patience for history. History is becoming more and more irrelevant" ( President Shimon Peres of Israel, interviewed by David Shankbone of Wikinews, 9 Jan. 2008)

Or is history becoming more and more relevant?

"Why should I bother my child with memory when he can buy a computer that will remember everything you asked him to remember?" (Shimon Peres, Wikinews)

Yeah, but can your child's memory be hacked, unplugged and stolen? Hmm, I suppose so, although it takes several years of "education" to achieve the hacked, unplugged, and stolen memory.

"Forget memory. Look, the new age is unprecedented. When something is unprecedented, it means it doesn't have a past, doesn't have a history. It's totally oriented on the future. And whoever dwells in the past, doesn't understand the future because the past is full of prejudices, of commitments. It arrests us. And then you say you won't commit a mistake, so you'll commit new mistakes." (Shimon Peres)

The Bard, bites his lip, wishes he could find a haggis to plug up the unprecedented arrogance of these words.

"The modern economy is based on global companies that don't have armies, don't have police; that don't have laws. They are based on good will, on inventions." (Shimon Peres)

And here, the Bard snorts. He would like to say, it better, truthfully, but the only words that come out are the ones written on the wall during a wild party many years ago, the number of what mankind has become: "MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN"

MENE can mean "numbered," "mina," which is an old measure of money. TEKEL, "shekel," (schmekle!) also a measure of money, can mean "weighed." UPHARSIN "Parsin" and "Peres" in the singular (also punning on "Persian," since they're about to crash the party and invade the kingdom any moment). Parsin means "to divide into many," while in the singular, Peres, it means to divide one time.

And so, we can see, through money, math, and weights what happens when one forgets their history and forgets to use their memory. If darling Belshazzar had remembered the story of his grandpa's grass grazing days, perhaps, his empire would not have been overrun with Persians and Medes. But alas, he was weighed in the balances and fell short. Perhaps, if he'd had his electronic memory gadgets on him he would have been able to Google, or find the file with the story. Thank goodness, that Daniel could still remember to refresh Belshazzar before he was killed that night.