Category: Inspiration

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Thermopylae

Monument of Leonidas

A story that has been told a thousand times and will continue.
Xerxes had spent years planning his invasion of Greece. It was to be his ‘divine punishment’ for his father Darius’ crushing defeat at Marathon in 490 BC. Now, a decade later, he had spared no expense in preparing a vast expeditionary force.By the spring of 480 Xerxes’ army had reached Macedonia in the north of Greece. In response a contingent of 300 Spartans and several thousand allies were sent to occupy the narrow mountain pass of Thermopylae, not far from the Greek fleet that was anchored off the nearby coast at Artemisium.
It was a suicide mission, designed to detain the Persians just long enough for the rest of the Greek allies to gather their forces. Led by King Leonidas, the Spartans heroically held the Persians at bay for nearly a week until – outnumbered, betrayed and outflanked – they were finally defeated.
The Spartan sacrifice at Thermopylae was not in vain. In 479 BC Greece was at last free from the threat of eastern domination. After the war, a plaque was erected to commemorate the stand of Leonidas and his men with the inscription –
“ Ὦ ξεῖν’, ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε κείμεθα, τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι”, which means: “Stranger, tell Spartans that we lay here, staying faithful to Sparta’s laws.”
Molon Labe-Ancient Greek for “come and take them,” monument of Leonidas💙Thermopylae central Greece
Heroic though it was, the stand at Thermopylae was only a holding action to allow the Peloponnesians to fortify the Isthmus at Corinth and the Athenians to complete the evacuation of the city. Once Thermopylae was overrun the allied Greek fleet withdrew to the bay of Salamis. The Corinthians wanted to withdraw to south of the Isthmus and mocked the now city-less Athenians led by Themistocles. He tricked the Persians into committing their attack on the Greek fleet in the narrows of the Bay of Salamis before the Greeks could disperse. It is suggested that the Corintho-Athenian spat was a put up job to fool the Persians’ spies that the Greeks were disunited and therefore easy pickings.
The result of the Battle of Salamis was that the Persian fleet composed mainly of Phoenicians, Ionian Greeks and Egyptians lost control of the Aegean Sea. (The Greeks of Sicily and Italy were under a coordinated attack from the Phoenician-Carthaginians and won the Battle of Himera, purportedly on the same day as the Battle of Salamis)
Xerxes scuttled back over the Hellespont bridge to Asia Minor leaving a much reduced Persian army under Mardonius. It was defeated the following year by the allied Greek army led by Pausanias, Leonidas’ nephew, at Plataea. After the battle, so the story goes, he took the allied generals to Mardonius’ tent. He pointed to the lavish Persian food and then at the Spartans’ standard ration of porridge saying “They came to rob us of of this!”
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How Exercise Beats Depression

Just saw one of the most helpful videos I have ever seen! I took the time to transcribe it in case you cannot view the source video on Facebook.

All psychology, all neuroscience and I think this is the most interesting finding of the last decade in all of science. And this is the insight that your muscles are basically an endocrine organ that secretes hormones into your bloodstream, that affect every system of your body. Your muscles, they secrete chemicals and proteins when you exercise that are also really good for your brain health and one of the fist papers almost ten years ago that was published explaining that when you contract your muscles they literally secrete these proteins into your bloodstream that make you resilient to stress and can protect you from depression.

The scientists called them “hope molecules”, this idea that literally your muscles are manufacturing like antidepressant molecules and the only way to get them into your bloodstream where they can then travel to your brain is you have to contract your muscles. Like, that’s it! It’s like a pharmacy in your muscles and anything your do that contracts them: walking, hiking, running, dancing, weight lifting, like swimming, anything, you are going to be dumping “hope molecules” into your bloodstream that when they get to your brain they work as an antidepressant and they also help people recover from trauma. Like that… …that’s like a miracle!

Because of course it’s wonderful when medications work for you, but for so many people medications don’t work or they don’t do the full job in terms of in terms of helping with mental health and the idea that your muscles could provide you with the equivalents of something like an antidepressant medication… …that is

https://www.facebook.com/reel/292118570016169

More data on it here:

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2024/05/17/therapeutic-potential-of-exercise-for-depression.aspx

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Disinformation Bill 2023

Disinformation Bill 2023

Mind boggling hypocrisy! The government and media exempt! The two biggest parties guilty of the most lies ever! Guess they don’t like competition!

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JFK On Censorship

“A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”

“And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.”

“If this nation is to be wise as well as strong, if we are to achieve our destiny, then we need more new ideas for more wise men reading more good books in more public libraries. These libraries should be open to all—except the censor. We must know all the facts and hear all the alternatives and listen to all the criticisms. Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors. For the Bill of Rights is the guardian of our security as well as our liberty.”

JFK