Obvious Observation

This was originally written on the Saturday before Thanksgiving:

Rain and a bit of hail changed our plans for the day. Mark had a couple of surprises that were postponed, so we spent hours at the Melbourne Museum, another few hours at a local bookstore, and caught a movie at a suburban mall. Unfortunately Australia doesn't come out until Wednesday, so we decided to stick with a Jason Bourne-type-movie and watched Body of Lies.

At the Melbourne Museum focused on the forest, Melbourne Story, and Aboriginal exibits. While watching a silent movie from 1910 at Melbourne Story, Mark and I burst out in sounds of shock met with laughter. We were met with awkward side-looks and turned heads. The movie showed someone getting run over by a horse. We were astonished, and coped by laughing hysterically. Why would they show a person getting run over by a horse?  Every museum should include a blooper.

After exiting the Aboriginal exibit, I was overwhelmed with feelings of guilt. Their story is somewhat like the Native American story in that their land was colonized. My history is a bit average on this topic, but my imagination got the best of me. I pictured an unkown tribal civilization that had weapons 100 times the strength of any other country. They come to and colonize, say, Europe, or the US, or China. We are bombarded w/new disease, enslaved, and/or forced to live in territories. I know the world is more in the postcolonization era, and having tribal civilizations raise their banners on Myrtle Beach is impossible, but putting myself into a different pair of shoes provoked a sense of sympothy of those who quite possibly found a more peacful way of life.

Daniel Quinn, author of Ishmael and After Dachau, offers a different perspective on the way things have progressed in the history of humankind. After Dachau tells a story about a world where WWII ended with the Axis prevailing, and paints an important picture of the aftermath. I recommend his works.  I'll let him know to write a story about my obvious observation from Australia.