June 11, 2021

One of my hobbies since I was very, very young, has been doing genealogy research for my own family. I've posted a few bits of info here and there, but as often happens during genealogy research, I had long been stymied by the inability to go back any further in my family history than I had reached many years ago. On my mom's side it was understandable; much of the way in records in Germany was destroyed during WWII so even when I physically hauled myself to Germany to do research there, I came up with absolutely nothing new. (It didn't help that it almost felt like that side of my family WANTED to stay hidden, never finding so much as a single entry in the Stuttgart public phone books of the time.)

On my dad's side it was a bit different. There was a lot more information available, and I had been able to trace a bit farther back in my family line. Because my last name is Curzio, I had always wanted to dig backward through history to find its origins and to uncover the stories of the people who did what they did, inevitably resulting in me flopping into this ridiculous existence.

One of my favorite stories while researching my Italian side was when I went to the Municipio (public records hall) in Afragola Italy. After struggling politely for a few minutes with shared smiles and chuckles with the woman behind the counter, us both trying to work through an impenetrable two-way language barrier, I improvised. I mimed for a piece of paper and a pencil which she provided, and then I wrote my name. I then drew a line upward and wrote my father's name. I drew another line upward from his name to my grandfather's name, then to his father's name, then drawing one final line from there to a question mark. I handed her the paper, pointed to the bottom name on the paper while simultaneously pointing to myself, and her face lit up. "OH!"

She started chattering in beautiful, incomprehensible Italian to her co-workers behind the window, and 3 people immediately started excitedly swarming behind her, pulling books off shelves and flipping through file cabinets. Several books were brought to the counter where I was standing, with the top one flipped open to a birth record for my great-grandfather Antonio. From that birth record I was able to get a corrected birth date, a more specific place of birth (Melito), as well as his father's name: Giovanni.

Unfortunately I had arrived at the Municipio at around 4pm on a Friday. They closed at 5, were closed over the weekend, and I was heading back to the states that Monday. Bad timing. I expressed my sincerest thanks to all of them as best I could (which they understood), and came back to the US with a small but still valuable amount of additional information. I was one step further back in my family line, which I hoped would let me continue the research.

The good news is, that information DID finally lead me to the very origins of the name Curzio within my family. The bad news is, I have reached what will very likely be a permanent brick wall preventing me - or anyone else - from ever being able to research any farther back.

Picture it: March 1, 1856. Napoli. It's around 11pm outside of the Real Casa Santa dell’Annunziata (the Royal House of the Holy Annunciation in Annunziata, Naples). A woman quietly approaches the outside of the building, and gently leaves a wrapped bundle inside of its foundling wheel. She turns the cylinder a half-turn, rings the bell, and disappears into the night. Hearing the bell, caretakers inside of the building rush over to the wheel and find only a wrapped newborn baby. Once it became clear that no one would (or could) return to claim and care for the child, the governor of the orphanage named him: Giovanni Curzio.

At the time, children abandoned at orphanages were often left with either a religious item or some kind of identifiable article of clothing which would allow the parents to return at a later time to prove a child was theirs and reclaim them. Since Giovanni was abandoned cold and had been left with absolutely nothing at all, circumstances of the period indicate that his mother was an unwed victim of extreme poverty. Because the governor of the orphanage was the one responsible for giving Giovanni his full name, he represents the very beginning of the Curzio line within my family. When his mother disappeared, she took with her any real possibility of discovering her identity and her - my - family's earlier history.

I certainly don't blame or resent her for it; obviously there were reasons and circumstances that forced her into such an awful position. It's just really disappointing to be thrown a mystery that can never be solved. At the very least, I do hope she somehow ended up living a decent life.

As for Giovanni, at 22 years old he married his wife Maria - a woman he very likely grew up with at the orphanage, since the governor was the one that gave the consent for her to marry. He lived with Maria in Afragola his whole life, the two of them eventually having five children.

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September 25, 2017

So I've gotten around to checking out the new Star Trek: Discovery. As a long-time Star Trek fan, I'm always open-minded about new additions to the canon and willing to give each of them a chance. TOS is what set the wheels in motion, and TNG brought Star Trek TV back from the dead. DS9 was an okay effort at the start, but weakened when it started running afoul of the franchise's core message. Voyager, despite having a great cast, was awful. And then Enterprise showed up and started messing with established canon, while also managing to be pretty terrible. It too had a solid cast, but they just couldn't save it.

Now we have Discovery, the newest addition to the TV lineup. And boy, is it bad. It seems like everything post-TNG is a race to the bottom and new shows are trying desperately to beat the previous iterations for the title of "Worst Star Trek Series." This may sound like "back in my day" crotchety complaining, but let me explain things.

As I said earlier, Enterprise was the beginning of playing fast and loose with the canon, shoehorning a previously unknown Starship Enterprise into the line and showing off advanced technology 100 years before the original series. Discovery doubles down on this trend, with super advanced computers and tech in every corner of the ship, while still taking place 10 years before Kirk's five year mission. LCARS computer sounds from TNG are all over the place, often used incorrectly no less - long before LCARS was ever created. TNG rank pips on the uniform insignia, nearly a century before rank pips were even a thing. (TOS displayed the rank on the uniform's shirt cuffs, which mostly carried into the first 6 movies.) Holographic communications all over the ship, which were first introduced as a new novelty during DS9. It's a mess.

Next we have what this series calls Klingons. I say that, because aside from a few pieces of trivia here and there - mentions of Kahless, cloaking technology, etc. - Discovery manages to get absolutely everything wrong about the Klingons. Apparently they're Ancient Egyptians now. From the clothing (a mere decade before Kor and Koloth, this is how Klingons supposedly looked?) to the culture (since when do Klingons mummify their dead and put them in sarcophagi for storage?), next to nothing about these Klingons resembles anything we already know about them. Even TNG made some effort to carry forward a handful of the legacy features of Klingons after drastically changing their look, and Roddenberry had said that TNG's Klingons looked like what TOS's Klingons would have looked like if they had the budget. Discovery has no excuse for these drastic changes.

There are other problems. Interstellar mind-melds. Arguments with computers about ethics. Lack of division colors in the uniforms. Transporter speed. Court Martial proceedings with unnecessary dramatic lighting. But the most important problem is that Star Trek has lost its heart. The original series and TNG were the best of Trek because they were shows about the characters. These days, that's secondary to flashy effects and big-budget action. People like to defend shows like Discovery and Enterprise by saying that the technology gap between them and TOS is no big deal and making a show with a TOS level of technology wouldn't work today. Not true. Not only could you easily fit era-appropriate tech into the '60s visual style of TOS, there's also the notion that if you have great stories, it doesn't matter if the technology looks dated. If you're using fancy effects to carry the show, it's going to fail. And that's one reason why Enterprise barely lasted 4 years on TV before being canceled.

Discovery can make all of the references to past shows that it wants, but at the end of the day, it just isn't Star Trek.

(12:43)

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January 14, 2016

I support Bernie Sanders for President of the United States. You should too.

He has been an effective politician for nearly 50 years, and has maintained consistent positive stances on important issues throughout his entire political career. He's not in the pocket of any corporation or special interest group, he believes strongly in the individual civil rights of all Americans (and has the track record to prove it), and deserves the opportunity to effect even more meaningful change as President - far beyond any other current presidential candidate.

Don't just take my word for it. Educate yourself. Have a look at his positions on the issues, read about his history and political career, and then please donate to his campaign. Bernie refuses to accept money from SuperPACs, so it's up to us as individual Americans to get him into the White House.

And most importantly, don't forget to vote!

(12:01)

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