Sunday, June 5, 2011

Robert Pattinson and his Royal Connections!


Here are a few ‘what the hell’ (to put it mildly) genealogy discoveries of our time:
Oscar Wilde’s descendant is a computer programmer, Adolf Hitler’s descendants are spread across America and live under assumed names, and according to rumors, they have also been strictly warned by the FBI not to procreate, and Ernest Hemingway’s grandson dropped out of college to make a living as a mason.

If you find these facts surprising then it is time for things to get seriously bizarre.
Robert Pattison is related to Dracula! Yes, the British Actor who has played the role a vampire in three blockbuster Hollywood movies is related to Dracula. For those who’re just out of prison or haven’t been able to keep up with pop culture news for other reasons, Robert Pattison plays the role of a vampire in the movie series ‘True Blood’.

And, if you’re still getting over the fact that Santa doesn’t exist, we have more bad news for you, Dracula, as you and I know him, never existed; except in the imagination of author Bram Stoker who wrote a book around a ‘fictional’ vampire, and called him, Dracula.

In fact, Dracula was not a vampire but a King who lived in the 15th Century. Unfortunately, he has just as bad a reputation as a vampire could have. Vlad III Dracula (yes, that’s his full name) ruled the area of the Balkans and is known to have been an extremely strict moralist. Anyone who transgressed his code of conduct was impaled on the stake. He is said to have thus killed over 40,000 people! In fact, it is this very history that influenced Bram Stoker to name his vicious, vampire character, Dracula.

A while ago, Robert Pattison had joked about how he used to tell people in LA that he knew the Royal Family well. The British actor convinced people enough that they began to spread his lie. Ironically, turns out, that Pattison is related to the British Royal Family. To make the connection, we bring in the experts.

Speaking to People Magazine, Anastasia Tyler, a genealogist at Ancestry.com, said, "Tracing Pattinson's family back to Vlad was difficult research, but the pieces that unraveled created the perfect accompaniment to the Twilight Saga. Without any myth or magic, we find royalty and vampires lurking in Pattinson's life -- making his story just as supernatural as the one he's playing on screen."

Robert Pattison’s joke about ‘knowing’ England’s Royal Family was true after all. To Prince William’s, Harry’s and the rest of the family’s embarrassment, they are all descendants of Vlad Dracula, according to modern genealogy reports. This makes, Pattison, the Princes, William and Harry, distant cousins! Unfortunately, despite the connection, Robert wasn’t invited to the much-talked about Royal wedding.

As most Twilight fans and non-fans, due to the media overkill on the subject, know that Twilight was written by a Mormon Arizona mother and housewife, Stephenie Meyer. Now, genealogy research has shown that she too is related to Vlad Dracula.
Robert Pattison’s latest movie, Water for Elephants. is just out and receiving much acclaim. Interestingly, Pattison’s co-star Reese Witherspoon is the descendant of John Knox  The Divine, the founder of the Presbyterian Church in Scotland.

The whole story of Pattison being related to Dracula, along with the author Stephenie Meyer, and the timing of the release of this information – just before the release of the third Twilight movie – make us wonder if this wasn’t just a publicity stunt. Either way, it got us thinking about a whole lot of royal connections.

Here’s to genealogy and more bizarre descendant stories! 

No Osama, President Obama and the vagueness of hope


Please forget Osama for the moment.

After eight years of George Bush’s administration, the United States was more than ready for change. After a decent first term, Bush’s popularity began to wane the second time around and seriously dipped towards the end. Worsening complications in Afghanistan and Iraq, and early signs of the soon-to-come serious economic downturn paved the way for a voice of hope. One that bounded with enthusiasm, honesty and faith. Obama’s election campaign embodied change, a huge symbolic aspect of this was his race. The country knew it wanted a different administration, and a different President. One vastly different from the previous one, who had become a global political caricature.

In 2008, it seemed like the United States had gotten into too much of a mess, one that seemed just too impossible to get out of. But the Obama campaign’s overriding theme seemed to promise that even the most seemingly insurmountable obstacle will be overcome. ‘Yes We Can’ became the theme all through Obama’s Presidential campaign. Although ‘Change we believe in’ was his slogan, Yes We Can was a resounding chant that followed the Obama campaign trail. The chant is inspired by a United Farm Workers movement, where the workers used a Spanish version in a 1970
s movement.

As Obama’s term-end comes close, he will have to prepare for another grueling 2012 election campaign, and many doubt if he will be reelected. To start with, there have been too many unfulfilled promises and then, there has been an overwhelming feeling among supporters that there was too much hope with unsubstantiated reasoning, and that they were somehow ‘hoodwinked’ into voting for fluff not backed by substance.

The reality will continue to unfold as long as the President is in the Oval Office, but this   popular perception is growing.

A trail of broken promises

During the election campaign, Obama promised change across crucial areas. From closing the Guantanamo Bay, where Human Rights abuses were rampant, to ending the Iraq War and promising affordable Health Care to all. If President Obama really meant them, the promises have been way too hard to deliver.

The Guantanamo Bay for instance, can’t be shut overnight. Many of the countries, whose citizens are in the prison, refuse to take them back. The Health Care system needs a long-term overhaul that just can’t be achieved without Republic support, which has been not forthcoming. But to many, Obama’s failed promises seem like a failure of will, rather than a systemic problem. On the other hand, those who do understand that it is not easy to tackle the tough areas he had proposed to act upon, see childishly hopeful optimism during the campaign and after, which by itself is not enough to change a nation.

 This March, Obama signed in a deal that agrees to resume the military trials in Guantanamo. What this means, essentially, is that the terror prison is not set to close anytime soon, as the trials could take time, besides, it makes the very existence of the prison, legitimate, despite some very public accusations of human rights abuses, an antithesis of what Obama’s ‘Yes We Can’ electoral campaign had stood for.

This is what he had said in 2007, during the campaign.

“As President, I will close Guantanamo, reject the Military Commissions Act and adhere to the Geneva Conventions. Our Constitution and our Uniform Code of Military Justice provide a framework for dealing with the terrorists.”

Old bottle, new wine

During his Presidential Campaign, Obama had famously praised the power of technology and had used the internet to generate millions of dollars of funding for his campaign. In the lead up to his 2012 campaign, it is unfortunately, the internet that is offering citizens a check list of Obama’s failed and fulfilled promises.  At every milestone, beginning with his 100-day term completion at the White House, bloggers, webmasters, critics and even supporters have been making checklists of words taken seriously and those allowed to fall by the wayside.

As much as Obama is a conservative Democrat and has come head-to-head with the Republicans on key policy issues, many political observes, especially internationally, have wondered over the last two years if Obama is not fulfilling a self-serving American agenda, just like his predecessor, the Republican George Bush.

The Iraq war, for instance, one of Obama’s key promises, was too difficult to exit because of various ‘strategic’ American interest in the region, one of them being oil.
A resounding global voice is now describing America’s efforts in Libya, to bring Gadaffi down, as the beginning of Obama’s Iraq.

The electoral candidate’s sugar-coated promise of change and hope was too hard to deliver in reality as the President. But many say that Obama inherited a brutally tough economic and political situation from his predecessor. And like his rant to a closed-democratic gathering, which was recorded by CBC news reporter last week showed, the Republicans have played serious ‘stalling’ politics. The President mentioned the key areas in his rant, Climate Change and Health Care, among others, where the Republicans haven’t allowed new policies to come into place.

They say an objective take on a President’s performance can only happen in hindsight, but many already feel they have an accurate assessment of Obama’s term – too many promises were made, most failed and a few half-passed.