The Egyptians had significant contact with other civilizations in the Eastern Mediterranean, particularly with Minoan civilization on the island of Crete and with Myceane on the Greek Peloponnesus, the southern peninsula of Greece. The origin of the Minoans is unclear—they may have arrived on the island as early as 600 BCE—however, their culture reached its peak between 1600 and 1400 BCE. The chief deity of Minoan culture was a fertility goddess represented in several different forms.  Her bare breasts indicate female fecundity, while the snakes she carries are associated with male fertility. Nothing like her has been discovered in any other culture. The Egyptians and the Minoans had a lot of contact, they valued activity, grace, and agility of athletes, something that the later Greeks, in founding the Olympic Games, would also value highly. In the Minoan culture, the bull was a deity of sacred significance. Legend has it that the wife of King Minos, after who the culture takes its name, gave birth to a creature half human and half bull, that was the Minotaur. Minos had a giant labyrinth, or maze, constructed to house the creature, to whom Athenian youths and maidens were sacrificed until it was killed by the hero Theseus. The legend of the labyrinth probably arose in response to the intricate design of the palaces built for the Minoan kings. It is unclear why Minoan culture abruptly ended in approximately 1450 BCE. Great earthquakes and volcanic eruptions may have destroyed the civilization, or, perhaps, it fell victim to the warlike Mycenaeans from the mainland, whose culture flourished between 1400 and 1200 BCE. Theirs was a culture dominated by military values. The Mycenaean culture is one who made weapons, spears, from bronze. This culture was, immortalized by Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey, that sacked the great Trojan city of Troy. The Mycenaeans built stone fortresses on the hilltops of the Peloponnesus, a peninsula forming part of the Greek mainland. They buried their dead, in so-called beehive tombs, which, dome-shaped, were full of gold and silver, including masks of the royal dead, a burial practice similar to that of the Egyptians. The rise of the Greek city-state, or polis, marks the moment when Western culture begins to celebrate its own human strengths and powers—the creative genius of the mind itself—over the power of nature; the Western World’s gods now became personified, taking human form and assuming mortal weakness. Though immortal, they were otherwise versions of humans, no longer angry beasts or natural phenomena such as the Earth, the Sun, or the Rain. The human figure celebrated in athletic contests is the most important subject of Greek art as well. Only during the short reign of Pharaoh Akhenaton, in Egypt, had there been such concern to depict the human form in a realistic manner; by the fifth century BCE, this interest in humanity was reflected throughout Greek culture. The philosopher Plato developed theories not only about social and political relations, but about education and aesthetic pleasure. The philosopher Plato developed theories not only about social and political relations, but about education and aesthetic pleasure. The physician Hippocrates systematically studied human disease, and the historian Herodotus, in his account of Persian Wars, began to chronicle human history.  Around 500 BCE, in Athens, all free male citizens were included in the political system, and democracy—from demos, meaning people and kratia, meaning power was born. It was not quite democracy as we think if it today: slavery was considered natural, and women were excluded from political life. Nevertheless, the concept of individual freedom was cherished. The vales of the Greek city-state were embodied in its temples. The temple was usually situated on an elevated site, above the city, and the acropolis, from akros, meaning top, and polis, city, was conceived as the center of civil life. The crowning achievement of Greek architecture is the complex of buildings on the Acropolis in Athens, which was built to replace those destroyed by the Persians in 480 BCE. Construction began in about 450 BCE, under the leadership of the great Athenian statesman, Pericles. The central building of the new complex, designed by Ictinus and Callicrates, was the Parthenon, dedicated to the city’s namesake, Athena Parthenos, the goddess of wisdom.  A Doric temple of the grandest scale, it is composed entirely of marble. At its center was an enormous ivory and gold statue of Athena, sculpted by Phidias, who was in charge of all the ornamentation and sculpture for the project. The Athena is long since lost. The Phidian style is marked by its naturalness. The human figure often assumes a relaxed, seemingly effortless pose, or it may be caught in the act of movement, athletic or casual. In either case, the precision with which the anatomy has been rendered is remarkable. The relief of Nike, goddess of victory, from the balustrade of the Temple of Nike is a person example of the Phidian style. As Nike bends to take off her sandal, the drapery both reveals and conceals the body beneath. The reality of the sculpture is conveyed, it is as if we can see the body literally push forward out of the stone and press against the drapery. The Greek passion for individualism, reason, and accurate observation of the World continued on even after the disastrous defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian War in 404 BCE, which led to a great loss of Athenian power. In 338 BCE, the army of Philip, King of Macedon, conquered Greece, and after Philip’s death two years later, his son, Alexander the Great, came to power. Because Philip greatly admired Athenian culture, Alexander was educated by the philosopher Aristotle, who persuaded the young king to impose Greek culture throughout his empire. Hellenism, or the culture of Greece, thus came to dominate the Western World. The court sculptor to Alexander the Great was Lysippos, known to us only through later Roman copies of his work. The Statue of a Victorious Athlete recently discovered in the Adriatic Sea, captures the body in its fleeting movements with such naturalness—the Lysippic ideal—that some scholars feel it may be the work of the master himself. In the sculpture of the fourth century BCE, we discover a graceful, even sensuous, beauty marked by contrapposto and three-dimensional realism. The depiction of physical beauty becomes an end in itself, and sculpture increasingly seems to be more about the pleasure of seeing than anything else. At the same time, artists stove for an ever greater degree of realism, and in the sculpture of the Hellenistic Age we find an increasingly animated and dramatic treatment of the figure. The sculptor not only is content simply representing the figure realistically, so theatrical is the group that to many eyes it verges on melodrama, the expressive aims must undeniably convey emotion as well. Although the Romans conquered Greece (in 146 BCE), like Philip of Macedon and Alexander, they regarded Greek culture and art as superior to any other. Therefore, it was understandable that people would be obsessed with Greek architecture and art.  While it is acceptable to have an obsessive love of art and architecture, it could be problematic when this fantasy transforms to animate objects. Obsessive love disorder is an extreme form of love that transcends into an unhealthy attachment toward someone over time and can be triggered by many factors. These factors include, but are not limited to: anxiety, insecurity, and vulnerability. This disorder has its foundation in the insatiable fixation of wanting to possess the target or their obsession. The emotions that are experienced when in love, like mutual respect, trust, and security, are overtaken by feelings of jealously, insecurity, and resentment. This then gives way to a painful and all-consuming obsession and preoccupation with an actual or wished for lover. This insatiable longing either to possess or be possessed by the target of their obsession, and rejection by physical or emotional unavailability of their target can result in the perpetual fixation and compulsion to obtain the individual they desire. This obsession can start out by keeping track of a person, and then transcends into something far worse like stalking them, emotionally extorting them, and then the most extreme scenarios is when the predator becomes violent with the target.  People who prey on others were usually abused as a child, rejected, and feel inferior or unworthy, they have a low self-esteem, so they gravitate to the object they find most beautiful so they can consumer what they desire to become.  Thus, the predator creates an illusion for themselves and moves farther away from the truth.  The best way to recover is to be honest with your friends and family and open up to them about what is truly going on, not the version you created in your infected mind program. Nonetheless, the Romans imported thousands of original Greek artworks and had them copied in even greater numbers. In fact, much of what we know today about Greek art, we know only through Roman copies. The Greek gods were adapted to the Roman religion, Jupiter bearing a strong resemblance to Zeus, Venus to Aphrodite, and so on. The Romans used the Greek architectural orders in their own buildings and temples, preferring especially the highly decorative Corinthian order. Many, if not most, of Rome’s artists were of Greek extraction, though they were Romanized to the point of being indistinguishable from the Romans themselves. The Romans traced their ancestry to the Trojan price Aeneas, who escaped after the sack of Troy and who appears in Homer’s Lliad. Roman art derives, nevertheless, from at least one other source. Around 750 BCE, at about the same time the Greeks first colonized the southern end of the Italian peninsula, the Etruscans, whose language has no relation to any known tongue, and who origin is somewhat ,ysterious, established a vital set of city states in the area between present-day Florence and Rome. Little remains of the Etruscan cities, which were destroyed and rebuilt by Roman armies in the second and third centuries BCE, and we know the Etruscans’ culture largely through their sometimes richly decorated tombs.  At Veii, just north of Rome, the Etruscans established a sculptural center that gave them the reputation as the finest metalworkers of the age. They traded widely, and from the sixth century on, a vast array of bronze objects, from statues to hand mirrors, were made for export.  Therefore, it is not only the heart that matters, but the mind as well. If you know you are doing wrong, but it makes you feel good in your heart, that is wicked. As the bust of a Roman citizen makes clear, no matter how unflattering the subject’s features, they were portrayed as they were. Etruscan art was influenced by the Greeks, as the life-sized portrait of a young man dressed as the god of war, Mars, from Todi, makes clear.   Romans were dedicated to truth to nature. The architecture devoted to Capitoline Hill, in Roman, created an empire of perfection, the arch and dome, of the castles, were developed of concrete, and columns were major architectural contributions of extraordinary monument builders. Many of their triumphal architectures still stand across Europe and examples in Sacramento, California, USA.  One remarkable symbol of their power is the Column of Trajan, which is encircled by a spiraling band of relief sculpture 50 inches high and if it were unwound and stretched out, 625 feet long, the column details the Emperor Trajan’s two successful campaigns in present0day Hungary and Romania in the first century BCE. As the empire solidified its strength under the Pax Romana—150 years of peace initiated by the Emperor Augusts in 27 BCE—a succession of emperors celebrated the glory of the empire in a variety of elaborate public works and monuments, including the Colosseum and the Pantheon, which many people in Sacramento, California USA wanted the new Sacramento King’s arena to look like, not a Japanese symbol from their flag. The most extravagant architectural expression of the Roman state was the Forum Romanum, the political center of Rome. At the time represented in this imaginary reconstruction around the first century CE, Rome’s population approached 1 million. Most of its inhabitants lived in apartment buildings surrounding the Forum area. An archival record indicates that, at this time, there were only 1,797 private homes in the city. Here in Sacramento County, USA, we are thankful for our suburban comminutes like South Sacramento and Elk Grove, and Natomas, Antelope, and Meadowview/Pocket, so people can have the option to live in houses, which are safe and have land. The Etruscans had developed the site as a marketplace, but in a plan developed by Julius Caesar and implemented by Augusts, the Forum became the symbol of Roman power and grandeur, paved in marble and dominated by colonnaded public spaces, temples, basilicas, and state buildings such as the courts, the archives, and the Curia, or senate house. Through Rome became extraordinarily wealthy, the empire began to falter after the death of the emperor Marcus Aurelius in CE 180. Invasions of Germanic tribes from the North, Berbers from the south, and Persians from the East wreaked havoc upon the Empire’s economic, administrative, and military structure. By the time the Emperor Constantine decided to move the capitol to Byzantium, in CE 323—renaming it Constantinople, today’s Istanbul—the empire was hopelessly divided, and the establishment of the new capitol only underscored the division.  That is why so many people are so concerned about immigration in America. They like the way things are and do not want culture and ethnicities expanding any more than they already have, we need to try to maintain what is here already, and stabilize before we can take on more, so we are not a great empire left in ruins.  On 20 November 2014, President of the United States of America, Berry Obama, made a speech to the 5 million illegal immigrants, who are facing deportation. They will be spared from deportation, expected to be made eligible for work, but will not receive any state or federal benefits—including health care tax credit. Emperor Obama and the federal government technically run out of money 11 December 2014, and if Congress does not pass a budget, on Capitol Hill, the government could shut down. The National deficit, in in the United States of America is $18 trillion. Meanwhile, 23 million Americans are out of work, 46,000,000 are on government food assistance and 100,000,000 are on welfare, which is a program that helps single mothers pay for their child’s living expenses.  In contrast to when President Obama took office, until now, America was losing 800,000 jobs a month, now it is losing an average of 1,460,000 each month. So if taxes go up, people will have less money to spend and more people will lose their jobs. If a nation does not have the ability to save money, then there will not be prosperity, in the long-run economy. When taxes are lower, people and corporations have more money to save, and there are more resources available for investment in more employees, and other capitol. Also, production, increase along with wages and national income. When savings rates are high, the economy is usually doing well. If American makes savings more attractive, by lowering taxes, and rising interest rates, lowering fuel, food and housing cost, people will save a more of their salary, resulting in a more stable future. However, the U.S. tax system makes savings difficult by taxing the interest made on savings and inheritance, which could be as much as 55 percent. That means the government gets more of your money than you do, and high taxes is why the nation has such high unemployment. Prices for most things in America are at an all-time high, as well as unemployment and wages are low. If a person makes $500,000 a year and has to pay 50 percent of that in taxes, this person will only take home $250,000. However, if this same person making $500,000 a year pays 33 percent percent tax, then they will take home $335,000 more in real income, which is $85,000 more. That is enough money to hire two fulltime workers, at $42,500 a year, which just created two new jobs, and add tax revenue to the system, without raising taxes.  Nevertheless, the current tax system penalizes some people twice. When a person is using his or her savings to hire more employees, when the business owner sees an increase in revenue, the business owner has to pay taxes on the investment in new employees, in the form of corporate income taxes. Then when the corporation pays dividends to the shareholders, the shareholders are also paying taxes on these investments, as income taxes. So by double taxing some, corporations are less likely to invest in hiring or expansion or saving. If the government reduces deficits, then this will rise public saving and create more government jobs. Cuts in government programs and services will depress production and employment; and increasing the money supply, to stabilize the economy, leads to more debt. The Employment Act of 1946 says that, “it is the continuing policy and responsibility of the Federal Government to promote full employment and production.  The government is supposed to avoid being the cause of major fluctuations in the economy. However the government should respond to changes in the private economy. In 1961, when a reporter asked John F. Kennedy why did he believe in tax cuts, “To stimulate the economy. Don’t you remember your Economics 101?” President Kennedy said. Kennedy’s fiscal goal was to cut taxes, which would raise consumer spending, expand aggregate demand and increase the economy’s production and employment. The 1964 tax cuts, lead to a robust economy, in the short term and long run. To further illustrate this point, General Services Administration is accused of spending $7.7 million for government employees to work from home, and commute to the office on occasion. The idea is to save money, by reducing commute times, and this program is also supposed to make workers more productive, as they are able to spend time, they would have wasted in traffic, working. It is clear to see that this program is not saving the American people money. Furthermore, 379 employees work for the GSA and they racked up the $7.7 million in travel expenses. In addition, the city of Sacramento is also known for wasting money. The City of Sacramento spent $365,000 on Hotel rooms, $9200 on Coffee, $89,000 on Pizza. Not only that, but two of President Obama largest donors have been outsourcing jobs. John Rogers donated $1.5 million to help Obama get reelected. John Rogers is also the CEO of Aerial Capital Management, ACM is known for outsourcing “day to day activities” to other countries. Another top Obama donor is DreamWorks CEO Jeffery Katzenberg. Katzenberg donated $2 million to President Obama and Katzenberg also plans to expand his business and move more jobs to China. People, who donate money to the president, usually have control over key decisions that are made by the President. The people are basically unable to control government policy. This proves that Capitalism and Democracy are incompatible. The problem is that America is a consumer driven economy, in the past, America became great by increasing aggregate demand, by being producers, not consumers. “We may have democracy in the country, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.”  -Supreme Court Justice Louis Brande