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Naga Tuma
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Joined: 24 Apr 2007, 00:27

Is it conceivable that Atse Menelik II of Ethiopia drove the invention of aviation in America?

Post by Naga Tuma » 14 Oct 2021, 17:59

I may be delusional on this and I wish to be.

Ever since I watched a Liberty Mutual ad on TV, I couldn't erase the thought out of my mind.

The ad shows two men, a European American and an African American, and a big bird exercising on treadmills. It is one of the awkward ads I have ever seen because ads are normally friendly to customers.

This ad starts with the European American man posing a question to the African American man. The latter then appears caught off guard by the question from a stranger and responds by asking: "Sorry?"

The other man continues: "Since you ask ..."

Then the bird calls out to the seller: "You are an animal!"

The seller then responds: "Who has the birds' legs now?"

I have little expertise in interpreting metaphors.

In this case, my delusional mind understood the bird as a plane and the seller's final question as boasting the invention of aviation. It also jumped to interpreting the birds calling out as desperation of the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 plane trying to save its passengers but failing and then blaming the failure on the invention.

In this delusion, it felt like the plane bird had more sympathy for the passengers than the seller who may be boasting the invention of aviation.

To wake up from my delusion, I did a little reading about the invention of aviation in America.

Wilbur and Orville Wright, also known as the Wright Brothers, started making efforts in obscurity to invent flight around 1899. That was just about three years after the battle of Adwa in 1896 that was led by Atse Menelik II of Ethiopia to defend the independence of his country from attempted colonialism by one of the fascist European countries at the time.

My little reading indicates that the Wright Brothers made over a thousand glides at what is called the Big Kill Devil Hill in North Carolina, which led to a successful flight on December 17, 1903.

Ten days later, on December 27, 1903, Atse Menelik II and U.S. representative Robert P. Skinner signed a treaty of commerce. If I remember correctly, the U.S. was one of the first four countries to arrange diplomatic presence in Ethiopia after its victory at the battle of Adwa.

I have always thought of those diplomatic relationships as emanating for mutual courses. All along, I have also admired the invention of aviation here in the U.S. as I do its experiment with Greek democracy even as it kept dictatorship components brought in from elsewhere.

My little reading didn't help me wake up from my delusion. So, I have been asking myself if it is conceivable that Atse Menelik II drove the invention of aviation in America by people like Samuel Langely and the Wright Brothers.

Ironically, Liberty Mutual is a company of a country in which it was said "Give me liberty, or give me death!"

An even better expression is there in Atse Menelik II's Ethiopia: ዺር ጋፈ ዸለቴ ዱቴ። It roughly means a man died the day he was born.

So, if this seller of Liberty Mutual ad on TV is really boasting about the invention of aviation in America in the early 20th century as a reaction to Ethiopia's victory at Adwa in the late 19th century, why can't the same idea of liberty be universal to him or the company that sponsored him?