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24.1.10

Are astonishing. I went to Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum with my dad today. G-d definitely gave man incredible creative powers, you know? Today I've seen everything, from the beautiful(delicate paintings eggshells and fragile leaves), to the cool (Spiderman comics painted on tablets made out of spiderwebs. Quite appropriate), weird (penis sheaths from Africa and Papua New Guinea. No, I'm not making that up. Apparently as well as being 'decorative', they protected one's tender parts from insect bites. Fair enough, but still weird.), wacky (I'm sorry, but I still don't understand why one would want to paint a full body potrait of Elvis on a common household needle) ...to the downright disturbing.
I saw actual medieval torture devices. Two real executioner's axes. All kinds of iron contraptions, all shining and clean, and all stained with invisible but very real blood. The designs were varied, but the purposes were all the same: to inlict pain (and often humiliation as well) on another human being. It's one thing to read that someone was whipped, it's quite another to actually see the heavy, spiked chain. It was locked in a display case, but even from the other side of the glass you could feel its oppressive weight. Even as a history buff who's read and known about such things from a young age, it was somewhat shocking. You couldn't see that room and not wonder what's wrong with humanity. How can we be so cruel to our friends and brothers? What is wrong with us, that we feel a need to kill and maim and destroy?
Man has great creative power. What we can do with it blows my mind. It can be used for such beauty, for such good. Or for such terrible ugliness.
I don't think I'll be forgetting the shrunken head of a five year old child any time soon.

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