DOMESTIC ARABIANS

“Domestic Arabians” is the name given to Arabian horses bred in the United States. The bloodline for Domestic Arabians, like that of most Americans themselves, is a melting pot of influences from all over the world. However, the single most important event in the history of purebred Domestic Arabians was held on American soil.

THE 1893 CHICAGO WORLD’S FAIR

Forty Arabian horses were exported from the desert, along with their Bedouin handlers, to be part of the Ottoman Empire exhibit at the Chicago World’s Fair. They made a huge impact on the American horse breeders who witnessed them at the fair.

SULTAN ABDUL HAMID II

Abdul Hamid II was, from 1876 to 1909, the sultan of the Ottoman Empire, and he maintained a stud of Arabian horses whose ancestry was well documented. The Arabian Horse Club of America registered two of his stallions, *Leopard and *Linden Tree, after he donated them to President Ulysses S. Grant. The Hamidie Hipppodrome Society was a group of wealthy Arab investors which took its name from the Sultan and in which he had an interest. The Hamidie Society sponsored the equestrian portion of the Ottoman Empire exhibit at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, and the Sultan contributed two of his prized horses. He later permitted the exportation of desert-bred Arabian mares to America as a favor to President Theodore Roosevelt.

THE FATE OF THE WORLD’S FAIR HORSES

Financial difficulties forced the Hamidie Society to sell all the horses from the Ottoman exhibit at the end of the World’s Fair. Many of the horses put up for sale were young stallions. One mare among the Hamidie horses was a grey beauty named Nejdme, who commanded $1200 at auction, an enormous price for a horse at the time. She was bought by J.A.P. Ramsdell, and went on to become the dam of eleven registered foals. Her blood is a common factor in many Domestic Arabians.

THE REPORTER WHO LOVED NEJDME

Homer Davenport was a journalist covering the World’s Fair for the Chicago Herald. He developed a fascination with the Arabian horses on display, and spent years after their auction tracking them down and studying their ancestry. He bought two of Nejdme’s foals and founded the Davenport Desert Arabian Studs. One of Davenport’s political cartoons had helped Theodore Roosevelt win the 1904 election. In return, Roosevelt lent his political clout to Davenport’s expedition to the desert in 1906. The result was that Davenport was able to not only bring back a quantity of stud colts, which were easy to obtain, but also eight purebred mares. Mares were illegal to export and required special permission from the Sultan. By 1910, Davenport had bought Nejdme, had imported Crabbet Park Arabians, and was well on his way to becoming one of the best-known breeders of Domestic Arabian horses. “Davenport Arabians” are direct descendants of his horses.

THE ARABIAN HORSE REGISTRY

In 1908, Davenport and his colleagues formed the Arabian Horse Registry of America. Nejdme was the first horse …

We’ve all come across people who just seem incapable of modifying their perspective based on new data being presented. Most of us still mouth the words that additional education (or indoctrination/propaganda as is often the case) is what is needed since surely this person will turn around if his/her consciousness is sufficiently expanded with additional data backing your perspective. However, all too often deep inside we know that some people are “hopeless”. This conclusion concerning failure of propaganda is reached from all over the political, cultural, and religious spectrum at one point or another. It thus becomes fashionable to outright dismiss “inconvertible” individuals and opposing zealots (on political and religious fringes of any given population) as nuts and crazies.

Personality theory in psychology allows us to better categorize individuals in society without resorting to name calling. Myers-Briggs typology in particular offers a better construct (compared to useless terms like conservative and liberal for example) to predict how an individual will act politically and socially. Myers-Briggs research combined with biology and brain scan techniques also offers us hints at understanding the underlining anatomical basis that predisposes a person to be either a disagreeable radical or a gentle follower.

There’s been little relative popular attempts to scientifically explain why the bulk of the population is always a warzone between the extreme fringes. It’s just assumed that it will always be this way just like there will always be criminals and extremely altruistic self-sacrificing givers. This assumption seems reasonable and obvious but gives rise to two other creeping and unsettling assumptions:

1) The human population is relatively fixed along a bell curve type continuum. Perhaps this is better visually represented by a sphere with a number of spikes extending from it. The moderate population is the bulk of the sphere and the zealous “radical” factions (whose opinions differ dramatically from the statistical average) are the spikes extending from the sphere’s surface (as well as into the interior to some degree which would represent silent sympathizers). It is irrelevant to label the spikes as extreme left, right, etc. All that is important is that a relatively fixed minority of the population (lets say 10-20{512b763ef340c1c7e529c41476c7e03bc66d8daea696e1162822661d30dde056} range) will be:

a) prone to modes of thought that are tangibly different from majority’s

b) prone to action and lifestyle based on these thoughts

Authors like Friedrich Hayek for instance, observed that in 1920s Germany roughly a million workers swung their support between communists and Nazis based on who was winning. It was noted that the two seemingly opposing ideological parties clashed with one another the most because they were very often competing for recruits in the same psychological pool of young people. Considering how many overexcited Americans called both Bush and Obama the new “Hitler” in recent years, we can easily imagine how an aggressive drooling at the mouth anti-war protestor from a big city could have been an equally excitable protester at a teabag rally if only he was born in a small town and into a …