We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Reading Plutarch (especially in English), is a delight. Plutarch on Demosthenes.
When you read his biographies, you learn as much about Plutarch (c. 75 AD) as you do about his subjects. His somewhat-contrived Parallel Lives was a best-seller of its time, and it is still selling.
The mugshot is as much a part of everyday slang as it is an important part of police work. The concept of a mugshot, however, wasn't widely utilized until many years after photography was invented.
It began as the Rogue's Gallery, a series of pictures of New York's most notorious criminals, around 1857, some 20+ years after the first photograph was developed. No doubt as the cost of photography fell, the role of a photo as an effective police tool became apparent. It was a critical innovation of Chief Inspector Thomas Byrnes, a man known for aggressive police work, in the 1880s. Byrnes is also known as the developer of "The Dead Line" and "The Third Degree".
The Dead Line referred to an imaginary line drawn across Manhattan at Fulton Street, and based on the concept that criminals would be interested in the banks and jewelry stores south of said line. Any known criminal south of this line would be arrested on sight. In a day and age when 28 detectives were available to investigate the crimes among 2 million inhabitants, the money south of this line dictated policy.
Byrnes' most notable case was linked to one of the most famous serial killers of all time. Byrnes had claimed that Jack the Ripper would find it impossible to operate in New York City without being caught in 48 hours. Those wordswould haunthim.
2300 Americans died in that invasion. Did the Sicilians want us there? Of course not.
At that point, I think it was the most massive invasion by sea in history.
I reflect on all of the historical invasions of Sicily by sea - the Greeks, the Phoenicians, the Moslems, the Norman Vikings, the Spanish (barely an invasion), and the take-over by Italy (again, hardly a serious invasion but Italy did send military forces to annex Sicily). Uniquely, the Allies didn't invade to own it and had no aspirations to, but it was a strategic, temporary necessity.
(Reader reminded me that I omitted the Romans and the Byzantines. Too much to keep track of. Everybody wanted to own Sicily, and all of that history is still right there, right down to the Phoenician fortifications, the Greek temples, the Norman castles, the Roman cities, and the couscous and the mosques - and even Greek temples - converted to churches.)
Image is the historic flag of Sicily - most interesting flag in the world.
Gwynnie gets to spend part of her summers protecting a unique forest preserve in the Sierra Nevada range in a valley which was once used in the summers by the Martis Indians (see The Martis Indians: Ancient Tribe of the Sierra Nevada by Willis Gortner). According to Gortner and others, the Martis occupied the region from a time of global cooling and increased rain around 2000 BC to about 500 AD, when the climate again changed and became drier. Also at about that time, more aggressive tribes like the Paiutes had developed the bow and arrow which required obsidian not found in the area. There could have been conflict with the Paiutes or the Washoe to the East, or with the gentler gatherers, the Maidu, to the North. It was the Maidu which occupied the valley after the Martis departed to an unknown fate.
The Martis Complex left their mark on the land, however, in the form of what scholars call “High Sierra Abstract-Representational petroglyphs” as shown in the picture. All petroglyphs are on horizontal or sloping granite bedrock, with none on cliff faces or boulders, and each site has an unimpeded view of at least three peaks.
It was a warmer than usual summer day in Clark, South Dakota when a rather large and ungainly young man, a recent high school graduate, set about finding his way in the world. The salivating Navy recruiter asked the youngster what it would take to have him sign up: “why, I’d like to go to Australia .” It was as good as done. After all, in 1966, if you were lucky enough to ship out on the USS Canberra, more likely than not, during the course of your hitch, there will be a port call to the ship’s namesake— Canberra , Australia...
"Conrad Martens, an official artist on the second voyage, did this drawing of the Beagle laid ashore at the mouth of the river Santa Cruz in Southern Argentina. When repairs to the hull were necessary after the ship had struck a rock, the ship was beached and the work was performed between high tides." Image courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
The story of HMS Beagle (1820-1870) - an ordinary ship. Not about Darwin, about the life of a 19th C. ship.
“She belongs to that much-abused class, the ‘10-gun brigs’ ...
notwithstanding which; she has proved herself, ... in all kinds of
weather, an excellent sea boat.” —John Lort Stokes
I am studying up as I gradually learn about the places I am scheduled (by my tour planner, Mrs. BD) to visit over the next couple of weeks. I regret that our contributor, Roger de Hauteville, King of Sicily, cannot accompany us because I am sure he would have some good historical reminiscences from the time of his reign.
The Mediterranean world went through some or most of these cultural phases (or empires) which you can mix and match according to location:
Native folks Greek imperialists/colonists and/or Phoenician mercantilists Romans Byzantine Romans, Saracens, Vandals and other civilized barbarians Moslem invaders from the East, and later Ottomans Vikings/Normans European medieval and later Kingdoms (eg Hapsburgs, Bourbons, Dukes of Savoy, etc). Modern nationalism (with their own periodic wars of conquest)
Sicily experienced pretty much every bit of that sequence, which is how the Norman Roger de Hauteville became King of Sicily.
Best as I can tell thus far (I have a pile of books I am getting through), Sicily's high point was around 200 BC when it was still a Greek culture (Syracuse was considered the finest city in Magna Graecia), when the Syracusan Archimedes was busy discovering and inventing things in the old Greek way.
It's been downhill for Sicily since the kingdoms were abolished in the 1860s during the unification of Italy as a nation. But never unified, really. The "maffia" filled the power vacuum, and today they basically run the island. (Most people in Sicily speak Sicilian, if not Italian also. "Maffioso" is Sicilian for an entrepreneurial braggart or bully. It has been estimated that 80% of Sicily's businesses pay protection money to the Mafia, and Sicily's main exports are oranges, lemons, population (impossible to build a new biz there due to the mob "tax", so energetic people leave for the US and northern Italy and Europe) - and organized crime.
Despite their Greek history (genetically, Sicilians are a mix of European, Greek, and African), most Europeans to the north (which is all of them) look down on them just as the Romans look down on the Neapolitans, and the Italian Swiss look down on Romans - and even the Tuscans.
It's a lovely island, with around a 5 million population. The rural areas, the active volcanoes, and the well-preserved Greek ruins are the main attractions, and I plan to explore them.
I had always believed Archimedes spent a certain amount of time running through the streets of Syracuse shouting "Eureka, I have found it!" Perhaps believed is a strong word, after all, it was so long ago it's unlikely anyone knows for sure just what occurred. What we know for sure is Archimedes was a great mathematician and provided the world great insights leading to the progress of humankind.
This breakdown of what may likely be the real story surrounding Archimedes' discovery of the measurement of volume is actually more interesting, though less entertaining, than the original. The site isn't too bad, either, even if it does have a slight pro-AGW slant to some of the articles.
This was written by a former POW in Hanoi, Mike Benge. To know more of his astonishing survival, read his POW bio.
Every one of our servicemembers must know that we will never forget nor abandon them. The punks in the Obama administration are the only ones who deserve to be abandoned. Their cowardly perfidy will not be forgotten.
Christmas Lights over Hanoi
The lighting of the Christmas trees in Washington, DC and New York are beautiful sights. And the Christmas lights in Denver and other cities are outstanding. However, the most beautiful Christmas lights of all were those of the Christmas bombing of Hanoi in '72. The flash of the Sam missiles, the flares dropped from the plane, the arclights hitting the city, and yes, even when a Sam hit a plane, it was all spectacular, for this gave us all hope and we knew we were soon going home.
Bless that noon time reccie who flew up the train tracks blowing past our camp for the past year with a sonic boom while gaining altitude and turning across the Red River heading for home. It gave us hope, and we knew that when the bombs started falling, we wouldn't get hit, for Uncle Sam knew where we were.
When the bombs started falling, we all cheered, and for a minute the guards threatened to shoot us if we didn't shut up, but they soon were crouching in their hidey-holes and shitting in their mess kits as the bombs started falling and they were too scared to say anything more.
...Paine sat down beneath the dark December sky and wrote his electrifying The American Crisis, the first of a series of essays, on a drumhead by the flickering light of a campfire. “These are the times that try men’s souls,” he wrote—words that should be engraved on every American heart and that never lose their power to thrill. “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, at this crisis, shrink from the service of their country, but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” How unworthy of a man and a father to sigh, “Well! give me peace in my day.” A loving father would say, “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.” As for the American army, Paine reported from firsthand experience, it remained cool and orderly during the tough retreat across New Jersey, and the soldiers, “though greatly harassed and fatigued, frequently without rest, covering, or provision . . . bore it with a manly spirit. . . . The sign of fear was not seen in our camp.” And now, “we are again collected and collecting; our new army at both ends of the continent is recruiting fast.”
This was just the bucking up that the army and the nation sorely needed, and when the essay appeared in the Pennsylvania Packet on December 19, 1776, the soldiers read it to one another as they huddled together for warmth by the banks of the Delaware. Wavering civilians within reach of Washington’s camp made up their minds to join his force, and long-expected reinforcements finally arrived, temporarily swelling the Continental Army to 7,600—enough to cross the ice-choked Delaware River on Christmas Day, win the Battles of Trenton and Princeton in the next ten days, save the revolution, and change the course of world history. “Without the pen of Paine,” John Adams judged, “the sword of Washington would have been wielded in vain.”
I suspect that most of my ancestors were Tories, but so were most Americans at the time. A dramatic rebellion, nonetheless, with the American Constitution as its crowning jewel.
Since it's Sicily Month at Maggie's, on this Decoration Day weekend I am reviewing the 
Thanks to Myron Magnet for