Monday, July 19. 2010
It's fun to put history in context. A good piece on phlogiston theory.
One quote:
The Phlogistians were not a bunch of cranks. They were serious scientists who helped resolve some of the basic questions of chemistry, by being the devil's advocate against the Antiphlogistians, and by discovering important experiments. And, for almost the entire 18th century, the phlogiston theory was more satisfying than the alternative, in some ways. The Antiphlogistians deduced that combustion was when a substance combined with oxygen (Priestley's dephlogisticated air). But, they could not tell why substances combined with oxygen, or even why all substances didn't just burn up. Phlogiston theory explained why, because some substances were rich in phlogiston, and burned. It was only later that more satisfactory explanations were discovered.
Saturday, July 17. 2010
A quote from "Harnessing the Earthworm" by Dr. Thomas J. Barrett, Humphries, 1947, with an Introduction by Eve Balfour; Wedgewood Press, Boston, 1959:
For more than sixty years these 160 acres had been farmed without a single crop failure. My grandfather was known far and wide for the unequalled excellence of his corn and other grain, and a large part of his surplus was disposed of at top prices for seed purposes. The farm combined general farming and stock raising; my grandfather's hobby, for pleasure and profit, was the breeding and training of fine saddle horses and matched Hambletonian teams. He maintained a herd of about fifty horses, including stud, brood mares, and colts in all stages of development. In addition to horses, he had cattle, sheep, hogs, and a variety of fowl, including a flock of about five hundred chickens which had the run of the barnyard,with a flock of ducks. Usually about three hundred head of stock were wintered. The hired help consisted of three or four men, according to the season, with additional help at rush seasons. This establishment was maintained in prosperity and plenty, and my grandfather attributed his unvarying success as a farmer to his utilization of earthworms in maintaining and rebuilding the fertility of the soil in an unbroken cycle. The heart of the farming technique was the compost pit.
It takes you back in time. Read the whole essay, My Grandfather's Earthworm Farm
Sunday, July 11. 2010
 Thanks to a reader for pointing out this remarkable piece by Woodrow Wilson, Socialism and Democracy. A brief sample:
In face of such circumstances, must not government lay aside all timid scruple and boldly make itself an agency for social reform as well as for political control?
'Yes,' says the democrat, 'perhaps it must."
Wilson's short essay, in which he claims that democracy and socialism are inseparable, is certainly relevant to Kesler's Friday post, Demonization Does You In.
A discussion of Wilson's progressivism here.
Ed. comment: Interesting. It is an antique view of the world, indeed. I believe Wilson wrote that blog post essay in the 1880s. As we always ask here, 1. What about freedom? and, 2. Where's the money and wealth gonna come from? I am with CS Lewis, who preferred that people aspire to wealth than to power if they must aspire to worldly goals. Wealth is harmless, and often beneficial. Power is scarey.
Double addendum, Goldberg via Driscoll:
...it is my argument that American liberalism is a totalitarian political religion, but not necessarily an Orwellian one. It is nice, not brutal. Nannying, not bullying. But it is definitely totalitarian–or ‘holistic,’ if you prefer–in that liberalism today sees no realm of human life that is beyond political significance, from what you eat to what you smoke to what you say. Sex is political. Food is political. Sports, entertainment, your inner motives and outer appearance, all have political salience for liberal fascists.
If politicians had more common sense than my plumber or Tom Jefferson, it might almost be a debatable argument. One which Aristotle settled long ago, however.
Sunday, June 27. 2010
Breaking eggs. From Anne Applebaum in her review of Children of the Gulag, quoting Lenin's wife (h/t Samiz):
"We are building socialism ... and as long as we are building socialism but have not yet built it, we will also have homeless children."
Friday, June 25. 2010
At the doctor’s office this morning I picked up a magazine, Biblical Archaeology Review, of course dated November/December 2009.
An article caught my eye, How Did Israel Become A People?, by Abraham Faust, based on his book (hold on for a doozy of a title) Israel’s Ethnogenesis: Settlement, Interaction, Expansion and Resistance (2007) which won the Biblical Archaeology Society Award for Best Scholarly Book on Archaeology.
Briefly:
The “Israel” that is mentioned in the Merneptah Stele [13th Century B.C.E.] is indeed the “Israel” of the Iron Age. And it can be identified archaeologically. The rich archaeological database, and its analysis with appropriate tools, allows us to trace the Israelites and to decipher many of the internal and external processes that characterized the group from the beginning of the Iron Age onward.
So much for arguments about Jews being a recently externally imposed colony on historically Arab land. The peoples in Israel at the time of the 13th Century B.C.E. were Israelites, Canaanites, long gone, and then Philistines, from elsewhere in the Mediterranean, with some Egyptian invaders for a time in between.
Faust promises another article about the development of Israel’s Jewish religion.
I’m going to be returning to the website of Biblical Archaeology Review, as there appear to be many interesting, scholarly articles and book reviews from various religious and academic viewpoints.
Wednesday, June 16. 2010
 John Wesley (1703-1791), founder of what we now call Methodism (the term was originally used as an insult but was eventually adopted by Wesley), and his brother Charles spent some time in Savannah, GA. I lost a bet about that at a dinner party last year, which cost me a bottle of good Montrachet.
Methodism was the ultimate source of our 12-step programs: the Wesleyans liked to have methods for spiritual discipline. John Wesley was an evangelist, and liked to preach outdoors. He tried to convert the Georgia Indians.
He was a "by faith alone" preacher.
He got in a bit of a problem with a Georgia lady, and eventually returned to England. Here's a piece on Wesley in Georgia, and here's a Wesley bio.
The hymns written by John and Charles Welsey are among my favorites. Charles wrote 6000 hymns. John even produced a hymnal but, as this site notes,
Today people are much more familiar with some of Charles Wesley's hymns than with John Wesley's sermons.
Image of John Wesley above, Charles Wesley below:
Monday, June 14. 2010
An American GI has been exploring the caves of Okinawa since 1966.
Sunday, June 13. 2010
A re-post -
The Greeks colonized Poseidonia - now Paestum - on the south-west coast of Italy (90 miles south of Napoli) around 650 BC. Poseidonia became the Roman city Paestum in 273 BC.
Paestum contains the finest complex of Greek temples in the world, which was discovered in 1762 by a road crew. They were built before the Parthenon was completed in the 400s (BC).
The modern town of Paestum is a seaside resort, but the reason to go there is to see the Greek temples outside of town. Our Dylanologist did just that (and brought me back a Paestum t-shirt!).
The splendid, if heavy-looking, Doric temple in this photo is known as The Temple of Hera ll.
Here's a photo of the 450 BC Temple of Hera l, later rededicated to Neptune. More info on the Hera l temple here.
Here's a photo bank of the contents of the Paestum Archaeological Museum.
A bit of commentary from the Great Buildings Online website:
When the ruins of Paestum were 'rediscovered' by 'antiquaries'�chiefly Johann Joachim Winckelmann�in the 1750s, "the ruins [were] then made widely known, and an enthusiastic appreciation of Greek art and architecture was also sparked...Because of Paestum, the Classic Revival was born with Greece, not Rome, ascendant."
� Deborah Fritz from G. E. Kidder Smith. Looking at Architecture. p16.
The three Paestum temples are all in the Archaic Doric style of heavy columns with capitals that are squat, or as Goethe termed them, 'oppressive.' By the time the Parthenon was finished (438 B.C.), columns were elegantly slender, capitals had an alert, load-bearing profile, and refinement attended every detail. Moreover, they were carved from Parian marble; Paestum's now crudely exposed shellstone shafts, it is only fair to say, were originally covered with lime stucco. As in Greece proper, the temples at Paestum face easterly so that the rising sun will awaken the statue within."
� G. E. Kidder Smith. Looking at Architecture. p16.
Thursday, June 10. 2010
Good place to stop when passing through Reading, PA: The Mid-Atlantic Air Museum.
Sunday, June 6. 2010
In 1973, Nixon and Kissinger used South Vietnam as a tool to widen the split between China and the Soviet Union. In 2010, Islamists, Iran and other Muslim states use the Obama administration as a tool to split the US from Israel.
Most of us who are still aghast at the Democrat controlled US Congress dooming South Vietnam to fall by cutting off promised arms and air support necessary to its survival also criticized Nixon and Kissinger for walking into the duplicitous trap of the Peace Accords of 1973. The North Vietnamese rulers had a long, documented history of promising one thing while doing another.
However, Nixon and Kissinger had a bigger game afoot, to reduce tensions with China for our purpose of widening its rift from the Soviet Union, which added pressure on the Soviet Union.
In effect, South Vietnam was a tool to what they had good reasons to believe was a bigger, more important end. Surely, neither Nixon nor Kissinger expected Nixon’s Watergate downfall and the left Democrats to sweep to Congressional power.
There’s a difference now.
Obama and Clinton may be thinking they are using Israel as a tool to cuddle up to long and continually intransigent Arab states. But they are actually tools themselves of those who seek nothing else than the downfall of Israel and the retreat of the US from confronting their clear goals of dominating the Middle East and, via its oil, Europe.
Obama and Clinton don’t deny the ongoing efforts of Iran in going nuclear or sending men and arms to those attacking US, Iraqi and Afghan troops, to Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. They just avoid the necessary countermeasures and march forward in repeatedly proven delusions of Iran changing its spots and of kumbaya as a replacement for reality.
Nixon and Kissinger had a world view realistically based on US interests furthering a world order of surer peace. Obama and Clinton, fully consciously or not, have a world view based on US interests being a barrier to a world order of peace, that ignores or excuses or refuses to confront the reality of foes’ unrelenting hate of the US and the West, encouraged by Obamanesque fecklessness.
Oh! Another bit of reality that Obama and apologists can try to ignore: "Iran Revolutionary Guards ready to escort Gaza ships"
- Thanks again, Insty. We appreciate your appreciation, and encourage Insty folks to peruse our eclectic site. You might like it. Or you might not.
P.S.: Hillary Clinton warns Iran not to pull a stunt. Wake up Hillary, "Iran called our bluff long ago."
Saturday, May 29. 2010
David Brooks wrote a much-linked piece on the two enlightenments last week. Far better and more amusing is this ripping apart of Brooks' essay. It's tough to get away with BS in the internet era.
That is quite correct that there was no "British Enlightenment." Here's our post, with a good link, on the Scottish Enlightenment.
And another good one: How The Scots Invented The Modern World
Sunday, May 2. 2010
A small island group near the coast of mainland China, Quemoy, gave us lessons that we need to remember in dealing with Iran. There cannot be an analogy between geographies, actors, and the times. But lessons can be insightful to current circumstances of the primacy of recognizing US interests, the difference between friends and foes, and acting accordingly or failing through dithering and fecklessness.
Few remember the history shaping role in the 1950s of Quemoy.
The defense of Quemoy by Nationalist forces against an invasion from newly Communist China in 1949 effectively stymied mainland China’s objective to take Taiwan and, in the face of world defeatism, demonstrated that the Asian march of communism could be defeated.
The same mistaken line drawn by the Truman Administration placed South Korea and the Taiwan Straits outside the US containment perimeter. This encouraged the Soviet and Chinese support of North Korea’s invasion of the South in 1950.
Preoccupied in Korea, and following an inclination toward stalemate being enough for containment, the US 7th Fleet patrolled the Taiwan Strait to prevent either Communist China or Chang Kai-shek’s rump in Taiwan from attacking the other.
In 1953, President Eisenhower, though believing Quemoy to be indefensible and believing the French position in IndoChina would not hold, allowed Taiwan to heavily reinforce Quemoy, raising the threat level to distract and deter China.
In 1954, however, the Chinese, not to appear deterred, unleashed thousands of artillery strikes upon Quemoy, took another small island over 200 miles north of Taiwan, and skirmishing occurred along and on China’s coast.
Continue reading "Lessons Of Quemoy For Today"
Thursday, April 29. 2010
Thirty-five years ago, South Vietnam fell to the communist North. Twenty-eight years ago, President Reagan addressed the British Parliament at Westminster in his famous “Ash Heap of History” speech, to where tyrants will be sent by those valiantly defending freedom.
Yesterday, I went to Orange County’s “Little Saigon”, Westminster, to attend a forum marking the 35th anniversary of the fall.
Before the forum, attendees went outside in the Sid Greenstein Freedom Park for a minute of silence before the war memorial there, the only one in the US honoring US and Vietnamese who fought together.
I knew three of the speakers well (and two others less from shared personal experiences, more as acquaintances, but major figures) from many years of collaboration and friendship to not let the Vietnamese and American sacrifices be in vain, to educate new generations in the lessons personally witnessed and learned...
Continue reading "A Tale Of Two Westminsters: 28 and 35 Years Later"
Wednesday, April 21. 2010
Human culture developed during the past 50,000 years, despite homo sapiens being around for much longer (300-400,000 years).
One theory is that certain rapid climate changes during the most recent glaciation phase, known as the Dansgaard-Oeschger events, are what prompted the development of complex cultures.
Adaptability is a human strength. The Bug Community seems pretty good at that too.
Sunday, April 11. 2010
A re-post from June, 2008. Was it that long ago? Seems like yesterday...It was a fine trip.
We took a day, last week, to hop the train over to Lake Como (and to stop by the Como Duomo), and took the fast ferry up to Villa Carlotta in Tremezzo - and then across the lake to Bellagio to see the equally renowned gardens of Villa Melzi.
The 17th-18th century Villa Carlotta and its gardens were a traditional and necessary stop on the "Grand Tour" of "the Continent." We anglophiles like to follow in those old paths.
It is impossible to capture on camera the feel of such vast and varied gardens, which are, in effect, both botanical gardens with worldwide collections of plants, and ornamental gardens designed to impress as much as to delight - some formal Italian and some English-style.
For example, these gardens have bamboo groves, Sequoia groves, acre-sized plantings of azalea, palm collections, collections of cacti, citrus arbors, etc. Even a turtle pool with happy and smiling American southern Red-eared Sliders and Cooters.
This photo is the entrance:
More of my mediocre photos on continuation page below -
Continue reading "Villa Carlotta"
Tuesday, April 6. 2010
"Professor Arkes discussed the Four Horsemen, four conservative justices on the Court during the 1930s who tried to block many of President Roosevelt's New Deal programs. He examined many of the Supreme Court cases from the Roosevelt era."
Those four guys saved us. Says the Prof: "We are the beneficiaries of the world that Sutherland and colleagues preserved for us."
Video from 1996. (h/t, No Left Turns)
Friday, March 12. 2010
 Founder of the American Red Cross Nursing Service. It's her birthday.
She said she didn't do it because she was moved by suffering, but because she liked the work.
I prefer people who do fine things because they want to, not because of pious self-congratulatory virtue or grandiose notions of changing the world.
Tuesday, March 9. 2010
 Alas, the man's name does a disservice to the brilliant Florentine Renaissance political scientist and student of human nature that he was.
However, I did not know that he wrote comedy on the side. Another Renaissance Man, as it were.
I like his face: shrewd and discerning, but ready to laugh.
"Princes and governments are far more dangerous than the other elements within society.”
- Niccolo Machiavelli
Sunday, March 7. 2010
I tend to think we still live in a Greco-Roman civilization. This from George Mason Prof Steven Davies:
Wednesday, March 3. 2010
It's an 11,500 year-old temple in southeastern Turkey. h/t to a good piece at Protein.
Thursday, February 25. 2010
Few of our readers recall tunneling to the barn during the big New England nor'easter blizzard of March 11, 1888.
Here's the weather story of that snowstorm (which tragically omits the role of AGW - we should never let an ancient weather crisis go to waste).
Some photos:
Longacre Square, NYC (Now Times Square):
Somewhere in Manhattan:
Somewhere in Brooklyn:
Main St., Stamford, CT, from this Stamford history site with more photos:
Train tracks in Norwalk, CT:
Sunday, February 21. 2010
 William Tyndale was the Oxford-educated polyglot theologian and reformer who produced the first printed Bible in English.
His translation was from Erasmus' Greek-Latin Bible, the same one which Luther used to translate his German Bible. Tyndale's Bible was banned in Britain: you can't trust the rabble to read it themselves. He famously said that he wanted a Bible that "every plowman" could read the Scripture for himself.
Tyndale was executed by Henry Vlll for his efforts. It is believed that Thomas More was pushing for the execution.
It is thought that up to 80% of the King James Bible - the most printed book in the world - is Tyndale's product. For hundreds of years after the first printings, Protestants avoided the Anglican King James Bible, preferring the Geneva Bible (which is very similar). The Pilgrims used the Geneva Bible and, no, Anglicans are not historically Protestants and neither are their American Episcopalian brethren.
Excellent summary of the history of the Bible in English here.
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