You’ve heard the news?
Court Voids Gay Marriage Ban. California [Here].
And I’ve heard the radio talk-show hounds tell me that it’s “Anti-Democratic! Against the Will of the People to have a Law Forced into Our Lives!”
(But we’ve heard that before….)
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And it’s so clear, straightforward and logical, that you’re gonna have a “Why isn’t that already a LAW!” moment, I guarantee.
Let’s call it….
The XXVIII Amendment:
No Children,
No Siblings,
And No Spouses.
posted in History, The Popular Culture | 1 Comment
Moreover, as your aforesaid envoys are of opinion, these very peoples living in the said islands and countries believe in one God, the Creator in heaven, and seem sufficiently disposed to embrace the Catholic faith and be trained in good morals. And it is hoped that, were they instructed, the name of the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, would easily be introduced into the said countries and islands.
Also, on one of the chief of these aforesaid islands the said Christopher [Columbus] has already caused to be put together and built a fortress fairly equipped, wherein he has stationed as garrison certain Christians, companions of his, who are to make search for other remote and unknown islands and mainlands. In the islands and countries already discovered are found gold, spices, and very many other precious things of diverse kinds and qualities.
Wherefore, as becomes Catholic kings and princes, after earnest consideration of all matters, especially of the rise and spread of the Catholic faith, as was the fashion of your ancestors, kings of renowned memory, you have purposed with the favor of divine clemency to bring under your sway the said mainlands and islands with their residents and inhabitants and to bring them to the Catholic faith.
Europe finds its legal rationale for the taking of the Americas. Do it in the name of God, almighty. Really, it’s our duty! (The gold, spices and very many precious things don’t hurt, neither).
Today we’d say they all had “Aids”, or “Bird Flu”, and we needed to condomize, spray, spay and neuter them. And so we would try. But then, it was a simpler time, and conversion to the faith was more straightforward.
Spain was awarded the Americas by Pope Alexander VI, (a friend of the family), while Portugal had been awarded Africa by his predecessor (a friend of the Portuguese royal family). So it goes. (Keep friends in high places, I suppose, is the lesson).
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We [therefore] weighing all and singular the premises with due meditation, and noting that since we had formerly by other letters of ours granted among other things free and ample faculty to the aforesaid King Alfonso—to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, possessions, and all movable and immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery …
The Colonial Impulse finds its method in Africa. Convert them? Maybe, maybe not. Take their property? Of course! But first and foremost, Enslave them.
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The Father of our Country was a practical man, to be sure. How to deal with a never-ceasing enemy? When killing them won’t work, use the coin. Below find reprinted a letter from George Washington to James Duane, dated September 7, 1783, in which General, and President Washington gives expression to an ever-evolving idea:
How to deal with those not of your tribe, whose land and possessions you want to hold? Accuse them of attacking you. Once defeated, drive them to extinction. But how?
War is more expensive than undermining their rights through the manipulations afforded through commerce. Taking “their country” from the Indians, writes Washington, “is like driving the Wild Beasts of the Forest which will return as soon as the pursuit is at an end and fall perhaps on those that are left there.”
It is dangerous business, he councils, to wage war on an such an adversary as this. Better, he says, to overwhelm those, “Wild Beasts of the Forest” by purchase of their lands:
”[W]hen the gradual extension of our Settlements will as certainly cause the Savage as the Wolf to retire; both being beasts of prey tho’ they differ in shape. In a word there is nothing to be obtained by an Indian War but the Soil they live on and this can be had by purchase at less expence, and without that bloodshed, and those distresses which helpless Women and Children are made partakers of in all kinds of disputes with them.”
This is the progression from the Crusades ethos or philosophy, which stated that land could and should be taken from the Infidel, Pagan, and Saracen (muslim) by order of almighty God, for the purposes of training the uncivil hordes in the ways of European grace. By the 1800s, the argument had moved to a more openly economic rationale – that plus Manifest Destiny – which is, in effect, the same as the Crusade rationale.
Today we use tools like ‘Sars’, ‘Bird Flu’ and ‘Aids’ to infiltrate and overthrow national sovereignty, and to push the poor, uncivil, and ‘infidel’ out of the way.
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Francois Marie Arouet - 18th Century writer, philosopher, and sit-down comedian (satirist) - is better known to all third semester French students as Voltaire. He lived his life in full. Smart, cruel, generous, witty, kind, atheistic, humanistic, misanthropic, absurdist, English-loving Francophobe, Francophilic Parisian; long-suffering, well-rewarded, hunted, despised, and dearly beloved.
He gave to literature some of the strangest confabulations ever seen, even in the modern era - stories of science fiction absurdity - spacemen, giants, deranged civilian populations, plagues, pirates and villains pretending to do public good; and then mystical, perfect (and boring) Edens, soon to be discarded for lustier, more perilous pursuits.
He tried to wrangle out of the human condition some sense, some middle ground, but seemed to enjoy the highs and lows of existence - in his writing, and in reality - more than the simple, quiet life his literary creations claimed to desire.
He gave, in some work or another, or perhaps only in speech, a phrase which echoes in my mind in almost every conversation I have with those defending the various religions of our era - Bird Flu, Aids, Sars, Bombing Iraq for democracy’s sake, etc.
“If you want to converse with me, first define your terms.”
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I’d like to be a bee and other poems, from Introduction to Italian Poetry
“Un’ape esser vorrei”
I’d like to be a bee
Un’ape esser vorrei,
Donna bella e crudele,
Che susurrando in voi suggese il mele
I’d like to be a bee, beautiful (and cruel) lady, who, murmuring, would suck the honey in you,
E, non potendo il cor, potesse almeno
Pungervi ‘l bianco seno
And, not being able to reach your heart, could at least, sting your white breast,
E ‘n si dolce ferita
Vendicata lasciar la propria vita.
And in so sweet a wound, leave my own life, avenged.
I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against my conscience is neither right nor safe. - Martin Luther at his hearing, 1521
From Will Durant’s Heroes of History, abbreviated from his Story of Civilization Volume 6, The Reformation. Read more WillDurant.com
The man who was to have more influence upon subsequent history than anyone but Copernicus and Columbus was born in Eisleben, Germany, to a peasant-then-miner named Hans Luther and his wife Margarethe. Frightened by a theology of terror and punishment, they brought up their children with such rigor of word and rod that the “severe and harsh life I led with them,” recalled Luther, “was the reason that I afterward took refuge in the cloister and became a monk.”
Parents and children believed in angels, witches, and demons roaming in the air, and in a God condemned the larger part of his human creations to an everlasting hell. Martin met his tribulations with a vigor of body and will that molded his rough features and kept him undefeated to his death.
At school in Mansfeld there were more rods and catechism. martin was flogged (we are told) fifteen times in a day for misdeclining a noun. At fourteen he was transferred to the School of St. George at Eisenach, and had three relatively happy years in the comfortable home of Frau Cotta.
He never forgot her remark that there was nothing on earth more precious than the love of a good woman. In this atmosphere he developed the natural charms of youth—health, cheerfulness, sociability, frankness. He sang well and played the lute.
I’m going to China… The thought is sinking in…
Mostly because it’s true, but also because it’s happening soon (3+ weeks), and I have so much to do before I go…
Empty an apartment, get rid of furniture, box the remaining books, and figure out what to do with the bits of a/v cable, stacked data CDs, (curiously but indecipherably scribbled on in permanant marker), audio tapes scattered under a cabinet, clothes I won’t wear for 4 months, or maybe a year…
In a short time, this and all manner of flim-flam will hit the Goodwill, sidewalk, or, (with alligator tears)…the garbage.
Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, and environs. And then into Japan, for a couple of weeks. (C’est cher la bas).
I’ve been exposing my ears and mind to the sound of Mandarin. Ni Hao, back atcha.
Chinese: Four words out of one syllable: Ma, ma, ma and ma. One like a sigh, one a statement, and two as questions expecting very different answers.
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From Will Durant’s Heroes of History, abbreviated from his Story of Civilization volume 2, The Life of Greece. Read more WillDurant.com
At Ephesus, whose temple to Artemis Diana was among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, Heracleitus, three hundred years before Plato, expounded, in enigmatic apothegms, a philosophy of evolution that must have delighted Hegel, Darwin, Spencer and Nietzsche.
Two ideas fascinated him: change is universal, and energy is indestructible and everlasting. Nothing is, everything becomes; everything is always ceasing to be what it is, and is becoming what it will be; “all things flow” (panta rei), and “you can never dip your foot in the same water in a flowing stream”; the universe is one vast, restless, ceaseless “Becoming.”
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From Will Durant’s Heroes of History, abbreviated from his Story of Civilization volume 2, The Life of Greece. Read more WillDurant.com
Who were the ancient Greeks and whence did they come? They came from all directions: from western Asia, from the islands of the Aegean Sea, from Crete, Egypt, and the Balkans, some even from “Scythia” - ie, southern Russia. They pastured flocks, tilled the earth, traded, built villages and towns, fought wars, and submitted to chieftains or kings like Agamemnon of Mycenae and Codrus of Athens.
The Mycenaeans probably derived their civilization from Crete and Egypt, while the settlements of eastern Greece seem to have imported their cultural elements from western Asia and the Aegean isles. The mating of Asiatic and Cretan subtlety and Egyptian refinements with the barbaric vigor of the tribes that had come down into Hellas from the North seems to have set the biological basis of “the glory that was Greece.”
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From The Art of War, translation by Samuel B. Griffith .
In respect to the employment of troops, ground may be classified as dispersive, frontier, key, communicating, focal, serious, difficult, encircled, and death.
1) When a feudal lord fights in his own territory, he is in dispersive ground.
2) When he makes but a shallow penetration into enemy territory he is in frontier ground.
3) Ground equally advantageous for the enemy or me to occupy is key ground.
4) Ground equally accessible to both the enemy and me is communicating.
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Excerpts from Will Durant’s Heroes of History, abbreviated from his Story of Civilization volume 5, The Renaissance. Read more WillDurant.com
The most fascinating figure of the Renaissance was born on April 15, 1452, near the village of Vinci, some sixty miles from Florence. His mother was a peasant girl, Caterina, who had not bothered to marry his father. Her seducer, Piero d’Antonio, was a Florentine attorney of some means. In the year of Leonardo’s birth Piero married a woman of his won rank. Caterina had to be content with a peasant husband; she yielded her pretty love child to Piero and his wife; and Leonardo was brought up in semi-aristocratic comfort without maternal love. Perhaps in that early environment he acquired his taste for fine clothing, and his aversion to women.
He went to a neighborhood school, took fondly to mathematics, music and drawing, and delighted his father by his singing and his playing of the lute. Yet Leonardo in his prime was known for his strength, bending a horseshoe with his hands; he was an expert fencer, and skilled in riding and managing horses, which he loved as the noblest and fairest of animals.
Apparently he drew, painted an wrote with his left hand; this, rather than a desire to be illegible, made him write from right to left.
In order to draw well he studied all things in nature with curiosity, patience and care; science and are, so remarkably united in his mind, had there one origin - detailed observation.
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From The Art of War, this translation and introduction by Samuel B. Griffith (a wonderful version, available Here).
Biography of Sun Tzu (as it appears in the Shih Chi, Sun Tzu Wu Chi’s Lieh Chuan).
Sun Tzu [?circa 453-221 B.C. - The Warring States Period ] was a native of Ch’i who by means of his book on the art of war secured an audience with Ho-lu, King of Wu.
Ho-lu said, “I have read your thirteen chapters, Sir, in their entirety. Can you conduct a minor experiment in control of the movement of troops?”
Sun Tzu replied, “I can.”
Ho-lu asked, “Can you conduct this test using women?”
Sun Tzu replied, “Yes.”
The King thereupon agreed and sent from the palace one hundred and eighty beautiful women.
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From Will Durant’s Heroes of History, abbreviated from his Story of Civilization volume 3, Caesar and Christ. Read more WillDurant.com
The Philosopher Kings of Rome - Nerva to Hadrian
Hear Gibbon’s judgment:
Ernest Renan agreed: The principle of royal adoption gave Rome “the finest succession of good and great sovereigns the world has ever had.”
That principle had been established by Augustus; it had been set aside after Nero’s death; it was restored by Nerva (A.D. 98) when he adopted Trajan as his successor. The Senate had accepted the principle on the assumption that the adoption would be of a man already known for administrative and military ability. The principle worked well because Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius had no son, and had time to study and train their choice.
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