Medicare For All

In spite of the defeat of a public option in the Senate Finance Committee, it’s not over yet. Then I have been known to search the pile of manure for the pony.

Website Wednesday

I fired someone from my newsletter staff yesterday. OK, don’t start hollering. It was a volunteer job. I didn’t put anyone on the unemployment rolls. Unfortunately however, I proved true that old adage of professional people that you must pay people for services; volunteerism just doesn’t work.

I disagree with that but in this situation I was dealing with a very capable woman who had become incalcitrant in her position and was unwilling to open any lines of communications with me. So I was between that rock and hard place position. First, she gave every indication of wanting to quit working with us, then she answered my e-mails asking for a clarification of her position with: I need more time to respond and to decide if I’m even going to respond.

WTF?

I guess the lesson to be learned here is: document everything; have a long paper trail. Not that this was completely necessary in this volunteer situation. What? Am I going to bring this case before the International Court of Volunteer Problems at the Hague? But at “real” work keep your all e-mails with that pesky employee or employer. Keep a record and transcript of phone conversations.

You don’t want a scenario of: But, but he/she said this...... And the rejoinder being: Oh, yeah, prove it.

Thus endth the lesson. (Loved how Sean Connery said that in The Untouchables.)

And now, on to our website.

http://www.roman-emperors.org/

First off, this is a site for history nerds so you may wish to move along quickly. But if you stay, you are in for such a history treat. Not a treat in the sense of the popularized history I have discussed here before: George Washington awakened that gray Christmas morning chilled to the bone...... But real wonkers’ history. Essays here about the Roman emperors have to pass a peer review before they are posted.

Dir Imperator Ibus Romanis says about itself: The on-going work of building, expanding, and improving DIR is collaborative; the members of the DIR Collegium Editorum are happy to receive suggestions for additions and changes, as well as submissions of biographical essays and battle descriptions for consideration for publication (after peer-review). Instructions for submissions are available. See a list of pending essays for a list of those essays which are currently in process....

There is so much good stuff on this site. You have dozens of biographies, and not the short Wikipedia version, but the long version. For example, in the biography of Nero it says about Nero’s killing of his mom, Agrippina: Nero was petrified with fear when he learned that the deed had been done, yet his popularity with the plebs of Rome was not impaired. This matricide, however, proved a turning point in his life and principate. It appeared that all shackles were now removed. Not your dry, dull history. But of course, most of those Roman emperors were wild and crazy guys.

Or writing about my favorite, Marcus Aurelius: The abundance of children whom his wife bore him included, alas, a male who was to prove one of Rome's worst rulers. How much better it would have been if Marcus had had no son and had chosen a successor by adoption, so that the line of the five good emperors, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus, Marcus, could have been extended. It was not to be, and for that Marcus must accept some responsibility.

Beside imperial biographies (spouses and other important players are hyperlinked - most of which work) there are essays on Roman battles with maps, atlases of Rome, Europe and Constantinople both in ancient and medieval times, and a virtual catalog of Roman coins (I did get stuck in a loop at this site.)

This is specialized site. This is a work in progress But do go take a look. There is some fascinating information to be found here.