Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings
Tax the Rich
Tax the Rich
Website Wednesday
Sorry for no Movie Monday. There I was in a strange hotel room looking at the internet connection plug (which I had pulled out the night before) and having no idea where it fit into the doodads on the side of the laptop. So, rather than fry the whole system (can you still do that?), I didn't post. But I did "X mark the spot" when I was shown where to plug in so here I am today
Being in Rockville, MD is an experience. A lot of sidewalks. Many of them bordering, crowded highways with fast moving cars. I see it as really walking in the shoulder of a major highway except your walking area is very slightly raised from road level. One distracted driver, cell phoning, reading the paper, putting on make-up, the list is endless, and you could have a pedestrian disaster.
Half a block away, there is what I thought was a Metro entrance. But the stairs just go down one level (way to short for the DC metro.) There's another identical "Metro entrance" opposite it across the highway. So I'm thinking its an underground walkway under the highway. But I don't see any people going in or out (they instead run across the highway usually ignoring the little man signal which tells you when it's your turn to cross) so I'm not taking any chances and I'm treating it like the roach motel. You know: roach go in but don't come out.
TV is better here than Arlington, VA. There are 2 HBO channels and the RT channel. What's RT? Well, that's Russian Television. An interesting, liberal, social-conscious channel. Nothing like our lazy MMM. I look at RT's extensive coverage of the Occupy protests and think: I wonder how this plays to the world? For this channel obviously is not guided by our domestic mantra, America uber alles.
A little history about my choice for today, A Don's Life:
http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/
Anyone who studies US history should have heard of Charles and Mary Beard, husband and wife historians from the first half of the 1900s who fostered the view that American history was guided by economic principles not moralistic ideals. For example, they traced the causes of the American Civil War to a clash of economic cultures rather than a desire by the Union to end slavery. I've collected a few of their books at book sales and they're quite readable, telling history without the modern day historian's approach of: Washington awakened to a grey dawn. (Talk about chalk scratching a blackboard!)
As I understand it, Beard was a liberal and vehemently opposed the US entry into WWII. The opposition ended his career. And, something I didn't know: he is a co-founder of The New School in NYC.
So when I saw the name Mary Beard as a reviewer for The New York Review of Books, I thought: Daughter? Grand-daughter? Then I found the tidbit that she was one of people asked by TNYROB after 9/11/01 to comment. To paraphrase, she said something like: After the first wave of disbelief, I think most people think that America got what she deserved. Because a bully, even a well-meaning one, is still a bully. Wow! What a gutsy lady.
And that's how I got to her blog, A Don's Life. This Mary Beard is English and seems to be no relation to my Charles Beard. She teaches the classics at Cambridge and she blogs (40,000 hits a week) about them and her life and thoughts.
I like reading about the past. I especially like her links to primary documents. Right now, she's talking about the collapsing walls of Pompeii but scroll down to a posting about what first assignment she gives to her first year students. Click the links there to read the account of an ancient Greek's courtroom defense as to why he was justified in killing his wife's lover. Or go back to 8/26/11 for a discussion of Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte, it's Roman ruins and more.
Beard's blog is hosted by The Times Literary Supplement, and a right column entry clicks you to another TLS blog by Peter Stothard, one of their editors. Scroll down his postings to the one on the writer/"historian" Robert Hughes (Robert Hughes: a reply?, 10/21). Double wow! I haven't seen Hughes' book but if Stothard is correct, it's a piece of unbelievably sloppy history.
Well, I guess it's time for me to go and for you to start reading. Enjoy!
Being in Rockville, MD is an experience. A lot of sidewalks. Many of them bordering, crowded highways with fast moving cars. I see it as really walking in the shoulder of a major highway except your walking area is very slightly raised from road level. One distracted driver, cell phoning, reading the paper, putting on make-up, the list is endless, and you could have a pedestrian disaster.
Half a block away, there is what I thought was a Metro entrance. But the stairs just go down one level (way to short for the DC metro.) There's another identical "Metro entrance" opposite it across the highway. So I'm thinking its an underground walkway under the highway. But I don't see any people going in or out (they instead run across the highway usually ignoring the little man signal which tells you when it's your turn to cross) so I'm not taking any chances and I'm treating it like the roach motel. You know: roach go in but don't come out.
TV is better here than Arlington, VA. There are 2 HBO channels and the RT channel. What's RT? Well, that's Russian Television. An interesting, liberal, social-conscious channel. Nothing like our lazy MMM. I look at RT's extensive coverage of the Occupy protests and think: I wonder how this plays to the world? For this channel obviously is not guided by our domestic mantra, America uber alles.
A little history about my choice for today, A Don's Life:
http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/
Anyone who studies US history should have heard of Charles and Mary Beard, husband and wife historians from the first half of the 1900s who fostered the view that American history was guided by economic principles not moralistic ideals. For example, they traced the causes of the American Civil War to a clash of economic cultures rather than a desire by the Union to end slavery. I've collected a few of their books at book sales and they're quite readable, telling history without the modern day historian's approach of: Washington awakened to a grey dawn. (Talk about chalk scratching a blackboard!)
As I understand it, Beard was a liberal and vehemently opposed the US entry into WWII. The opposition ended his career. And, something I didn't know: he is a co-founder of The New School in NYC.
So when I saw the name Mary Beard as a reviewer for The New York Review of Books, I thought: Daughter? Grand-daughter? Then I found the tidbit that she was one of people asked by TNYROB after 9/11/01 to comment. To paraphrase, she said something like: After the first wave of disbelief, I think most people think that America got what she deserved. Because a bully, even a well-meaning one, is still a bully. Wow! What a gutsy lady.
And that's how I got to her blog, A Don's Life. This Mary Beard is English and seems to be no relation to my Charles Beard. She teaches the classics at Cambridge and she blogs (40,000 hits a week) about them and her life and thoughts.
I like reading about the past. I especially like her links to primary documents. Right now, she's talking about the collapsing walls of Pompeii but scroll down to a posting about what first assignment she gives to her first year students. Click the links there to read the account of an ancient Greek's courtroom defense as to why he was justified in killing his wife's lover. Or go back to 8/26/11 for a discussion of Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte, it's Roman ruins and more.
Beard's blog is hosted by The Times Literary Supplement, and a right column entry clicks you to another TLS blog by Peter Stothard, one of their editors. Scroll down his postings to the one on the writer/"historian" Robert Hughes (Robert Hughes: a reply?, 10/21). Double wow! I haven't seen Hughes' book but if Stothard is correct, it's a piece of unbelievably sloppy history.
Well, I guess it's time for me to go and for you to start reading. Enjoy!
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