Category: History
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America’s Revolutionary War is still with us
I’ve finished reading two books on the Revolutionary War. To me the most revolutionary insight from reading them is that 250 years ago Americans were fighting the same stuff we are today. And no, I don’t mean the British. I mean us. The first book, The War for American Independence by Samuel B. Griffith II, […]
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The forgotten European empire
The Roman Empire seems to be a constant source of fascination two-millennium later. From 27 BCE to 476 AD (or CE if you prefer) the empire ruled Europe, Asia Minor and parts of Africa. Immortalized by Shakespeare and many others, you can now even watch a series on Netflix that tries to dramatize many of […]
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Chaos causes more chaos
For those of you pining for anarchy, look around. Happy yet? You should be ecstatic. For the rest of us, it’s feeling a lot like hell. Yesterday’s job report showed a 14.5% unemployment rate and more than twenty million newly unemployed people. The real unemployment rate is likely above twenty percent. Meanwhile, civil society is […]
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Remembering Apollo 11
My best friend Tom and I were big space program fans back in the day, but in truth most Americans were as well. We were just more obsessed about it than most. The space program was a BFD in the 1960s, and our nation’s progress in space went at an extremely accelerated rate. That can […]
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An appreciation for George H.W. Bush
There is perhaps some irony in the passing of our 41st president and the sad sack of shit we currently have as president. I loathed George W. Bush as president, but his father was a good president, which is hard for this Democrat to admit. George H.W. Bush was a moderate Republican from a different […]
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A short visit to Minneapolis-St. Paul
Life can be busy when you are retired. For me it’s been busy in a good way, meaning I took a mini vacation last week. This had the effect of keeping me from blogging. It meant a 4-day trip to Minneapolis-St. Paul to attend a reunion related to my last job. Our hotel turned out […]
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Two book reviews: “After Lincoln” and “City of Dreams”
I’m back home after 19 days away. I’d like to say I was on the road but most of it was on a cruise ship so technically I was on the seas. When not at ports of call, cruise ships do give you downtime. With no Internet, there was time to do something I should […]
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London, Part 5 (Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, Oxford and some travel notes)
We reserved our last day in London to escape it and see something other than an impressive city. Fortunately it’s not hard to do. There are bus companies that do these sorts of things. (We chose an Evan Evans tour.) One advantage of being sixty is for one of the first times in my life […]
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London, Part 4 (Some sights)
A week in London isn’t much time, so we mostly hit highlights. Even so we missed a lot of things you might think would be must sees: Buckingham Palace, Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Parliament (although we did pass Big Ben), 10 Downing Street and many other places. That will leave plenty for our next trip […]
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London, Part 2 (Ancient London)
Not a whole lot is known about London prior to the arrival of the Romans. Even most Britons don’t pay much attention to their history prior to the arrival of William the Conqueror and the Normans from France in 1066. Which means if you want to discover really ancient London, you will need a guide, […]
Occam's Razor 