Posts Tagged ‘history’

Old advice but good advice

Posted: July 28, 2009 by datechguy in local stuff
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You know I’m reading a very old Book: American History told by Contemporaries Volume 1 Era of Colonization 1492-1689 by historian Albert Bushnell Hart back in 1897. It’s a collection excepts and complete accounts by people who actually lived and experienced events.

Considering the economic situation these days I found this particular package on Suggestions of Granting Lands written in 1665 by a surveyor named Thomas Woodard. He was hired by the proprietors of the “Province of Carolina” and he offered certain interesting advice about making things profitable, he starts by quoting Sir Francis Bacon’s essay of Plantation:

“…The principall thing that hath been the destruction of most Plantations hath bin the hastee drawing of Profit in the first yeares.”

And it is my Opinion, (which I submitt to better Judgements) that it will for some time conduce more to your Lordshipe Profit to permit men to take up what tracts of Land they please at an easie rate, then to stint them to small proportions at a great rent.

In less that 3 days taxes on Meals, sales, liquor etc will be going up 25% here in the state of Massachusetts. We will in a modern advanced and easy society yet ironically even 350 years ago people understood that crushing taxes might make a short terms difference while destroying you long term, but low taxes and fees encourage prosperity with crushing taxes.

New Hampshire is going to do very well over this, but I wish the president and the Governor would take a hint from history.

“Just one Minute” sets his tardis to 1961

Posted: July 25, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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One of the things that I enjoy about Doctor Who historical stories are the reactions of the Tardis crew to the mindsets of various ancient times and the clashes in culture that take place. One of the weaknesses that can take place is when a person taken from their own time ends up acts with 21st century reactions.

The Very good Blog Just one Minute forgets this fact when making his case for the president mother et/al having a motivation to provide false documents concerning her child’s birth. He says as follows:

My point, then and recently – Barack’s mom and maternal grandparents had a strong incentive to create a paper trail documenting Obama as a US citizen back in 1961 and it had nothing to do with assuring his future viability as a Presidential candidate. Alll they needed to do was imagine a day when the white Ms. Dunham would be engaged in a custody fight in a Kenyan court contesting the fate of a black Kenyan baby sought by the black Kenyan father and his African family, and their course would have been clear.

To us in the year 2009, a land where Gay marriage is debated and legal in some states, where Christianity is openly mocked on television cartoons to win awards, where 77 year old men are surgically altered to be 77 year old “women” and where father’s day affairs don’t drive governors from office and where an Anglican priest can describe Abortion as a blessing, that might fly….

However in 1961 Culturally all of those things would be impossible, rejected and scandalous. The concept of divorce itself was not very well excepted outside of Hollywood or the elites. Hell a pre-nup would have been considered off the wall. The thought particularly at the time of marriage that it was going to end in a custody fight just didn’t wash.

The US was at it’s height of self confidence as well. The idea that a US court was going to rule against a US citizen in a fight over a child, particular in favor of a non Christian Black African was far fetched. Cripes; Miranda rights didn’t even exist at the time.

It would be like going to 1896 and saying to someone “Michael Jackson is cool.” They would tell him to come closer to the fire. The idea that she was planning for a custody fight in 1961 would be a foreign to her as the idea of e-mail.

This is exactly the opposite of the mistake the AP is making with bloggers. AP is trying to win an argument using the norms of the past. This argument is applying the norms of today to a different culture. It just doesn’t wash.

Update: My own argument concerning this is here.

A tale of two men…

Posted: July 5, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news, war
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…who both died by the hand of the Taliban. One was a soldier Aaron Faibairn:

It appears that Aaron was one of the two soldiers killed in a large Taliban attack on a base in Paktika

This young man willing put his life on the line for his country and died on the 4th of July. Per his father’s request I will be using the tag thankyouaaron on this post.

Taken from his beheading video by Reuters.

Photo taken from his beheading video via Reuters.

The second person you likely haven’t heard of. His name was Piotr Stanczak and the Taliban beheaded him on film back in February. He wasn’t a soldier he was a geologist but died just as bravely:

Piotr Stanczak did not exhibit the slightest hint of hesitation when the Pakistani Taliban asked him to choose between execution and conversion to Islam.

Whether the Polish geologist acted out of pride or religious conviction, he decided to pay through his blood to save his faith, a choice that bewildered his killers and keep them talking about him with respect after his murder.

I would very much like to consider myself a faithful Catholic but I honestly can’t say if in the same situation I would have the same courage.

Via Tim Blair who notes:

An earlier item on Stanczak’s murder:

The video is so horrifying that some news wire agencies chose not to distribute the images.

If they’d been from Abu Ghraib, however …

For our own sakes these men need to be remembered. Both died defending beliefs and principles dear to Americans. Keep this in mind when people try to explain why radical Islam in general and the Taliban in particular should not be resisted.

The article you might miss if you don’t look

Posted: July 5, 2009 by datechguy in war
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Glenn links to an article in the Times of London suggesting the Saudis have given an ok for an Israel overflight to take out Iranian Nukes.

It is important and Ambassador Bolton must be pleased but if you don’t look at the entire page you might miss something significant.

The Times’ archive has been scanned and there is a link to a story concerning Khomeini from 1981. It is worth a read to see what a British reporter had to say about the man who would fuel Islamic Terror for decades.

A perceptive on what people actually thought and said at the time is invaluable. The Times has their archive available back to 1785. It is an amateur historians dream, and the price ranges from $9 for a day to $130 a year. Do a search for example for “Guerriere” during the period of war of 1812 and you’ll get the idea.

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