caesar novus

Wow, that old link above still works for coming Sept 24 free museum day in USA. Choose a museum to get tix for 2 (a pdf that you can load on your phone). Maybe have a companion book another museum, so you both can do 2. Best to choose pricey museums that don't have the usual one free day per month or year. I am targeting an air museum that lets you climb into historic cockpits that day.

I read a free e-memoir of a WW2 bomber co-pilot called "Serenade to the Big Bird" that I can't recommend but started me reflecting on work and family trends. Actually his writeup of prewar and likely postwar goals of him and his buddies was interesting - chase women under any pretense, suck down hard alcohol in down-times when possible, but expect you will eventually have to secure a highly paid job to support some irresistible nonworking spouse and various children. He didn't survive the war, but his and other accounts depict that both men and many women were in a frenzy to meet up more than today, and not just due to the disruption of war. Hormones and hedonism seemed in the air, but the assumed trajectory was toward serious (1950ish) domesticated worker bee life. A recent article http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-idle-army-americas-unworking-men-1472769641 "The Idle Army: America’s Unworking Men" shows a major new alternate lifestyle with hedonism, kids, but without any thought of work. The US publishes pretty low unemployment figures, but they only count unemployed JOB SEEKERS. The US rivals Greece in OVERALL unemployed, which are not just those in school or retired. It can total almost 40% for male grown ups. Almost a hundred million of all (4?) genders not seeking work. I'll skip the guesstimates of how many of those are brazenly coasting on benefits, crime, grey market, or disability fraud, but you see the swashbuckling lifestyle of them all the time. Those arrested at age 18 with 11 children by 5 welfare mothers with a flashy car but unemployable. No incentive to engage in civil society, and police of all races are grimly experienced, not biased, with dealing with their hostile sense of entitlement. This social ill was seemingly created by "compassionate" politics during my lifetime, generally without carrots or sticks. The problem is not from immigrants or the married "underprivileged" or many others who still work hard and bear the burden of taxation, it is product of social engineering by naive children and grandchildren of 1940's boozers who played but worked hard. Oh, and who died early of lung cancer due to the culture of free cigarettes issued to US soldiers, when the Germans had already proven the cancer link.

That reminds me of documentaries that chisel away at that Pliny-based theme, and anyway weren't his observations a fair ways away from Pompeii and on the next day? His uncle experiences of the day before came second hand and not exactly in Pompeii? Wiki even reminds us of considerable archeo evidence that the town was actually buried 3 months later. So I turn to Mary Beard to synthesize archeo evidence although with maybe too much taste for upsetting cherished assumptions. In http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/italy/campania/pompeii/articles/Mary-Beards-Pompeii-guide-a-trip-back-to-AD-79/ she sez: The last bit was even challenged recently by cat scans in a documentary where she appeared unusually subdued. Most of the plaster casts, that had appeared to show the old and female, beggars and slaves, etc... had a few teeth, bone, and clothing remains that indicated healthy, wealthy, twenty year old males. Security contingent or exploiters?

For me, it has been out of laziness that I have built up many long educational videos in youtube "watch later" list. Only recently did I notice youtube will keep track of where I left off, so I can break the logjam by watching in bits. Many are from visiting experts whose lectures I skipped after I promised myself I would watch their video. I can't believe I am contemplating skipping a lecture by the archeologist who worked on a boat that could have fought Vespasian in a naval battle on Sea of Galilee off Mary Magdalene's home town of Migdal. Below I post an old video of his lecture (not a series but long) whose production quality isn't great, but can be supplanted by his writeup of the Roman history context http://www.jesusboat.com/jesusboat-archive/ancient-seafaring-and-the-jesus-boat

This is inspired by the "song" thread, though I doubt it will be nearly as popular. I wondered what video or audio series do you follow that others might find interesting, especially if there is no cost, commercials, or copyright? I will kick it off with video memoirs of a Harvard law professor who was invited to China for a couple years to help set up a "rule of law". It was just opening up to the west and and thought it could get economically stronger if having at least a veneer of business law. And after 35 years it worked well enough so China now feels strong and self sufficient enough to become a bully with it's neighbors about who owns certain islands in between them. May sound sound dull, but the man is a great and smart storyteller. I attempt to show below the group of 16 one hour videos "Law, Life and Asia: Conversations with Jerome Alan Cohen". Youtube will keep your place when you stop in the middle, although I sometimes find it rocky to advance from one to the next video part using "watch later" feature. It's just a talking head, so I found my Amazon fire tablet will let me put the screen to sleep while still playing youtube (sometimes takes a couple tries). Then it's a good listen if you are resting after a big meal or effort: Also some honorable mentions to less gripping series that I use for times I have trouble falling asleep. They are old-time radio satires which are no big loss if I fall asleep and lose my place in them. Most can be streamed commercial free by searching for "british comedy" or "american comedy" on the xiialive app. I picked my favorites and downloaded mp3 files from archive.org or the like. Some episodes have fuzzy audio, and don't take shakey early episodes as representative of later ones more in the groove: Hancocks half hour (misadventures of a Brit who tries hard) The men from the ministry (branch of UK gov't alternates between dozing and screwball panic) The great guildersleeve (domestic life of some odd US characters) The bickersons (husband and wife arguing nonsense in wee hours)

Smithsonian channel is showing a documentary "Lost City of Gladiators" about this archeo site which is pretty good and locally produced. http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/shows/lost-city-of-the-gladiators/0/3436502

That is from http://www.nigeriannewspapers.today/2016/08/15/unbelievable-scientists-confirm-you-live-again-after-death/ but other sources add that probably more % "dead" folks experience even longer awareness, but cannot remember so much after being revived due to brain shock. They seem conflicting about whether the brain appears dead to instrumentation during this "afterlife". Reminds me of folks who wanted an emergency exit door in their coffin or to be beheaded after "death" as a precaution against suffering from premature declaration of death.

I was gonna skip a Smithsonian channel documentary "Pompeii: The Dead Speak" last night because it looked gruesome, but when I saw it was 2 hours long I decided to channel surf in and out, looking for good parts. You can see samples and rerun schedule at http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/shows/pompeii-the-dead-speak/0/3436504 including an uncharacteristicly demure Mary Beard. They laser and cat scan everything (like most recent Rome documentaries) esp a new exhibit of plaster cast dead in Pompeii. I hope that exhibit describes their findings, which is that the pathetic figures are mostly the opposite of what they seem. Not beggars, afro slaves, pregnant women, and old folks hugging their family. Rather they are generally young, strong, healthy 20-ish locals in expensive clothes. The others evacuated during the lengthy warning signs, and the show said the remaining ones were too sentimental too leave (there was actually skull formation evidence most grew up in Pompeii!). Sorry Smithee, but I think you found folks defending the family home from looters and/or looters themselves. 20 year olds are not afraid to leave home towns and don't see the distant world as intimidating. Looting happens very easily in even lesser disasters in otherwise civilized places; I have seen it. P.S. Smithee, when are you gonna point us to a web environment to savor those 3d laser site scans on our own?

No, Britain isn't doing the worrying. It's what is behind the claims of German/EU official, which borders on a technical gimmick. It's nothing UK specific and was not anything the UK asked for or specifically agreed to. I have lost a detailed explanatory link, but will try to summarize more fully than https://www.rt.com/uk/354758-brexit-eu-debt-leave/ Every EU country makes commitments to pay for their share of EU budget; UK will probably follow thru with 4 year contribution of e60b it promised before the vote. However, on the spending side EU makes promises for various construction projects that exceed their own budget, and this has built up year to year to I guess 200b now. Someone divided this by 8 to come up with a bill to the UK, although technically no EU country can have debt to EU and some EU lawyers say the UK could ignore it. Several articles likened this to credit card limits, which I don't really follow. They said for instance for that bridge in Bulgaria or UK, some EU official would say go ahead and build it to be refunded later by EU. So I guess they get a non-EU loan first, or maybe from some EU bonds? They seemed to say a lot of projects are backed up waiting for the budget and country commitments to catch up. It is this promise-making that appears to be out of control from any democratic process and smells elitist to me. Anyway, I include bridge picture from Trajan's column which a civil engineer professor called still the most efficient solution for most places. He said some wooden trusses were put in the wrong place, but that may have been just the sculptor.

I think that 25b "owing" interpretation is limited to a few German sources so far. By that logic Germany may "owe" UK even more due to annually paying only half of it's NATO commitments of 2% of GDP. UK overpays but most of Europe pays 1% or less. If I have this right Germany should pay 35b more per year, or UK could have saved annual 31b to drop down to German levels of NATO contribution. Some of this backlash against Brexit smells of spurned lovers overcompensating, as if they were originally more Anglophile than they let on. Maybe Junckers used to sleep in Union Jack pajamas? Anyway paying off the 25b may be worth it for cutting future losses. As I understand it, this number primarily involves EU porkbarrel projects like building bridges in Bulgeria which the EU promised to pay for but didn't yet. Even when the pork was spent in the UK, what chance did UK voters get to shut down or streamline such projects. BTW a bridge building professor told us that virtually all bridges should be of the truss type from Roman times if cost accounting was rational. The fancy modern designs are done to reduce local labor hours whose wages are artificially boosted by gov't, vs more material expenditure which is affordably bought on free intn'l market.

http://www.slideshare.net/search/slideshow?searchfrom=header&q=roman has umpteen lecture slides on many Roman topics. Quality varies, but easy to find an interesting slice of Rome with catchy visuals. Also http://www.slideshare.net/search/slideshow?searchfrom=header&q=rome and other obvious search terms. Slides don't work for me under safari, but firefox ok.

Populism is sweeping the world with ignorant and harmful consequences, I guess accelerated by social media/news. The US founders tried to remedy excesses of Greek democracy and even Roman republicanism, but even that is overturned now. Education has become indoctrination. Science is only quoted in bits that agree with ideology. Nationalism may seem backsliding, but something needs to address excesses of robo-globalism. I used to read and like Boris' articles before he became a public figure, but I may have to line up with Mary (even though her writings on Romans carries whiff of eccentric sensationalism).

I've got to add a postmortem postscript based on surprising news reports. The last tendril of the storm dumped a foot of rain on us, but without wind or the usual hysterical siren activity. Seemed like a kind of peaceful cleansing... the news reports mostly found minor flood incidents on the same scale of normal flooding happening every few months. The amazing part was the emergency HQ center for all gov't agencies supporting a million people had it's power knocked out (alone). And it's emergency power booted up but the transfer switch wouldn't feed it in. All those bossy, highly paid, condescending preparedness freaks were in the dark and out of touch except for one guy who had brought a laptop and handheld radio to a remote storm watching location. The main damage was gov't created. A sort of homeless favela that had been allowed to form on an industrial stream washed masses of toxic trash into a recreational bay (too protected to self cleanse). These folks were not down and out but each had more possessions (stolen and found) than residents of a McMansion neighborhood, which were aimed at selling to nearby recyclers. The federal govt had blocked local govts from preventative cleanout based on misguided compassion, so the shoreline is now wrecked with a million cubic feet of rusting and splintering hazards.

Today's discovery science channel had an Unearthed episode on the Parthenon, and discussed it's exterior paint. First they showed odd bits protected from the weather that had blue and red paint on it. Next they showed a guess of the overall look, which was mainly natural marble with a bunch of decorative banding near the top. Finally they addressed the question how could you stick any paint to glossy marble 2500 years ago. A Greek artist demonstrated a guess made by dissolving gummy tree resin into melted wax, then adding color powder. You would etch the marble to create lines so unruly paint wouldn't cross beyond it's border, and keep reheating the paint and the brush itself. The trick was to apply very hot to burn off any dampness on the marble to allow a bond. Science HD channel seems one of the last to offer meaty 1 hour documentaries on the ancients, without cheesy docudrama. They seem allergic to Rome so far, and want to glorify less accomplished cultures to my eye. When younger I had exactly that bias too. China wall episode was good at least visually, but kinda pathetic glorifying the mortar as miraculous due to perhaps having rice gruel in it... no match for Roman mortar tho.

Here I sit typing outside in what was hysterically promised to be a massive tropical storm from a weakened hurricane. Even weather reports on TV were pre-empted by big brother robo alarms which couldn't be muted even if you hit pause button or changed the channel. Well, the wind is less than usual, sky is greyer than usual, sprinkles are a little more persistent than usual... just what anybody would expect from checking doppler radar etc of oncoming storm. Oh, you can feel a sinister quality to even weak wind gusts... it's how fast they accelerate rather than their tame speed. I've seen it umpteen times; we luckily have a massive mountain that hurricanes have to cross first, and the forecasters are oblivious to the demonstrated historical fact that it snuffs out much circulatory power out of such storms. They probably know; only recently did their models pay attention to geography, but they probably don't dare stick their neck out and depart from proven flat-world forecasts. Maybe faked out a guy who repairs wind-blown roofs and is an instructor pilot to boot; I see him blogging he has boarded up his windows. This time I really detect fraud. The storm has long been rated at the slowest possible speed to raise any alarm, and was forecast to not drop even one knot after mountains and cooler water for an unprecedented period until it passed all populated areas. There is a disaster industry where politicians and scientists huddle and warp the message for both good and bad intentions. I suspect the storm has long been under dangerous wind speeds, but the nerds were afraid of the small chance it would ramp up and force them to flipflop their warnings. Forget the truth, don't inform us lowly taxpayers but pump condescending spin to keep us manageable. I have sat thru a scientific review of the Japan tsunami event, and came to see many public warnings of such waves are overblown compared to what is known to science. Even if you have infinite power behind a quake, it takes unusual predictable geology to allow that to translate to big waves. Most places cannot create dangerous waves... they are like huge engines with a tiny propeller that can't exert it's force. Anyway, I think politicians show worse motives here. Wasn't it the Romans who instituted bread and circuses, which google calls "a diet of entertainment or political policies on which the masses are fed to keep them happy and docile." Now they exhibit benevolence by overhyping storm dangers and needlessly opening shelters etc which is much cheaper and more visible than working on crumbling infrastructure. They monopolize news in their hardhats, for instance triggering buying frenzies on bottled water... a ridiculous product that can make folks sorry they didn't get nutritious drinks at the same price. The brain runs on sugar alone, and once I was stranded in the Sahara with nothing but lemonade sport powder for several days - comfy because wells and shade was available in my spot.

One source is authentic roman painting/frescos depicting building exteriors. A quick scan of google pictures suggests most are off-white with occasional red columns. A strong exception is posted below from inside a Pompeii villa. There was a period when it was fashionable to show fantasy architecture in paintings, and maybe some of the colorful ones show some distant exotic style. vs pompeii amphitheater district cityscape:

I wonder if that is near where a TV documentary showed loads of (silver?) coins found a couple years ago, and declared it the best guess for battle location. Or will there be an eternal hopscotch as more distant coin finds are made. Regardless of the location, I recall several sources depicting Romans as kind of sabotaging themselves there with several poor decisions... same with some battles with Hannibal too. I forget the details, but they gave deja vu with various commercial air accident reports in the sense of there was not one, but a series of issues that went snafu. The point being a professional Roman general or commercial pilot is too competent to respond badly to one simple issue. Rather it is when several issues come up together that they lose focus or get tricked. It is often underlined that airline crashes due to pilot error turn out to have multiple causes if you look hard enough, and maybe that could be a theme for a class project on Roman battle defeats too.

J. Romm in New Republic https://newrepublic.com/article/134975/erotic-bard-ancient-rome skeptical of speculative

I just got a shock of recognition that this and some of my other posts assume that bad/sick taste equals amusing. Maybe not so to some, so first check if this crass Roman singer seems funny. In this movie he is ubermacho, but youtube also shows the original broadway version where he was softened to be quite effeminate. IF you can find amusement in that, below is what I originally posted. Maybe there is something wrong in finding musical hilarity in modern tragedy, but the singer is half Cherokee satirizing his redneck relatives lifestyle.

Sheesh, I dunno. I have several video courses on roman architecture yet can't recall much external color other than accents on recreations. Maybe they didn't have good waterproof paint? Roman republic was mostly brick, which is it's own coloring. Their internal color could be so garish it almost makes me seasick and I would hope for plainer exterior. They got multicolored stone from Egypt (for interiors?) then were revolutionized by discovery of nearby white marble at Carrera which got a lot of use. A lot of stuff was in tufa which one source claimed was thought a poor man's marble with it's honey color. Pompeii has grafitti/announcements on some external walls, which means we should know what the background color is... I haven't finished my last video course on Pompeii which may say. P.S. the Pantheon exterior always looked like an ugly lump to me. Not sure if it lost some facing but a Yale Univ course claimed it wasn't meant to be seen from the outside... it was jammed within building complexes that led you to the interior thru almost a tunnel (meant to enhance the surprise).

deleted

P.S. Many sources quoted an American observer, the famous civil war general Sheridan and I found his writeup here http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/Sedan.html . It's strange how he is treated like royalty and personally hosted by Bismarck and the Prussian king near the key battlefields, with an intimate view of Napoleon3 surrendering. I mean he even shared a bedroom with (english speaking) Bismarck, who taught him how to be a harder drinker. The night before Bismarck lost 20k killed by the French, he focused not on battle plans but whether Sheridan thot US opinion considered France as the bully. Other sources explain Sheridan had earlier acted against Napoleon3 by secretly donating his surplus civil war weaponry to the Mexican rebels trying to throw the French out, and "out" did Maximilian go. The US remained the only major power not threatening Prussia to stop carving up France. Sheridan reported to President Grant the US had nothing militarily to learn from that war, just that France had terrible leadership vs Prussia. But I think he was too far from the front after the initial surge of the French drove the VIP observers permanently to the rear. Sheridan isn't a gifted writer, but it's interesting to hear details like where do I go to the bathroom with dignity when all buildings are packed with wounded and it's literally knee deep with their dead outside. How can I requisition food when the troops are crazed with thirst and hunger while being forced to bury the dead. Sheridan should have been overrun at the first battle, but the loopy French general who was overwhelmingly winning called for a retreat.

I thought I would do a quick sanity check for this issue... how rectally retentive EU policy may be sabotaging the very pensions they try to save. I found this "Double hit scenario" confirmation writeup from "European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority" http://www.europeanpensions.net/ep/Double-hit-scenario-cannot-be-ruled-out-EIOPA-says.php%20.php I may have this a bit wrong, but it seems so true to national characters that continental Europe found the volatility in stock markets 8 years ago too unsettling for pension use and mandated a mostly bond approach. Where are you now, with "safe" bonds giving 0 or negative yields?! This can have dire impacts on everyone, now that to hire a meter maid a gov't or corp has to find a billion euro to put aside to fund that one pension. UK (and I think the Dutch) are far more stock-saavy and know how to surf the financial seas greatly to their benefit. I mean about a hundred times more activity in stock investment per capita than the other countries by both individuals and institutions. And it has real impact... when a corporation has EU mandated burden after burden imposed on it, they simply pass on the cost to consumers. The very folks that celebrate this have to pay for it as a REGRESSIVE kind of pseudo-tax... impacting the poor and middle incomers disproportionately in higher cost of living. EU is fine for small countries that desperately need a higher level of organization, but not for large countries with demonstrated excellence of organization which could only be dragged down by naive meddling from the others. Britain please free yourself, even if regions north of the Hadrian's wall have to be spun back to the EU. Revive the commonwealth and build it even bigger than the EU!

You can change this thread into a real poll where surprising numbers of lurkers will vote. Or at least start a new one with voting capability. I almost fell off my chair for the poll here "why do you like the Romans" because nobody had checked the one obvious and to me proper reason, but tons of votes on reasons I had considered peripheral. As a non-Brit, I pray that they do the right thing and LEAVE!!! Actually they would convert into a Norway (Iceland, Switz somewhat) style and join EEA and one other acronym I forget which gives virtually all the benefits with few of the dysfunctional drawbacks. I used to always get a weekly British news magazine, and remember how they explained Turkey should have striven to join EEA rather than EU with win-win results (probably Greece and some others too with hindsight). EU seems an elitist condescending organization which doesn't respond to democratic citizen feedback. They are particularly tone-deaf to some of the things that made Britain an inspiration to the world, eg in terms of liberty and finance. A few hundred years ago Britain was run on an efficient low tax rate system that made it wealthier than the continent, and still with plenty tax revenue due to thriving economy. It just burns me up to see e.g. the EU trying to impose taxes on trivial financial transactions. Not the money it would cost, but there would be an implosion of price discovery because nobody would want to sell and buy to incur taxes. This glue in the system is a reason why Japan has many zombie companies and a 25 year recession. Housing prices are inherently boom and bust because the natural friction of buying and selling hurts logical price discovery. Spreading this plague to for instance pensions would leave you unsure if you ever had them funded enough (EU has some other idiotic overreactions that make pension growth hard), I recently imported a couple small boats from Europe (amazing you can do that... in one case it was just a couple mouse clicks and a UPS man brought the thing on a trolley with a modest customs bill). They have stamped on them some mandatory EU limitations that are so draconian I would not be allowed to use them in 95% of the weather here.... pooh, I have had a long life on the water with no need for patronizing nannies or for that matter any kind of rescue. I'm not doing this the justice it deserves, but propose that if Brit does the right thing, I would advocate my country joining the Brit commonwealth which I gather has become rather toothless, but we could revive with free-er trade etc.

If Norway's idea of album art can be overlooked: