caesar novus

That is a very typical article nowdays. I can hardly believe how American ideals of "equal opportunity" are being forgotten in favor of the eurosocialism ideals of "equal outcome". And be careful about how it mixes up concepts of income vs wealth - often implying need for self destructive tax policies. America is on the brink of falling for this due to forgetting it's heritage, and then only Asia will remain a merit-based dynamic economy. Wealth and income extremes are not inherently bad. The process of people getting there may be good or broken. For instance some corporate titan may get an insane income, and even a zillion for being fired. But it is the dumbest possible approach to put gov't limits on this. This income is strictly an issue between the company shareholder owners and the titan. Something is broken if the shareholders overpay because they have no incentive to. Therefore fine tune that feedback loop. A highly paid titan may be providing incredible benefits to the society at large by providing affordable technology that changes life for the better (the hated railroad barons did this). Probably inherited wealth should be taxed more severely than now. But high incomes actually are taxed near the limit to where it becomes destructive to the economy to tax more. That's aside from tax loopholes, which are notorious and unfair, but popular. Think of frugal folks with saved wealth who can choose 1) a comfy life with low additional income and taxes, or 2) a risky life with high returning investments and high taxes. The risky approach helps society fund businesses and factory construction that create jobs. But most new businesses fail, so you have to lightly tax the high returns for the rare winners in #2 strategy. They get demonized, but the broke failures (who could have been them) are overlooked. There are also problems with gov't mandated raising of the low end of income. Before mid 1960's low income urban neighborhoods strived for upward mobility - with all their problems, they were more civil and tidy than today. Then the entitlement fairy came in to turn them into lawless, chaotic, environments with folks often too fat and content to do much work, which now is done for them by desperate immigrants. Not that a darwinian approach is ideal, but the mindless equality of results approach is full of pitfalls. Another example is raising minimum wages. Put yourself in in an employer's shoes with 10 minimum wage employees who are not yet very timely, efficient, or dependable. Force him to raise the wages, and he will need to replace them with 6 more efficient workers at more than minimum wage. Whether it's income or education or job promotion, the focus must stay on equal opportunity and not equal results. Frugality, work ethic, delayed gratification, etc should be allowed to give the almost infinite economic advantage they may naturally confer (to not only that person, but society - remember uncharitable beast that was Steve Jobs). The results-oriented thinking is being misused all around - such as gender success studies etc. Focus on the fairness of the process, and don't jump to conclusions about the results implying unfairness. Utopian thinking usually spawns perverse incentives with horrible side effects because life is complex.

A bit more about what I did... I sent polite but concerned emails with web references to not only those in charge of this "peace institute" but to those consorting with them (celebrating or supporting). I emailed media editors who had praised them, as well as Chinese scholars and political scientists concerned with violence. Results: One political scientist was alarmed and very supportive. One other peace institute seemed surprised that all bad things don't originate in the west. Some polite thanks from a Chinese scholar. No reply from newspaper or TV folks or celebrities or those in charge. No publicity at all - just a pause, or are they laying low from the issues I raised? Next step? I give up - it's in the hands of you with more history background. The poliSci guy gave me a contact to raise more alarm, but said it would be hard. Another possible direction is challenging the credentials of their tax exempt institution. You can research a lot about it on the web, and many of those are at least technically fraudulant. Eg. it appears to me the organization could be set up to allow Zhou's US relatives to travel between published mail drops (which appear to include vacation mansions) free or tax free. The US IRS website will list their tax exempt status, and you might tell they are breaking the rules by cross checking with other online data. For example they may be under loose rules of a small organization, but have actually grown to where much more is required. Unfortunately the "goodness" of an organization doesn't seem to count - I saw another that celebrated bad and illegal behavior with contributions being tax deductible. BTW if you run across one you like, you can snag it's tax number and set things up to donate to it when you die, even without a will. It's called a TOD feature of a money account - transfer upon death. It amazes me this is possible, but I guess if you have creditors they will have the right to try to "claw back" this money you transferred to charity.

I saw a request on Cspan TV for viewers to email them suggestions of nonfiction book talks to televise. I believe they gave the email address activated by clicking "book tv" halfway down http://www.booktv.org/Contact.aspx . Usually this means an online video of the authors talk will be long available on their site. So if you know any author doing their introductory booktours in US bookstores or where ever, maybe let them know.

I can't locate a recent thread here about what the Romans might do about the problems of today. Feel free to move this post to the bottom of that thread or where ever it might belong. Not sure if the focus was on violence or economics. The former is a bit easier to compare, and I think Steven Pinker gives a good framework http://www.booktv.org/Watch/12923/The+Better+Angels+of+Our+Nature.aspx . It is about his latest book, but I bet he has his background data online estimating violence of various kinds in Roman days. In general he makes the surprising conclusion of a huge decreasing trend of killings and violence - especially hunters and gatherers were in no peaceful paradise. He talks about the formation of states and their ability and motivation to quell internal violence. As the Roman domination spread, I think this entailed the famous Pax Romana. He talks about the enlightenment period where the ruled get influence over the rulers, and this tends to quell violence from the rulers against the ruled. Maybe we see that in the Roman Republic although it unraveled. Not sure if it happened with King John's Magna Carta in Britain because didn't he later abrogate that because it came under duress? American revolution made the decisive move here, with other efforts such as French revolution having bumpy but eventual progress. Anyway, it appears we are already succeeding well in reducing violence thru the very means trailblazed by Romans in their republic and pax romana. Although you would hardly know it because the way the press is ever more efficient in sensationalizing such problems. I don't know how the Romans dealt with economic cycles, but I think the current distress has some silver linings in putting the brakes on unsustainable entitlements, borrowing and excessive green spending. They really came from an excess of naive democratic power (populism) with no adults at the controls. Was that how the Roman republic unraveled? I think if we keep to our principles like the Romans in the face of Hannibal's rampage, this storm will abate and pave the way for realistic progress.

Here is holiday downtime activity for history buffs wanting a change of pace. How about some activism in resolving a bipolar spread in the reputation of Zhou En Lai? I suspect those promoting his angelic side have crass motivations that need to be confronted, at least with email. I have done that, but can't push it too far due to not having the background to assess the claims from Univ. Hong Kong that Zhou was probably the biggest mass murderer in history. He is being promoted as a heroic peacemaker and role model for taming the bad habits of western civilization (a Gandhi, ML King, Mandela). Supported by US politicos like Kissinger and Chinese Americans. On the other hand scholars in Hong Kong and the mainland are disclosing his primary role in the biggest mass murder in history. China's great famine around 1960 is depicted as no food shortage, but deliberate starving of 45 million people (almost equal of global WW2 killings) for Zhou's rather than Mao's agenda. Sources: Here is an hour video of Prof. Dikotter research depicting the great famine as deliberate, horrifying, and violent killing on a scale the planet hadn't seen, just to free up food that Zhou wanted to export for ideological reasons http://www.booktv.org/Watch/11976/Maos+Great+Famine+The+History+of+Chinas+Most+Devastating+Catastrophe+19581962.aspx Here is a review of his book (with mainland China collaboration) http://chinalawandpolicy.com/2011/04/18/book-review-frank-dikotters-maos-great-famine/ But here is a foundation with various special events and big names celebrating his angelic record as a role model http://www.americachinabridge.com/print/Zhou-Enlai-Peace-Institute-en-web.pdf

I thought the situation was US state educators had to choose from textbooks that are tailored to the biggest customer (California) mandates. That biases textbook history to leftward fringe, such as depicting western civilization as introducing mainly wickedness, oppression, and imperialism into a virginal paradise, instead of the enlightenment transforming the world for instance. Oh, with Texas a growing market, a few kook right wing textbooks can occasionally surface. Maybe this market-driven dominance will become less with a switchover to cheaper softcopy textbooks on tablets. Then the next step is this history is transmitted thru an education system flawed by labor practices more tailored towards coal mines of 100 years ago; protecting teachers rather than educating students. However this transmission of a history orthodoxy can have a good effect of undercutting it's own message. Just like the way state churches drove Europeans into secularism, US students grow up into a fascination about "real" history and were once known to support books and multiple cable channels on history (before they became all about UFOs or lumberjacks). Well that's my naive impression, but to get back to the core of the article which quoted Niall Ferguson... see http://www.booktv.org/Watch/12950/After+Words+Niall+Ferguson+Civilization+The+West+and+the+Rest+hosted+by+Susan+Jacoby.aspx video about what is, isn't, and should be taught about history in both US and UK. I agree with him saying historical concepts such as the successful innovations of the west (from Rome thru German/Scottish/British/American enlightenment) has to be taught in order that we don't drift from them. But how to do it can involve a can of worms with the important stuff being censored by the left in an overkill attempt to prevent jingoism. The detailed alternative of "just the facts, ma'am" is kind of hard too, due to the long histories of places like the UK where students would just drown in the endless lists of kings.

Pardon me for dragging out this baitfest, but this cultural sidelight seemed suitable grist for a cultural forum. I think the Zero wasn't some epitome of Japanese thought, but borne from a maverick designer who turned priorities upside down in order to meet extreme requirements with a wimpy engine. Sort of like the original Sony designer or the designer of that wankel powered Japanese sportscar - revered in the west but thought a bit beyond the pale by contemporary peers. The Japanese army had armored aircraft early, so that wasn't a cultural no-no. But the (elitist) navy posted such extreme requirements for the Zero that the available wimpy engine couldn't drag armor along with the aircraft. In fact it couldn't support a conventional aircraft alone, so all designers gave up on the project except one whacko who thought he might do it by inventing a lighter alloy of aluminum (called duraluminum although it is brittle and corrodes easily). The Zero had to have insane range unprecedented for a fighter (like the later Mustang) and the lightness and sleekness may have followed from this more than a desire to be superaerobatic or a tolerance for fragility. I think the later Japanese designs like Raiden and Sheidin (sp?) were quite comparable to western designs in various tradeoffs, but they were probably hanger queens due to shortage of fuel and pilots.

You could say that about most great men. Including some of the ones we discuss on this forum, such as Augustus. I had some of my grumpiness about Steve Jobs softened by the hours and hours of accolades on CNBC by people like (ex)? Google CEO Schmidt, webbrowser god Andreessen, and others who didn't have motivations to sentimentalize or gloss over Jobs (like his canned biography on the same channel). These people, who I consider saviors of an egalitarian internet, have been adversaries of people like Bill Gates trying to build sort of fascist utopias where naive and charmed customers are kept on their money-making reservation. They were even adversaries of Steve Jobs too, whose ipad, ipod touch really attempts the same (Amazon's new fire tablets may be a copycat, designed to be a "trojan horse" that channels you into buying their product... held not by you, but in big-brother's icloud). Anyway they really emphasized the idealism of Jobs and the ruthlessness needed to smash the complacent music empire for instance, sticking their customers who only wanted one song with overpriced bloated CDs. Now he became a little more successful than expected, and keeps charmed customers roped in Apple's own overpriced reservation, but at least they can find more freedom if they shop further afield. They talked about his insane attention to artistic product design, which was so rare for crass innovators or marketeers. You could claim this was to gain market share too, but who cares about the motives if the "invisible hand" converts selfish desires into consumer opportunities? I think another ruthless innovator, Bill Gates, would get a very different response. In my view his contribution was to mow down choice, competition, and excellence. The Euro attempt to sue for his crushing of Andreessen was only the tip of the iceburg - he only escaped domestic monopoly lawsuits in his early days due to blind eyes by those wanting to see him hitting back at large older companies. In fact he crushed a thousand flowers in the form of small time software producers who would have made computer much less nerdy than today. But instead he gave mediocre freebie substitutes to captive customers. The accolades included the jobs he created. I hesitate to weep for Chinese or American employees, who really have a choice to work elsewhere. Those jobs are for the achievers rather than the faint hearted or clock watchers, except in my case where by sort of accident I once became a clueless seatwarmer responsible for a key Apple component. This was in the period when Steve Jobs had been kicked out of Apple and maze bright employees were abandoning ship of even companion companies as Apple went down the drain. It was amazing that Steve Jobs was able to revive Apple when rejoining. As for the Chinese employees, I starting visiting China in the very bleak days of 1980 when it almost seemed like a concentration camp without hope. There were poorer parts of Asia and Africa, but not with such a look of thwarted expectations in people's eyes. China has become so dynamic in years since, and while pollution and worker burnout may be overdue for remedy, I am sure that the 1980 people would have lept in a time machine to now if given the chance. I think the issue is more of provincial gov't corruption pushing/milking the hot industries, which neither the top Chinese gov't or western company partners can fully control. For the US employees, I used to be in the stodgy big tech company world that let their brain trust just mellow out and generate patents. Easy to get along with everyone, and even to generate a world-beating prototype innovation. But you rarely saw results all the way to consumer like today's famous robber baron punks. There are always obstacles - either internal turf battles or external competition... that seems to need ruthless bad mannered people to push thru to the finish line. So I am going to remain angry about Bill Gates, regardless of his returning blood money back to charity, but maybe give a pass to Steve Jobs. The face book founder seems pretty unethical, but I haven't looked into that in detail. Hurray for Andreessen, the googleplex, and others.

Why does this forum assume a weird condensed form when you access it from the Dolphin web browser? It seems to assume you are using a tiny phone where you can't afford space to see folk's postings until wading many levels deep. This is even if you tell Dolphin to not use the mobile web mode. I think this forum software is driving this choice, and in some cases understandable because Dolphin is a premier Android browser. But I am using a big 10 inch tablet with the Gingerbread version of Android. Their default web browser seems crippled on Gingerbread, so it is natural to use Dolphin, which works wonderfully for all pages but here. Oh well...

I think they are onto something about both the Eurocrats and Maocrats being behind the curve, obsessed about inflation, and hurting private sector growth which is needed to increase the tax base. The historical ascendancy of England and the anglo world was their ability to collect a lot of tax relatively painlessly, thru breadth rather than strangulating rates. I hear that's why the Normans invaded England - no special resource, but that is where the easy money and good economy was. Canada, Australia, and the US economies have thrived on this now-threatened heritage, although the US got overall economic ascendancy thru a quirk from it's civil war. The rural hick south stopped attending congress, so the north rammed all kinds of pro-growth modern financial measures into law. With Euroville lacking (or not supporting) a Hank Paulson or the sainted Ben Bernanke, the slow response to Greece is just activating bond vigilantes who raise Greek bond rates unsustainably. And bless the Diogenes-like hearts of those vigilantes, as rare shiners of light. The problem of Greek contagion thru foreign financial connections could be solved easier without such vindictive attitudes towards economic growth. Go ahead with public drawing and quartering of finance wrongdoers - just don't kill the financial institutions that keep the west above a Paraguay or Bolivia level of economy. Anyway I bet the article IS exaggerated and not even aimed at the normal readership, but trying to get a message to policy makers. I see a similar thing as moderator of a tablet forum, where at a certain stage of major product cycles we are bombarded by alarmist posts by very articulate and knowledgable people who seem to be trying to influence final product designs. Maybe they indirectly do a service, but as joe-reader you feel "used" and want to take a shower after the Nth such post. That's the foreseeable problem - the well played game theory of politics is preventing further remedies such as somehow got thru US three years ago. If I correctly understand "The Dictator's Handbook" about modern democracies http://www.booktv.org/Program/12846/After+Words+Bruce+Bueno+de+Mesquita+Alastair+Smith+The+Dictators+Handbook+Why+Bad+Behavior+is+Almost+Always+Good+Politics+hosted+by+Anne+Gearan+Associated+Press+National+Security+Editor.aspx they mostly rely on only about 20% of a nations swing vote for actual support. So instead of "leading" they will "follow" a certain yobbo herd, maybe to prop up dying industries and suffocate vital entrepreneurial sprouts - for instance by counterproductive ways of taxing the "rich" http://www.economist.com/node/21530104 . Maybe the only adult in the room is Ben Bernanke, exempt from "The Dictator's Handbook". I was so happy when I heard of his original appointment (from another hiker encountered in the Aussie bush of all places).

That plane looks absolutely awesome, and it's a shame it needlessly lost it's chance for war production. Maybe it was like the elegant F23 losing in favor of the clunky F22. I believe the F23 won the performance competition, but then the gov't said we don't trust the F23 builder to stay in business or something. Well, why hold the contest then (actually maybe if the F23 was cheaper or even better). I love the counter rotating props, which cancel out prop torque among other things. This could be bad with high power to weight ratio; I recall a German ace telling how they would lose new pilots due to needing almost full rudder for p.torque during takeoff, when you may need even more for crosswind. The P-38 was one of the few planes to use (separated) counter rotating props, which even turned the correct ways to compensate for asymmetric drag if the other engine conked out. Mb5 seems a lot like the Fiat G55/56 which I praised in another topic describing my pilgrimage to the sole Italian museum holding one. They both borrowed heavily from the successful Mustang in wing, mid-body, and rear body design. They put special attention into harmony of controls. Under a Spitfire-like nose, they gave it a capacity for the latest generation of engine which had about gained too much weight/bulk for current fighters (griffon Spitfire, late bf-109).

Is the UK Telegraph finance section a respectable source, or just a posher version of a sensationalist rag? Anyway their intnl business editor projects an imminent replay of 1930 themes in http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8802462/Protectionism-beckons-as-leaders-push-world-into-Depression.html Forsees an alliance of countries driven away from the austerity axis of Germany/Japan/China. Centered in the Americas, but would include at least UK and Korea:

As a tourist it can be confusing, because some of what you see in Greece was actually commissioned by Romans when they were in charge. Some of what you see in Italy was Greek-commissioned due to originally being Greek colonies (Paestum, Agrigento). Or Greek-looking buildings may originate from a tribe that built the town before the Romans siezed it (Pompeii civic center). There is either a difference or I have a mental defect. Otherwise why did I evolve from an indiscriminate multi-ancient-culturalist... to loving only Rome and no longer Greece, Egypt etc? The borrowing question is well covered in 36 lectures of http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=3300 and I have repeatedly bored readers with it's assertion that wonderful Roman sculptures of individuals are utterly un-Greek in style, even if carved by a Greek and lugged into a Roman villa by a Greek. It was commissioned to be lifelike rather than idealistic or stereotypic (based on Roman deathmask tradition). The course goes on to compare and contrast art, philosophy, etc and pleased my narrow mind how often my favorite stuff seemed Roman in origin. In cases where Romans borrowed directly from Greeks, it could be almost out of condecension. They didn't think it was practical or manly to focus effort on certain aspects of life, but if the Greeks had embellished solutions in those areas then they could be picked up as sort of decadent status symbols. Let's see, what areas were these in... I forget, because I listened to this course at bedtime and have just found out I have been nodding off thru some of the sentences and will have to replay:

So were many anti-communists, Henry Ford, JP Morgan's partner Thomas Lament, Calvin Coolidge's old friend and avid supporter Frank Stearn, and on and on. Fortune magazine, owned by an anti-Roosevelt and ardent anti-communist life-long Henry Luce, devoted an issue to Mussolini. There is a chicken and egg circularity at play. Mussolini started at extreme left, but had too strong competition with the bolsheviks. He had to change marketing tactics to appeal to the establishment right in order to find a support demographic desperate for a leader. The horrors of Russia meant some weren't picky even when Mussolini showed impulses of swinging back left or a tyranical third way. He found people were so reassured by lip service to their side that they would ignore his lip service to the other side. Hitler did his famous swing rightwards in order to gain military establishment support in his night of the long knives. This cynical battle for demographics will be discussed by the authors of The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics in http://www.booktv.org/Program/12846/After+Words+Bruce+Bueno+de+Mesquita+Alastair+Smith+The+Dictators+Handbook+Why+Bad+Behavior+is+Almost+Always+Good+Politics+hosted+by+Anne+Gearan+Associated+Press+National+Security+Editor.aspx (weekend on cspan, then video should appear on this link). They appear to generalize from Caesar to Mussolini to the shakedown artist city manager of Bell, California in the dysfunctional principles that both dictators and elected officials are incentivized to follow. I guess they claim Julius was actually killed due to being public spirited instead of protecting the interests of powerful supporters, and so on in the Arab spring, etc. Big subject, but I hardly think the new deal was all about pump priming. That didn't really take until WW2 anyway. Early pump priming effectiveness was offset by witch hunting punishment of business to sate populist yobs, smothering regulation, and bloat of the public sector. Although FDR was against public unions, he layed the groundwork for that being the logical conclusion for the developed world where (as in Greece) the public sector owns the citizens instead of vice versa.

I think it's still saying a slight majority were originally red as opposed to the overwhelming majority. Gosh, I think the red is ugly and should have been reserved for an accent. Yellow seems less gaudy and easier to live with. There is a reason in physics that red interiors should be rare. The rods of the eye cannot see red and the cones cannot see any color in low light. Therefore in dim light, red walls will reflect nothing but a murky grey. That is why darkrooms and submarines use dim red lights - it doesn't kill your night (black and white) vision because it is numb to red anyway. I couldn't find an image to display the above clearly, but did find something to reinforce the use of yellow for candlelit conditions. It is from an article on why you see candlelight as yellow although it is predominantly red. Even with cones and rods together, red is weakly perceived. I think this graph shows "yellow" candlelight (and oil lamps?) will be well reflected by yellow walls. In a comparable graph for just the rods, you would see the graph shifted left and centered on cyan (omitting red). You can't see color with rods, but I think the way they get wildly excited with turquoise may explain why tropical ocean colors seem blissful. I sometimes force LCD background colors to pale cyan, and it seems to make fonts more readible with less eyestrain - your eyes just go "ahhh".

I wonder if Italy's embrace of Mussolini 1922-43 has any reflection or continuity in either todays genteel touristic Italy or the Roman republic/empire. I was surprised to hear classical professors claim continuity in some cultural and physical ways, like how ancient Romans could act like today's supposed "mamma's boys" and how the gladius may favor a short aggressor against a taller victim. I guess Mussolini liked to think he was reviving Roman warrior heritage, but eventually decided the population had excessive elements of either Roman hedonism or Roman slaves. I didn't really get answers after reading one biography that utterly ridiculed every aspect of his rule (I guess it was a counter shot to some favorable Italian biographies) and got stuck in another impenetrable bio that attempted a synthesis. Didn't he at least knock back the mafia, and trailblaze the same techniques used to supress it today? Some example questions follow, not needing specific answers but maybe some perspective: Why did fascism start in Italy during the "good" times in Italy vs later in depression throes elsewhere? I can only guess fascism is based on the grievances of a demobilized army, and although Italy was on the winning side of WW1, it's soldiers had a mismanaged rough time of it. They had been exposed to brutality, discipline, and considered using this toolset to re-enter a civilian life that seemed unwelcoming, decadent and complacent. Why were there so few serious assassination attempts against Mussolini's disruptive, dysfunctional, and somewhat violent rule? This aside from the chance the authorities later had to shoot him or give him to the Allies during his 1943 imprisonment. After being freed he was worse than just Hitlers puppet, but used his local knowledge to viciously target underground partisans. I guess Mussolini could seem charming in a rogue sort of way - certainly Hitler is quoted as being almost in love with him, even as he created war-losing problems. How could the economy function with his contradictive meddling? I don't understand his "corporatism" and wonder if that is something like today's German model where unionists sit on the corporate board. Some say he just gave orders that nobody obeyed... that the theater of orders was enough and were rarely enforced. And it is weird how he kept switching between left and right ("third way"); he is famous for reactionary steps that really seem taken as opportunism vs an almost equal desire to mix in elements of extreme left. Is such rule gone forever, like Frances Fukuyama said about once-widespread fascist parties? I can only guess it was feasible from a leap forward in propaganda technology relative to the people's means of detecting nonsense. Mussolini was once a rabble-rousing newspaper editor, and some say that all he ever aspired to was making provoking headlines rather than a real impact on reality. Hopefully today's still-fragmented Italian political scene is more solid than the ones that allowed sinister "rescues" by Mussolini or Octavian, but maybe today's North Korea is more truely fascist than marxist.

For more suggestions of candidates see "The Oxford Companion to World War II" which is just fabulous in terms of its graphic charts, maps, and concise articles: http://www.oxfordreference.com/pages/Subjects_and_titles__t139 . It has a fighter section with all kinds of comparative statistics and writeups on the relative success of various tech features or tactics such has been brought up here. Not just nerdy stuff, but eye catching charts using a drawing of each aircraft placed relative to each other, etc. I didn't have time to absorb even half of it, and it didn't seem to exactly declare the "bests", but it did break down each year of the war with about 5 the most notable fighters in rank of certain performance criteria. Also broke down by country, etc. For the early part of the war it added a French Dewoitine fighter as a contender, and near the end of the war the Shiden/George from Japan. Otherwise most of the top candidates were much as were posted here, except more love for the Tempest 5 rather than 2, and griffon Spitfire 14 (if I remember correctly).

The great courses lecture series have knocked 70% off their (quite high) prices of many dvds for a few days. For instance here is a search list of the keyword ROME, then you can click the sales box to limit it to the ones on sale. Unfortunately their super excellent "Greece and Rome: An Integrated History of the Ancient Mediterranean" isn't now on sale; maybe your library can order that. Of course, also google "thegreatcourses coupons" http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/search/search.aspx?searchphrase=rome

I'm writhing thru withdrawal symptoms, because my favorite food is out of stock at the supermarket as well as from the importer http://www.instantthaifood.com/ . Thai food can be so seductive, and this brand more than any other makes it both good AND instant. But every few years their supply is cut off for 6 months or so. So what are the alternatives to their addictive ginger, lemon-grassy curry rice? Well, I could reconsider the starch family and switch back to a potato base. But I noticed big helpings of potatoes can induce drowsyness, and then found it has a glycemic index of up to 111. Thus it can give more of a sugar shock than pure sugar! I think it might nudge a person towards diabetes2 almost like a junk food, so will reserve that for times I am fighting insomnia. Armed with some Thai flavorings, I looked for a rice that reaches the high standards as from my favorite instant Thai packages. Conventional minute rice is ghastly. I tried some healthy types such as converted rice which has some of the husk nutrients baked in, but preferred a new kind of half-milled rice where the brown husk is half removed. Still, that can be like forcing down medicine. From the array of typical white rices, I know I hate the common east Asian varieties. I recall wonderful Indian basmati rice which can be fluffy in a dry kind of way. But basmati rice on the shelves looks way to short and tastes boring, even when imported from India. On the internet I gather much of the Indian rice has been hybridized for more production, and there is some weird Texan variety trying to claim the name Basmati. Finally I find some lonely little bags from Pakistan with the elegant super-long grains, almost like strings or threads. Yum! It cooks fairly fast and and has a great mouth feel. I don't know if this is nowdays a rare heritage type rice, because many of the Basmati bags from India are opaque and don't show if they are old style. So I muddle along, stirring in experimental Thai flavorings for now.

I might look into the apparently rich roman archeology that is just under the sea surface. Not the scuba depth stuff but snorkle, and if that is too cold simply standing on the edge of the water at an ancient harbor. I have seen many shown, but they don't like to advertise since don't want to attract looters. Maybe some of those little coastal overnight excursion boats has a captain who would be able to focus on that. Lots of stuff you can google on Turkey underwater archeology http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=turkey+underwater+archeology&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 but it tends to be scuba. Just as an example, note the (Roman?) harbors marked at http://www.acoustics.org/press/155th/akalfig2.jpg . Here are some interesting Turkey travelogues http://www.intltravelnews.com/search/node/turkey

Old topic, but I couldn't resist posting the fascinating author interview video for new book "The Pirates of Somalia: Inside Their Hidden World" at http://www.booktv.org/Watch/12740/After+Words+Jay+Bahadur+The+Pirates+of+Somalia+Inside+Their+Hidden+World+hosted+by+Clifford+May+Foundation+for+Defense+of+Democracies.aspx . A Canadian journalist saw a pirate hut marked on google maps, and emailed a Somali web address about how to visit. Incredibly this naive and dangerous approach worked out They start by framing the piracy 20 years ago as self defense against French, Spanish, SKorean, and Taiwanese fishing boats poaching Somali lobster grounds. However the foreigners mounted AA guns on their fisherboats and became untouchable. An endless tangle of insurance and union issues prevent this defense on bigger ships (but I think if they tried it a few times the problem would go away). Anyway, the piracy doesn't get started again until Somali expatriates get entrepreneurial. With knowledge and money gained in the west, they started kidnapping the big ships. No westerners involved, just the part time Somali expatriates. Maybe selling crafts to you in a modern city one moment, then calling in to the pirates that they see western news saying ship crews hide in ship safe-rooms and financing them some explosives to blast them out. The author says it should be easy to solve by funding simple land based police posts, with a bounty put on pirates heads. The local people hate them because they constantly spend their time and money on drugs, women, and other non islamic things. Talks about how Somalia isn't really a failed state... I am oversimplifying just to give a concise sampling.

I just returned to the world of physical books after an eye condition had earlier favored e-books (where font size/type/color can be optimized). Wow, what a primitive technology! The heavy weight and tiny fonts are bad enough, but also I wonder where all those stains came from on library books. Reminds me of the US TV episode of Office where the boss lights up his hotel room for a party with just UV blacklight. It highlighted florescent splotches all over bedspread, furniture etc, which he is told is likely semen or blood. "I hope it's blood" is his feeble conclusion. Well, I hope it's coffee. Anyway I want to highlight "Inside the Third Reich" memoir by Speer. It does have some Roman connections due to the theme of Euro integration, as well as connection to the present crises of disintegration with left vs right remedies. I haven't finished, but sometimes better to discuss during impressionable mid-read rather than the sometimes numbing rush to finish it. Before I forget, I just read how Goering had taken classical pieces (surely Roman sculptures) from Naples museum for his own collection - I hope they were returned OK. The gist of the book is how architect Albert Speer experienced Hitler's inner circle during the 1930's thru mid 40's. Speer and Goebbels stand out as relatively cultured intellectuals in this circle of twisted anti-intellectual thugs and mediocritats, so it can be interesting to how they interpreted the Nazi drama. I may follow up on Goebbels next - although he could be even more evil than Hitler on various issues, he was against the invasion of Poland. He devised revolutionary campaign techniques still used today like bringing candidates to the people by way of airplane and media (then radio). I even detected a revival of some of his other tricks in the 2008 Obama campaign employing planted stories in NPR and NYT (maybe Soros remembered how they impacted WW2 Hungary, and recommended). Speer was a architect, maybe of little artistic talent, but could wow Nazi bigwigs by throwing together vanity projects insanely fast with double construction shifts, etc. He had some interest in Roman revival and got Hitler to approve guidelines to make prestige buildings decay a thousand years hence like Roman ruins (minimize ugly rebar, overdesign walls to survive roof collapse). He both socialized and worked with the most famous Nazi's (he is remorseful and pleads being star-struck) so has endless insider views. Speer's conclusions will be familiar because they are often repeated, but the book puts memorable flesh on the bone. Quirky stuff that is too strange for fiction - like how Hitler banishes deputy Hess from his dinner parties in a rage because Hess is a different kind of vegetarian and brings his own food. Hitler is vegetarian who has no qualms serving meat to "carrion eaters", but woe to any vegetarian rejecting the Hitler approved veggy selections. Hess just couldn't fit in and eventually sat out the war in England. OK, enough of that. Let me make a few honorable mentions. I am following an audio verson of Third Reich at War, which NYTimes describes as "riveting final volume to Richard J. Evans's magisterial trilogy illuminates the endless human capacity for evil and self-justification." It doesn't dwell on the well known themes of troop movements or systematic atrocities, but the lesser known aspects of everything from informal atrocities to financing armaments to being bombed until asphalt streets melt and trap walkers like the mammoths in the La brea tar pits. Very engrossing, but some parts painful enough to tempt a fast forward. Evans got me wondering how such fascist (and bolshevik) awfulness could arise. I realize the middle way was considered a failure, and that left polarized extremes, but such traditional explanations don't quite click or seemed kind of stale. So besides pursuing the high level Nazi angle, I wanted a fresh look at wider Europe. I took a stab at several books titled Mussolini and after some poorly written ones, think I have found an acceptable one (too early to denote). I looked for books on the Spanish Civil War, but at first found only blatant bias. I can groove with being anti-fascist but that does not justify sanctifying opponents who vandalized and terrorized the middle. The first few books seemed to think you just couldn't get enough bayoneting of nuns, until I found a more balanced, award-winning "The Battle for Spain" by Beevor. I guess he is said to be sympathetic to the anarchist element, but for me he lays out an understandable historical vista of Europe's falling empires, economies, and the collapse of moderation in favor of entrenched traditionalists vs bolsheviks. In an oblique form, I think it sheds light on WW2 and even today. Lucky for us the moderate center hasn't collapsed, and thru non-violent means a corrective cycle can proceed. Populist democracy recently brought unsustainable socialist utopianism to peripheral Europe and to the US, but Darwinian reality has been able exert push-back (to some traditional stuff as well).

Apple Foam Apple Sparkle Apple Cake Apple Fizz Apple Dream Apple Cloud Apple Chuckle Apple Garum Calvadocious Pomedocious Pome Slime Saucy Apple Pressurized apple sauce might be a good picnic novelty. Add yeast mixture with little headroom. At your destination find the leather awl foldout on a Swiss knife... and stab the plastic container!. Squirt sauce thru the air into your or a companions mouth, like with a wineskin. (not tested) P.S. if the container gets over pressured against your intentions, there is a way to prevent it from spraying too badly upon opening. You can tap it (slam it?) down on a table and tease the bubbles to consolidate at the top. So you can restore most of the headroom, and briefly vent the top. At that point, it will probably reinflate the sauce with bubbles, so you can close it back and tap down some more.