This is where I will take notes on what I am reading. May be a daily thing, or just haphazard thoughts and summaries. Spoilers will be in here.
Further information on the books themselves can be found at the Book List.
December 29th, 2023 |
The Making of Europe | Castles are a pretty well known concept. They started out as wooden structures on hills, or on man-man mounds. They replaced the huge earthwork mounds of the old days, which would dozens of times larger. The old earthwork systems were for community protection, where the castle was meant for protection of a specific individual and his property. The benefit of the wooden castle was that they could be raised quickly (a week or two) and were used to protect a massive area; they were often only 10 miles apart from each other. The stone castles were much more expensive and took decades to build. The most important aspect of them was the tower. With the rise of castles came a new class of siege weapons to destroy them. All these military changes seemed to have started in Frankish territory and spread. It either spread by conquest, like England, or as a means to defend against these attackers. A third was was the diffusion of ideas through both conquest and defense, the Germanic strongholds in Livonia leading to Baltic natives gaining the technology. |
| Edible Economics | The book is pretty short and each chapter is only like 10 pages. I read the Acorn and the Okra chapter, both of which fall under the section of stereotypes or something like that. The only people who seem to eat acorns as anything other than a survival technique are the Koreans. They’re more important to the black pigs of Spain that eat them and become a delicacy meat. Pork is important in Spain, likely a cultural artifact as it being a “Christian” meat during the war with Muslims. As Jews also did not eat it, they were forcibly converted and made to eat it as proof. When the Jews were evicted, they found refuge in the Ottoman empire. The author uses this as evidence against the modern intolerant views of Islam, when clearly some Islamic views are open to friendly relationships and scientific knowledge. The Ottomans embraced merchanthood since Muhammad was a merchant and were successful traders. To contrast another stereotype, East Asians are seen as hard workers, though in the past they were seen as lazy. Confucian ideology had a caste system and looked down on artisans and merchants. This was a mindset that had to be forcibly broken in the 60s and beyond, and only then were these countries able to industrialize and see big economic impacts. The okra chapter discusses slavery. Okra is an African plant that spread to many places (though not Korea) and was brought to America, with many other plants we eat daily, during the slave trade. America and European capitalism was built on the backs of slave. Not only were slave-backed crops 50% of American output, slaves were collateral and used to back bonds and loans, enabling the creation of modern banking. The slave revolts of Haiti led directly to the Louisiana purchase and thus America become a continental country and economic superpower. The author contrasts slavery with economic freedom propounded by neoliberals. This freedom is not really freedom, as it clearly allows slavery. Friedman and his ilk choose economic freedom over any other freedom, especially when it comes to the “rights” of the property owners. They think they should have the freedom to run their factories or businesses as they choose. They think the freedom to elect a socialist is inferior to free trade, a la backing Pinochet and the killing of Allende. The freedom to control one’s employees is more important than the freedom of the worker to organize and control their own fate. Freedom is just a term of propaganda. | |
December 28th, 2023 |
The Making of Europe | The second chapter goes on about aristocrats. It talks about various types of “colonizations”. There’s the type that’s standard, like the English in Ireland, where major landholders held their land at a distance. There were also English who went to Ireland and intermarried. This second type also happened in Frankish and Norman holdings. Some smaller land holders gave up their old estates in the homeland, as it was inconvenient to travel, and thus became purely local. Generations down they’d be no different than natives. In real foreign territories, like Crusader states, they’d drop their old identities and become John of Acre or something.The third chapter is about warfare. What we think of stereotypical warfare is pretty much true. War was dominated by knights and castles, with crossbowmen to boot. The knights, or heavy cavalry, ruled the battlefield. They were fully armored, with heavy armored horses, additional horses, and several types of arms. They wore more iron than a smith could produce in a week, at a higher cost than iron is today. They were initially just mounted warriors, like at the time of the Conquest, but over time this became a hereditary class and thus enters the realm of Arthuric romance. Bowmen came in three types: short, long, and cross. The short bows were not used all that often, but Scandinavians used them quite a bit, especially in the Conquest era. Longbowmen developed in Wales and were deadly, but became a dominant English weapon later. The Crossbowmen were hated by even the Pope for their violence, but they were incredibly valuable. Especially from a castle, they could kill many a knight, baron, or king. It’s how the Lionheart met his end. They ended being like a caste almost; necessary but disgusting to others. It’s interesting. |
| Edible Economics | The introduction gives you an idea of the format of the book. The author first talks about garlic and its importance in Korean culture. He then talks about going to grad school in England in the 80s and how British food was, per stereotype, bland and terrible. The British were very closed off to foreign foods. However, during the 90s or so, there was a cultural shift and the British began to try all sorts of food. With no pride in their own cuisine, they could try everything without concern for “national pride”. The author then contrasts this to economics of the time. Instead of a great opening, there was a great closing in the 80s. In the 70s, one could find and study all sorts of schools: Marxist, Keynesian, Classical, Neoclassical, Austrian, etc. In Reagan-Thatcher era, the Neoclassical overtook all others until it became synonymous with economics. We still live in this economic drought today. Like food, economics is cultural and there is no right way to prepare it. Some times and places benefit from one type and are hurt by another. Like food, the economics we live under affects the way we think. If we live under a system that assumes greed, we are less likely to trust the motives of others. It’s a pretty good opening for the book. | |
December 27th, 2023 |
Listen, Liberal | The afterword pretty much is the author’s victory lap. He warned the liberals and nothing changed, thus the working class turned red. As dumb as Trump is, he knew what to say to win over those who had been stepped on the last few decades. The left didn’t see it coming, and I don’t know how. Back then, if you went into even a slightly rural area, you saw Trump stuff everywhere. That was the problem; those support Clinton did not leave their meritocratic bubbles. And it still is the problem. We’ve had almost 4 years of Biden and though they advertise him as very pro-union, nothing has changed. Some people saw that Trump’s working class rhetoric was all talk, but some of the points he made are still out in the either. NAFTA still exists under a new name and government benefits are still meager. Biden did nothing when he had the majority in both houses. There’s no hope until there’s a real left party. There’s the Green party, but they’re too small. Oh well. |
December 26th, 2023 |
Listen, Liberal | I essentially finished the book over the past three days; all that’s left is an afterword written for the Trump era edition. The 9th chapter is a refutation the idea that Obama and Clinton had to do they things they did and couldn’t do real liberal stuff because of the Republicans. The author explores deep blue states where Republican opposition is minimal. The main example is Massachusetts and specifically Boston. The point here is that Massachusetts has the same results as the federal government on a smaller level and without opposition. The Dems praise Boston, MIT, Harvard and all that jazz, vacation on the exclusively rich island of Martha’s Vineyard, while the old manufacturing towns outside the city decay and crumple. This is a state Democrats have an iron grip on and this is the state (of existence) that they want and desire. It is proof that their worldview is correct; that the educated and wealthy succeed and the others sink lower and lower.The 10th chapter, I think, was about Silicon Valley. Somewhere down the line, Obama and Wall Street were no longer buddy-buddy. That didn’t matter, because Google and the other tech companies had become new best friends. These companies were making billions, like Wall Street, but doing in a better way. They were smarter, they were entrepreneurs, they were a willing partner. They became the new ally and in turn were allowed to skirt any laws that should have expanded to cover the new industries and protect worker and consumer. Again, the Democrats failed the working class and let companies like Uber take away the jobs of drivers while not being required to provide benefits, or Amazon where workers piss in bottles and are tracked for efficiency. Not much has changed since then. The last chapter seems mostly to be about Hillary. I don’t think there’s much to say there. She would’ve been a repeat of her husband and Obama. Lots of talk, little action, and four years of the same. Another election I skipped. Then there’s a short conclusion that is a call to action about how the Democratic party won’t change while its constituents don’t call for change. I don’t see any results there. I’m not so sure of Biden’s victory next year. |
December 23rd, 2023 |
Listen, Liberal | The 7th chapter goes about Obama and his administration’s general reaction to the recession. Obama campaigned as an FDR type who would save the working man from the destroyed economy, but in actions he outperformed Clinton. Essentially, Obama did nothing. He did not create jobs, he did not take any of the banks over, he did not take any executives to court. He gave bailouts and tax cuts. He let bankers receive million dollar bonuses. He did not help passing laws that would have aided people undergoing foreclosure, despite having a Democratic House and Senate in his first term. He tried to outdo NAFTA by pushing for a Trans-Pacific equivalent (it failed). Later, Obama and his defenders would claim the president’s office has little power to do anything (a lie) and that the real power is in Congress (which was Democratic in the first term). What a scumbag. Glad I skipped those elections. Also read the 8th chapter. It focuses on the “successes” of Obama. There were 3, of which I currently remember 2. First was the Dodd-Frank Act, which re-regulated banking. Instead of a simple black-and-white act like Glass-Steagall, it has some thousands of pages of loopholes and exceptions that don’t really control banking, but allow them to continue their course. The second was Obamacare, which again was a convoluted mess. Instead of a Canadian system or state-run system, which would hurt big-pharma, it not ingrained the awful health insurance system into law and mandated every citizen partake. These ivy leaguers think that complexity is good because it justifies their own existence. They are not outsiders, but insiders who are afraid to try new things or “unapproved” or “unprofessional” ideas. The Dems constantly sought and still seek consensus with the Republicans. They don’t understand that right is not interested in their ideas and in compromise and will drag them to the right as far as they can. Yet Biden is still trying the same failed garbage. When are we going to get a winner in office? |
December 22nd, 2023 |
Listen, Liberal | The next chapter is a shorter one and discusses the “hipster” and banker relationship. Essentially it boils down to what type of wealthy individual each party targets. Democrats cater to what the author, or someone he quoted, calls the “creative class”. The techies and Wall Street fall under this category. Wall Street supported Obama over the other guy, McCain if I remember correctly. The “New Economy” was not built on the backs of workers, but of creative types and CEOs. Creativity which led Wall Street to create risky investments that toppled the world economy. Bastions of counter-culture like San Franscico became headquarters for billion dollar tech companies. Decaying cities were attempted to be revived with “culture improvements”, such as festivals and downtowns. Though without the money or jobs, this was a wasted effort. So now we have the right-wing party that favors a certain type of “old” money and “physical” industry, and the center-right party that favors “new” money and “creative” industry. The worker is left in the dust. |
| The Making of Europe | The next part of the second chapter discusses potential reasons for why this aristocratic diaspora happened. The first point to make is that it mostly happened to minor families. Major families with large holdings could house their children comfortably. Minor families could not divide their land amongst all their sons because then none of them would have anything worth anything. Of course, this is a generalization. Some families may have one male heir or no heir and go extinct. Regardless, the sons with nothing to get had to go elsewhere. These knights depended on their lords to give them land and it became a sort of self-perpetuating cycle. A lord needed knights, he would give them land, he would gain more power and attract more knights and thus have to seek more land. It was expand or die. At the same time, possibly a cause or possibly a coincidence in time, laws in some countries were passed so that only the senior son would posses all the inheritance. Before this, it was common to share or split: just look at Charlemagne’s grandsons splitting the empire. This created a more permanent land-holding system and the concept of the “house” or family. This feeds into the cycle of needing knights, needing to land them, etc. | |
December 21st, 2023 |
The Making of Europe | The part about families goes on for a while and is still fairly boring. The interesting part is when the author discusses new kingdoms being formed in the Latin expansion. For example, kingdoms were created in Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, Jerusalem, Norway, Denmark, Poland, Hungary, Greece. Some of these were not long lasting, like Greece (formed after sacking Constantinople) and Jerusalem. What is interesting is that a great majority of these kings came from Frankish regions of Europe. The crusader kings in Iberia and the Mediterranean were Franks. Old kingdoms like England and Scotland soon had Frankish kings. Only the Northern Europeans, Poland, and Hungary had local monarchs. Compare this to the Germanic expansion east, where no new kingdoms were formed. They may have found wealth, land, and power, but no crowns. |
December 20th, 2023 |
The Making of Europe | The second chapter is about the spread of aristocratic families. To be honest, it’s pretty dull so far. It kind of drones on about specific families that I cannot remember, but I guess it makes its point. One example was a family from Champagne who, down the centuries, ended up crusading with Saint Louis in Egypt, gaining a foothold in Acre, and marrying into a lordship in Ireland. This is a common French example of spreading through war and marriage. I guess the French are hemmed in on all sides, so they need drastic measures to expand their holdings. Germans, on the other hand, have all that eastern frontier to expand into. It’s not as dramatic on a map, but this gradual eastward expansion was much more permanent and had longer lasting effects. |
| Listen, Liberal | It’s another chapter on Clinton. What it boils down to is that all these things Clinton was behind, NAFTA, the crime bill, deregulation, and his attempt to privatize Social Security (foiled by the BJ impeachment), could only have been done by a Democrat. Often, he was united with Newt Gingrich and the Republicans instead of his own party. A Republican doing these things would have been expected and viewed as their usual attacks on the poor and working class. The Democrats, however, are supposed to be FOR the poor and working class. So when Clinton says NAFTA will help them, they believe him. And in our system, they have nowhere else to turn. Only the party that constructed the New Deal could dismantle it permanently. Bill Clinton was able to do things Republicans dreamed of, and leagues beyond that. What a garbage person. | |
December 19th, 2023 |
The Making of Europe | There’s more about bishoprics in Europe. Spain obviously expanded the Christian realm during the Reconquista. Most notorious are the Crusades, where the First Crusade got a foothold in the Middle East, only to lose it later. They did get more permanent footholds in islands like Cyprus and Crete. In some of these places they displaced the Greek Orthodox. When the Venetians and crusaders sacked Constantinople in one of the later crusades, they established their own Latin sees and even tried to make a Venetian heritage requirement. Less famous crusades were against the last stronghold of Pagans in the Baltic. After much violence and coercion, they converted these peoples. The Lithuanians may have been first, converting in order to gain the Polish crown. The author says this is a spread of Latin Christianity and a Catholic world, but is careful to say that adherence to the religion was not sufficient for people at the time. The Irish had been Catholic long before the English or Germans, yet they were still viewed as “others” for not adhering to the exact rites or general feudal culture. This opened them up for conquest by the Anglo-Normans, as the Irish were “Christian in name only”. So “Europe” was not only adherence to a religion but aspects of a culture. |
| Listen, Liberal | This next chapter seems to be all about the juxtaposition of Clinton’s words (and the old Dem ways) and his actual actions in office, a la New Democrat. It’s sort of written as if I should know most of these things, but I don’t really remember the Clinton years. My first political memory was the 2000 election, and I barely knew what was going on. I do remember learning that I was in Bush country. Asides aside, one big issue with Clinton was NAFTA. Free trade is supposed to benefit everyone and was going to create more jobs, but really only benefitted the owners and rich. Factories moved to Mexico costing hundreds of thousands of American jobs, while simultaneously Mexican farmers could not compete with American industrial farming and Mexican economic growth stagnated. This was not a pro-worker agreement and many Democrats in the House did not like it, at first I guess. Clinton also signed a brutal law enforcement bill that widened the use of the death penalty and added many mandatory minimum sentences. He also cut and just removed welfare plans that came from the New Deal era. All these economic changes were viewed as “inevitable”, as if neoliberalism was some sort of religious doctrine. The biggest consequences came from deregulation of many sectors, which increased monopolization and hurt small businesses. The worst was the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act, which then allowed banking to combine commercial and investment banking. This led directly to the crash of 2008, though unfortunately it was under a Republican, so Clinton escaped the blame. Essentially, the New Democrats turned on the allies that made the Democrats. | |
December 18th, 2023 |
The Making of Europe | The book starts off interesting, though you can tell it will be a bit slow. I think the author wants us to view Europe at the end of the Early Middle Ages as a small island of Roman Catholicism, hemmed in from all sides. Before this, it was invaded by all sides: Norse from the north, Arabs from the south, and pagans, or Magyars, specifically from the east. The Europe in discussion is a joining of post-Roman regions and culture with Germanic regions and culture. The first chapter discusses the spread of Papal authority by viewing the timeline of the founding of bishoprics in different regions. In Rome’s old borders, some hundreds could go back to the Constantine era and were found in many well known cities. In the new regions, like England, there were not really cities. The bishoprics adapted to the tribal borders for the time being. Bit by bit they spread past the Elbe, up Denmark and into Scandinavia, and battle the Greek Orthodox in the east. The Germanic system was able to spread Catholicism to Bohemia and Poland, creating a cultural dividing line in Slavic cultures still visible. Down in the Mediterranean, it was a battle not for savage souls but sophisticated souls. Sicily was a melting pot of faiths, for example. |
December 17th, 2023 |
Listen, Liberal | The third chapter talks about how the Democrats won in 1992 and their policies. It starts by talking about how the Reagan years led to a wide gap in prosperity, with the up X% holding more wealth than the lower X+50%. Productivity had increased and blue-collar workers were outputting more than ever, yet their wages were not rising. The profits go to Wall Street. Clinton and his cohorts come along saying how bad this is, etc. In reality, they love it. They openly advocate that a person should earn only as much as their education or skills will get them. If you don't make much money, it is your fault for not having the education. Meanwhile, Clinton also brings in more H-1B1s to dilute the buying power of an American degree. This kind of reiterates previous chapters of the Democrats becoming the face of the educated professional elite. Clinton's people replace the business elite of the Reagan and Bush years, but their economic views are indistinguishable. The author also tells a story about Decatur, where 3 big factories go on strike after abuses by management. Despite earlier rhetoric, they got no support from Washington. It sounds like the strikers shut the city down, with the abusive police even giving up. The author does not give us a conclusion though. Did they succeed? |
December 16th, 2023 |
Listen, Liberal | Finished the first chapter and read the second. The first chapter continues talking about professionals, but I’m still left wondering who this “class” really is. As described, they’re just as bad as the blue-collar types who think as long as you work hard and often, you’ll succeed. I don’t want either. I want to work minimal hours and I don’t want to spend more time and money on education. Do STEMs with neoliberal economic views really vote Democrat? The second chapter goes into a historical description of how the Democrats abandoned labor. FDR had some highly educated people behind him, but also some moderately educated people. His attorney general had no law degree, and Truman had no college education period. The difference is that the professional class tends to stay in the box, where many of FDR’s people were outsiders to the current trendy theories. After losing in 1968, with the war and convention riots, the Democrats reformed their party. Some changes were good, like open primaries. However, at the same time they decided to woo the young professional. Now both parties were going to be for the white-collar worker. The Democrats in charge were openly hostile to labor, and they viewed unions as something holding them back. There were also negative connotations of blue-collar workers in media, especially after George Wallace’s famous campaign that got a significant number of votes, more than any Green or Libertarian candidate. I guess that’s it. Over the next two decades, the Democrats moved further right with every lost election. Finally with Clinton, they hit the sweet spot. |
December 15th, 2023 |
James Monroe | Read the last chapter and epilogue today. Like most biographies, the chapter ends with Monroe’s death and the epilogue traces some threads left by his life. After the presidency, Monroe went back to Virginia and his financial woes. He struggled for the rest of his days trying to get Congress to compensate him for the money he spent while in public service, some $60k including interest. One by one, the people around him die. Both his brothers died. In 1826, he lost Jefferson. He worked a bit for Virginia University or something with Madison and also chaired a convention to amend the Virginia Constitution (which failed), but he became too ill for both. In 1830, both his son-in-law George Hay and his wife died. This was the end for Monroe. He made one final journey to live with his daughter Maria in New York, but was too ill to ever leave. On the 4th of July, 1831, Monroe died. He lived long enough to see his single party system fall apart to the Jacksonian takeover. His daughters lived relatively short lives. His nephew James Monroe Jr. became a successful politician, while his own grandchildren seemed to follow their parents. Monroe has a pretty great political legacy. |
| Listen, Liberal | The first chapter discusses the idea that the Democratic Party is no longer the party of the people or working class. It is the party of the professional class, which essentially means anyone with a college education. Obama filled his cabinet Ivy League intellectuals, and Obama obviously sided with the banks. The professional class has had ups and downs in history. They were hated in the Jacksonian era and a beacon of hope against the capitalist class in the industrial era. Roosevelt had his brain-trust and they passed incredible reforms. But after the the Democrat became a party of and for the professional class. Many were Republicans in the Eisenhower era and then became Democrats. The author claims that this professional class, while liberal in social affairs, is very conservative fiscally and they have a disdain for unions. They support the meritocracy and believe that talent and hard work is rewarded. I’m not sure how true this is as a blanket statement. Of course, it is true for some individuals. Is it a majority? Maybe. I fall under the professional class and I am rather left-leaning economically. I know those who are conservative economically, but they are also older. Believing this helps the author’s point, of course. | |
December 14th, 2023 |
James Monroe | This penultimate chapter winds down Monroe’s presidency. Not much newsworthy usually happens in the final days. Most people are looking to the future and the 1824 election. This is an infamous and very interesting election. Now that America is a one-party country, that party is split into factions. 1824 sees at least 5 people with aspirations for the presidency. Calhoun is the first out, yet in turn gets the meager nomination for VP. The remaining candidates, that is Adams, Clay, Jackson, and Crawford, divide the nation geographically and not one gets the needed electoral vote minimum to win. Jackson gets the plurality, with Adams in second. I wonder if the election were by RCV, with Clay eliminated, would someone had won in the second round? Would Crawford need to be eliminated? Would Adams had gotten the majority or Jackson? I like to think Adams would have won, and his reputation would not have been tainted with the rumors of the Corrupt Bargain. Back in the real world, the Constitution sends the election to the House, where each state casts a vote for one of the top 3 candidates. This was pure politics. Allegedly, Clay made a deal with Adams to get State if he worked his magic. If so, it worked and Adams got a majority of the House votes. Monroe waited out the days until he could retire. I forgot the other big event: the return of Lafayette to America. There’s not much to say about his tour from NYC down to DC, but he made quite the spectacle as thousands of people came to cheer him and greet him. Finally, he came to his old friend sitting in the White House. A nice moment before the veterans of ‘76 start kicking the bucket en masse. |
| Listen, Liberal | Read the prologue. Not sure where this book will go. It was written at the end of the Obama years, so the main part of the book won’t even see the Trump election. The theme I picking up is that staring in the Clinton era, things stopped getting better for the working class. The neoliberalism (the author hasn’t used this term) that Clinton adopted put a stop to the working class from taking home any growth in the nation’s economy. Then this system completely failed at the end of the Bush years, and Obama comes along and pardons the banks who destroyed the economy. This failure is likely a key topic in the book. The fact that Democrats use inequality and the plight of the working class to win elections and then continue the status quo is part of their failure. The constant centrism and desire for bipartisanship, something Republicans have no interest in, is another part of their failure. | |
December 12th, 2023 |
James Monroe | Been busy and not writing, though I’m reading it. There’s a whole lot of chapters on the presidential years. That’s probably in part due to Quincy’s meticulous diary. Most of the day to day things are not all that interesting. The thorn in Monroe’s cabinet, Crawford, suffers an illness and then has a stroke. I’m surprised by this since he’s part of the drama of the 1824 election. There’s a lot of build up to the Monroe Doctrine. America is very slow to do anything about the South American republics. There is some real worry over the Holy Alliance and the revival of monarchism and absolutism in Europe. The French invaded Spain to help their Bourbon king and succeeded. The Greeks also are rebelling against the Ottomans, but the Americans can only send verbal support. The Russians are digging deeper into the Northwest and it’s worrisome. The British Minister actually brought up acknowledging the new republics to Rush, but the Americans sat on it for too long and he withdrew the offer. This actually allowed Monroe and Adams to make it their own grand standing thing instead of being a junior partner in it. Guess it worked out. |
December 4th, 2023 |
James Monroe | Forgot to write a few times. Monroe made a tour of the South and West, but this coincided with the depression of 1819. Land speculation caused a lot of loss and Indian cotton sank Southern prices. The whole country was a mess, but these were not the days of FDR. Congress and the President did nothing. Another issue, possibly bigger, was the debate over Missouri and Maine’s admission as states. The debate nearly led to the dissolution of the Union. The anti-slavery crowd wanted to admit Missouri with the clause that it would wind down slavery overtime. This caused an outrage and the southern states would not admit Maine as a free state. Monroe tried to intervene behind the scenes but it kind of blew up in his face. It didn’t matter much since there were no other good Republican candidates. After lots of debate and ideas that no one could agree on, the vote to allow Missouri as a slave state and ban slavery above whatever latitude passed. Monroe considered the veto, but let it go. There was also a revolt in Spain and the new government finally agreed to the Florida deal. |
November 27th, 2023 |
Unfolding of Language | Finished the book today. The epilogue, as expected, sums up the book. A question the author asks is: does language change linearly, or does it go forever in cycles? The author says that from the caveman days up to a point, it advanced and became more complex. Once it reached a level of complexity, it possibly goes in cycles of becoming less complex through erosion and then complex again through addition of prefixes and suffixes to words. However, in the historical period we only see a “decline” from the complex PIE structure down to today. Why is this? Well, poorly document hunter-gather languages, which are dying everyday, do still have quite complex systems. This may be because of two reasons. First, they are only spoken among small groups of people that have little interaction with other cultures. There is no need to change the language to ease communication between different cultures, like the English and Danish in the Viking era. Another reason is literacy. The written word reinforces the idea of separation between words and also enforces a “concreteness” in structure. In speech, words bleed together and can be modified without a “rule book” to enforce the old way is the right way. As cultural ties expanded and the written word became more important, language simplified and solidified. What will the future bring? Who knows. I wonder if I lived 1000 years, would I still understand the English of the day. We will never know. |
November 26th, 2023 |
Unfolding of Language | Adjectives, or property-words, have two lives. There’s the high life as the object of a verb, such as “the stone is sharp”, or at a basic (or foreign) level, “stone sharp”. Here the adjective is independent and has its own place in the sentence. This can easily evolve from a standard thing-action statement. The low life is where it is dependent on the object, like “man sharp stone throw”. This could have been a product of the “this/that” type, where the pointing word is insufficient to determine what is required. If “that stone” doesn’t help distinguish between 5 stones, then “that sharp stone” may. These words are usually based on object words, like how colors “orange” and “violet” come from a fruit and a flower. The low life is a critical evolution because now two separate words are combined to fit in one slot. From that, it’s an easy transition to many words into one slot and more abstract attachments like quantifiers, articles, case/plurals, or possessives.The next bit is about nouns and verbs. In many languages, it’s very easy to turn a noun into a verb; you just use it as a verb. You water the flowers or you skin an animal. To turn a verb into a noun is difficult; you need some sort of modification. A building is built, an explosion stems from something exploding. These modifications, along with modifications with verb tenses, tend to stem from another word that through erosion becomes attached. Then through analogy this spreads to other words and becomes a system in itself.Lastly, all of this leads to the most complex part of language: subordination. This is really a simple extrusion of the property words and objectification of verbs. Instead of saying “I killed the lion. He was chasing the rabbit. The rabbit was running towards me.”, one can now say “I killed the lion chasing the rabbit running towards me”. This one sentence consists of two subordinate clauses that describe (like property words) which lion and which rabbit. This subordination can continue ad nauseam. To make things less confusing, we usually would add “that” at the start of the relative clause. This may stem from the demonstrative use. It may once have been “I killed the lion. That one chasing the rabbit” and eroded to become a clause marker. That’s pretty much it. The author spent 50 pages drawing high level examples of how basic and limited speech could become complex and nuanced language. All that is left is an epilogue. |
November 24th, 2023 |
Unfolding of Language | The last chapter is a long one; it’s like 20% of the whole book. In it, the author tries to tell possible scenarios for how language can evolve from what the author calls the “me Tarzan” phase to a recognizably modern language. The example story is something like “girl fruit see, pick, eat, turn, mammoth see, etc,”. The givens here are that words already exist and some sort of structure exists. First, the words are only “things” or “actions”. There are no adjectives, prepositions, adverbs, or grammatical words. The “Caesar principle” is used, as in everything is told in order. In the sections that I read, the author, in no particular order, describes how pronouns may have evolved, as well as adjectives and prepositions. For pronouns, we must assume the existence of pointing words, meaning “this” or “that”. Once the brain can understand the malleable meaning of these words, how this can become that based on proximity, then this can expand into personal pronouns. It can then be understood that my “me” is your “you” or even your “he”. Prepositions may have come about from the over usage and weakening of certain verbs. For example, “give” already has a non-literal meaning, as in “I gave it my all”. That could further erode from the original meaning. Imagine a scenario where “give” is the second word in a sequence: “I bring meat, give you”. Through constant use, this becomes equivalent to “I bring meat to you”, thus turning the verb “give” into a preposition. It can then expand further into the metaphorical context. I started dozing off during the adjective bit, so I’ll have to reread it. |
November 22nd, 2023 |
James Monroe | I don’t really remember what happened. The whole Andrew Jackson business really came to nothing. The Americans got the deal for Florida. That’s about it. |
| Unfolding of Language | Chapter 6 goes big. It boils down to the claim that the biggest creative force in language is analogy and the mind’s desire to see and create order. Imagine a world where people start saying foots and gooses instead of feet and geese, and no one corrects them. A generation or two later, this becomes the standard and the old way is forgotten. One example given is that cherry comes from Norman French cherise, which is singular. The English saw this as the plural “cherries” and starting calling one a “cherry”, a completely made up word. More examples include the creation of -or nouns from verbs, like visitor or governor, or the “fluffing” of words, like this path: to compute → computer → to computerize. Some of this is in the appendices. The chapter ends with the author speculating how the Semitic verb system, described early, could come about from analogy. It’s long, but interesting to see the author come up with “normal” roots in the ancient past and describe how we would get the consonantal root system by the time ancient Akkadian was written. This book has definitely gotten better as the chapters advance. The last one is next, in which the author proposes his “original” language. | |
November 21st, 2023 |
James Monroe | Not a lot happens at first. Speaker of the House Calhoun is a thorn in Monroe’s side, partly because he was not chosen for State. The main issue is Andrew Jackson. I forget the name of the other general, but he was to be sent to Florida to stop Seminole raids but was instead sent to clear out one of those pirate islands. His instructions were to stop short of attacking any Spanish forts or holdings that the raiders may use. In his absence, Andrew Jackson was to go to Florida, though his instructions seemed to have missed this key command. Then AJ sent some letters to Quincy and someone else, maybe the Secretary of War, which were alarming. They claim that they told Monroe immediately, though Monroe claims he had flu and never saw the letters. Very fishy. But AJ is killing Seminole POWs and attacking Spanish forts and executed two British citizens. It’s a big blow-up. Meanwhile, Quincy is trying to negotiate with the Spanish to buy Florida outright. |
November 20th, 2023 |
Unfolding of Language | Chapter 5 takes an odd turn and is written as a transcript at a language conference. Where before they lamented the destruction of language, the current speaker is going to talk about the creative forces that partner with destruction. Look at “go”. Originally only meant to mean movement, the phrase “going to” was created, meaning to move with the intent to do some other verb, which then by the time of Charles I became a future indicator, like will (which used to mean “want”, as it does in German or Dutch). Now many of us say “gonna”, and in black vernacular they sometimes drop the “is”, as in “X gonna give it to ya”. An audience member asks how can a verb become an auxiliary. A different example is given, how the word “back of”, as in “at the back of the store”, goes from the noun “back” to a preposition. This conversation goes on and on. He talks about the complex French verb system to explain how endings to verbs came to be. In the future conjugation, “I will love” is j’aimerai, and if you go down the list of persons, you’ll see that the ending is nothing more than the verb “to have”. “To have to” had it’s meaning changed from an obligation to a statement of going to, and over time degraded to nothing more than a verbal cue at the end of the verb. Of course, this happened in written history, meaning the acts that destroyed Latin created French. What about noun declensions? This is something more ancient, but the author says it may have been that in IE, there truly was one declension. A postposition was used after the noun to determine case, which then morphed with the noun. Over time, depending on the ending of the noun, sound changes and combinations and elisions would have developed unique endings. Thus the erosion of the postposition created a complex noun system. That ends the chapter, but in Appendix A, the audience member is not happy about the answer for how a verb can turn into an auxiliary. The speaker says that all the grammatical terms we use are merely descriptions and now laws. The phrase “going to” was always used in the auxiliary position, as in “I X buy bread”. Where X may once have been “am going to the store to” (a normal verb), it weakened to “am going to” or “’m gonna”. Same for any of these swaps. The speaker notes that “gonna” can’t be a “true” auxiliary, because it doesn’t work in all cases. One does not say “Gonna you come tomorrow?” like you can will will or should. Language is much more fluid. |
| James Monroe | Monroe’s trip continues through New England, to Buffalo, into Canada, and then to Detroit. He goes through Ohio and Western PA to head home. It was a long trip, but mostly successful and well received. Back in DC he anticipates the return of John Quincy. With Congress in recess, there’s not much to do. Monroe then goes home for a bit and hires his wayward brother as private secretary. The Monroes then move into the still incomplete White House. Once he gets his cabinet together, they get to work. Monroe’s goal is to form a consensus on issues and avoid a divided and malicious cabinet. Monroe and Quincy see eye to eye on many subjects. The main issue at hand is how to handle the South American revolutions, on which they decide neutrality. There are others, like some smugglers in Galveston or something like that, where they decide to send military force. Monroe then delivers his state of the union to Congress and it is received well. | |
November 19th, 2023 |
Unfolding of Language | I forgot one thing (at least) from chapter three. The “weakening” of hyperbole brings words to standard usage. For example, “not” started as some sort of equivalent “not in the slighted” type of word and now we use it as the standard for negation. That leads to chapter 4, how metaphors effect language. This chapter was more interesting. The first bit is that a lot of common usage words come from metaphor, which then becomes overused and the metaphor is forgotten. For example, after hearing “she greeted him coldly”, one does not think of temperature. That’s kind of the hole chapter. Then the author talks about how spatial words link to temporal and other types of sentences. Look at “from”. From is obviously spatial, but can be temporal (“from 5 to 7 o’clock”) and can be causal (“I’m sick from eating too much”). The author then goes to claim these basic grammatical terms were once in fact metaphors, and they come from something very simple: the human body. The most obvious one in English is “back”. A less obvious one is “front”, which has the etymology of “frontem”, Latin for forehead. So as metaphor dies, they create more vocabulary and even grammatical terms. Interesting stuff. |
November 18th, 2023 |
Unfolding of Language | The third chapter gives some interesting details on what destroys language. A lot of it comes down to ease. If why go through the extra effort of saying a syllable when meaning is clear without it? For example, hlaf-weard degrades to hlaford degrades to lord. The “ed” in English past tense, or even the silent “e”, were once pronounced. The case system collapses as the meaning becomes clear with simpler systems, like word order or pre/post positioning. Pronunciation is the same. Grimm’s Law traces several consonantal changes in Germanic languages from its Indo-European cousins. Vowels change too, depending on adjacent sounds. A Swiss linguist proposed that all PIE verbs had “e” as the consonant. Some changed, like cut vs sec (e.g. dissect). He proposed that to transfer from e to a, there was an unknown intermediate that had not been found. He proposed it would have been some sort of glottal sound aX, but left it at the unknown. Decades later, the mysterious Hittite language was deciphered as a IE language, and there in the cuneiform tablet, a millennium older than Latin or Greek texts, was the “ah” verb. But destruction should not be seen as the key to some golden age of language thousands of years ago. For example, “chose” is a normal past tense word, However, in the past, it was chose and curon. This is the opposite direction of the flos-floris change. So where can we find the creative elements? They lie very close to the destructive elements, and thus were hard to detect. To be continued. |
November 17th, 2023 |
James Monroe | Monroe gets sworn in and all is dandy. He keeps the useful guys of Madison’s cabinet, but struggles to find a secretary of war. He eventually asks John C. Calhoun, who, though it was thought to be beneath him, accepts. For State, he chooses John Quincy Adams, who is still in London and has no idea of his nomination. In the summer when Congress is at recess, Monroe decides to something no president has done since Washington: he’s going to tour the United States. Nominally it is to be a discrete affair and to inspect forts and other installations, but it becomes a national ordeal. The president gets all sorts of pomp and circumstance from Baltimore to Boston. He visits Philadelphia, former capitol and home of his congressional years. He visits Trenton, where he took a bullet and nearly died. He visits Peacefield, the home of John Adams and Abigail Adams, who have become friendly with Monroe after their initial partisan bickering. They appreciate what Monroe sees in their son. New England is still rather federalist, but it was a Boston paper that described Monroe’s trip as the beginning of the Era of Good Feelings. |
November 16th, 2023 |
James Monroe | Essentially the war becomes a stalemate. Monroe essentially demands that Madison make him permanent Secretary of War. The Duke of Wellington tells the PM that the war is a waste and the PM changes his tune. John Quincy is already working for status quo ante bellum, and finally the British agree. The war is over, though we all know about the Battle of New Orleans. Monroe tries to create a standing army with volunteers and conscription, but Congress balks at conscription. As they should. Then by 1816 there’s another election and Madison doesn’t run per tradition. It’s essentially a single party race. The Federalists are a zombie party with barely any support outside New York and maybe a New England state or two. The real fight is the Republican nomination, which Monroe does not necessarily have in the bag. People are sick of Virginia running the country. Luckily for Monroe, there is only one serious contender: something Crawford. He’s a Virginian by birth, but New Yorker by choice. There’s all sorts of political shenanigans, but Monroe takes the nomination by a decent majority. He easily wins the election against Rufus King. |
| Unfolding of Language | Chapter 2 talks about how the language changes. It uses a biblical passage to show the changes in English from today back to 1000. It describes a lot, but doesn’t explain much. Anyone can see that words change meaning, pronunciation and spelling change, English lost cases and complex conjugations, etc. He shows some German and French examples too. He talks about how all Indo-European languages stem from the same root and change through separation over years. He also talks about sound changes, such as the Germanic f (e.g. father) and Romance p (e.g. padre). He compares this to modern day pronunciation of th as f (e.g. I fink so). This is acceptable to the ear, despite not being proper. One day it may take over and we will lose th. For change in words, it kind of comes down to slang. He uses the example of “wicked”. It can mean evil (something wicked this way comes) or to a Bostonian, it can mean cool or whatever. Still not impressed. It’s all set-up, though it’s almost a quarter over. | |
November 14th, 2023 |
James Monroe | The Americans blow up their stockpiles and flee the city. The British meet some resistance but easily put government buildings to the torch. The mayor convinces them to spare the patent building, but the Library of Congress gets no sympathy. After this, many citizens of DC and nearby Baltimore want to surrender and make peace. James Monroe, interim Secretary of War after Armstrong is AWOL, refuses the notion. Armstrong appears and is scolded by Madison for his failures. Armstrong offers is resignation, but Madison needs a New Yorker and gives him leave. Armstrong then sends his resignation to a Baltimore newspaper. The burning of DC is the nadir for the Americans. They start to fix-up the city and plan to remove the British war ships from the river. Monroe warns Jackson, in Mobile, that the West Indies fleet may be heading for New Orleans. |
| Unfolding of Language | The first chapter is kind of boring, at least for me. It doesn’t seem to have much of a goal other than to talk about what some languages do. English depends on word order and has grammatical words to say what part of the sentence a clause is. It also has prefixes and suffixes to alter words. Russian and Latin change the end of a word depending on its case. Semitic languages have very odd verbal systems, with consonantal roots that are interwoven with standard vowels to determine its subjugation. The author keeps saying how we will explain how these came to be in chapter 7. I’ve read a lot about English and other languages before, so none of this was particularly interesting. The semitic verbs was new to me. This unrelated, but I wonder if Neanderthals could speak. I think I read they had limited noise making ability. Could a model be created of the vocal chords, larynx, mouth cavity, etc., and “vibrated” to see how it sounds? That’d be impressive. | |
November 13th, 2023 |
Beowulf | Beowulf talks about the old days. He talks about growing up in Hrethel’s court. Tragedy strikes when the eldest son Herebeald is killed by his brother Haethcyn in a hunting accident. The grief overtakes Hrethel. Haethcyn is then king and dies in battle with the Swedes. The Swedish king is then killed by Eofor, who is given Hygelac’s daughter in marriage. Some of this is revealed after Beowulf’s death. Beowulf recalls his time as a warrior of Hygelac and then Hygelac’s demise. Beowulf then says he will fight the dragon alone. He summons the dragon from the cave, which is described as 50 feet long. The angry dragon flies at Beowulf and he swings his sword in the creatures neck, which does little. Beowulf has never had success with swords. 10 of his warriors flee, but Wiglaf son of Weoxstan, kinsman of Beowulf, stays. He runs to fight and die with his lord. The dragon continues to attack and incinerates Wiglaf’s shield. The dragon then bites Beowulf across the neck. Wiglaf stabs the dragon in the stomach and it weakens. Beowulf then takes a dagger from his belt and jabs it in the dragon. The battle is over and both man and wyrm are dying. Beowulf requests that Wiglaf bring him some treasure so that he might see it. He also requests a giant barrow on the cape the sailors can see for miles. When Beowulf dies, the cowardly warriors return. Wiglaf shames them and expects attacks from enemies when they learn of their dead king and his weak warriors. They return to the people, waiting for results, and mourn their king. They have a funeral pyre and build the barrow in 10 days. The dragon is thrown off the cliff. The Geats fear for the future now their king is gone. He was kind and worthy. That was a good king. |
| Unfolding of Language | I read the introduction. I guess the book will explain the technical aspects of what makes a language, such as words, structure, declensions, conjugation, etc., before going into other things. I think then it will be how language is used or something like that. Somewhere in the middle it will try to explain what the “original” language may have been. Essentially modern languages are analyzed and then their features are back-traced to probably earlier features. Over time, languages “degrade”, such as the Italians lack of Latin declensions. These trends are then look at in reverse to see what our oldest written languages could have descended from. This is where all those conjectured Indo-European words and grammar come from. The author will also talk about how the things that created language may still exist in man today, and how the act of language destruction leads to language growth or change. Then there were a good number of pages about how linguists argue over whether language is genetically programmed in humans and by how much. This will not be discussed in the book. Well, there’s 7 chapters so let’s see where it goes. | |
November 12th, 2023 |
Beowulf | Beowulf and Hrothgar say farewell, and Hrothgar breaks into tears, knowing he will never see Beowulf again. The Geats return to the boat laden with treasure. They return to Geatland and enter the hall of Hygelac, King of the Geats and Beowulf’s maternal uncle. Hygelac is happy to see Beowulf alive and they exchange gifts. There are some interesting reveals here. First, the Geat who was killed by Grendel is given the name Handscio. A strange name, and it seems odd to name the victim some thousand lines later. Second, it’s revealed that before killing Grendel, Beowulf was not taken very seriously or all that well respected. Maybe he was very young, but it would as explain his reasoning for seeking glory on foreign shores. After all the niceties, we jump ahead in time. Hygelac dies in battle against the Frisians in Friesland, which is apparently a real historical event recorded by the Franks. Beowulf managed to swim away from the battle after it was lost. Hygelac’s son, Heardred becomes king, though the queen and others would rather Beowulf be king. Beowulf refuses and supports his young cousin. Heardred is caught up in the feud with the Swedes. It’s very confusing but I guess Hygelac killed some Swedish king. His son then dies, and that guys sons flee to Geatland when their uncle becomes king. This new king comes and kills Heardred, leaving Beowulf king. 50 years later, he still reigns. Some guy found an old treasure hoard guarded by a dragon and stole a cup. The enraged dragon awakens and starts wrecking havoc on Geatland. Beowulf takes 11 warriors and finds the thief, making him show them the path to the dragon’s lair. Beowulf senses he will not come back. |
November 10th, 2023 |
Beowulf | Beowulf agrees to fight Grendel’s mother. Hrothgar and his men, Beowulf and the Geats, all men march to the swamps where she had been seen. Beowulf is in his armor and is given Hrunting, a renowned sword owned by Unferth. The lake is filled with sea-monsters. I don’t know if Beowulf is literally fighting underwater or just swimming down to a cave or something. My suspension of disbelief ends at him holding his breath for an hour. Anyway, he dives in and is attacked by monsters, but his armor does its job. Then Grendel’s mother seizes him and the real fight begins. Beowulf swings Hrunting, but it does no damage. Beowulf is still saved from her blows by his armor. In her hoard, he sees another sword, a sword for giants. He wields it and kills her. Then, he sees the body of Grendel. With his new sword, he takes Grendel’s head. Everyone except the Geats had left, assuming Beowulf dead by now. Beowulf emerges, but without the blade. The blade had melted, from what I don’t know. Evil blood? Some sort of “mission accomplished”deal? But the ancient and beautiful hilt survived. The Geats march back to Heorot with hilt and head, both given to Hrothgar. There is more celebration and real rest. The Geats must prepare to head home. |
November 9th, 2023 |
James Monroe | I didn’t realize I skipped a day. I guess there’s not much to talk about other than the war. It’s a pretty uninteresting war for the most part. You have Jackson committing his massacres against Natives. Tecumseh was killed. All invasions into Canada are a bust and most generals hate Armstrong, who gets some sort of field commission. Once Napoleon is defeated after the Russia debacle, the English focus on the war in America. Some peace negotiations begin, but the British don’t want to talk about impressment. All this time Monroe had been riding around looking at British ships that are coming up the Chesapeake or whatever river. Now the veterans from Spain are arriving. Armstrong refuses to believe DC is the target, but Monroe is convinced. Scattered militias try to put up a defense. Monroe and Madison go to the battle and Monroe makes some troops move around, creating a hole in the line. None of the general fix it. The defenders inflict more casualties than they receive, but they break and run. DC has to be evacuated. |
November 7th, 2023 |
James Monroe | Madison tries to avoid war a little longer, but in June requests Congress to declare war. It passes essentially along party lines. There are some wins and some losses, but Madison wins reelection. There are some shifts in the cabinet and the Secretary of War is on the outs. Monroe takes up the position temporarily and would like it permanently. He wants a field commission but a decent number of people tell him that’s a bad idea. In the UK, the PM is assassinated and a new government is in power. This government abolishes the hated act which allowed the seizure of ships. But it was too late. The Federalists and “real” Republicans did not allow Monroe to be confirmed Secretary of War. Low on Madison’s list, the New Yorker John Armstrong was voted in. |
| Beowulf | There’s another night of celebrations and speeches in Heorot. Grendel’s arm is displayed as a trophy in the hall. Gifts are bestowed upon Beowulf and the Geats, and money is paid for the Geat killed by Grendel. There’s drinking and poetry and no more lip from Unferth. However, the night brings another problem. Grendel’s mother leaves the fens to seek revenge. She enters Heorot and takes Aeschere, a dear friend and adviser to Hrothgar. The men are roused and Grendel’s mother flees, but Hrothgar is left to mourn the loss of his friend. Then, he summons Beowulf. | |
November 6th, 2023 |
James Monroe | I didn’t write on Friday and now I mostly forget it. This next bit covers like 4 years. Monroe comes home. There is a rift in the Republican party and some “true” Republicans support Monroe over Madison, though Madison wins by a landslide. Monroe focuses on his home, his daughter gets married and has a kid. Joseph Jones Jr, Monroe’s young cousin who accompanied him to Revolutionary France, died. Monroe then becomes the heir to the Jones lands. Monroe gets another term as governor of Virginia. Madison’s first term is pretty bad and his cabinet mostly not on his side. He eventually kicks out his Secretary of State and brings in Monroe. Now they are reconciled. Monroe becomes a real hardass with the British and French ministers, though still tries to be fair. Congress is filling with War Hawks like John Calhoun and Henry Clay. England and France are still preying on American ships. Harrison fights the Shawnee under the Prophet at Tippecanoe. War seems inevitable as 1812 comes. |
| Beowulf | Hrothgar gives some speech in return and they drink in the mead hall. Unferth, a Dane, is jealous and tells a tale of how Beowulf lost a swimming contest to Breca. Beowulf corrects him by saying he swam in full armor for 7 days, with sword, and was dragged to the bottom of the sea by monsters. Beowulf, naturally, slayed them all. The queen shows up and passes a cup around and Hrothgar makes Beowulf the guardian of Heorot for the night. The Geats stay while the Danes leave. All go to sleep except Beowulf. Grendel creeps up and enters Heorot. He sees the men sleeping and kills devours one. Then he goes for Beowulf, who grabs him first. Beowulf has the strength of 30 men and they nearly destroy the hall in their struggle. In the end, Beowulf rips off Grendel’s arm. Grendel runs back to the fens to die. Beowulf has saved Heorot and Hrothgar sends men to spread the word. | |
November 2nd, 2023 |
James Monroe | While in London, Monroe learns that his uncle and father-figure Joseph Jones has died. This is a big tragedy for the family. Around this time, Prime Minister Pitt dies and the Tories are unable to form a new government. The Whigs then form a sort of bipartisan government, with a Whig PM, and the Whig Fox as foreign minister. Monroe knows and likes Fox, so this is good. However, Fox moves slowly since he knows it is difficult to convince his colleagues to support US causes. Another blow later comes when Fox dies. He is replaced by two young men, one of whom is Fox’s nephew, and both are open-minded towards America. Due to the lack of results, Pinkney is sent to aid Monroe, much to Monroe’s chagrin. He is offended by this lack of faith from Madison and Jefferson. These four, nevertheless, work well together. Still, the British will not budge on impressment. They come up with a treaty and send it home, but Jefferson won’t even entertain it without impressment on the table. He tells them to cease negotiations. With machinations by King George, this government collapses and a Tory government takes over. Monroe feels misused and I believe he is going to go home. Neither Britain nor France want to deal with America as a neutral country and Monroe’s hands are tied by all three governments. |
November 1st, 2023 |
James Monroe | Yesterday all I remember is Congress approving the treaty. There were very few Federalists in the Senate. Monroe was then sent to London to work out a treaty but the government was not very interested. George III was very receptive to Monroe. King George seemed to have a way with people. Every American who fought against him ended up liking him after meeting him. Monroe gets nowhere in London and it even gets worse after some Brits are offended by Jefferson’s rustic approach to the presidency. Monroe goes back to France to work on West Florida and gets nowhere, though he does get a bad seat at Napoleon’s coronation. Somewhere in all this he learns about Hamilton’s death. Then Monroe goes to Spain on a very uncomfortable and slightly dangerous journey to discuss Florida. This is another failure, so he is sent back to London. There is new government under Pitt the Younger, and they’re Tories who have no interest in Monroe. Maybe the government change was before he left; doesn’t matter. |
October 30th, 2023 |
James Monroe | Spain had traded Louisiana back to France until the stipulation that France would not sell it. Promises never held Napoleon back. After the French failures in Haiti, he decided to dump the land and get some money to start fighting England again. Robert Livingston had been in Spain and France negotiating of the Mississippi and New Orleans to no avail. Tallyrand was not interested. Livingston was livid that Monroe was sent to trump him. Once Napoleon decided to personally sell the land, without consulting the “senate” and despite protests from his brothers, Tallyrand decided to try to make the deal and profit. Napoleon had another minister negotiate, since nobody trusts Tallyrand, but Tallyrand tried nonetheless. Livingston tried to work around Monroe’s back to get all the credit. Despite all these personal issues, the agreement was made and sent home. They failed to negotiate of Florida as the French refused. I didn’t realize Monroe had anything to do with the purchase. |
| Beowulf | The opening tells about past kings of the Danes. Shief Scylding founded the dynasty, followed by his son Beow, followed by Halfdane. All brave warriors. Halfdane’s son Hrothgar is also a good warrior and gives many gifts to his followers. He builds a magnificent mead-hall called Heorot (meaning stag). Life is good until the monster Grendel, a demonic being of the nearby swamps, grows angry at the presence of the hall. He attacks in the night and kills 30 men, dragging them to his lair. Hrothgar and the Danes are powerless. This torment goes on for 12 years. After that, Beowulf, already a famous warrior from Hygelac’s court in Geatland, crosses the sea with 14 men. Arriving on shore, his strikes awe in the men who see him and the Geats in their armor. He is led to Hrothgar, who remembers him from his childhood. Beowulf then vows to fight, as the monster does, with bare hands. | |
October 29th, 2023 |
Beowulf | I decided to first read Beowulf in the original Old English, which I finished today. I don’t know why, as I don’t know the language, but I felt compelled to. With my minimal background in OE, I probably understood about 5% of it. I guess that’s not so bad. Like most foreign languages, it’s the vocabulary that gets you. Though I had limited understand, with some aiding from the Modern side, I think I still could “feel” the story. Hard to explain, but you knew when there was fighting and you knew when there was talking, and you could feel the mood of the story. It was an experience. Now I’ll read the translation. |
October 27th, 2023 |
James Monroe | As the year passes, there are more rumored (and real) slave rebellions. More blacks are hanged for trying to get freedom. Monroe is accused by Federalists of “leniency”, but the Republicans elect him for a third and final term. Monroe wants to promote state funded education, a militia, and road building, but no one will give him a budget. He has a baby daughter. Napoleon is now in power in France as First Consul and world affairs take an odd turn. The French reinvade Haiti and, from an alliance treaty with Spain, reclaimed Louisiana. Even the Republicans worry about the French army having a presence in New Orleans. The only way to secure the Mississippi is to own the land. Jefferson decides to send Monroe to negotiate a purchase from Napoleon. If things go sour, he also has authorization to go to Spain and Britain. After only 5 years at home, he’s back across the ocean. |
October 26th, 2023 |
James Monroe | Some slaves who heard of the insurrection warned their master and the word was out. A heavy rain also ruined any chance of this happening. A decent number of slaves were hanged. Gabriel was on the run for weeks, but was caught and hanged. Monroe did very little to change this outcome, being a part of the slave-supporting system. All he could ask is how many executions is too many. Around this time, Monroe’s son died. Jefferson won the election of 1800 and Monroe was reelected governor. |
October 25th, 2023 |
James Monroe | The next chapter opens up about a slave named Gabriel who was taught how to read at the same time as his master’s son. He learned blacksmithing from his father and thus, being intelligent and with a trade, was pretty much allowed to roam town on his own. Being educated, he read the news when in town. He became very interested in emancipation and came to the conclusion that it will only be achieved by force. He assumed that the whites were disunited and thought the Republicans his friends. He planned an uprising in various towns with weapons supplied by some former Rochambeau men. All this will come to a head under the governorship of Monroe. Obviously it will not succeed, unfortunately. |
October 24th, 2023 |
James Monroe | I think I skipped an entry or two, but they probably weren’t significant. There’s lots of drama. These founding fathers are partisan little girls. Very catty and obnoxious. Hamilton has beef with Monroe because someone leaked his affair to the public. It wasn’t Monroe, but probably the guy he trusted the documents to. Lots of letters. Monroe gets nothing from the Washington administration and his and Washington’s mutual respect is dead. Adams is elected, Jefferson is VP, but Monroe and Madison take a break from politics. Monroe is broke but has a son. He and Madison can’t stay out of politics, however. Madison is elected to the VA House of Delegates, who then elect the governor. Who do they elect? Monroe. Shortly after this, Washington dies. |
October 17th, 2023 |
James Monroe | The Jay treaty becomes public knowledge, though not with anyone in the government letting Monroe know. It causes a big stir because it is a basic trade agreement that does nothing about impressing American sailors. Somehow it gets ratified and then France ends its relations with France. Washington and the government then disapprove of some of Monroe’s correspondences, and to be fair, he did send something to Benjamin Franklin Bache to publish publicly. In Monroe’s short couple years, he improved relations with France just to see them crash again. I forgot to mention that by this time there is a new constitution after some bread riots and the Directorship is in charge. The government recalls Monroe, who will arrive to a mild reception after Adams’ election. |
October 13th, 2023 |
James Monroe | Now that Monroe is a star, he tries to get some work done. Some big issues are that Thomas Paine and Madame Lafayette are stuck in prison. Paine is both a French and an American citizen, so Monroe has some ease getting him out. Paine, very ill from his imprisonment, stays with the Monroes while he recovers. The Madame is different. Her husband is in prison in Austria and considered a traitor. Elizabeth Monroe takes it in her hands to see the Madame on a humanitarian visit. It makes a big impression on the French and over time their opinions on Madame soften. Somehow she gets released and Monroe helps her get to a passport to Austria. His speech from before pissed off the Federalists and English and leaked back to the US through British papers. Monroe received some scathing letters from Randolph and Monroe suspects he was only sent to please the French to force the British into US arms. John Jay gives Monroe no information on the treaty he is working on and it is an embarrassment with the French. Monroe can’t trust his own government. |
October 11th, 2023 |
James Monroe | Turns out Monroe is going to Paris. Nobody is happy with Federalist Gouverneur Morris’ performance, especially the French. Washington needs a new minister, and Madison declined, so Monroe was next in line. Simultaneously, Monroe’s nemesis John Jay is going to England to negotiate with them. They’re not happy with America’s trading with France and are impressing any sailors they find. Monroe accepts the job, tells his wife in New York, and tells Jefferson to look after his place. They have an easy passage across the ocean, but receive a strange welcome in France. It is almost one of utter indifference. Robespierre was recently killed, so the Thermidorians are in power. I think this is pre-Directorship still. The Committee of Public Safety is still sort of in charge de facto, so Monroe, instead of sitting idly, goes to the House or whoever is de jure in charge of the government. He talks to the Speaker or whoever and they have an understanding. The Frenchman suggests that Monroe deliver a speech the next day to the House. With his aid in translation, Monroe writes and delivers a speech that the French go crazy for. Monroe himself is very pro-France, but he may be crossing some lines of Washington’s neutrality. |
October 6th, 2023 |
James Monroe | Forgot to write, I guess. To be honest, Monroe’s senator years are kind of boring. He doesn’t come across as the most likable guy, either. He’s an extreme partisan, deep in the Jefferson-Madison Republican party. He gets pulled on some secret investigation into Hamilton taking money, but it turns out the accuser was blackmailing Hamilton for banging his wife. Pretty embarrassing. Lots of classic newspaper wars from this era. Everyone is writing articles under different false names. I think Monroe chose not to run for Senate again, but probably will get some job under Washington. |
| Something Wicked This Way Comes | Finished this last night and today. It’s good. The boys are marched as part of the parade, completely under the mind control of the Mr. Dark. At the carnival, he hides the boys in the back of the mirror maze. The Witch shows up and Dark learns she has not killed Charles. It seems like he will punish her through the final act of the carnival, the trick shoot. A real bullet is swapped with a fake and the “shootee” will “catch” the bullet with their teeth. The Witch doesn’t want to do it, but Dark is in charge. No one volunteers to shoot, until Charles appears. Since he has a bum hand, he calls out for Will to help. The crowd then starts calling for Will, who somehow appears, still in a fog. Dark’s plan is falling apart. He gives the bullet to put a mark on, and he marks a crescent. Dark allows this, does the swap and all that. He then marks the fake bullet also. He then reveals the symbol: a smile. He shoots and the witch falls dead. The carnival is then closing and lights are going out. They look all over for Jim, and reluctantly enter the mirror maze. After nearly succumbing to the horrors inside, Will lights a match, Charles sees something and laughs, and the maze crumbles. Jim is still missing. They hear the carousel and run. He is still in a spell and grabs on. It spins and Will grabs him. Jim is fighting and can’t decide whether to ride or let go. He lets go, but doesn’t get up. He seems dead. Charles has learned the secret to fighting these guys and makes Will ignore the dead Jim and have fun. He has to slap the fun into him. As they sing and dance and Charles plays harmonica, Jim starts to wake. It works. Then a small boy runs up screaming for help. He pulls Charles away, but Charles is wise. He knows it is dark. Charles grabs the boy and hugs him. By showing love, the carnival starts to fall apart. This act ultimately kills Dark. The freaks all run off into the hills, now free but scared. Charles and the boys smash the carousel and run off into the night. | |
October 4th, 2023 |
James Monroe | I didn’t realize that Monroe debated on the Anti-Federalist side. He wasn’t against strong central government; he’d be advocating for it when he saw how useless the Articles were. He wanted a Bill of Rights. No matter how many good points he made, Madison had an answer and Virginia ratified, with not much margin. Patrick Henry, a hater of Madison and the Constitution, saw that Madison would lose the Senate race (he came in 3rd) and Gerrymandered the Congressional districts so that he could pit Monroe against Madison. They went on a debate tour and remained friendly, and Monroe lost the election. He settled back to law and farming and his errant brother returned from Scotland broke and dropped out/expelled from school. He decided to teach him law. Jefferson returned home to be Secretary of State. Early in the new government, the capital moved to Philadelphia while D.C. was being built. William Grayson, Monroe’s cousin, was senator, but sadly took ill and died. Monroe was almost chosen to replace him. But Grayson had a 2 year term, and Monroe ran for it when it was due. He won and his family moved to the capital. His wife was thrilled to go to NYC as soon as possible to visit family. Monroe was looking forward to his new role. |
| Something Wicked This Way Comes | Somebody quietly enters the library. Charles tells the boys to hide and then tries to act casual. It’s Mr. Dark and the facade is gone. He wants the boys, he knows who they are, and he knows they’re here. Lots of dialogue. Dark messes with Charles’ head and goes off to find the boys. He tries to scare them, telling them what he did to their mothers. He finds them. He grabs them and Charles comes running up to fight. He throws a punch but Dark grabs his hand and smashes the bones, possibly breaking the arm. Dark and the boys go past a window, where they see the mothers. Dark, loving a coincidence, waits for the moms. However, they don’t look up. The Dust Witch then blinds, deafens, and mutes the boys and puts them in a sleep. Dark then sends her to stop Charles’ heart. It is working until Charles opens his eyes and sees the Witch. He starts laughing. The Witch recoils and as Charles laughs harder, she becomes impotent and flees. Part 3 starts next. Didn’t think the boys would get caught like that. | |
October 3rd, 2023 |
James Monroe | Monroe got some heat when John Jay was negotiating a treaty with Spain. Spain essentially claimed the Mississippi due to it owning Louisiana Territory, and they did not want American settlers using it. They didn’t even want them coming west. Congress ordered Jay to negotiate in order to guarantee the right to the river. The Spanish minister offered some trade deals that would benefit the north and aid with Libyan pirates while not budging on the Mississippi. Jay wanted to do it, a commission was sent, and the northerners wanted to do it, but Monroe did not. This turned into a heated debate in Congress, which Monroe lost, but there was not enough states (need 9/13) to ratify anything. The useless Congress strikes again. Monroe returns to Virginia after the session, hoping to win a seat in the House of Delegates. His wife is very pregnant and shortly after gives birth to a daughter. The Monroes are broke, so they live with uncle Jones in Fredericksburg, where Monroe tries his hand at law. He seems to do alright. He is a bit upset at Madison and Governor Edmond Randolph or Rudolph, who fail to send Monroe to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Monroe seems to have forgotten that he has no money to spend a summer in Philadelphia. At least it looks like he will be on the committee for Virginia’s ratification. |
October 2nd, 2023 |
James Monroe | Monroe takes a trip “out west”, which really meant western New York. He went to Fort Stanwix to observe a treaty with Joesph Brant and the Mohawks. The American government was so powerless that New York was making its own treaties while the Federal government was also trying to make a treaty. Monroe and Brant strike up some sort of friendship as they both travelled from Fort Niagara to Montreal or somewhere. Monroe returns to the capital, currently Trenton, for the session but very few of his fellow congressmen show up. He works hard to try to show the others how it is supposed to be done. Jefferson is sent to Paris and he hooks up Monroe and Madison, who become friends. Monroe has some forward thinking ideas, like a federal city outside Georgetown and the federal government controlling interstate and international trade treaties. Both ideas fail now. The capital moves to NYC, Monroe meets a rich girl and marries. |
September 30th, 2023 |
Something Wicked This Way Comes | The dwarf/salesman spots the boys, but is so deranged he can’t process the information. Charles Halloway leaves the bar as Mr. Dark comes in and goes to the cigar shop where the grate is. He sees the boys and freaks. They beg him not to look and Mr. Dark approaches him. He shows the tattooed boys on his hands telling hm they won a prize and are being searched for. Halloway plays it cool and manages to piss off Dark. The Dust Witch comes by but Charles scares her off by being over-the-top and smoking his cigar. For some reason, maybe bravado, he tells Dark his real name and that he’ll be at the library. He spends the rest of the night researching. Eventually the dwarf tells Dark about the boys but it’s too late. The boys had left and eventually made it to the library. Will has a new respect for his father. In the library, Charles has all sorts of books on devilry and carnivals splayed out. He finds out newspapers about the Dark and Cooger carnival coming to town all the way back to 1840. Clearly they use the carnival to stay immortal. Until the boys killed Cooger, that is. |
September 29th, 2023 |
James Monroe | Monroe ran some defenses for Jefferson and, as a volunteer, was at Yorktown. He couldn’t get passage to Europe to study law, so he just finished it in the states. He sold his farm and ran for election and was elected to the state legislature. Pretty boring stuff, then he was elected to the Continental Congress. We know how successful they were. |
September 28th, 2023 |
James Monroe | Not much of interest until Monmouth Courthouse which went well for the Continentals. I think this was Monroe’s last battle. An ambitious young man, he wanted a command of his own. With none available, he went to Congress and elsewhere to get one. He tried to raise a regiment in Virginia and around there, even volunteering to work with someone trying to raise a slave unit (which failed to come about). Hopeless, he went to Governor Jefferson. They took a liking to each other and Jefferson took him under his wing to teach him and a few others law. As the war headed southward, Jefferson then moved the capital to up to Richmond, and Monroe followed along. |
September 27th, 2023 |
Something Wicked This Way Comes | The boys both wake in the middle of the night sensing something is wrong. There is nothing but silence, but it feels ominous. They both look out and see an evil balloon floating towards them. The balloon carries what was thought to be a wax figure, the Dust Witch. This blind witch is scanning the town for the boys. Now she feels them and marks Jim’s house. Once she leaves, they wash it off. Will, in his room, acts quickly. He “forces” the witch to come back, but leads her to an empty house. Then, on the roof, he tries to fire his bow and arrow at the balloon. It snaps, but he jumps for the balloon and tears it. It flies away, and the boys both dream of a funeral for the balloon. Next day, the boys go off to the police station as planned, but on the way see a little girl crying in the rain. Jim refuses to acknowledge it, but Will sees her and knows she’s Miss Foley, turned back in time by the carousel. She stays put until they can come back and help her, and they go to Foley’s house to find it empty. Then they hear a parade. The carnival is coming to town, looking for them. They hide, go to find the girl, but she’s gone, likely taken. Then we see the boys hiding under a grate on the main street as the parade goes by. A little boy spots them and it seems the gig is up. |
September 26th, 2023 |
James Monroe | Monroe was part of a volunteer group led by a Captain Washington (a cousin) who crossed the Delaware first, north of Trenton or something, and block the road into town. The miserable conditions are famous. In the middle of the night at their checkpoint, a man from a nearby house came to yell, thinking them robbers. Finding them Continentals, he was very hospitable and told Monroe he would tag along as a doctor. Then the battle. Captain Washington’s men were at the forefront. During a charge on the Hessian guns, Washington went down wounded. Monroe quickly took his place, but was severely wounded soon after with a musket ball to the chest/shoulder. A severed artery was closed by the doctor friend from the checkpoint. The battle was won while Monroe was out for surgery. He recovered a few days in Newtown and then was promoted. Sent to Virginia to fill a new company, the patriotism had run dry. With no company, he joined General Lord Stirling as and aide-de-camp. Somehow in Reading he was involved with the Conway Cabal, tangentially hearing about it or something. Then it’s Valley Forge and all the officers lived comfortably. |
| Something Wicked This Way Comes | The boys freak out and call the police. The cops and some paramedics come and they go to the carousel. No body. Something draws them to the freak tent. Inside they see all sorts of weird things and people. There is a strange, crazy dwarf. Will soon recognizes him as the lightning rod salesman, completely deformed. Deep inside they find Mr. Dark with Mr. Cooger, tied to an electric chair dead. Somehow, the electric chair brings him life, and he says some creepy things. The cops think it’s all an act. It seems clear that the boys have made themselves a target. Jim is still bitter about Will messing everything up. They have the cops drop them off at the station where they lied and said they lived near. However, outside the station, the hear Miss Foley (teacher) talking to Will’s dad. For some reason, she is under the sway of “the nephew” and is telling him about the burglary. Will then jumps out and confesses to the crime. Charles takes the boys home, but he can tell that they didn’t do it. He sends Jim to bed, climbing up the roof. Then father and son have a conversation like they’ve never had. Will asks his dad why he’s not happy. They talk about being good, being bad, happiness, sadness. Will still can’t bring up the carnival other than asking his dad not to go. Then they both climb the roof and go inside. | |
September 25th, 2023 |
Something Wicked This Way Comes | The form of the boy is the missing nephew from the teacher from earlier. The boys follow him back to the teacher’s house. What is his goal? Jim wants to go in and investigate, and Will reluctantly follows. The teacher suspects nothing, but the boys recognize Cooger’s eyes in the boy’s face. Jim and the boy have some sort of nonverbal understanding and he agrees to come back. The boy wants to take his aunt to the carnival, who knows for what. The boys go home and are in trouble for being late. Will waits for it to get late and waits for Jim to signal. There’s no communication, but he sees Jim sneaking out all by himself. Will follows him back to the teacher’s house. Jim wants Will to leave and it gets revealed that Jim wants to use the carousel to become older so that he can leave. The boys get in a fist fight and Cooger comes out, throws jewelry at them, and yells for the cops to accuse them of robbery. Cooger runs and the boys run after him to the carnival. He gets on the carousel and it spins forward, aging him up. Will tries to stop it but breaks the control and it goes out of control. It eventually dies, and a 120 year old decrepit creature of a man is lying, alive, on the ground. |
September 23rd, 2023 |
Something Wicked This Way Comes | Things get real weird. First, a train arrives at 3am. The boys sneak out of their house and investigate. It is for the carnival. Weird creepy people start setting up tents in the night. From the library, Charles sees the boys running home. Turns out the storm never happens. Maybe it’s a metaphor. The boys go to the carnival the next day but it seems normal except for one thing: the hall of mirrors. Will has a bad feeling when looking at the maze, and Jim confirms it. Will sees his teacher go in and tries to stop her, but she doesn’t listen. She comes out screaming for help, who knows what happened. She seems to have seen herself, but a young version. When it gets later, the boys sneak onto an “out of order” ride, the carousel, and someone grabs them. I guess this is “Cooger” or something, and then “Dark” sends the boys out while the carnival is closed during the dinner hour. These two men own the carnival. Jim decides to climb a tree and spy, and of course Will has to follow. They see the carousel operate and Cooger, somehow, appears to get younger and younger until he is finally a boy of 12. What the hell? |
September 22nd, 2023 |
James Monroe | During this time the situation with Britain was deteriorating. Most of the staff were Tories, and young men, being rebellious, tended to be rebels. Monroe was one of these rebels. They’d drill in the square He was one of the guys who “stormed” Lord Dunmore’s empty mansion. He joined the Third Virginia and was officially an officer. His younger brother also joined up, but he was a frail and sickly kid and died in camp. The Third did not see much action until after Long Island when they were joined the Continental Army to defend Manhattan. Then it just follows the narrative of the war until Trenton. |
September 21st, 2023 |
James Monroe | After a brief and dramatic prologue about the burning of Washington that leads Monroe to be Secretary of War, the book opens with the Munro/Monroe family history from Scots battling Edward II down to Scots battling Cromwell. After losing there, they were exiled to America and had a modest plot in Virginia. A few generations go by and James is the 2nd of 4 or 5, born in 1750 give or take few. Typical plantation owner life, his father had a handful of slaves and also worked as a carpenter. Once James was old enough, he went to school and did well, a studious and quiet kid. Then his mom died birthing another child and his father died shortly after. James, a teenager, now owned the farm. His mother’s brother was a childless lawyer, a member of the House, and decided to help his family so that James could continue school. He and his wife essentially became parents to these kids, though maybe James’ sister was now more the mother figure than a sister figure. Anyway, he went to William and Mary. |
| Something Wicked This Way Comes | Kind of a weird few chapters and not much occurs. Some creep is putting up posters for a carnival, despite it being late October. Charles Halloway sees this, and the kids find a poster while running around town. Will sees his dad hiding a poster and then burning it, wondering why he won’t talk about it. We learn that his dad is in his 50s, kind of old. We also learn that Jim is an only child, his dad dead and his mother losing two other children. There was also something about a porn theater or something weird. Who knows. | |
September 20th, 2023 |
Lotharingia | I finished this book today. As you can see, I didn’t really write anything about it. I didn’t really enjoy it. Every chapter is sort of like an anthology story from a certain time period and the book goes from Charlemagne up to WWII. I feel like I would read a bit and then have no idea or recollection of what I read. Maybe some people like that. Either way, it wasn’t so bad that I wanted to give up on it. |
| Something Wicked This Way Comes | Read the first 20 pages or so. I like it so far, especially the way it’s written. Bradbury paints a good picture. I wasn’t sure when it was written, but I instantly got the feeling of an 50’s setting, or before. It has that old suburban feeling. It starts off weird, too. A strange man selling weirdly carved lightning rods gives two boys, Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade, a free one. They are neighbors and born minutes apart, one before midnight 10/30, one after on 10/31, and in a few days to be 14. This salesman then claims that Jim’s house will be struck that night. Will, worried by this news, forces the more lackadaisical Jim to put it on his roof. Jim wanted to see what would happen. Then they go to the library, at 8 at night for whatever reason, where we meet Will’s dad, the janitor. Then they run-off. Not much plot yet, but I like it. | |
August 28th, 2023 |
Lotharingia | I guess Charles V wasn’t so great at his job. From what I can remember, he lost the Swiss and thus the original Hapsburg lands. Unable to beat them, he chose to ignore them. I think this was Charles. He did get lots of money from his South American empire, but wasted it on wars in his wide empire. He also failed to keep an eye on Luther and this whole Protestantism got out of hand. He ended up retiring and splitting the empire into eastern and western, his son getting Spain and his brother getting the Empire and Italy. Who gets the Dutch? Somehow Spain. Then there’s some 80 years of war between them. At least in the end, he kind of beat Luther. Catholicism reforms and escapes little Europe and the threat of being swallowed by Islam. It spreads worldwide. Protestantism splinters more and more. I don’t remember much else, a lot of bloody war between Spain and the Netherlands. The Dutch have a on-and -off relationship with Elizabeth, who eventually gets more involved. This raises the ire of her brother-in-law Phillip II (son of Charles V, husband of Bloody Mary), who sends the famous Armada. Fun side note: Charles V is Mary’s cousin, and both Phillip and Mary are great-great-great-great grandchildfren of John of Gaunt. There will probably be more talk of wars, since this is the 17th century. |
August 21st, 2023 |
Lotharingia | We are spending quite a bit of time on Burgundy. Unfortunately I’ve read a couple times without writing, so I don’t know if I remember much. I do know that it was interesting and that I actually would like to read more about the duchy. I guess we talked about Phillip the Good’s wheeling and dealing to grab land. Charles the Bold was a bit of a war-monger. He tried to unite his upper lands and his Burgundian lands. He did well, but made many enemies and could be cruel. His wife was Margaret of York, sister of Edward IV. Surely this could not please the French King Louis XI. But in the end, Louis won. Charles finally began to lose a few battles and then was killed, age 43. Louis swooped in to take what he could, but the now duchess Mary the Rich was playing the game. Instead of marrying Louis’ son, she went the other way. She married Maximilian Hapsburg, son of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III. Mary died very young, and their son Phillip the Handsome inherited these vast Hapsburg lands. He also died young, but had married the future queen of Spain, daughter of Isabella and Ferdinand. Their eldest son, Charles V, got his grandmother’s Burgundian lands, his grandfather’s German and Austrian lands, and his mother’s Spanish and American lands. Amazing how that happens. |
August 15th, 2023 |
Lotharingia | There’s a little more structure, but not much. I should’ve mentioned earlier that Lotharingia got gobbled up by France and the Empire around 900 after someone died with no heir. I think it was Lothair II’s son, and his uncles east and west capitalized on it. Some other stuff happened here and there and now it’s 1400 or so. The author at least goes on for a nice run about Burgundy. France had some bad times and John II of France was captured by the English. He had to give up a lot of territory. After all this, the last duke of Burgundy died and the duchy returned to the crown. John made his youngest son, Phillip, duke. Where things get cool is that he marries Margaret, the heiress to Flanders. Once she became countess, Phillip the Bold had a huge swath of territory which would grow with his heirs. His son John the Fearless rivaled the Dukes of Orleans (Armagnacs). Both vied for power as Charles VI descended into madness. John had Duke Louis murdered and was in turn murdered years later by the Dauphin’s orders. His son, Phillip the Good, was now an enemy of the French kings. He allied with the English in the Hundred Years War, supporting the claims on infant Henry VI. He was also good at grabbing land. His holdings, through various means, extended to the Duchies of Luxembourg and Brabant, and the Counties of Holland, Zeeland, Artois, Hainult, Namur and more. This does not include neighboring lands under Burgundian influence. His son, Charles the Bold, inherited all this. But nothing good lasts forever. The French eventually drove out the English and became stronger. Burgundy would eventually come under the king’s yoke. |
August 13th, 2023 |
Lotharingia | I’m not really into this book so far. The structure of it is very strange. It just seems to jump around between anecdotes. I feel like the book hasn’t “started” but I’m already 100 pages in. What’s written is generally fine but it feels unorganized. It’s hard to even remember what I read because every 5 pages is an unrelated topic. |
August 10th, 2023 |
Lotharingia | The book is written very casually, but that’s not necessarily a negative. It’s going to be an easy read. I wish the maps were interspersed in the reading, but oh well. There’s an introduction and it seems like the book is not just medieval in theme. I read the first chapter and a bit of the second. To start, the book’s title is Lotharingia. This is named for Lothair II, son of Lothair I, grandson of Charlemagne. The Treaty of Verdun, 843, split Charlemagne’s empire into three. At the time of its creation, Middle Francia was much larger and contained southern French and Italian, possibly Swiss, holdings. These were then divided and Lothair II received the northern bits, missing out on Italy, Provence, and the very confusing Burgundy (there are so many Burgundies, and I believe Lothair got the County and Duchy, but not Upper and Lower). The book will concern mostly with these northern bits, meaning the modern Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and their adjacent parts of France and Germany. Now that was just the first bit of the second chapter. The first chapter ran all the way from Neanderthals to Charlemagne in 30 pages, so it was very light in information. A lot of it tried to invoke the feeling of post-Roman Europe and dispel the idea of the Dark Ages, since the only reason they are “dark” is because we lack information. Buildings were lost or torn down and rebuilt, writing was scarce, people were probably the same as ever. |
August 6th, 2023 |
The Jungle | I read the the rest of the book this weekend, probably a third of it. It’s quite the story arc. Jurgis is not dumb and knows it will be hard to get rid of a hundred. After weighing his options, all terrible, he takes a chance in an empty bar. After being grilled by the bartender, he agrees to change the bill. Jurgis buys a 5 cent beer, but is given 95 cents back. Jurgis goes crazy and fights the bartender. Eventually the cops come and Jurgis is taken away. He, of course, is sentenced. In jail, he meets the the safe-crack from his first jail term. Once out of jail, this Jack Duane takes Jurgis under his wing and they do some petty crimes. Jurgis takes well to the criminal life and makes his way. He gets good money and saves up a lot, all while having a good time. He gets in the political scene and it goes well. One night, however, he has a chance encounter with Ona’s old boss. His old rage is rekindled and he savagely attacks him. Landed in jail, he tries to use his clout and connections to get off. His boss/friend tells him that he is screwed. That guy is huge on the racket and Jurgis has no chance. All he can get Jurgis is a lowered bail and the chance to disappear. Jurgis pays the $300 and is again penniless on the streets. He is again begging on the street and days go by until he is close to starving to death. He approaches a well-dressed woman, who happens to have been a guest at his wedding. She has nothing on her, but gives him the address of Marija. It’s been a year since Jurgis ran off, so he is hesitant. He goes there, and it is a brothel. Marija is now a morphine addicted prostitute, though she makes decent money. She knows her life sucks and she is essentially a slave, but she is alive and is able to support Elzbieta and her family. Jurgis learns that Stanislovas is dead, another victim of Packingtown. He was beer-boy for the workers, drank some and fell asleep in a corner. He was killed and eaten by rats. Poor kid. Marija tells Jurgis to go to Elzbieta. Jurgis is again hesitant and decides to keep looking for work. He goes to some Democrat rally for warmth but gets kicked out for falling asleep. He tries again the next day and that night finds another rally with less pomp and circumstance. It is a socialist meeting.He falls asleep and is gently wakened by a woman next to him, who urges him to listen. It is a life changing moment for Jurgis. After this, everything makes sense. He wants to do more and sneaks back stage to find the orator. The speaker then sets him up with a Polish guy who knows Lithuanian. They talk and Jurgis tells him his story. The Pole lets Jurgis spend the night on his kitchen floor and they discuss socialism. Jurgis then goes to Elzbieta the next day and explains everything to her. He then tries to convert Marija, but she is not interested. Unfortunately she is worn down by her life and has come to accept it the way it is. Jurgis finds a job as a hotel porter, and it turns out the owner is a staunch socialist. All in all, life is now going well for Jurgis. The book ends with a call to action. After elections show vast increases for the socialists, a speaker urges the crowd to organize. |
July 30th, 2023 |
The Jungle | It just gets worse and worse. Summarizing about 6 chapters here. Ona needs a doctor badly. These poor people scrap $1.25 together for Jurgis and he tries to find someone. Eventually he gets a Dutch midwife who will do it if he will pay the $25 in full next month. Never going to happen, but she goes along. They kick Jurgis out and he goes to the bar for hours. When he comes home, Ona is near death. The baby is dead. Nothing could be done. He goes up stairs and he sees her one last time. The death of his wife breaks him and he takes the family’s last $3 and drinks it away. Eventually Elzbieta convinces him to go find work for the sake of his son. Jurgis finds a job, but next day it is gone. He is blacklisted. He will never find work in Packingtown again. There are spies who know his face. He treks to downtown Chicago to find a job and he finds a decent one with the aid of a union buddy. His spirits are dashed when the place closes for winter after 9 days. He goes home to his son, the only thing he really has in life. It turns out that while he was away for days downtown, the family met a philanthropist of sorts. Elzbieta’s one-legged son had gone to the dump to find food scraps of the rich when a woman questioned him on his life. After hearing meeting Elzbieta and hearing their tale, she gave a letter, saying her fiance will give Jurgis a job or she’ll call off the wedding. Jurgis then goes back downtown to the steel mills and gets a job. It is scary, but pays decently. Things look up, winter is over and life is getting a little easier. With spring comes thaw and water and flooded streets. Jurgis comes home to find his son dead. His boy had drowned in the street. Jurgis leaves. Without his wife and son, he has nothing. He sneaks on a train and just goes and goes and goes. He hops off in the country and for the first time in 3 years he feels human. He tramps around from farm to farm, just living. He stays in barns, pays for food or steals it. He meets many other tramps along the way. He spends life like this, pleasantly, until November. It is cold, there is no farm work, so he returns to Chicago for winter. He is fortunate to find a job digging “telephone tunnels”, which are an illegal subway to maneuver around the teamsters’ union. Nothing lasts and Jurgis is hit by a cart, breaking his arm. He is in the hospital for 2 weeks and then thrown in the cold. Now, with little money, he must beg to survive. He is a homeless man in Chicago winter. One bad day and he will die. But soon he has a good day. He meets a drunken British kid while begging, and he is very rich. This drunk kid likes Jurgis and takes him home. He has no one else at home and is lonely. His dad won’t give him money if he stays out late, so he takes Jurgis with him and gives him some food. He drunkenly gives him $100 dollars for a cab and forgets. Jurgis spends the evening with this kid, who then passes out. The staff then evicts Jurgis, who has kept this $100 bill. I don’t know how he will spend it. Something bad will happen. |
July 28th, 2023 |
The Jungle | Jurgis is held for a week, but fortunately for him he gets a cell mate to take his mind off of the thought that his family is suffering. The man is a young “gentleman”, is a safe-cracker and professional criminal who winds up here all the time. He’s very chatty and open, introducing “stinker” to the others. After a week, Jurgis goes to trial. The boss who was attacked is there, tells some lies, and Jurgis gets 30 days. Elbieta and Kotrina witness the trial. Jurgis breaks rocks and all that in jail, but one day he has a visitor. Stanislovas is sent to ask for money, which Jurgis only has 14 cents. They think there is some sort of jail welfare. Things are bad. The boss is connected and all are without work. Marija has cut her hand and probably has gangrene. The sausage factory is closed for the winter slowdown. The snow is deep and Stanislovas can’t get to work and lost his job. All the kids, Kotrina too, have to sell papers in the city. They are starving and begging for food. Jurgis can do nothing. After his 30 days, he gets out. He has to walk 20 miles home through slush and cold only to find his house repainted and repaired. An Irish family lives there now. Jurgis starts to sob. He asks the old lady down the street where his family is, she suggests that tenement where they first lived. Jurgis goes there to find Ona giving birth to their second child, 2 months early. |
July 16th, 2023 |
The Jungle | Skipped an entry. More bad things happen. Jurgis tries to go back to work, and his boss even turns out the replacement for him. However, he can’t finish the day. The pain is too great. They finally get a doctor, who says Jurgis needs to stay off it for two months or he’ll ruin it forever. One of the family, Jonas, disappears. He just never comes home one day. Either he died at work and it is covered up, or he split town. We’ll never know, but now the family has one less income to worry about. Marija almost loses her job during a bank run trying to get her money out. Turns out this bank run was because a crowd was formed around the police arresting a drunk, which led people to think there’s a bank run. Teta Elsbieta tragically loses her youngest child, a two year old, though he was a cripple and always ill. Sad to say, for the rest of the family, this was a relief. Her older boys are taken out of school to sell newspapers in the city, and eventually they get in the habit of not coming home. They put them back in school and send Elsbieta to work casing sausages. Eventually Jurgis can walk again, but now he’s a husk of his old self. No one will hire him. Only the worst job in town will: the fertilizer plant. The fumes destroy the brain and the smell becomes permanent. Jurgis is a pariah. Ona is again pregnant. If all that is not dramatic enough, things start to get personal. One night in a snowstorm, Ona does not come home. Jurgis waits for her at work where she ultimately shows up. She stayed at a friend’s, she says. Then another night she does not come home. Jurgis investigates and, long story short, follows her home and confronts her. She doesn’t want to say, but Jurgis will lose his mind if he doesn’t find the truth. Ona’s boss had forced her to sleep with him several times and eventually made her come to his house. The boss threatened to fire her and get her whole family fired from their jobs. Jurgis goes out and attempts to kill the man. He nearly strangles him to death when people start to pull him off. He then bites into the man’s cheek. Jurgis is thrown in jail and seems sentenced to a week. It is Christmas Eve. |
July 10th, 2023 |
The Jungle | The times get harder for our family. More money is lost in the house and there are other unexplained expenses from the deed that come up. Jurgis, having taken English lessons, demands to know all the expenses that were not explained up front. The author goes into more detail about terrible working conditions and disgusting things the companies (really a trust) do with the meat. No wonder this book had such a reaction. In the only good news, Jurgis and Ona have a child, though Ona has to go back to work immediately. This lack of recovery time will cause lifelong complications and pains. Without Ona, Aunt Elsbieta has to feed the baby questionable milk from the store. There is no safe food anywhere. Another winter comes (or maybe its the same winter) and blizzards arrive. Jurgis has to carry Ona and Stanislawas through the snow. I don’t know how he survives. Despite his strength, he has an accident at work. A bull was on the loose and the men had to run wildly from it. During this, Jurgis rolls his ankle. It swells beyond use and Jurgis is stuck in bed. This is bad. Not only is there less income, but Ona and Stanislawas are on their own. |
July 9th, 2023 |
The Jungle | They learn from a neighbor that houses are indeed scams intended to steal money from poor people. They are the 4th family in that house since it was built 15 years ago. It was not new, as they were told. On top of that, there is interest on the payments that they were not told about. Young Stanislawas has to go to work instead of school, lying about his age to say he’s 16. Now we move after the wedding in time. Jurgis’ father, working in ankle high saltpeter in the pickling room, develops sores on his feet. He continues to work until he can no longer work, all the while suffering from consumption. He dies a few days later. As the old neighbor said, someone always dies of consumption in that house. Then the time moves to winter and it is hard for the workers. Nothing is heated, and this is Chicago. Stanislawas is scarred when then other boy on his machine arrives with frostbite on his ears, only to have them fall off. Jurgis escorts him to work and also his wife. Then the work slows down. Marija loses her job when the factory closes and Jurgis works only a few hours a day. In happier news, Marija and the fiddler from the wedding fall in love and plan to marry. At this time, the union recruiter comes back to Jurgis. This time, he is prepared to join. Marija also joins a union, outraged at the factory closing. |
July 8th, 2023 |
The Jungle | Been awhile, but I’ve only read this book once in the meantime. I have read The Return of the King a bit as the lunch book and I’ve also breezed through The Realm of Numbers by Isaac Asimov. The Jungle jumps back in time after the wedding to when this group of Lithuanians emigrated. Essentially they learn how much money can be made in America and one of them knows a guy who became successful, so they decide to save up some money and move. Jurgis and Ona are engaged in Lithuania, so the two families make the move together, though I think Jurgis only has his father. There’s some grandparents, aunts, cousins, etc, from Ona’s side. They know no English and get swindled in NYC, but ultimately learn that Chicago is where to go. They arrive, still lost, but eventually find the meat packing district and the friend. They are assisted in finding living and Jurgis instantly finds a job, thanks to his strong physique. They are shown the giant meat packing factories and the author describes it in graphic detail. Thousands of animals are slaughtered daily and it is truly disturbing to think about. Ultimately a few of the others find jobs and they learn about shady things being done and the poor treatment of workers, which ultimately led to their hiring in the first place. Jurgis thinks those who struggle to find work are just weak and weak-willed. They get what he deserves. He finds everything interesting and seems to like working so hard. He doesn’t want to give up his money to join the union and doesn’t seem to believe in worker’s rights. Even Jurgis’ old father gets a job through a shady deal where he has to give a man a third of his pay. Even this jovial old man turns bitter with his shameful job. In a nerve-wracking episode, the family decides to buy a house. There is a lot of mistrust between them and the seller and they get lawyers, but ultimately, and reluctantly, they are convinced to buy the house. Something bad will come of this, but now it is now obvious. |
June 26th, 2023 |
The Jungle | It’s an interesting way to start a book. Like the Godfather, it opens with a wedding. This is a Lithuanian wedding in Chicago, where many immigrants work in meat packing. Sinclair clearly enjoys languages, as he sprinkles Lithuanian words throughout the chapter. There’s multiple characters introduced, but it seems the main and Ona and Jorgis, the bride and groom. This is the turn of the century, so workers don’t have many rights. Several party until 3am and must be at work at 7am or they will be docked pay or fired. As they get home, Jorgis tells Ona that she will not go to work tomorrow. He will just work harder. |
June 25th, 2023 |
Stephen and Matilda | The final chapter is about the peace. I jumped the gun a little in the last entry. There were several truces before the peace was agreed upon. Before the peace treaty, Eustace died. He didn’t want to give up the war and died from illness in 1153. Stephen’s wife Matilda also died the year before. If we wonder why Stephen, who had the upper hand militarily, seems to have lost out in the peace treaty, these may have been factors that drove him to terms. Maybe he approached 60 and was reflecting on his sins, his oath breaking, and was atoning. Maybe he thought he’d live 30 more years and wouldn’t have to bother with this nonsense. Nothing is certain. Henry had his own troubles back in France and he nearly died from illness in 1154. The book goes on for many pages about individual earls and barons. Overall, nobody really lost their position due to the war. Henry got luck that most of these guys he made big promises to died before the peace or within a couple years. The one man of note who was punished was William of Ypres, now blind and old. He returned to the continent to a monastery. Stephen’s other son, William, Count of Boulogne, kept the family lands and was a loyal follower of Henry. This period was known as the Anarchy, but we see there was no anarchy. All of England was under someone’s rule, whether it’s royalist, Angevin, Scottish, or an earldom. There was suffering the country, but not as widespread as the chronicles sound. Most of the surviving chronicles are from the west, were the war mainly took place. Terrible things happened there and people suffered and died. There was also famine and drought all over Europe, so bad timing. Henry’s first acts were to repair the marches, where his war was fought, Thus it sounds like Stephen had been busy repairing the previous war torn areas. In the end, Henry won and built the largest English empire until the colonial era. Maybe I should call it a French empire? It must be both. This large swath of land would create the rivalry between the crowns that would lead to John losing it all. But I will let Henry II, one of the greatest English kings, have his moment of glory. |
June 23rd, 2023 |
Stephen and Matilda | A good chunk of the seventh chapter is about Geoffrey and Normandy. The background to Geoffrey is that his father, Fulk V, left him to be count of Anjou to go on the crusades and ended up king of Jerusalem. Geoffrey thus became count as a teenager. As described before, he was married to Matilda and was supposedly promised some castles. From the reign of Henry I until 1144 he waged careful war in Normandy. He was smart and in this decade of war there were no open battles. He took Normandy bit by bit, castle by castle. There were setbacks and failures, but he severed the duchy in two and, later with the aid of Gloucester, took the west, then went for the east. In 1144 he was acknowledged duke, after the nobles went to Theobald, who refused the duchy this time. Now Geoffrey had a good chunk of France under his control and was on good terms with the king. He rebuilt the destroyed areas and seemed to be a pretty good leader. When he died in 1151, this was given to his son Henry. In England, Henry was not successful. He had tried to wage war several times but they were busts. It looked as if Stephen was to stay king, though there were still rebellious nobles. All of this changed in 1153, when Henry came back to England. By now he had married Elanor and had Aquitaine under his belt, thus half of France was in Plantagenet hands. It all came to a head at Malmesbury castle. It didn’t seem like a major event, but possibly due to war weariness, peace terms were agreed upon. This became the Treaty of Winchester, where Henry was adopted by Stephen and made heir, supplanting Eustace. Poor Eustace. He had been a loyal and hard fighting son. After this, there will be peace. |
June 18th, 2023 |
Stephen and Matilda | The rest of the chapter tells of various events through 1148. Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex, owed his position to Stephen. His family had been disinherited by prior kings, but Stephen favored Geoffrey. Something broke down after Lincoln. Maybe Stephen didn’t like how Geoffrey surrendered London and the Tower so easily. We’ll never know. Regardless, Stephen didn’t keep his cool. He arrested Geoffrey at court, like the bishops, and demanded his castles. After this, Geoffrey rebelled and took Ely and East Anglia with him. It was not a good look for Stephen and does not command loyalty, but he won in the end. Geoffrey died in battle. He was not a good guy, anyway. Some major Angevins died: Miles of Hereford in 1143, Robert of Gloucester in 1147. Those are two of three Matilda’s main guys. Stephen had gotten Robert’s son Phillip to join his cause in 1145 after taking Faringdon castle. Things were going good for Stephen, though he made another error. He tried to old arrest and take castles game with Ranulf, Earl of Chester, after they made a deal that Ranulf would return to the fold for aid in Wales. This arrest had the least to stand on of the three notable ones and paints Stephen in a very bad light. After all these setbacks, Matilda left for Normandy in 1148. She did not surrender, but she would never be queen. Her war was over. Her son, however, was still in England. |
June 17th, 2023 |
Stephen and Matilda | The next chapter starts off a bit boring. It goes on for a while describing castles and different types, how they were built, etc. Not what I’m into. I only read half the chapter, but after the castle bit, it describes the next year or so. Initially, very little happened. Stephen was ill after his imprisonment and Matilda wasn’t sure of what to do. She asked her husband for aid, but he was pretty stubborn. Geoffrey was only interested in Normandy, especially since Stephen was so occupied with England that he could do little for Normandy. Geoffrey refused to deal with anyone other than Robert of Gloucester, who eventually and reluctantly went to Normandy. Geoffrey seems to have given a little aid, but mainly he gave his 9 year old son, Henry. The next part of the war, for who knows how long, was all about castles. Building them, taking them, destroying them, rebuilding them. A map of conflicts looks like spaghetti because the combatants are going from castle to castle. There are strongholds dotted all over the country. The next big combat was Stephen’s siege of the Empress’ new HQ, Oxford. It lasted for several months and Stephen had the rebels on the ropes. However, Matilda escaped in the snowy night over the frozen river. This was a major blow. Then Robert, or someone else, maybe Brian fitz Count from Wallingford, fought to relieve the castle. The royalists lost this fight, but this time Stephen had the wisdom to retreat. |
June 16th, 2023 |
Stephen and Matilda | With Stephen imprisoned, it would seem that all was lost for the royalist cause. One by one, his allies would accept the situation and come to the Empress Matilda. Henry of Winchester, Stephen’s brother, indeed came to accept Matilda and gave her the keys to the royal castle and treasury at Winchester, though he kept his personal castle. She made some very big promises to him to convince him. However, Stephen was not without allies. Still advocating for him was his wife, the Queen Matilda. She petitioned for Stephen’s release and their son’s property rights, which fell on deaf ears. The military arm came from William of Ypres, Earl of Kent in all but name. This clearly is more than can be expected if he were a mere mercenary. The royalist cause did not go down easy. One of their chief aids was that the Empress was a completely unlikable person who expected her word to be law. This may be from being Empress at a very young age, but regardless, she alienated a lot of people. Not yet coronated queen, her retinue came to win London. Instead of winning hearts and minds, she demanded money. Stephen had granted them commune status, which gave them certain tax rights. They also pleaded for mercy, as they were war-weary and poor. The Empress gave them no sympathy. She also did not give Bishop Henry what he felt he was due. Thus, he switched sides again and war was brought to Winchester. Robert of Gloucester and the Empress besieged his castle from the town, but it seems it was a trap. Queen Matilda and William of Ypres then surrounded the town. It was a double siege. The town was torched and the rebels retreated. Robert held the rear-guard so that the empress could escape and was captured. The Empress could not continue without him, so prisoners were exchanged. Stephen was freed from prison. It seems we are back to square one. The Empress had 8 months or so but could not complete the coup d’etat. Neither side was strong enough to conquer the other. |
June 15th, 2023 |
Stephen and Matilda | The war proper begins in chapter 3 with the arrival of Robert and Matilda in Arundel. It was an interesting strategy. They played the chivalry card, arriving with a small escort that could not compare with Stephen’s army. Arundel, far from a major port, had a lord loyal to Stephen, whose wife was the widow of Henry I. Matilda was simply a guest of her former step-mother. Thus, Stephen permitted it. However, Robert snuck off to Gloucester. Stephen had all the roads blocked, but he got through. Rumor had it that his brother bishop Henry had caught Robert and let him go. He also advised Stephen to allow Matilda to go to her brother. Who knows if this was a good idea, but at least it allowed him to remove his forced from Arundel. The war was mostly siege warfare. Unlike later years when property was more valued than armies, here they were razing land left and right. The war was mostly contained to the west in lands held by Robert and his allies. He gained allies in Cornwall and thus gained more territory. It seemed fairly standstill, with the rebels occasionally raiding out of their borders. In February 1141, the only real battle of the war was fought. Stephen and his men were besieging Lincoln, when Robert and a relieving force arrived. Everyone advised Stephen to abandon the siege, but he refused. Possibly he didn’t want to be seen as a coward, as people had said of his father who left the First Crusade to seek aid. They were outnumbered, though probably had the better soldiers. Stephen had the center, William of Ypres supervised a flank, someone else had a third flank. Robert of Gloucester had his center, with his allies commanding the Welsh on each flank. The Welsh were either mercenaries or relatives through marriage. The Welsh broke and ran after the first charge, but Stephen’s men could not handle Robert’s counter cavalry charge. His men deserted him, but he kept fighting. In the end he was captured and taken to Gloucester, where he was put in chains. |
June 14th, 2023 |
Stephen and Matilda | The next part of the 2nd chapter discusses King Stephen arresting some bishops. Roger, bishop of Salisbury, built himself a little empire during the reign of Henry I. He was an upstart from Caen who caught Henry’s eye and moved up through the church ladder. He had acquired wealth and castles, a mistress and sons. He had a good foothold in Henry’s government, despite having little education. He got his nephews high positions in his bishopric until they got their own in Ely and Lincoln. Their real sin was conspiring to aid Matilda. Allegedly. The evidence seemed to be against them. Excluding Lincoln, they are in the west and East Anglia. They were amassing arms and provisions in their castles, which is suspicious. It’s also odd for bishops to have castles. But that’s the Waco justification and doesn’t work. Stephen didn’t arrest them for that, though. Roger and a nephew were at court and a fight broke out, possibly with one of the Beaumont twins involved. This led to deaths and Stephen was pissed. For disturbing the peace, they were arrested and the other nephew (Lincoln?) fled out west, despite not being at the scene and thus not liable for arrest. Well Stephen sieged his castle and got him too, threatening to hang Roger’s son. That’s messed up. This caused a storm because it should be canon law who determines whether a bishop gets arrested. Long story short, Stephen won and dethroned that family. He put new men in his government and kept the castles. The chapter ends with some more rebellions before the war “really” starts. Robert of Gloucester was in Normandy during all this time, and thus did not aid the rebellion. These rebellions may have been independent, as well. Once Robert declared for Matilda, Stephen started taking all his property. All that remained was Bristol. A bunch of dudes in this area rebelled and Stephen had to take them one by one. This is why he was absent from Standard. He was ruthless and hanged 93 men from one castle. Ultimately, Stephen took all these castles and was in a good position for when Matilda landed. Possibly he got cocky. |
June 12th, 2023 |
Stephen and Matilda | Read most of the second chapter on a flight. It’s a long one and tries to describe the two “sides” at the beginning of the war. First, it tells about two rebellions that occurred in Stephen’s first few years, before Richard of Gloucester rebelled (the guy that ambushed him was William of Ypres, by the way). Both rebellions occurred in the west and Stephen dealt with them quickly. This may show that the western lords were unhappy with the regime. There were also some troubles from East Anglia, which also became a power base for Matilda. As mentioned earlier, Stephen fought the Welsh and Scots. Like every English king until Edward I, he could not deal with Welsh raids satisfactorily. Nothing new there. The lords of the march just did what they wanted anyway. If they wanted Welsh lands, they took them and dealt with the killings. Better for Stephen was his luck with the Scots. David, King of the Scots, invaded the north immediately. His sister was Matilda’s mother; thus, he is her uncle and was a vocal supporter. Though, his other niece was Stephen’s wife, so that is not a strong card. Regardless, he moved fairly far and his son I think had been at English court or will be after this, so he has English ties. Stephen acted quickly and sent men, while the northern lords acted quickly as well, surprising the Scots. This culminated in the Battle of Standard, which was a short battle that ended in a complete Scottish rout. They came to terms and the Scot Prince was granted some northern titles, though he swore fealty to Stephen. Either the author likes Stephen a lot, or it seems he generally dealt pretty fairly with his adversaries. Maybe one of the rebellious sieges he was too cruel, expecting unconditional surrender which was not standard, and letting men suffer under drought. But when you give some men lands, you alienate others. He built strong alliances, but pushed others away. That’s politics. The war in Normandy had started under Henry I. Count Geoffrey wanted his allegedly promised castles. He got fairly far into Normandy before being injured and calling it off for a bit. His army apparently suffered from dysentery, but made a clean retreat regardless. The Normans were on there own with this war. It took a year or two for Stephen to get things settled in England, then he personally came to Normandy. His son swore fealty to Louis VI for the duchy and he made a deal with this brother Theobald, Count of Blois, over the lost Norman lands. The Duke of Aquitaine, allied with Geoffrey, backed out and then died. His borders were now secure except for Anjou. I don’t remember what happened from here. I guess the war continued. Stephen relied on William of Ypres and his Flemish mercenaries, but they did not get along with the Normans. Lack of cooperation led to a failure to produce a battle. William of Ypres was the main man for Stephen, but he had these Norman twins who were helpful. I think they switched sides later. Matilda had Richard of Gloucester and a couple other loyal western lords on her side. She seems to have had the better military commanders. |
June 11th, 2023 |
After Virtue | I’m just trying to end this book. I read the last two chapters but am skipping the postscript where the author answers his critics. I just don’t care enough. Chapter 17 is about justice. Aristotle essentially said that a community without a common sense of justice is not a community at all. The author creates an example of two men, one who seems like a self-made middle-class man who does not believe that anyone has a right (or deserves) his money. He’s earned it, it’s his. The other, a white collar man or someone with inherited wealth, who believes those born poor don’t deserve such a fate and wealth should be distributed to help them. These two views are incompatible. The first man’s justice is based on entitlement, the second on equality. He then talks about two authors who do make these points, but makes it clear that they lack the idea of “desert”. The author claims that what is deserved is important for justice, at least from an Aristotelian perspective. Community is also not mentioned. It’s then mentioned that entitlement is a skewed idea because the origin of ownership usually is traced to violence or taking by force. That’s the gist. Chapter 18 sums it all up, I guess. It’s one final attack on modern philosophy as represented by Nietzsche. His individualist Ubermensch clearly is a rejection of community, in addition to his rejection of virtue. I was really just done with the book at this point. The end. |
June 10th, 2023 |
After Virtue | Chapter 16, how did we get to the modern era? I don’t know. The author repeats some stuff about how the modern philosophy lacks his view of internal goods and narrative, and promotes individualism over community. He rightly blames capitalism for destruction of the community. Markets, factories, bureaucracies move work from the home and something that brings internal good to something inhuman and demoralizing. Sometime in the 1600s morality and altruism became synonymous as a counter to egoism. The author claims that egoism does not arise in Aristotle’s view, since the good for one man is the same for another. There is no push for selfishness to acquire all “good” for oneself. Hume believes that virtues are judgments of approval. Hume doesn’t seem like that great a guy. Just a mouthpiece and self-justification for the British aristocracy. The author spends several pages digging into Hume. Then he goes into Adam Smith’s Stoicism, whose view of virtue is more or less following the rules. Then he connects the Adam Smith types to Republicanism of the era, taking its history from Roman or Italian tradition rather than Greek. He also spends a long time praising Jane Austen. Very boring. |
June 9th, 2023 |
After Virtue | I think we start to get coherent in chapter 15. It’s a long one, though, but like most philosophical works, can likely be shortly summarized. There is plenty of nonsense. The author claims that the way we view human life as segments (e.g. childhood versus old age, work versus home) conflicts with the view of life as a whole, as a unity. I doubt that people truly view these as separate lives, and having differences in actions in each segment is a good thing. I would not call them segments but gradients, as they are shifting the individual’s personality in slightly different directions. The author is clear that a skill is not a virtue; being a good man of business does not say anything about the life as a whole. Then we cut to a person’s actions. “What is he doing?” in regards to a single act can have many answers based on what is literally being done, why it is being done, or the unintended consequence of the action. It can also have a different answer based on the time-span being envisioned, that is, what is one doing at this second versus how it will effect 20 years from now. Thus we also need to know intent. The same action could have two different intents from two different people. They also need to be intelligible. The author uses the example of breaking eggs, mixing flour, etc., in a kitchen versus in a lecture hall. The first one is intelligible, the second unintelligible, or what we’d call crazy. The author draws to the point that human life is a narrative and treating it as something else robs it of its character. We are all part of countless narratives and play different characters. I am my own main character, but in the story of America I am insignificant and forgettable. In my mother’s life I am a major character, in my boss’ a temporary side character. Like a story, human life has a beginning, middle, and end. The question “What am I to do?” depends on the story we want to be a part of. When one cannot find an answer, they become depressed and possibly suicidal (life is “meaningless”). So how do I live a good life and how do the virtues help? Like before, the virtues enable us to achieve internal goods through “practices” and enable us to carry out the “quest” to seek the good. So the goal of life is to seek a good life. Nonsense. The author again attacks the idea of an individual in a bubble; he is part of a family, clan, city, nation, etc. Thus he is part of a story in media res. He brings up the interesting of the American who denies responsibility for slavery because he never owned slaves. Yet he is a continuation of the narrative and profits from the existence of slavery at that time. I find this individualism hypocritical, as you will often find this same person saying “we” when referring to a sports team he is not on or when referring to a war his nation won before he was born. Thus they try to claim the positive narratives while denying the negative. The author then discusses traditions for a short bit, saying it is a historical social idea that guides someone in their virtues (correctly or incorrectly). I’m not sure how the author is using the word tradition, because there are many traditions that should not be considered virtuous. |
June 8th, 2023 |
After Virtue | After nearly 200 pages of background, we finally get to the theories of the author. Chapter 14 is about “the nature of the virtues”. He acknowledges at the beginning that the story so far has been that there is no inconsistent thought of what is virtuous. He compares Homer to Aristotle to the NT to the moderns Benjamin Franklin and Jane Austen. We already know that Homer praised ability at one’s role in society, while Aristotle praised the Athenian gentleman continuously improving the city-state. The New Testament praises the meek and lowly and values charity and humility, unknown to the warrior-king or Athenian lord. Jane Austen is saved for later, but she is a Christian who valued certain human qualities. Franklin had his list of 13 virtues which would lead one to be successful and happy in a Protestant society. From these very different theories, the similarities are few. In concept, the virtues enable someone to live a life good for man in his given society. They are a tool. I’m not sure if this is what the author is trying to say, but if so, I am so far in agreement. But what is good for man? Depends on who you ask. This is where the author will theorize.
First, he creates his own definition for the word “practice”. His definition is a paragraph. It’s some sort of cooperative activity which realizes “internal goods”. Essentially trying to do well at something in society brings positive internal feelings, in comparison to “external goods” like wealth or fame. Playing piano well would make me feel good regardless of whether I were a concert pianist or not. Playing a sport and cheating, however, may bring the external goods, but the internal goods are non-existent. It is in the process, not the end result. Thus there must be standard rules and practices, thus a need for institutions to enforce these. We need referees and judges, auditors et cetera. The pursuit of internal goods changes the whole community. Whoever invented the flying buttress transformed architecture forever. Now the author’s initial definition of a virtue: A virtue is an acquired human quality the possession and exercise of which tends to enable us to achieve those goods which are internal to practices and the lack of which effectively prevents us from achieving any such goods. Seems reasonable. It would allow Homer, Aristotle, Franklin, and God to be in agreement. It allows the practice and institutions to vary with society. The author considers his view Aristotelian without the metaphysics, and allows for the virtue conflict of Homerian style. It is Aristotelian since it requires conscience practice and something about evaluation. He then babbles about pleasures and utilitarianism. These virtue guys seem anti-fun. The rest is very boring. |
June 5th, 2023 |
After Virtue | I’m not sure what the point of chapter 13 was, unless it is to round out the historical perspective. Now we’re going medieval. I think that after the fall of Rome, a lot of the ancient texts were lost to Europe. A lot of it was “rediscovered” in reconquered Spain. So I guess we can consider the Aristotelian tradition “lost” for 700 years or so. Unlike Henry Adams, the author says the medieval world is in multiplicity. If it was a unity, it was a very fragile one. Pagan elements still survived in the post-Heroic Germanic and Celtic societies. This was rinsed into Christian myths and knightly tales. Thus, the classic Homeric virtues survive in Christian Europe. What the ancient texts cannot provide the Christian world is interpretation of sin. Aristotle thought bad things happened from internal flaws, but a good man can sin and find redemption and forgiveness. This is a new view. The sinner can not only be saved, but it is the goal of society to save as many as possible. It is the focus of the non-secular powers. The concept of sin definitely adds a more human element to what Aristotle and later Stoics lack. Man is far from perfect or even consistent. There was some boring parts about searching to generate a state and what type of leader is necessary. Another Christian element that Aristotle lacked was charity, helping those who are worse off. This goes along with the sin aspect. The goal was to cleanse the soul; there was an end and a mean. As said earlier, in Aristotle’s view there is no end. The entire journey is the goal, to live correctly. True “evil” does not exist; it is just a failure to follow virtues. Christians definitely believe in true evil, not just a “failure to be good”. Then he goes on about Aquinas who seems to be the odd duck promoting Aristotelianism. This type of philosophy rejects that a bad man can have virtues, such as a bad man who is very brave. In his redemption, the “bad vices” should be unlearned, but the “good virtues” should remain. So if Aristotle is wrong, who has been right? |
| Stephen and Matilda | Read the first chapter, which discusses the years of roughly 1120-1137, leding up to war in England. I’ve read a bunch about this before. King Henry I has two legitimate children, William Aetheling and Empress Matilda, and lots of illegitimate children. On the way from France to England in 1120, a couple hundred French nobles party on the White Ship. Everyone was drunk, including the seamen, and the ship hits a rock and capsizes. William drowns, as do two other of Henry’s children. The story goes that William died trying to save his sister Matilda (Henry begat many Matildae), but only one man survived and how would he know? Obviously this created a crisis. With no legitimate children, Henry needed an heir. At the time illegitimate children were frowned up on inheritors, though Henry treated his kids well. One who will be very important to this tale is Robert FitzRoy, Earl of Gloucester, made earl by his father. Henry remarried to have another go at children, but the marriage produced none. Henry’s sister was married to the Count of Blois, and they had three capable sons. One son, Stephen, was sent to the English court as a child. Another, Theobald, was to be Count of Blois. A third, I forget his name, was made a bishop or something in England somewhere. Stephen seemed to be favored, that is until Matilda’s husband, Holy Roman Emperor Henry V, died. Henry I put all his hopes on Matilda, still a young woman in her 20s. He made his barons swear oaths to support her claim several times. To stabilize things in France, Henry married her to a neighbor, Geoffrey Count of Anjou, then 15 years old. The barons were told they’d have a say in the husband and did not support marriage to a rival in France. This, many of them believed, nullified their oath. After this, 1128 or so, things were fairly quiet until Henry up and died in 1135. Without Henry and a clear succession, it was chaos. Matilda’s eldest son Henry was 2 years old and she had no experience or training from her father. Nor did she try to get the throne. The Normans invited Theobald to be duke, but Stephen, then Count of somewhere near Calais, sailed to England and claimed the crown. He seemed to be enthusiastically welcomed, for the most part, and there was little opposition. Geoffry was fighting border wars with the Normans over some dowry land claims and had little interest in his wife’s claim. Robert of Gloucester refused Stephen for a year until he reluctantly came to court. Stephen was King of England and that was that. The Normans ditched Theobald to have a united Kingdom and Dukedom, and he took it like a baby. Stephen had some external issues. He fought Scots, Welsh, Anjou, and probably elsewhere, but it was not a huge success. There is a single source for this next information, and it is heavily biased towards Robert. He and Stephen got in some sort of tiff, and an ambush by one of Stephen’s leading generals, a mediocre one, or whatever was laid for him. He escaped and declared himself for Matilda. Now Matilda had an army in England, independent from her husband. Robert, the author claims, is responsible for the civil war. | |
June 3rd, 2023 |
Crime and Punishment | Read some yesterday and couldn’t put it down today. Read the rest of the book. It really does keep you guessing and anxious as to what Raskolnikov and Svidrigailov will do. As Raskolnikov wanders town, he goes to Haymarket and stops Svidrigailov at a window in a bar. They both see each other and hope that they are unnoticed. Svidrigailov gives it up and tells him to come up. They talk for a long time but never bring up the murder. Raskolinov accuses of Svidrigailov of still trying to go for his sister and accuses him of sending her a letter. Svidrigailov says, and it’s true, that he is engaged to a 16 year old girl. Svidrigailov leaves and Raskolnikov follows him for awhile. Svidrigailov lies about where is going and eventually Raskolnikov gets tired of him. Once free, Svidrigailov goes to his real meeting place at the bridge. He is meeting Dunia. She refuses to be afraid of him, and they go to his apartment to possibly meet Sofia. Svidrigailov already told Raskolnikov she was out taking the orphan siblings to their new home, so we know he is lying. He eventually tells her about the murder. It’s a rough moment. He then gets aggressive and tries to grab her. She pulls out a pistol, probably from Razumikhin. He moves, she shoots. It grazes him. He tries again, but the gun fails. She gives up, and something in Svidrigailov changes. Seeing her in that state, he has a change of heart, or maybe is just snapped out of his weird obsession. He gives her the key and lets her out. He takes the gun and goes out. He makes some stops in the pouring rain, mainly to see his betrothed. He gives her a bunch of money and says he has to go to America for a while. He goes to some odd hotel he never saw before for the night and has some vivid and terrible dreams. Around daybreak he leaves and goes to the park. At the statue of Achilles he shoots himself. That was unexpected. He was so afraid of death and dying but here he has killed himself. That day, Raskolnikov goes to say goodbye to his mother. Dunia is not there. He has a tearful goodbye and his heart softens for the first time in the book. Maybe at the death of Semionov the drunk he was emotional, but he really breaks down here. She probably understands the situation, but pretends its for his own good. She hopes to see him the next day. Raskolnikov goes home and Dunia is there. She is relieved he has not killed him, as she and Sofia feared. They talk about the crime. Raskolnikov is angered by the word crime and thinks he did nothing morally wrong. They say goodbye as well. Then he goes to Sofia and requests her cross. He tells her to stay here while he goes to the police. It looks like he has really decided to turn himself in. He walks away, leaving Sofia. On the way he stops at the crossroads and kisses the dirt road. People think him mad. He notices Sofia following him. At the police station, he plans to confess to the officer who yelled at him earlier. Nobody is there, but at that time the same officer shows up. They chat, Raskolnikov falters and requests Zametov. He’s on the outs, and in the chatter, the officer mentions the suicide of Sdrigailov. Raskolnikov goes pale and leaves. He sees Sofia, heartbroken. Is Raskolnikov going to aim for life and freedom? No. He goes back in and confesses. The epilogue shows Raskolnikov in Siberia, sentenced to 8 years imprisonment. Sofia follows him. Dunia and Razumikhin marry and keep tabs on him through Sofia. His mother gets feverish and delusional, dying within the first year. Raskolnikov is hated by most and is resentful at his situation. Not the physical situation, but the fact that his actions failed and that he is accused of a crime that he does not consider a crime. One day at hard labor, he looks out in the wide Siberian landscape. Something comes over him. He imagines all the people and a future life for himself. Sofia finds him and he embraces her. She knows now that he actually loves her. There is a change in Raskolnikov. He chooses life. He will wait for his freedom and repent for his past. He is a new man. |
June 1st, 2023 |
After Virtue | The 12th chapter delves into the views espoused by Aristotle. It starts of interesting but gets boring. Or maybe it started boring and had a brief interesting stint. There was part that made me want to read some Aristotle, but I have a feeling it will have the same uninteresting rambling of most philosophical works. The modern philosophers had to get it from somewhere. Let’s go. Aristotle did not recognize himself as part of a tradition or a long line of thinking, though we will. The Nicomachean Ethics and Eudemian Ethics are the sources for his view on virtues. The views: every activity aims for some good, towards a telos. This good is the state of doing or being well. Having honor or money or happiness, though not necessarily pleasure or enjoyment. He’s kind of vague. To summarize a lot of pages, to act virtuously is to make an educated decision that results in the right action. The key is educated. A dummy can do what appears to be a virtuous act, but this is accidental because of their nature or circumstances, not because of choice. For example, a soldier seemingly acting courageously could be doing it out of fear of his officers. This is not virtuous, though it results in the same action as the choice to attack. Aristotle puts a lot of weight on the city-state and did not give slaves or barbarians any credit for their own ability to act virtuously. In his view, it was impossible. The good of the city-state is more important than the good of the individual. A man without a city-state was not a man at all. Back to choices, education and intelligence are required for good character. The trope of “dumb but good-hearted” did not exist. An interesting statement was that the virtue lies between two vices; for example, courage is between rashness and timidity. Then there’s a bit on friendship, which has a different color than our modern view, one which I don’t like or agree with. This Aristotelian friendship is not an emotional bond, but a common pursuit of a good. That’s just a colleague and a superficial bond. And what if that friend is not virtuous, but is pursuing that good for other reasons, or by chance? Aristotle and Plato thought conflict evil, and Aristotle thought it could be eliminated. He thought the Homeric hero found tragedy because of flaws, while the author argues, as before, the tragedy came from the choice between two conflicting goods. The latter is much more interesting. That’s enough. |
May 30th, 2023 |
Crime and Punishment | Per character, Raskolnikov gets into a deep funk the next couple days after he’s been caught flapping his lips. He moves around town without thinking, like so many times before. He’s been to Sonia’s and seen Sdrigailov, who of course talks cryptically. Sonia still acts loving towards him, which strikes Raskolnikov as very bizarre. It is. Razumikhin visits one day to yell at him for being insensitive and mentions that Avdotia has received some letter. Might be important later. Raskolnikov’s mother is feverish and tried to visit him yesterday. Raskolnikov more or less tells Razumikhin he should marry his sister if she falls in love with him, which she probably will. This changes Razumikhin’s tune, and he comes to the conclusion that Raskolnikov is so weird because he is involved in some political plot, possibly with his sister. He leaves, then Raskolnikov goes to leave, bur Porfiry is outside. They have a very long conversation. It starts out apologetic and seems like Porfiry is apologizing for accusing Raskolnikov. But then he knows that the painter did not do the murder and finally spits it out. He knows Raskolnikov did it. He does not have evidence, but will arrest him in a couple days. He wants a confession, and cryptically quotes something Sdrigailov said earlier. Raskolnikov refuses to admit guilt and then heads off to see Sdrigailov. |
May 29th, 2023 |
Crime and Punishment | Enjoyed Memorial Day by reading all of part 5. It spends a lot of time on Luzhin in the beginning. He is boarding with an associate, who seems to be a communist, at the same house as Katerina Ivanovna (the widow). He has some devious plan and has his roommate, a friend of Sonia, call her in as they arrive from the funeral. He pretends to be sympathetic and gives her 10 ruble for her step-mother. The wake dinner is a mess, but that’s probably to be expected. Most of the guests didn’t show and some unknowns showed, but the seat of honor went to Raskolnikov. After a long dinner, in which Katerina was verbally abusive to the German homeowner, Luzhin enters and accuses Sonia of stealing 100 rubles. Nobody believes him, but in the end, there it was in her pocket. The roommate, watching from afar, is livid. He goes on a tirade against Luzhin and tells everyone he saw him put that note in her pocket. He thought it was modest charity, but now he knows the truth. He just can’t figure out why. Raskolnikov, silent until now, then tells of the ordeal with his sister and Sonia’s association with that story. Everyone turns on Luzhin, who leaves. Sonia is flustered and runs home. Another fight breaks out and Katerina is evicted. After these events, Raskolnikov goes to Sonia’s. He starts off weird but then essentially confesses the murders. Sonia seems to pity him more than hate him and refuses to abandon him. Raskolnikov then sort of regrets telling her, since he has now burdened her and made her life miserable. The roommate then comes in and says Katerina has lost her mind. She is making the children sing and dance for money in the street. After a big stir in the street, Katerina starts to die from tuberculosis. Before this, Avdotia finds Raskolnikov and tells him that she knows about the cops investigating him and says to come to her for help if needed. They part, maybe forever. Katerina then dies in Sonia’s apartment. To his surprise, Raskolnikov finds Sdrigailov there. He tells him he will spend the money for Avdotia helping Sonia and the children. Then he tells him that his is a neighbor and heard everything. Uh oh! |
May 28th, 2023 |
Crime and Punishment | After the Sdrigailov guy leaves, Razumikhin is waiting outside the house. They go to Raskolnikov’s mother and sister, and Raskolnikov tells him about the encounter. They arrive at the same time as Luzhin and it is awkward. A very uncomfortable meeting happens inside. It comes down to Avdotia telling her husband and fiance to recount their first meeting and she will judge who is in the right and who she will side with. This disturbs Luzhin immensely and, being a haughty person, expresses how insulted he is. An argument ensues and, to his surprise, Luzhin is told to leave. It seems the engagement is over, though Luzhin may swallow his pride and try to sort things out. What should end up a nice moment among family is then turned sad. Raskolnikov announces he is leaving and may never see them again. It sounds like he might turn himself in, or thinks he will be arrested. He leaves, his family distressed, and Razumikhin follows him. Raskolnikov tells him to take his place, more or less, and it is possible that Razumikhin understands that Raskolnikov is the killer. Rodion then goes to Sonia, or at like 11pm, and has another psychotic conversation. He is a dick and frightens Sonia quite a bit. It might be that he is actually worried about her future, or he is more curious about what makes her tick, from an inhuman, scientific perspective. It turns out she is very religious and deludes herself into thinking bad things won’t happen to her step-mother or her children. He says he will tell her, if he sees her again, who killed Lizabeta or whatever her name is. She was friends with Sonia. Sdrigailov hears all this from across the hall. The next day, he goes to Porfiry Petrovich for his items. They talk for a long time and it seems that Porfiry is playing all his cards, explaining with saying explicitly how to catch smart guys like Raskolnikov. It seems that Raskolnikov’s suspicions are valid, though Porfiry is still messing with him to say he is not a suspect. Raskolnikov goes to leave, but Porfiry wants to play his trump card, behind a locked door. Suddenly, noise from the hall. The painter who was arrested comes in and confesses the crime. This ruins Porfiry’s plan. Raskolnikov is temporarily free, and on his way out he meets the man behind the locked door, the guy from yesterday who called him a murderer. It was one of the random people from when Raskolnikov returned to the apartment and acted crazy. For a for days maybe, Raskolnikov is free. Though now, he is supposed to go to the funeral. End part 4. |
May 25th, 2023 |
After Virtue | The 11th chapter is about Athens or Ancient Greece. It’s a safe assumption to make that the Heroic Era as told in the Homeric tales was fable, but that is irrelevant if the Greeks thought it was real history. These stories give “virtues” or ideals to follow, such as courage, loyalty, or intelligence. In the Classical era, some of these virtues became questionable and not so black and white. In the tragedies, the question is brought up of where should one’s loyalty lie when there is a contradiction? If helping the family hurts the city, or vice versa, what can you do? There being no answer, a deus ex machina resolves the story. The point is there are conflicting virtues and the Greeks did not know how to justify one over the other, and how could they? Both are right, and to choose one is to do wrong on one end and right on another. The author the goes on and on about what Greeks valued, though he is careful to point out that when we say “Greek”, we cannot speak for the whole region. Each city had a culture, and within every city there are different camps and modes of thought. Next we go from the Greek stories to the philosophy of Aristotle. |
| Crime and Punishment | The man in the room, whose name I don’t remember, is the former employer of Avdotia. He tried to seduce her and all those things that was told in the letter from Raskolnikov’s mom. I think he is also the guy who is boarding next to Sonia. He’s a weird dude and they have a long conversation to the chagrin of Rodion. Now that his wife is dead, he plans on going on a long trip, but first he wants to talk to Avdotia. Essentially, he wants to give her 10k rubles so that she doesn’t have to marry Luzhin, who we must remember is his dead wife’s cousin or something. Rodion wants nothing to do with this guy, but considers talking to his sister so that this jerk doesn’t try to seek her out himself. | |
May 24th, 2023 |
Crime and Punishment | The two Rs discuss the grilling at the cops. Razumikhin seems to accept that the cops were messing with Raskolnikov and trying to trap him. They arrive at the place Raskolnikov’s family is staying, but Raskolnikov starts panicking and leaves. He says he’ll be back and goes home. It turns out a stranger is there asking for him. He leaves and Raskolnikov follows him. The stranger then calls him a murderer. This sets Raskolnikov off in another spiral. He has some weird rambling thoughts about the murders and then passes out. He has a weird dream and wakes up to find a man in his room. End part 3. |
May 23rd, 2023 |
After Virtue | I’ve read another two chapters since I last wrote. I’m busy and this book is not the most interesting. In chapter 9 he opens with ideology and deception. Marx made some claims about this, illustrated with an example: the French Revolutionaries became a force for the bourgeoisie by pretending to be ancient republicans. Cromwell and the Puritans fought the monarchy under rhetoric from the Old Testament. He then compares modern moral philosophy to the “taboos” of the Pacific Islanders. Not only had the original context been forgotten, making them arbitrary, but the beliefs behind them are lost. So when the taboos were abolished, nothing happened. Compares this to the Catholics who don’t eat meat on Friday. No Catholic can tell you why this rule exists, but the belief in the system is still there, so the rule has strength. The author compares this taboo to our modern use of “good”, “right”, or “ought to”. This arbitrariness is where Nietzsche comes in with his theory on will being the source of morality. The author talks about Weber, who I have no idea who that is. He then segues into Aristotle and difference between honor in ancient society and modern society. Aristotle claims honor is secondary, because it is based on something else, someone’s deeds or worth. The author then claims that the ancient societies were constructed so differently that honor cannot be compared. In ancient society, an person had their place in a social order and a role known from birth. To be honorable is to perform one’s role. That last bit is pretty much the entire 10th chapter. Our societies are just not constructed the same. |
May 22nd, 2023 |
Crime and Punishment | Porfiry Petrovich is some sort of lawyer involved in the murder case. Raskolnikov is trying to play the part of an innocent man and enters the home while making light of Razumikhin’s affection for his sister. It’s all very calculated. To Raskolnikov’s distaste, Zametov is there. Raskolnikov wants to talk about getting the items he hocked to the victim. It seems that Porfiry is suspicious of Raskolnikov, but that may be only because we can see Raskolnikov’s anxiety. Porfiry is definitely mocking Raskolnikov to some degree. He then brings up an article Raskolnikov wrote and submitted, which was published without Raskolnikov being informed. It was about “ordinary” and “extraordinary” people. In it, Raskolnikov says that “extraordinary” people should be able to commit crime and not be held to laws of ordinary people. To start a revolution is to commit a crime, but the next generation exalts the criminal that bring this new order. Of course, Porfiry leads this conversation to the murder. It is an uncomfortable conversation, but Raskolnikov holds is own. Razumikhin is not pleased with the conversation or Raskolnikov’s article, and they leave, Razumikhin debating Raskolnikov on the way. |
May 16th, 2023 |
After Virtue | The 8th chapter seems to be just about the author trying to explain why social predictions don’t work. Again, they are not like natural laws. Given a set of knowns, you cannot guarantee an unknown. Look at all the failed economic predictions or surprises. Same in politics. That’s really all he goes on about. Monday morning quarterback stuff. |
| Crime and Punishment | Read a short chapter. Suddenly, Sonia appears. She is shocked by all the people present and is very timid and embarrassed. She is also shocked that the man who gave so much money lives in such a hovel. The mother is a bit prudish, but the sister is probably more understanding. Raskolnikov does not recognize her at first but then does and introduces her. The ladies leave and Raskolnikov keeps Sonia around to talk more. Eventually they and Razumikhin leave. Sonia is followed by a stranger, I think Luzhin. It appears they are neighbor lodgers. The two Rs go to some Porfivy guy. I guess this is a friend of associate of Razumikhin. | |
May 13th, 2023 |
Crime and Punishment | A lot has happened since the last entry, and I’m sure I will get some of it wrong. The third section concludes with a tragedy, in a way. Raskolnikov sneaks out and wanders the streets. He can’t live with his guilt and thinks of going to the police. He walks around talking to strangers, creeping people out. He ends up at some restaurant and sits down. The chief of police or whatever from the station was there drinking. They talk, and Raskolnikov kind of confesses the murder. The cop thinks he’s crazy and messing with him. He leaves very confused. Raskolnikov leaves and runs in to Razumikhin. They have a fight and Raskolnikov continues to walk. He stops at the canal and looks in, when a woman comes up and jumps in. She ends up being rescued. He walks more and comes to the scene of an accident. A drunken man had walked in front of a carriage. Raskolnikov approaches and finds the clerk from chapter 2. He organizes the people to take him home to his family and to get a doctor. It is a sad scene. His tubucular wife is a pathetic site, along with the undernourished children. The mom sends the oldest girl for Sonia, the clerks prostitute daughter. A doctor says the man has no chance. The clerk becomes aware of his surroundings and his family, including Sonia, and says his goodbyes. Raskolnikov, depressed by the events, gives the money from his mother to the widow for the funeral. He leaves, and the little girl comes out to thank him. Raskolnikov is moved by the love of this child and decides he wants to live out his life. He goes to Razumikhin to tell him about the night. Razumikhin, drunk from his housewarming party, leaves to take Raskolnikov home. When they arrive, someone is in his room. It is his mother and sister. Raskolnikov returns to a strange mental state and pretty much insults everyone. He tells his sister to choose between him and Peter Petrovich Luzhin, the fiance. Razumikhin takes the ladies to their lodgings and seems to fall in love with the sister, Dunia. Razumikhin and Zossimov come in the night to report on Raskolnikov. The next day, they receive a letter from Luzhin saying he will visit shortly, but Raakolnikov must not be there. Razumikhin joins them and they have breakfast and discuss the matter. They then go to Raskolnikov’s who is in a “normal” state, but it seems forced and somewhat malicious. Zossimov is there. After some strange and painful conversation, Raskolnikov says he meant what he said last night about Luzhin. Dunia tells him of the letter, and her choice is to invite him. This won’t go well. |
May 12th, 2023 |
After Virtue | Chapter 7 – ‘Fact”, Explanation, and Expertise. An 8 page slog in which I haven’t a clue as to what the author wants to say. I assume he is trying to prove a point, to justify claims made in a previous chapter. I would say it is not successful since none of what was said is clear. There was something about finding a scientific law, something akin to Newton’s physical laws, for human behavior. Of course, this is nonsense, which I think is the view of the author. This law to be true has to eliminate “intent” in determining human behavior. In classical philosophy, the way a human acts and the goal of the hum are inseparable. Boring. |
May 11th, 2023 |
After Virtue | It’s been awhile. I got sent on a business trip then got sick after I returned, so I haven’t had a chance to read. I re-read The Picture of Dorian Gray while I was traveling. Back to this. I guess I stopped in the middle of Chapter 6, which probably wasn’t a good place to stop for two weeks. As I see from the last entry, the author was railing against utilitarianism and rights. Now the author comes to a very interesting point, which he kind of already came to. The rights vs utility argument. People most go to the streets to protest because the argument between the two cannot be resolved with words. An argument cannot be won or lost because there is no rational basis for the argument. It stems from what an individual values and that is unlikely to change. The thread typically follows to “unmask” the unspoken motives of one’s opponents, while trying to keep one’s motives masked. People deceive themselves and others. The author says the aesthetic, if he acknowledges himself as one, is least likely to be deceived by this farce. The author’s “characters”, especially the therapist, thrives on the deception of reality. Then he goes off on the management bureaucracy, claiming it is propped up by a lie. Essentially he says that “effectiveness” as guided by the plans and decisions of management is an illusion, like a priest praying for rain before it storms. As stated before, management’s whole function is to manipulate workers into achieving their own goals. The “expertise” of a manager does not stand on actual facts. I guess this will be explored more later. |
April 28th, 2023 |
After Virtue | Read about half of the 6th chapter, which discusses the consequences of the failures of Enlightenment. The author attacks two later philosophies: utilitarianism and analytics, which led to emotivism. Utilitarianism we know from reading John Stuart Mill. This philosophy wants to maximize happiness for the most people, while minimizing unhappiness. The author then questions which “pleasures” should be pursued? It seems like he’s trying to pull some bullshit. You pursue the pleasures which you enjoy. Every individual has individual tastes. I’m sure the author will then attack individualism. If you’re not sure if you would enjoy something, then you ask yourself whether you are interested in finding out. If not, pursue something else. Happiness is not a made up concept; we can clearly experience it. It is a very simple concept to understand. Children understand pursuing things which make them happy. I strongly disagree with the author on his view of utilitarianism. I don’t think the author really makes clear what his problem with analytics is other than its clarity. He picks Reason and Morality by Gewirth to criticize. This turns into an attack on the concept of rights, which Gewirth uses which explaining what a right is or why it should exist. Here I agree with the author. The Enlightenment authors liked to discuss natural rights and self-evident truth, but this is make believe. Critical thought and an analysis of the real world shows there are no rights. There are only “rights” in the sense that we try to claim and to hold the ability to do certain things (or not have things done to us). Rights are a very nice fiction, but it all comes down to power. If we do not have the power to claim a right, we do not get it. The author claims utility is fiction as well, which I do not agree with. Feelings that exist in the mind are real. The last part I read was a good point by the author. It’s another example of how justifying a morality fails. Compare The concept of rights to the concept of utilitarianism. Which one triumphs? I have the right to have $1 million while others starve. Is this moral? Is this just? Should my money be taken without my consent to feed others? Some say yes, some say no, and there is no way to resolve the problem other than by forcing one reality to triumph. You could also consider this a combat between rights: the right to own versus the right to food/health. Which right is “more just”? |
| Crime and Punishment | Zossimov, the doctor friend and a bit of a dandy, arrives and examines Raskolnikov. He seems fine, then Razmukhin and Zossimov start chatting about a house-warming party for Razmukhin, which then goes into the discussion of the murder. Razmukhin and another fellow are trying to help out a painter who was arrested and accused of the crime. To summarize, the two painters were goofing around during the murder and then ran into the street to “fight”, like children. When one returned, he found some earrings in a box. This startled Raskolnikov, as we know he was hiding in there and must have dropped the the box. Razmukhin figures out the whole murder as it happened, but it is hard to prove without a murderer. The painter takes the earrings, pawns them, and gets drunk. Once the murder is known, the pawn broker confronts him and he freaks out and runs. He is found later about to hang himself. To the police, this is proof he did it. He claims he was afraid of being accused. Razmukhin believes him innocent, which is true, and is trying to get him freed. The whole discussion worries Raskolnikov. Then a stranger appears, a big gentlemen with an air of importance. It is Luzhin (or whatever) the fiance of Raskolnikov’s sister. To this man’s dismay, nobody is impressed by him. After some awkward moment’s, he comes in and explains himself. Razmukhin is not interested in his words, and Raskolnikov eventually lashes out in anger at him. He then leaves in a huff, and shortly the other guys leave. Only Nastia remains, who Raskolnikov tells to get out. He lays in bed. | |
April 27th, 2023 |
After Virtue | Chapter 5 talks about why the Enlightenment attempts at justifying morality were doomed. All these philosophers discussed come from the same secular Christian background. They are heirs to the Christian philosophy of the middle ages, who inherited the classical philosophy. In Aristotle’s view of ethics, there is man as he is and man as he could be, after finding his purpose (telos). The ancients sought the telos. The Christians assumed the telos was God’s law and ordered by him. The seculars then lose this law, and reject past views that human reason cannot provide a purpose. There is no scientific basis for it. They were looking for the end after losing the means; doomed to fail. Then there’s some rambling about philosophical “logic”. Then the author says a good watch is what a watch ought to be and a bad watch does what is undesired. A good farmer does what a farmer is ought to do, and well. A good man does what a man ought to do, he lives well. This is the Aristotelian view. These are so-called factual statements. To say an action is just is to say a good man would do it. Thus, moral statements can be true or false. This only can occur if one believes in an end/telos. So the modern world may speak of moral judgments as true or false, the virtues behind them lack weight. The “Why should I?” lacks an answer, unless we as individuals create our own telos (my thought). This is the author’s view, of course. |
April 26th, 2023 |
After Virtue | I don’t know why I try to read philosophy books. They are always so unnecessarily verbose to muddle a shallow and simple statement. It’s usually some nonsense idea that has no relevance to people’s lives or society. Now I attempt to summarize chapter 4. It talks about the Enlightenment era, which the author claims was led by Protestant Northern Europenas. Then he goes on some nonsense about the word “moral”, who it lacks a Latin equivalent (sounds like bullshit) and then evolved to stand in for sexual promiscuity (also bullshit). The rest goes on about Enten-Eller by Kierkegaard and then about Kant. Kierkegaard wrote that one could not choose between an “ethical” or an “aesthetic” way of life. There is no “reason” to choose on over the other. If those reasons have weight, you have already chosen. Kant earlier tried to create a “rational test” to determine morality. He claims if morals are rational, they must be the same for all rational beings and if morality is binding, then the only relevant thing is ones willpower in carrying them out. But the tests fail, so the author says. He then claims that these Protestant secular nations, who have weakened the church and no longer use it as the source of all morals, need a source of morality. The philosophers tried to fill the void and failed. What are the consequences? |
| Crime and Punishment | Raskolnikov is still in a panic an delirious. He ends up back home assuming people would be searching his things. Of course, he is paranoid and no one is there. He takes the stolen goods to throw them in the canal, but too many people are present. He walks to the Neva instead, but finds an abandoned place full of junk. He hides these things under a rock there, not bothering to look in the purse for money. What was the point of the killing? He wanders and ends up at Razmukhin’s, the only person he could probably call a friend. He goes to talk to him but acts very strangely and weird. Razmukhin offers to split some work with him for a few rubles, but Raskolnikov just wanders off, angering Razmukhin. He ends up back home and is in some feverish dream. He sleeps for 4 days apparently, vaguely remembering people come in. When he comes to, Nastasia and a man are there. Then Razmukhin appears, having angrily searched the city to find Raskolnikov’s address. Long story short, Razmukhin is a decent friend. He has befriended the landlady and seems to be charming Nastasia. He paid to get the IOU back, so the cops will be off Raskolnikov’s back. He brought a doctor a couple times while Raskolnikov was feverish. Now this stranger is the second man to visit from the office to attempt to deliver 35 rubles from Raskolnikov’s mother, as promised in the letter. Raskolnikov is pouty the whole time, and it is revealed he was mumbling about some strange things in his sleep (socks, trousers, the stolen goods). Razmukhin is very cheerful but it only rubs Raskolnikov the wrong way. After all this, Razmukhin takes 10 ruble from Raskolnikov, who then falls asleep. 6 hours later, he returns with new clothes for Raskolnikov. He must have something in mind. | |
April 24th, 2023 |
Aftter Virtue | I read chapter 3 on Friday and today. It’s a doozy. How can I summarize it? Poorly. First note is that emotivism removes the distinction between manipulative and non-manipulative social relations. The difference between treating a social relation as an end or a means to an end. If emotivism is true, then the spoken word is the intent, where in reality a manipulative word hides the inent. Then the author talks about managers, rich men, and therapists. He calls these people “characters”, whose role is their personality. This is in contrast to someone who has a role does not necessarily line up with personality. The example is a priest who preaches but no longer believes himself. Then he talks about the “self”. Old school self is defined by social structure, e.g., nation, family, tribe, job, etc. The modern “self” is the “real me” individual stripped away from the traditional social relations. This seems silly but we’ll hear him out. The chapter was fairly confusing and I don’t know if I got the real point of it. |
| Crime and Punishment | This is my second entry but I’ve read like 80 pages since the first. It’s been a wild ride! I have to admit, I can’t remember all the details. The rest of “Part One” has a lot of Raskolnikov (the main character) wandering around town. He tries to avoid everyone. He is in debt to his landlady. The cook/housekeeper Nastia seems pretty sweet and might even genuinely be worried about Raskolnikov. She brings him his breakfast (the landlady stopped serving him dinner), even though he sleeps constantly, and brings him a letter. It’s a long one from his mother, who explains why she hasn’t written. She was broke from putting a loan on her pension to give to her son (Rodion Raskolnikov). She also tells him that his sister was in a big scandal because her boss as governess was coming on to her and the wife found out. It was a long story, but after it all blew over, the wife introduced the sister to her cousin. Now they’re getting married and he might get a job for Rodion and they’ll all be in Petersburg soon. What seemed like a harmless letter left Raskolnikov fuming. He thinks is him is selling his sister for his benefit, and he analyses every word she wrote. He wanders the city and I wonder if any events that will come back later. The drunk guy’s story has not come back, though Raskolnikov has thought about his saintly prostitute daughter Sonia. He runs into a drunk teen girl and sees a man who is probably going to try to rape her (she probably already was by the guy that got her drunk) and he starts yelling at the guy. A cop approaches and takes the girl, and Raskolnikov paid for her cab before saying something weird. He also left money for the drunk earlier. Well, the meat is that, as predicted, Raskolnikov is thinking about murdering the old pawn lady and has been holed up in his apartment for days or weeks thinking about it. One night he was in a pub and overheard two officers discussing her just after he had pawned his first object. Then one mentions how awful she is and the good one could do by killing her and taking her money for the poor, which she was going to give to a monastery after she died. Not even a penny for her simple-minded sister, who she beats. Raskolnikov takes this as a sign, since he was thinking the same thing. A bunch of signs added up, so he had to kill her. He finds out the sister will not be home at 7pm and decides its time. He has a noose in his coat to hide an ax, but he can’t take the ax from the kitchen because Nastia is there. His plan seems to fall apart until he finds one in the porter’s unlocked and open front room. A sign. So he goes and hits the old lady in the head and kills her. He stuffs his pockets and tries the lock box but can’t figure it out. Then he hears something. The sister comes home. She doesn’t even scream or fight. Raskolnikov kills her. Now he can no longer claim he is helping anyone when he murders the one who would benefit most by the old lady’s death. He is freaking out and panicking since he left the door open. He closes the door as two men approach. They try the door but it is latched. They feel something is wrong and one goes for the porter. The second, impatient, follows soon after. I think the first one may be a friend/associate of Raskolnikov. We’ll see. With them gone, Raskolnikov hides in the empty apartment downstairs until the coast is clear. Then he heads home. Part Two. He is feverish and all messed up that night. In his panic he forgets to remove his blood stained clothes, his noose, and hide his stolen goods. He is really out of it and goes in and out of sleep. Nastia and the porter wake him up with a police summons. To keep it short, he’s not a murder suspect yet. It was his debts to the landlady. But, he hears the police talk about the murder. He faints, and one who he quarreled with starts questioning him. Raskolnikov is a nervous wreck. | |
April 19th, 2023 |
After Virtue | This chapter is really painting a case against “emotivism”. What is emotivism? Don’t ask me; I don’t know. I guess it is the theory that behind all moral judgements is not reason, but feeling. The example I that saying “this is good” is equivalent to saying “I approve of this; you should too”. Therefore, moral judgements are only expressions of one’s preference. Thus, moral judgements cannot be proven true or false. There can be a factual statement underneath, like “arson is wrong” can evaluate to “arson is destruction of property, which is wrong” has the fact that arson destroys property, but there is still a preference. The author then goes on to say this is all horsewash. I don’t really see his point, because emotivism as described seems pretty legit. The point he made that makes sense is that this theory claims that all moral judgements, past and present, are just preference. The author says this is neither true, and if it were, would not apply to people of a culture who did not believe it. If they believed in the fact that their moral judgements had rational basis, then that is as good as it having said basis. I buy that. So as the book goes on, it will try to prove this “objective” past moral philosophy and explain where did it go. Why does the modern age not believe in the objective? The next chapter will begin this exploration. |
April 18th, 2023 |
After Virtue | The first chapter paints a hypothetical picture in which there is a reaction against scientific knowledge, then an era of ignorance, then a third era where there is a scientific revival, but only pieces of the past are recaptured, yet nobody knows they only have an incomplete picture. The author says this is where we are with moral philosophy, yet no one knows because there was not one “extinction” event, but a slow progress over centuries. Then in the second chapter he tries to make the point of why moral arguments don’t work today. The gist so far is that there are multiple arguments over one topic (such as universal healthcare) and each argument has a logical and valid thesis. Those who argue for it favor equality, those who argue against it favor freedom of choice. We value both things, so which is right? People have their opinions pre-made and no arguments could change them. Thus discussions turn to emotional arguments. So far, so good. Let’s see where this line of thinking goes. |
April 17th, 2023 |
After Virtue | I only got through the Prologue and Preface today. The preface was mostly acknowledgements, but gave a little detail on the concept of the book. The prologue seems to be from a later edition and discusses some of the critiques. After half an hour of reading, I still only have a vague idea of what this will be about. Moral philosophy, which, if I trust the name, is about morals, or right and wrong. I believe the author is rejecting modern moral philosophy, which I think means post-French Revolution, or possibly post-Industrial Revolution, and is promoting the old ideas of Aristotle and Aquinas. He seems to be opposed to modern philosophies like utilitarianism, but we shall see. So far he has been pretty adamantly against what he calls the “individualism” of liberalism, with liberalism in the older sense of the word, not the “left wing” sense in modern American rhetoric. I’m not sure what his issue with individualism is here, unless he is using it as a synonym for selfishness. The book shall tell. |
| Crime and Punishment | Read the first two chapters and it’s pretty interesting so far. I forget the character names, but the main character is this weird young man in St. Petersburg who is completely broke. He seems like a schizo and he goes to this pawn shop that he has been to before to try to get some money. He’s very suspicious and it seems like he’s planning to kill the old lady who runs the shop. The shop is just her house, I don’t even know if pawning is legal in this time and place. Unlike himself, he then goes to a tavern for a beer. This strange little drunk stares at him and ultimately approaches him. The drunk then tells him his whole story with an air of sophistication. He is, or was, a government clerk. Due to his drinking he’s lost his job and his daughter became a prostitute to feed her step mother’s children. It’s a real mess. Then he gets it together and begs for his job back. Life’s good, then he steals the money he gave to his wife and spend it all drinking for 5 days, even asking his daughter for money. He’s a sad creature and all the patrons laugh at him. The owner has heard this story before. At the end, he decides to go home and the main character helps him. It’s a sad sight as well. His wife then abuses him and the main character leaves. | |
April 16th, 2023 |
Mercia | The book ends with an epilogue and some appendixes. There’s not much to say about it. The epilogue was a 10 page summary of the book. The first appendix was on the Danes. Most of this was discussed earlier in the book. The last appendix was about the shiring of Mercia. It was not interesting, especially to someone who doesn’t know where most of these towns are. Needs a map. |
April 15th, 2023 |
Mercia | This chapter was kind of confusing, but I think I got the gist of it. The time is the reign of Aethelred Unraed and the Danish invaders of Sweyn Forkbeard and his son Cnut. We’re mostly talking about three guys in Mercia: Wulfic, Eadric, and Leofwine. It seems Aelfric cild was ealdorman of Mercia, but was banished soon after. This Leofwine, probably of Hwicce, was ealdorman of all Mercia. He may have had ties to Wulfric’s family. Wulfric Spott was very rich and I don’t know if there is any other importance to him other than his will survives. He asked his brother, Aelfhelm, to take care of his daughter. This Aelfhelm was earl of Northumbria. Aelfhelm’s and Wolfric’s niece, Ealdgyth, was married to a guy named Morcar, brother of Sigeferth. These brothers were close friends of the aetheling and his brother Edmund (Ironside). Back to this family later. Aelfhelm and these two brothers probably had holdings in the Five Boroughs and the East Midlands. Eadric seems to come from nowhere, possibly low-born. He must have been a smooth-talker, because he somehow became highly favored by the Unraed King. Most chroniclers say nothing but terrible things about this man, though we was probably a decent general. He was given an ealdordom in Western Mercia at the expense of Leofwine, who was demoted to just the Hwicce. Eadric is accused of many crimes and cruelties. In 1004, Aelfhellm was murdered and his sons Wulfheah and Ufegeat were blinded. In 1015, Morcar and Sigeferth were murdered. It is possible Eadric was responsible, or someone convinced the king these men were in league with Danes. In 1014, Sweyn had invaded and exiled the king. Edmund’s brother died, and he was now next in line, though his step-mother, Emma of Normandy, was pushing for her own sons. In Sweyn’s short reign, he married his son Cnut to Aelfgifu, daughter of Aelfhelm. When Cnut invaded, Eadric chose to side with Cnut against Aethelred and Edmund. Edmund was a fierce warrior and the war lasted some time. After the murder of his friends, he married Morcar’s widow. If all this is correct, then he was at war with his wife’s cousin’s husband. Weird how everyone is connected. In 1016, the Unraed died and Edmund was king. Eadric had switched sides back and forth and a couple times and may have brokered peace after a battle in East Anglia. The kingdom was split between Cnut in the north and Edmund in the south. Like always in history, one king, Edmund, dies shortly after. Murder? War wounds? No one will ever know. Cnut was king of all England. Edmund’s sons were sent to Norway to be murdered, but were given sympathy and sent to the court of Hungary as exiles. Cnut cast away his wife and married Emma of Normandy. Edmund’s brother Eadwig was murdered, but his half-brothers of Emma, Cnut’s stepsons, were spared. Eadric was not. He was killed by Cnut in 1017. Leofwine kept his holdings but was not restored to pre-Eadric days. Cnut put his own men in charge around the country, keeping Wessex as his personal holding. Leofwine’s family were the only Anglo-Saxons to stay in power. Was this because of the supposed connection to Wulfric and Aelfhelm, and thus Cnut’s first wife Aelfgifu? Well, we only have 50 years until the Norman’s put all this fun to an end. What happens to Mercia next? |
| Mercia | I read another chapter and I made this a separate entry since I wrote so damn much already. Might as well copy-paste Wikipedia. To add something from the last chapter, one of Leofwine’s sons, Northman, was killed at the same time as Eadric. Also important was that Eadric married a daughter of the king. There were some Danish earls of Mercia. Leowine’s son Leofric may have been a deputy under one of the norsemen. Another son, Eadwine, served his father. There was also a Godwine, but he is not the Godwine. After Cnut died in 1035, his sons, who were half-brothers, split the kingdom. Harthaknut, son of Emma, was king of Denmark and Wessex. Harold Harefoot, son of Aelfgifu, ruled the north. Harthaknut was away and the northerners wanted Harold to rule all England. Leofric supposed Harold, and it is possible his son married Edmund’s and Morcar’s widow Aelfgifu, thus they’d all be one family. Godwine somehow gained power in the Cnut regime and supported the absent Harthaknut. Godwine may have been a friend of Edmund and his older (dead) brother Aethelstan, so it would be surprising he supported the Emma family. Emma turned coat for the exiled sons of Unraed, and Godwine panicked and switched to Harold. Godwine likely had Emma’s son Alfred blinded when he returned to England. This affair was short lived. Harold died in 1040 and Harthaknut died in 1042. Harthaknut invited Edward the Confessor back to England, who then became king. During his reign, Harthknut made Godwine’s sons Swein an earl, with lands in Wessex and Merica, and Harold earl of East Anglia. Edward took his mother’s lands and married a daughter of Godwine. Clearly, Godwine had become immensely powerful. Godwine’s Danish nephew Beorn was made an earl in East Mercia. Swein was a real bastard, fought the Welsh, kidnapped a nun, and killed Beorn. Shit hit the fan in 1051 with some French count arriving in England and being attacked. Edward ordered some revenge and Godwine refused, with Tolstig being a married to a rival. Leofric and Siward (an earl in Northumbria?) joined the king against Godwine and his family. They were exiled. Aelfgar son of Leofric got East Anglia. They were back next year, forgiven somehow. Aelfgar lost out, but Godwine died, Harold got Wessex, and Aelfgar was back in place. Then Siward dies and Tostig is placed in Northumbria. Aelfgar was outlawed, then rebelled and invaded with some Irish, then it’s all good. There is no control. Leofric dies, so does this Ralf of Hereford. Aelfgar is allowed to get Leofric’s land. Gyrth Godwineson gets East Anglia, Leofwine Leofricson gets some other land. Clearly these two houses control England. The book then mentions that Leofric’s wife was Godgifu, also known as Lady Godiva. She must have been hot. Then the book mentions that Aelfgar was the son who may have married Aelfgifu (why wait until now?). A family tree from 30 pages ago lists Aelfgar married to Aelfgifu and as earl of Mercia. His sons are Edwin, earl of Mercia and Morcar (after his grandfather?), earl of Northumbria. A daughter, Ealdgyth, first married Gruffudd of Gwynedd, then Harold Godwineson. It’s all family trees. The whole book. In 1058 Aelfgar is banished, again, and with Gruffudd, again, fight. Harald Hardrada of Norway aided them. Within the next couple years, Aelfgar is dead. Gruffudd raids England and his men kill him when Harold and Tostig fight back. 1064 Harold does his thing with William the Bastard. In 1065, the north rises up against Tostig for his actions. Tostig blamed Harold for plotting against him. Tostig fled for Flanders. Mercia and Northumbria were united against Wessex. Maybe, with Harold a brother-in-law of Edwin of Mercia and Morcar of Northumbria, he had good reason to flee. We know 1066. Edward dies, Harold is elected king. Tostig joins Harald Hardrada to attack England. Edwin and Morcar fought at Gate Fulford, outside York, and lost. The men of York made terms and the Norse moved forward. Edward and Morcar survived, but had no more forces for war. In 1067, Edwin, Morcar, Edward the Aetheling, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Waltheof son of Siward were taken to Normandy as hostages. In 1068, Northumbria and Mercia rebelled. They were brutally put down. Edwin dies under strange circumstances fleeing to Scotland. Morcar joins Hereward the Wake at the fenlands in Ely. The rebels were surrounded and Morcar was taken. His fate is unknown, but he may have been a captive for decades. It is said Edwin died trying to rescue his brother. Harold and Ealdgyth may have had sons, Ulf and Harold. If so, they are lost to history in their youth. Likely they died young men. If they had no children, then that ends the house of Leofric, the last Anglo-Saxon earls of Mercia. | |
April 13th, 2023 |
Mercia | The rest of this chapter isn’t that interesting. It mostly talks about people grabbing land after the death of Edgar. I guess Edgar was throwing land to bishops at the expense of ealdormen. This probably annoyed them, but Edgar had a peaceable reign regardless. He dies at 31, his oldest son Edward the Martyr reigns for 3 years and is murdered, maybe by the orders of his stepmom. Then Aethelred Unraed is king. Both were very young. It looks like in this period and even during Aethelred’s reign, ealdormen like Aelfwere were taking back land that was taken from them or their fathers. Some chroniclers paint them as heathens stealing from the church. Some put back the old non-celibate priests who were kicked out. It was probably more personal than just church garbage. This Aelfwere was pretty close with the Welsh, like some Penda and other Mercian lords of the past. I don’t really have a better picture of what’s going on. Aelfwere was very powerful and that after his death, his ealdermanship passed to his relation. Maybe a brother or brother-in-law, he probably had no kids. Now what? |
April 10th, 2023 |
Mercia | So we got past Aethelstan, his half brothers Edmund and Eadred, whose mother was the strong woman Eadgifu. Edmund died, then Eadred reigned. Then Edmund’s teen sons reigned, Eadwig and Edgar. The book jumps around a bit for these two generations. For future refernce, Edgar’s kid is the Unraed, and his grandson is the Confessor. I guess uncle Eadred, or one of his generation, appointed some certain men as ealdormen in Mercia and East Anglia. Aethelwold and Eahlhelm in Mercia, I think, and Aethelstan the Half-King in East Anglia. Maybe Aethelwold was Aethelstan Rota, I don’t remember. In the next gen, Eadwig was not well received and Edgar, the younger, was. Maybe by plan, maybe by force, these two split the kingdom. Eadwig was stuck with Wessex, while Edmund controlled Mercia and East Anglia, and by now I guess Northumbria. The ealdormen picked their sides, probably based on land. By this time, Eahlhelm was dead and his son Aelfhere took his spot. Eadwig also died at 19, with Edmund smoothly taking control of the country. Aelfhere was given more lands, at the expense of the half-king. This seems like it doesn’t line up, because Edgar was raised in his court in East Anglia. The timeline is probably off. The half-king retired, seeing the writing on the wall, and his son Aethelwold(?) got his ealdordom. Edgar married this son’s, his foster brother’s, widow. Aelfhere had western Mercia, and I guess he was getting more and more. There’s also at this time some big fighting among the churchmen and laymen. The hardline churchers are trying to enforce all the monastic rules and all that. So far, Edgar doesn’t seem to be particularly keen on reform and gives lands to whoever. Eadwig was pretty bad with handing out lands, too. To be continued. |
April 9th, 2023 |
Mercia | I read a short 8-page chapter but I can’t really remember it. How much can you say in 8 pages? I think it was about the “end” of Mercia as a kingdom. We already read about the Alfred years and the years of Aethelflaed. After her death, Edward ruled a few more years. Once he died, there may have been conflict. Aethelstan, raised in Mercia by his aunt and uncle, was not the heir. His half-brother Aelfweard seems to have been heir. Maybe Aethelstan was to govern Mercia? Whatever happened, Aelfweard didn’t live much longer. Aethelstan then became king of Mercia and Wessex, though Aelfweard’s full-brother may have had a stronger claim to the throne. This brother died at sea a few years later, possibly in exile. Aethelstan lived up to his predecessors. Aethelstan took back more of Danelaw and even fought a Dublin invasion. He claimed Northumbria and called himself Rex Totius Britanniae. That’s a big deal. He died childless and his half brothers struggled with a Viking resurgence in the north. To continue the story of Mercia, it seems at this time Aethelstan had reduced the number of ealdormen in the kingdom and gave them larger holdings to maintain. This gave them an increase in power, and next we will learn of the powerful ealdormen of Mercia, especially the so-called half-king Aethelstan. |
April 6th, 2023 |
Mercia | I forgot to write yesterday, but I read half of the chapter that I finished today. Now we see one of the most interesting periods of Anglo-Saxon England. Wessex is barely surviving fighting the Vikings. As mentioned, the Vikings have settled in England, and also around Dublin. Aethelwulf of Wessex is dead. Is sons become kings, each one dying in turn until Alfred the Great reigns. But this is not a story of Wessex. In Mercia, a complete unknown (to we modern readers) comes to the scene. Aethelred is in charge of Mercia, no records show how this came to be. He may have been of Hwicce, if he is in any way royal. Regardless, there was not much opposition to him. He is called Lord of Mercia, but some annals call him King. He cooperates with Alfred against the Vikings and is given Alfred’s eldest daughter, Aelthelflaed in marriage. This is one of the most important moments in history for England. Alfred, his son Edward the Elder, and Athelred & Aethelflaed act in beautiful concert to stem and push back the Viking tide. In 899, Alfred dies at the young age of 50. Shortly after, or around the same time, Aethelred becomes ill and is incapacitated. The chronicles show Edward acting alone, though possibly they are biased. Aethelred dies in 911. After this, the Mercian chronicles show Aethelflaed leading the nation as Lady of Mercia. Some may have called her Queen. She was to live for only 7 more years before dying in her late 40s, but they were a very impactful 7 years. The noble beauty led her armies, whether in person or from afar we do not know. Brother and sister acted as partners fighting the invaders turned settlers. Edward was likely superior, and he had taken London and Oxford from Mercian control, but in general he left Mercia to his sister and brother-in-law. He even sent his son, future King Aethelstan, to be raised at the Mercian court. After the death of Aethelflaed, Mercian independence was waning rapidly. Her daughter Aelfwynn was removed from any sort of power within months. Edward would rule Mercia now. We know, however, that Aethelstan will continue in the tradition of his father and aunt and take the Viking lands back for the Anglo-Saxon. |
April 3rd, 2023 |
Mercia | In the second half of the 9th century, we see our final two kings. Burgred, probably related to the other Bs, ruled for 20 or so years. For the most part, he worked closely with the kings of Wessex. King Aethelwulf had his daughter marry Burgred, showing who was doing who favors. He possibly asked Aethfwulf for aid in fighting the Welsh. The fun ends when the Vikings come to stay. After conquering East Anglia and Northumbria, the heathen army came for Mercia. Burgred fled or was exiled to Rome. The last king came from the Cs, Ceolwulf II and he played nicely with the Vikings. Possibly he was in cahoots with them. He may have been descended from Ceolwulf I and thus part of Pybba’s dynasty. He only ruled a few years before dying or disappearing. Despite deposing his brother-in-law, he got on well with Alfred the Great. They even minted coins together. He regularly “made peace” with Vikings and still seems to have fought the Welsh. The Viking army split and some kept marching to war, some settled and built a kingdom around York. The Danes decided to keep half of Mercia to link East Anglia and Northumbria, and there was not much Ceolwulf could do. In 879 he is gone from the records. After this, there were no more kings. As in the kingdoms Mercia had taken before, ealdormen ruled. Wessex was the sole remaining Anglo-Saxon power. |
April 2nd, 2023 |
Mercia | What happens after Offa is not great for Mercia. Like many other kingdoms, a dead strong leader leaves a vacuum, especially when there is no clear succession. With his son dead, a distant cousin named Cenwulf took the throne. He was likely a descendent of Pybba through a sister of Penda and Eowa. Possibly this sister was married to the king of Wessex and thus also a royal of that house. Regardless, he probably grew up in exile. Wessex gave no trouble while the son-in-law of Offa reigned, but he died in 802. Ecgberht then returned and was a powerful king. There was not a whole lot of trouble with Northumbria, but several against the Welsh. It seems that Mercia had a good foothold there and was likely losing it. Likewise in the south. With the rise of Wessex, Mercia would soon lose control over the southern kingdoms. It seems East Anglia and Kent were lost to Wessex. Cenwulf died, probably in campaign against the Welsh, then his brother Ceolwulf reigned a couple years before being deposed. Then things get crazy. These guys were the “C-dynasty”, and deposed by the “B-dynasty”, a competing faction. Then there was the “W-dynasty”, Ecgberht conquered for a year, then the Ws and Bs seemed to fight. The Ws had a good decade before one the 3rd was murdered (a saint now, of course). The Ws had married into the Penda family, I think, to legitimize their rule. The Bs then tried the same trick. During all this chaos, the Vikings begin their incursions. Mercia is doomed. |
April 1st, 2023 |
Mercia | Offa reigned the second half of the 8th century. For one of the most famous Anglo-Saxon kings, little is written about him. It doesn’t seem that much writing exists, or survived, from his own court. He had no connections with saints, so he doesn’t appear in any “Life” like Aethelbald. Bede was decades dead, so I think most of Offa’s mentions come from after his reign. What is clear is that he was a powerful king. At the start of his reign, Northumbria was in a severe succession crisis. They were no competition, but Offa did not take advantage of the situation. I don’t know if he got involved with the northern kingdom. He minted coins, which is a big deal. Even his wife, who may have been a descendant of Penda, appeared on coin. Offa flexed his muscles in the south. He had trouble with East Anglia and Wessex. It seems he lost control over them and lost London. After the deaths of their kings, Offa was able to assert his authority again. He fought the West Saxons and fought in Kent and Sussex. He may have lost in Kent, if his lack of presence in the charters for a decade prove that. At the end of his reign, Offa murdered the visiting king of East Anglia. He beheaded him possibly at the command of his wife. This is a pretty big stain on Offa’s reign. He drove a contendor for the Wessex throne into exile and installed his son-in-law. This exile was Ecgbehrt, grandfather of Alfred the Great. He went to Charlemagne’s court, which may have caused tension between the future emperor and Offa. Offa clearly tried to compete with him, even being the first English king to have his son anointed as heir. Offa created a new archbishopric, probably because the one in Canterbury wouldn’t do it. During this time Mercia seems to have annexed Hwicce and Magonsaete. There was probably war with Wales and Offa’s Dyke may have been created as defensive measure. Offa died in 796, probably in his 60s, and his anointed son ruled for half a year before dying. Who’s next? |
March 30th, 2023 |
Mercia | After Aethelred, it looks like Wulfhere’s son was king, died, then Aethelred’s son, Ceorlred or something, and he died around 714. Then maybe there was a Ceorlwald or something. But the main man to talk about is Aethelbald. This was not a descendent of Penda, but of Penda’s father Pybba. Remember Eowa, the potentially puppet king installed by Edwin of Northumbria. Aethelbald is his grandson, I think. Aethelbald reigned for 41 years, but a lot about him is obscure. How did he come to power? He was in exile around East Anglia during his youth. Did he kill Ceorlwald (if he existed)? Or did the ealdorman tire of Penda’s line after the run of bad kings and seek him out? What we do know if that he was a warrior and a good one. He was not named Bretwalda by Bede, but he was essentially overlord of southern England. Even one charter styled him Rex Brittaniae. He left the Northumbrians alone mostly, only invading once while the king was fighting the Picts. He may have set fire to York. He might have left them alone because his grandfather had ties with them. Aethelbald himself had no ties, as he was unmarried. He was on good terms with East Anglia and most of his struggles seemed to be with Wessex. He potentially even conquered Powys. He was also pious and gave much to the church, though he was lambasted for “fornicating with nuns”. Seems like a cool dude. It’s not easy to have that much power for that long. Once he was old, power started to wane. Some of the satellites did a little more self-governing. In his 41st year, probably putting him in his mid or late 60s, he was killed. It seems a close associate tried to take his throne. Offa, a great-great grandson of Eowa, Aethelbald’s first-cousin twice-removed, took the throne from this usurper. Aethelbald was buried at Repton, where a large memorial stone may still be standing. He must have been highly respected. |
March 29th, 2023 |
Mercia | Now we’re getting to a more organized way of writing, and we’re also entering an era where the early chroniclers are contemporary or near contemporary. This third chapter covers roughly the second half of the 7th century and is mostly about the sons of Penda. It seems that all of Penda’s sons were Christians, and some of them were still quite young when he died (age 50 something most likely). Several sons were mentioned earlier. Peada, maybe the eldest, was made king of the Middle Angles by his father. Peada married a Northumbrian princess, I think a daughter of Oswiu. Peada died in 657, possibly murdered by his wife. The Northumbrian and Mercian dynasty have many familial ties, but there relationship is very complex. As stated, Middle Anglia never had a second king. Another man who may have been a son (step-son? Nephew? Adopted son?) of Penda, Merewahl, was king of Magonsaete, an area of northwest Mercia on the border with Wales. This territory eventually became Mercia. Oswiu seemed to allow Merewahl to maintain this territory after he subjugated Mercia. Merewahl married an Kentish princess, and their three daughters were saints. Oswiu never planted a new king in Mercia, only installing his ealdormen. A few years later, the Mercian ealdormen rebelled and put Penda’s son Wulfhere on the throne. Oswiu may have been occupied fighting the Welsh, because there were no consequences. Wulf here ruled until 675 and did very well. He essentially became overlord of all the southern kingdoms. He married a Kentish princess, the sister of Merewahl’s wife. Oswiu died and his son Ecgfrith was king. I think Wulfhere sometime after a battle against Aescwine of Wessex, but it may not be related. His brother Aethelred became king and ruled 30 years before retiring to a monastery. There had been several territorial disputes and it seems the Northumbrians took Lindsey. In 679, the Mercians regained it at the battle of Trent, where Ecgfrith’s brother, king of Deira, was killed. There were no more kings of Deira. Aethelred was married to Ecgfrith’s sister. He was also a good king who maintained overlordship of the south. He cemented the control of Hwicce and Surrey. I think his wife was murdered. After he abdicated, there is little said about the next kings. They were probably both sons of Wulfhere, but were not well liked and did not reign many years. Only negative things are written of them. In the early 8th century, a new Mercian line unrelated to Penda took the kingdom. |
March 28th, 2023 |
Mercia | The second chapter is about the formation of Mercia. Of course, this time period is even more obscured than the years of Penda. The name may come from the word for “marches”, signifying that the are named such because they are the “border people”. Because they border the British? Possibly, or possibly because they border north England. A big topic is the Tribal Hidage, which is a document that assess certain regions for how many hides of land they have. No one knows why this document exists. Did Mercians write it? Doubtful, as why would this one document survive where so many did not. Possibly the Northumbrians wrote it in their heyday to know how much tribute is owned. Once Northumbria eclipsed Kent and East Anglia as the powerhouse, they could assess them for tribute (cattle), though I don’t think Kent ever came under the sway of them. This document provides a lot of named regions which are separate from the Mercian section, which would imply they were at one point independent. I don’t remember all the names, but some of them are known kingdoms, like Hwicce and Lindsey. Wessex, East Anglia, Sussex, Essex, Elmet, and some others are listed. The bigger kingdoms have larger values. Missing is Middle Anglia, which was probably created by Penda and short lived. Speaking of, why was there no West Anglia? Possibly the Mercians were the West Angles. I don’t know, it’s all over the place and there are so many unreliable sources. Everything was written outside of Mercia decades or centuries later. The next chapter jumps back to where we left off. What happens after the death of Penda? |
March 26th, 2023 |
Mercia | Beginning this book today. Read the introduction and the first chapter. It looks like it will discuss various chunks of time from the 7th century up to the end of the 11th. Chapter 1 tries to focus on Penda, who was a pagan and king for some time, and is notorious in the records written by churchmen (such as Bede). The chapter is kind of all over the place and I think it could have been structured a little better. That said, the written record is scant or unreliable. Mercians under a pagan house were illiterate, so there is no written record period. The sources come from elsewhere and later. I’ll try to structure the story chronologically. At the beginning of the 7th century, Northumbria was not a single kingdom. There was Bernicia in the north and Deira in the south (around York). There was also a Welsh/British kingdom called Elmet southwest of Deira, a buffer with Mercia. The king of Mercia (Aethelfrith or something) attacked Deira and killed the king. The king’s brother(?) Edwin, cousin(?) Oswald, and son(?) Hereric fled. Edwin was at the court of King Cearl in Mercia for some time and married his daughter. Penda may have been a child here, possibly the nephew of Cearl. Hereric was murdered in Elmet. Edwin then fled Mercia for some reason, possibly because Cearl was deposed by Aethelfrith, and possibly Penda’s brother was put on the throne as a puppet. Edwin went to the court of East Anglia, the southern powerhouse. Eventually the king helped Edwin regain his throne and Aethelfrith was killed. It seems that as king of the two kingdoms, Edwin was expansive and conquered Elmet (maybe to avenge Hereric). The king of Gwynedd attacked Edwin and Penda fought under him. Penda may have been king, but probably not. Edwin died in battle. Now the different heirs to the two crowns try to claim them. Shortly Oswald became king of both kingdoms and reclaimed Northumbrian supremacy. Bede, writing 100 years later, loves this guy. They’re both Northumbrian Christians. Oswald invaded Mercia and Gwynedd and Penda fought him at Heavensfield. The King of Gwynedd was killed and Northumbria won. A decade later, Oswald was killed in Mercia at Maserfield. By this time Penda is most likely king and a powerful ruler. He probably ha become the most powerful king in England. Though a pagan, he is tolerant of Christians and allowed missionaries in Mercia. He despised hypocritical Christians. Penda then fought another battle 10 years later, 655. The battle of Winwaed was against Northumbrian king Oswiu, son of Aethelfrith. The Mercians were joined by most of the southern kingdoms, including East Anglia, and some Welsh kingdoms. Clearly Oswiu was not liked, as he was probably another Northumbrian overlord looking for tribute. That makes it seem that Penda was not as powerful as they stories say. Either way, this coalition was doomed. Penda was killed in battle. Now we know that soon Mercia will reign supreme, but right now Northumbria has the English under its thumb. This is how I remember it. I may have gotten a lot of it wrong. As I said, it jumped around. But really this just covered about 600 to 655. |
March 25th, 2023 |
For Whom The Bell Tolls | I finished the book today. I couldn’t stop reading it as the crescendo approached. Andres and an officer named Gomez travel through the night and, long story short, get where they need to go. Gomez asks for the location of Golz from the guard of a building, but he does not no and calls for the colonel. Then a French guy, someone famous, but one of those purging communists, arrives. Gomez asks him, and he has Gomez and Andres arrested. The colonel arrives and tells Gomez that this man is very crazy and he will try to help them. Karkov arrives, and he is an important Soviet journalist with ties to Stalin. He forces the Frenchman to return the dispatch and tells him he will test his untouchability. Gomez and Andres are led to another general, who reads the dispatch. He tries to contact Golz, but cannot reach him. He tries to cancel the attack, but not knowing the bigger picture, cancels the cancel. He reaches Golz, who allows the attack to continue. The momentum is too great. The both feel that it is doomed. Andres, with his mission complete, knows he will never make it to the bridge, nor does he know if he will ever find Pablo’s band again. Now, the moment all has been waiting for. Pablo and his recruits go to the outpost. Robert, Anselmo, and Agustin prepare at the bridge. Pilar, Rafael, Fernando, Primitivo, and Eladio (brother of Andres) go to the sawmill. Once they hear the bombing and the begin of battle, Robert kills his man at the bridge and Anselmo kills the other. Anselmo assists Robert place dynamite below the bridge. They hear the shooting from the other two sites. It is a long battle. Robert rigs the grenades with wire so that the pulling the wire will blow the bridge. Eventually, Pilar’s group returns to the bridge. Eladio was killed in battle and Fernando is wounded, mortally. Pablo’s group is still fighting sporadically. Fernando is placed near the bridge and given a gun, though he is too weak to be of any help. A truck starts to approach the bridge shortly after Robert has prepared everything and he runs. He orders Anselmo to pull the wire and blow the bridge. He does, and the bridge explodes. It worked, the gorge is impassible. Robert is alive, but Anselmo has taken steel from the explosion and is dead. Robert wants to leave Pablo, because he blames Pablo for Anselmo’s death. If he had the proper ignition, Anselmo would live. Pilar convinces him otherwise. Robert and Agustin wait with the machine gun for Pablo’s arrival. Pablo eventually comes running, and he shoots behind him. It is revealed Pablo murdered his recruits. Pablo should have been killed a long time ago. He is a terrible person. A small tank or armored car is following him, but the machine gun scares it. The fascists are being cautious. The men make a run for it to the horses and the survivors ride off. They start riding, but have to cross the road. The tank fires explosives as they do. Robert is the last to cross and a shell explodes near him. His horse falls and breaks his femur. They are able to pull Robert out and into the woods, but all know it is over for him. He says what he must to Pablo and Pilar, and then he speaks with Maria. It’s a very sad scene. Pablo and Pilar then take Maria away. Agustin offers to shoot Robert, but he says no. Agustin gives a tearful farewell, as well as a tough and foul-mouthed warrior can do. Robert is now alone and thinks about his final moments. He thinks about shooting himself, but would rather wait and try to kill some more fascists on the road. He positions himself and waits, fighting the oncoming pain and fading consciousness. Eventually, the cavalrymen who killed Sordo’s band arrive. The officer dismounts where the dead horse is. It is the same officer, and they all know the horse. It is the horse of the man Robert killed yesterday. Robert aims. The book ends. I can’t stop thinking of the poem at the opening of the book. No man is an island; everyone is a piece of the continent...Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. Every death should bring some feeling. I’m not going to say every death should bring sadness; I don’t believe that. Some deaths bring joy, some bring relief. But to bring nothing is a tragedy in itself. Maybe the book has made me very emotional. I found out that yesterday in my hometown there was an explosion in a factory. 5 dead so far, with 6 missing who are probably dead. I don’t know if it’s the location, the thought that maybe I had known or interacted at some point in my life with these poor people, or just the disgust at the negligent bosses who are either too cheap or too lazy to do the necessary inspections and maintenance, but I feel a great sadness from this news. How many similar stories have I ignored? Countless. And nothing will come of this, I’m sure of that. It tolls for thee. |
March 23rd, 2023 |
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism | Finished the book today, for the most part. There’s probably over 100 pages of notes, but no way am I reading that. There wasn’t much more added in the few pages I had left. As stated yesterday, Second Isaiah talked trash a lot about Babylonian idolatry. But the main purpose may not have been to praise Yahweh in contrast to the Babylonians. Possibly, it was to convince the Israelite audience that nothing is gained by partaking in Babylonian idolatry. Generations were in exile in a foreign culture, and those born there probably adapted to it. This is to convince them to be part of their own culture. Guess it worked, Not only did this monotheistic approach successfully change Israelite culture, it clearly changed world history. Way to go, Isaiah. Going to stop writing while I read LOTR part 2. |
| For Whom The Bell Tolls | Things are starting to move quickly and we jump around between characters. In the night, Andres travels through fascist country until he makes it to the Republican line. On the way he thinks about the attack on the bridge. He wants to be a part of it, be a part of his band, but he can’t help feeling relieved at the thought that he might miss it. Regardless, he intends to return quickly. The guards don’t trust him and it takes a lot of talking to get them to allow him to approach, even shooting at him once. Andres realizes they are fundamentalists, anarchists, so he knows what words to say to them. They allow him to approach through the wire and check his papers. They still don’t fully trust him, so the commanding officer takes his gun and goes with him to the general. We also see Karkov, a character Robert mentioned from the Russian hotel, talking to some people, maybe in Madrid. They hear a rumor that the fascists are attacking themselves in the region. I don’t know if that will be relevant. Pilar wakes Robert around 2 in the morning. She was sleeping on the dynamite, but Pablo has taken some and the ignition and left. This is a disaster. Robert is then trapped in thought on what to do and reflecting on his life. His grandfather was in the army during the Civil War and after. His father killed himself with his grandfather’s pistol. His father was a coward, and he wishes he could talk to his grandfather right now. He thinks he will have to do some sort of suicide mission to blow the bridge. It makes no difference; it was a suicide mission regardless. He still hopes for a future with Maria, as they discussed earlier in the night, a make believe future that will never be. He declares themselves married. She had told him all about her family’s murder and the taking of her town. In the morning, Robert has planned to try to blow up the dynamite with grenades, doubting it will work. Unexpectedly, Pablo returns. He says he does not want to be alone, and also thought of grenades. He destroyed the ignitor, but has brought 5 men from other bands. They wait for the attack. | |
March 22nd, 2023 |
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism | The final chapter is on “Second Isaiah”, or Isaiah 40-55, which was probably written by someone else, hence the name. It seems that the author considers this “the most” monotheistic text the Hebrew Bible. In short, it has a lot of lines that claim there is no god other than Yahweh and it mocks the polytheistic tendency toward idolatry. The Semitics would create idols out of wood or other material, typically a foot or two tall, and worship it. Sacrifices were given to it, it was brought food, it was paraded around. A new idol had to go through certain rituals in order to be able to contain the god. “Awakening” rituals. Of course, they did not believe that his thing WAS the god, but could at times be inhabited by the god. The god could go anywhere, it was a god. The god was in the cosmos. Isaiah just talks trash on this. He mocks how they make the idol and use the same wood to heat their food. He mocks how they have to carry their god around, where Yahweh carries the world. He makes some damn good points. It is silly to try to feed a piece of wood. There was some other stuff in there, too. Since this was in the exile, there was no more monarchy. The text writes out the monarchy as the conduit for Yahweh on earth. The people of Israel are to do the work of Yahweh, etc. |
| For Whom The Bell Tolls | As they’re on top of the hill, bad news comes. Robert hears a noise in the distance, the sound of gun fire. El Sordo and men went to steal horses last night and the snow showed their tracks. The cavalrymen found them. Primitivo wants to go and help them, but Robert says no. They are done for. It cuts to El Sordo and his men on top of a hill. The cavalrymen led a foolish charge and several were killed, including an officer. Sordo’s band lugged the machine gun to the top of the hill under fire and prepare their last stand. Sordo is personally surprised they haven’t been bombed yet, or killed by mortar fire. At this point, the men begin to accept their death, though the young Joaquin still thinks they can make it. The fascist captain yells at the “bandits” to surrender. Sordo gets an idea and fires some pistol shots into the ground. He wants it to look like they’ve killed themselves, hoping some men will come out into the open to be shot. The crazed captain keeps shouting and believes their dead, but the second in command and the sniper doubt it. The sniper refuses to follow orders and go up the hill. The lieutenant, whose best friend was killed in the captain’s foolish earlier charge, tells the captain they are still alive. The captain walks up the hill to prove his point. Sordo is a little disappointed that only one man comes out, but kills him anyway. He wants the other officer, knowing he’ll have to run elsewhere to command. Before this happens, the planes come. Sordo’s band reorganize to shoot up at the planes, mounting the gun on Joaquin’s back. The bombs fall and kill them, except Joaquin is knocked out. The facsists throw some grenades and fire at the spot to make sure they are dead. The lieutenant finds the still breathing Joaquin and shoots him in the head. They cut off the heads as proof and go to town. Later Anselmo goes to town for news and watches the road. He sees the troop with the bag of heads and their own dead. He finds the headless bodies on Sordo’s hill. Back at the cave, Pablo already brought that news. Robert sends Andres to find the general with a letter to call off the attack, based on all the movement on the road. He comes to terms that the attack will happen regardless and he must blow up the bridge. Pablo confesses to Robert that he (Robert) is smarter than him, and that he (Pablo) has confidence in him. The snow has melted, so let’s see what day brings. | |
March 21st, 2023 |
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism | The rest of the chapter is pretty dull. It makes a mention of how wisdom and the tree of life are personified as women, and that this may have been an attempt to erase goddesses with something monotheistic. Then it talks about the lack of myths in the Bible. There is a lot of mythical rhetoric, but the idea of epics and anthropomorphism has been wiped out. It is possible that myths existed in Israel outside the Bible and that those who compiled the Bible make some edits or omissions to enforce the monotheistic ideas. Stuff like that. |
| For Whom The Bell Tolls | Robert snaps back to reality and there is more talk amongst the group. They talk about Russian from the train job, Kashkin, and Pilar reveals that Robert killed him when he was wounded. This turns to a conversation on how Pilar could smell death on him when he was there. Robert is skeptical and then there is a whole tirade on it. Robert then sleeps outside with Maria. With the snow done, Fernando is given first watch of the night. In the morning, Robert wakes up and hears someone coming. A man on a horse appears and the two men see each other. Robert quickly shoots him dead. The gypsy was on watch but disappeared. Robert gives orders quickly. Pablo is given the horse to make a trail as if the cavalryman had left under normal conditions. Augustin and one of the others go to the top of the rocks with the machine gun. Pilar strips the body for information and papers. Robert finds the machine gun in a bad position and sets them straight. The group had no training with the thing; they’re only self-taught. Robert tells Augustin where to aim, but don’t shoot unless necessary. One of the brothers climbs a high rock and signals that 4 cavalrymen are coming. They get very close and look directly at the gun, but do not see it. It is tense and Augustin is sweating, but holds his fire. The men then follow Pablo’s trail. There is a short reprieve when another signal says many men are coming. A troop of cavalrymen gallop by and follow the other four. Robert is relieved, but knew how close a call this was. He sends Anselmo back to the road to count traffic, but Anselmo instead requests to go to town for information. The gypsy was scolded and Robert says he’ll shoot him if he does it again. He had left his post to hunt two fat rabbits he had seen, but he is remorseful for the trouble he caused. No action will be taken until the snow melts and no tracks will be created. Tomorrow the attack should start. | |
March 20th, 2023 |
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism | This book has become a bit of a slog. The penultimate chapter is on the formation (origins?) of monotheism in Biblical literature. I guess this chapter is just straight-up analyzing Biblical text. The last chapter looks like it will be even more narrow scoped and only about the book Isaiah. The 9th chapter starts talking about creation. In contrast to the standard Middle Eastern creation story about conflict between forces, Genesis is very tame. God says what he wants, and it happens. There is no vanquishing of the sea god to tame the seas, no fighting of monsters, just words. In contrast to king being the divine image, all mankind is created in God’s image. A lot of this setup in Genesis may be justification for the priestly rule and laws in the post-exilic period. There is no king anymore, no more parallel between the Divine Warrior and his earthly servant. Gensis creates a system that provides logic for priestly tradition (the sabbath, kosher eating, etc.). Paradise is set-up to be an allegory for Jerusalem and the temple, or something. That’s what I got out of it. |
| For Whom The Bell Tolls | Returning to the cave, the guys warm up and have some dinner. Pablo is drunk and verbally belligerent. Not outright belligerent, but offensive and irritating to everyone. Things get tense and Robert starts pushing him, hoping for an opportunity to shoot him. Pablo knows the game and doesn’t allow himself to be provoked. One of the other guys (Augustin?), the foul-mouthed one I think, starts to provoke Pablo and fails. He hits him a couple times, but Pablo just smiles. In his drunkenness, he admits to regretting all the killing he has done. Pablo leaves to go see the horses. When he is gone, they discuss killing him. Robert and Anselmo do not get a say because they are new. Everyone is for killing Pablo, though Fernando, the proper one, is initially against it. Robert says he is willing to assassinate Pablo. Pablo returns at this time and is calm and friendly, claiming he is now sober. He says he has planned the retreat and is now going to be part of the bridge operation. Augustin tries to provoke Pablo, but again it does not work. Robert remembers that there is dynamite in the cave, and takes Augustin to the side to drop the shooting plan. Things are calm now and Robert plans the attack. He regrets “riding the carousel” of Pablo’s imbalance. The future is uncertain. Robert then thinks about going to Madrid after the attack and reminisces about the previous time he was there. He spent much of his time with the Russians at their hotel headquarters, where discipline is lax. The rest of the chapter is a lot of Robert thinking about battles and remembering his experience and innocence/naivete at the start of war. Maybe this was revealed earlier, but he thinks about his Spanish teaching in Montana (or Ohio or something) and wonders if they will let him teach if he returns. They may find out he’s a “red”. The snow is letting up, so the attack is likely to be the day after next. | |
March 19th, 2023 |
For Whom The Bell Tolls | A lot of this reading was the thoughts of Robert Jordan. Everyone left the meeting feeling bad and Pilar doesn’t seem to be doing well. They needed a break walking downhill and she admitted that she was jealous of Maria. It seems she doesn’t want to lose her, even though she can be hard on her. They split up and the lovers do their thing. After that is a long stream of consciousness from Robert. Pretty much he regrets that he has fallen in love when he knows he and these others are likely to die in a few days. He has a feeling that the mission is impossible, but knows he has to do it anyway. He regrets that he has to lead these people, some or all, to their deaths, and he has come to like them very much. But he’s led people before and has to again. He keeps thinking about Maria and their future together, one that may never come. Back at camp Pilar acts weird with them, but it moves on. They look up and see snow coming. Pablo is drunk and thrilled by the snow. The attack will be delayed by several days. Rafael the gypsy comes back from the snow with his report. He tells Robert where to find Anselmo and the serious guy offers to go with him. Anselmo is waiting in the cold and watching the mill. He can’t decide whether to stay or go, as it’s getting colder and colder. He stays and thinks about the men in the mill, how they’re not bad guys, not real fascists. He doesn’t want to kill anyone. We get some conversation from the soldiers, they’re not even from the area. Robert finds Anselmo is happy to see him. He is very friendly to him and knows he can count on him. He’ll probably get killed. |
March 17th, 2023 |
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism | Read the rest of chapter 8 and it was pretty boring. I think a lot of it was said elsewhere in the book. Long story short, the Israelites were polytheistic and mainly worshiped Yahweh. Solomon screwed up by worshiping other gods, though this is never mentioned in the book. The point is, other gods existing is acknowledged. The author calls this monolatry. He quotes a bunch of sources and I don’t remember them. There are some discussions of divine kingship and parallels between Yahweh fighting with heavenly hosts and the king fighting his and God’s enemies on Earth. There isn’t a lot of true monotheistic literature in the Bible. The author again claims the monotheism became prominent around the exile when traditional borders eroded and the large empires destroyed the small kingdoms. Authority was needed to keep cultural identity. |
| For Whom The Bell Tolls | Read another chapter but not much occurred. They make it to El Sordo’s camp and encounter the guard Joaquin. He knows the ladies and is introduced to Robert. He seems like a decent guy and soldier. He brings up his dead family and it becomes an emotional moment. Robert has heard this story many times before and nothing he’s heard compares to Pilar’s story. Clearly he was affected by it. As a foreigner, he was not there and could not understand the feeling of killing people you’ve known your whole life. They go to talk to El Sordo and make some plans. It seems like everyone thinks this will end in failure. | |
March 16th, 2023 |
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism | The rest of chapter 7 was a discussion of El in Israel. As written earlier, a lot of words and names use have El in them as opposed to some form of Yahweh (which does exist in later names). Israel is a key point. The thought is that El was originally the chief god, as in Ugarit. Yahweh was a son of El and his inheritance was Israel. Yahweh, like Baal, was a warrior god. Somewhere in time the cult of El diminished and Yahweh was chief. Through some process, the two were merged, or El became obsolete. Thus El was no longer the father and Yahweh the son, because there was only one god. Something like that. Then the next question was: Was El the god of Exodus? Probably. The old books tend to give Yahweh traits of El, like the bull horns, and they use the word El more than Yahweh. Names like Moses and others are Egyptian and the cult of Yahweh seems to have formed in the Sinai and southern regions and spread north, possibly through trade and friendly methods. El was the family god, of Abraham and his lineage. As the Israelites became a people and expanded, the warrior god became more appropriate for worship. Since the books are written and edited by much later people, we may never know the original Yahweh and his connection to El. Chapter 8 is about the emergence of monotheism in the Judah. As discussed before, many parts of the Bible seem to acknowledge the existence of divine beings other than God. Some think this change to “there is only God” occurred in the Exodus, some think in the Kingdom period, but the author thinks in the Exile. To be continued. |
| For Whom The Bell Tolls | There was a long chapter and it was brutal. Disturbing and emotionally draining. The next day Robert sends Anselmo and the gypsy to watch the road and count the number of Fascists who travel. There were a large number of bombers flying overhead. Robert worried that they were going to bomb his men nearby and ruin the planned assault, but it seems they were flying much further away. Then Robert, Pilar, and Maria start to walk to see the other group of guerrillas. Pilar is kind of out of shape and decides to sit for a bit by a creek. Robert is in a hurry, but she keeps talking. Since he couldn’t convince her to move, they began talking about the beginning of the revolution. On the first day in their town, Pablo had surrounded a fascist outputs with 10 or so men inside. In the night, he laid dynamite at the entrance. When they refused to surrender, he blew up the wall. Shooting began, and then 4 men surrendered. Pablo went in to execute the wounded. He found an officer’s pistol and executed the 4 men who surrendered. Also in the night, he rounded up all the fascist men in town. He blocked off the square except the way towards a cliff’s edge. 20 men were in a building with a priest to give the last rites, while the townspeople formed two lines with flails and other weapons. Most of these men had never killed. Pablo forced the first man out, and he walked down the lines unharmed. Then one man, who was personally angry at him, started to attack him. Then he was thrown over the cliff. A second man, whom most in the town considered a joke and a coward, was sent out. He was unable to walk. Pablo put a shotgun to his back and forced him to go. He closed his eyes and walked as everyone mocked him. No one hit him. Once he was close to the edge, he begged for his life as they threw him over. The third man was haughty and insulted Pablo and the crowd. His words enraged him and they beat him to death. Maybe there was one more they beat to death this way. Next was a man who was a fascist, but other than that, well liked by the people. People hesitated to hit him. His wife ran out to him. However, many in the audience were drunk. These drunkards decided to insult this man, then came out and beat him to death. Pilar and a few others were sickened by this rude destruction of a decent man. Then, everything fell apart. The drunken mob tried to storm the building of prisoners, but it was locked. I think another guy, a very fat one, was sent out. The mob smashed his head against the stone pavement. A man decided it was his time to go out, but Pablo said no. The rage of the crowd built for minutes, then the guards unlocked the door. The remaining men and the priest were slaughtered brutally. The people celebrated that night, and Pablo was proud of his work. Pilar was disturbed by it. Maria did not want to hear more, or about what happened 3 days later when the fascists came to town. Pilar told Robert she would tell him one day, as it was only fair. I found this chapter very disturbing and sadly realistic. I can imagine it happening countless times in history. I picture myself being one of the executed. I don’t think I’ll forget this book. | |
March 15th, 2023 |
For Whom The Bell Tolls | Read another 50 pages and it is an interesting story. There hasn’t been much action, but a good amount of character building and tension. Robert and Anselmo (the old man) scope out the bridge. On the way back, they talk. Anselmo says he’s never been in a battle, since he retreated in one at the start of the war. There was no real leadership or plan, and all he had was a shot gun. He also admits to having killed, but he considers it a sin. He grew up religious, but no longer believes in God (because he’s a socialist?). Regardless, killing is a sin and he hopes to get forgiveness one day. The tension occurs when they return to camp. A guard stops them and nearly shoots them, but Anselmo knows him. He warns Robert to guard the dynamite. In the cave, they wait for dinner. There are two more men, and the gypsy is no longer very friendly. They talk and Robert decides to rip the band-aid: he mentions the bridge. Pablo says there will be no blowing of the bridge. Pablo’s woman (Pilar) says there will be. The remaining members of the group side with Pilar, and thus she is now leader. She calls Pablo a drunkard and coward. He says he is not stupid and knows they will be killed for nothing. Pilar might know this too, she read Robert’s palm. She is a true Republican. The conversation turns argumentative and Robert places his hand on his pistol. Pablo concedes. Later the gypsy Rafael tells Robert he made a mistake and should have killed Pablo. Danger will come of his living. Pablo is later seen in the night talking to the horses. Robert returns to the cave and talks to Pilar. He mentions what the gypsy said, and Pilar disagrees. Robert did right by refraining from shooting. Then he and the young woman Maria bang or something. I guess they fall in love quickly. |
March 14th, 2023 |
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism | Now we’re getting to the point of the book. Where was El worshiped, when was he worshiped, and did Israel worship him? It was a lot of words and references to ancient documents I’ve never heard of, but here is my understanding. Most of the knowledge of El’s cult comes from the Bronze Age and second millennium BC. There is scant and conflicting evidence for cults during the Iron Age and first millennium. It’s important to know that the word for god is also El. That makes it difficult to determine if something is referencing THE El or an el. The Ugaritic texts say a lot about El. He is the creator god and is now an old man. He lives far away, where the cosmic seas meet, and may live in a tent-like structure. He heals, he creates, he feasts with the dead, he loves the ladies, but I don’t know if he is all powerful. His relationship with Baal is confusing, but seems tense. He prefers other gods like Yam as king, possibly because Baal is not one of his own. So is Yahweh El? Did El become Yahweh? Were they merged? I guess that’s the rest of the chapter. El may have existed in Iron Age Israel. Yahweh is also a creator and healer who lives far away and lives in a tent-like structure. In the older books he is referred to as El Shaddai and becomes Yahweh to Moses. I guess if there were hard evidence, it wouldn’t need a book, we’d just know it. Again, the El-el thing really confuses any scripture. We’ll see what the rest of the chapter says. |
March 13th, 2023 |
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism | This is all about Baal’s death. The author does not consider Baal to be a dying and rising god (if any exist) because he is never shown to rise. He just is back. The categories may be “disappearing”, then “dying”, then “dying and rising”. The Hittie storm god disappears (to take a nap), and vegetation dies. He is awoken and placated to return. Baal, however, dies. He has a funeral. This story parallels the rituals involved with the death of the Ugaritic king (Baal is a king and the patron god of Ugarit). Thus it is possible that Baal is the mythological representation of the royal line. Baal dies, like the old king, but he lives and continues to reign, like the heir to the throne. This death seems unique to Ugarit. There is are many parallels between Yahweh’s story and Baal’s (fighting monsters Leviathan and others), but not this dealing with death. So maybe Ugarit developed a unique story to show the fragility of the royal system and explain its continuation. This ends section two. |
March 12th, 2023 |
For Whom The Bell Tolls | Started this today and read a couple chapters. It’s an interesting start. The main character Robert Jordan is a foreigner fighting with the Spanish Republicans. He’s staking out a bridge with an old Spanish man that he is tasked with blowing up when his general starts an attack. Robert and the old man start up the mountain with the bags of dynamite to meet a local band of guerrillas. Robert doesn’t know any of these people, so he is wary. I think he starts trusting the old man, but the band is a bit off. Their leader, Pablo, is does not approve of the attack and is despondent. He knows the explosion will cause the fascists to search the country, so they must leave. Robert is worried that Pablo will either rat them out to save himself, or just up and quit. The old man gives Pablo a hard time for this attitude. Another member of the guerillas is a gypsy who is a bit of a loafer, and a young girl they picked up when the group attacked a train. This train attack involved Robert’s predecessor, a Russian, who is now dead. Something’s gonna happen between Robert and the girl. Pablo’s wife seems to kind of run the group, and she is worried about her husband. She’s rough, but approves of Robert’s mission. They’ll meet more guerrillas that night, but first Robert and the old man have to check out the bridge. The writing style is a bit strange. It seems like Hemingway is writing in English as if it were Spanish speaking speaking English. In reality, I assume everyone would be speaking Spanish. It’s an odd choice, or maybe it’s just in my head. |
March 11th, 2023 |
A Conspiratorial Life | Finished the book today. There wasn’t much left in the last chapter. Pretty much Reagan gets elected and around this time the JBS starts going bankrupt. JBS’s popularity peaked in the 70’s when people started to actually find out about real government conspiracies. I guess nowadays we take it for granted that the government does horrible things to people. Back then, maybe they thought differently. I don’t see how, as this is the government of genociders, lynchers, and strike breakers. Reagan was the pinnacle of GOP and Christianity, though Welch didn’t consider him a true conservative because he signed some lax abortion laws as governor. Reagan espoused conspiracies that crackpot Welch propagated. Reagan even conspired himself with Iran-Contra. Scumbag. It’s clear that Welch had a long lasting effect on the GOP. He then died in 85. The epilogue then goes over all the problems with Alex Jones and partisan media outlets and Trump’s bandwagon on it. 9/11 may not have been a conspiracy, but Iraq certainly was. The 2000 election was also shady and probably a conspiracy. Can’t trust nobody. |
March 10th, 2023 |
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism | Still on this chapter and only got through the section on comparing between different gods. There was another one I don’t remember, Melqart or something. Never heard of him, but he’s probably more of the Tammuz/Dummuzi vein. Adonis is similar in that he may have been a deified king. His cult does seem to have something to do with agriculture, but again, there are no known rites for “resurrection”. The author notes that a lot of the classical authors are centuries removed from these religions and of a foreign culture. |
| A Conspiratorial Life | The last chapter is more on what JBS was doing in the 70s and 80s, presumably up to the death of Welch. Their grassroots movement really drove the whacky Christians and Catholics into the GOP. JBS was early on the anti-abortion movement and related things. Anything dumb Christians were protesting (and still are today), the JBS probably had some organizing done. They were very much against women’s rights and the Equal Rights Amendment, and rights for anyone, for that matter. Property rights. Why don’t they view abortion as a property right? Because they are dumb. Then they want to drop taxes to incredibly low numbers, which of course happened, and still happens. Reagan favored the rich and so has every president since. At least Welch isn’t screeching about Communists so much now. | |
March 9th, 2023 |
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism | The chapter discusses the concept of the “dying and rising god” and whether it applies to Baal. The author gives some background to Frazer, who wrote about this idea and popularized it. He claims the Middle Eastern cultures all had this same concept. Osiris, Baal, Adonis, and others fall under this (he even brings up Jesus). He first published his book in the 1890s. In modern times, this has been reanalyzed and criticized. Frazer generalizes cultures which he, and anyone who was not a part of them, had a poor understanding of and sees large scale patterns but misses the details that really break the theory. The author definitely does not agree with Frazer. The concept is that the dying god represents the death of plants and crops after harvest and during the ungrowable season, while the rising represents the return of plants. They call rituals that promote the growth “fertility rites”. The author than looks at some of these gods and explains why this doesn’t work. Osiris died and stayed dead. He lives in the underworld and never returned to the land of the living. He is associated with funerary rites and the dead pharaohs, not plants, though he is depicted with wheat sometimes. The next was Tammuz or something Akkadian. This may not have even been a god, but a deified king, a mortal. He was associated with flocks, not agriculture. There was definitely more, but I don’t remember. |
| A Conspiratorial Life | One more chapter and and epilogue. This short chapter talks about JBS’s financial troubles in the 70s but they success with conservative movements. They sort of led the Christian bandwagons on anti-abortion, anti-porn, Satanism, blah blah blah. Nut jobs. The book talks about this Bunker guy who got rich on Libyan oil and was as crazy as Welch. He gave Welch plenty of money, but the finances were not good enough. | |
March 8th, 2023 |
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism | The fifth chapter ends with the topic of immorality. It is common in most mythologies that gods neither age nor die and the Middle Eastern tradition is no different. Gods live forever, man does not. There are cases of divine beings dying, but often they appear again. Baal kills Mot and Yamm, yet they later appear without acknowledgement. Baal dies and returns, which is the topic of the next chapter. Divine monsters are killed and their bodies are used to create the cosmos. Most of these deaths occur “long ago” and are not relevant to life for man. They are narratives. Gods without worship are “dead”, meaning defunct. They are no longer relevant, so their existence does not matter. Yahweh is also immortal. There is a psalm where he declares the other gods “dead”. This may mean that in the era of polytheism, he makes the gods of other nations irrelevant. Only the god of Israel exists. |
| A Conspiratorial Life | This book’s pretty repetitive. It’s winding down and there doesn’t sound like there’s much else to discuss. We’re just waiting for Welch to die. It’s all the standard Jesus-freak and libertarian politics with the crazy conspiracies about one-world governments tucked underneath. There’s like 50 pages left; I’ll finish it soon. | |
March 7th, 2023 |
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism | There was more on divinity and anthropomorphism. It feels like I read a lot but I don’t really remember it. I think the main points on anthropomorphism were covered yesterday. The next section was on holiness, and it wasn’t that interesting. I guess for Western Semitics the holy ones existed in their own space but also as part of ours. They were manifested in the surroundings: rain, fire, disease. The holy ones or gods were not some distant object but were often nearby. Contrast this with the Biblical Yahweh who is does not really have form and is everywhere at all times. He exists “without” but can approach humans in a way that works for them. Gods are scary and their holy presence causes trembling etc. Stuff like that. |
| A Conspiratorial Life | More of the same. It’s just slowly going through American history. JBS got new recruits after all the racial rioting and whatnot. The left fragments and falls apart. Welch comes out as a Pro-Vietnam War even though he thinks it’s a phony war. This alienates some of his higher ups; several resign. To Welch’s chagrin, Nixon is the Republican candidate and wins in 1968. Welch thinks he is secretly a liberal in the pay of Rockefeller and that Kissinger is a UN agent. | |
March 6th, 2023 |
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism | I finished chapter 4 on Friday but didn’t get a chance to write anything. I don’t remember it, probably more of the same. Chapter 5 begins a new section about the aspects of divinity. It starts with physical aspects. The first, gods are big. In the Ugaritic texts they are generally described as superhuman in size. El and Baal are especially big. Baal is said to be as big as his mountain. The Temple of Jerusalem had a giant throne room for Yahweh. The next, which I didn’t finish yet, is on anthropomorphism, or looking like a person. The gods tend to do normal human activities, like eating, singing, dreaming, walking, banging. Their hands, or “the divine hand”, tends to be a euphemism for their power. Yahweh, as seen in Genesis, walks about and looks for Adam. He lacks the omnipresence and omniscience in the old stories. Even in the post-exile period there is regular talk about Yahweh’s human-like attributes. The priests fight these ideas. A psalm negates the idea that Yahweh actually consumes the sacrifices. More to come. |
| A Conspiratorial Life | After JFK was assassinated, the JBS and other right-wing extremists were quickly blamed. Welch blamed Communism because Oswald defected to the USSR and was a Communist or socialist. It was not the first Communist assassination of a world leader. Right wing extremists were a logical target after all of JFK’s social and racial reforms. JBS and Welch hated the Civil Rights Act and the Supreme Court Decisions that promoting racial equality. They claimed it was against government interference, but it is just malice against minorities and the lower classes. Goldwater ran a lackluster campaign in 1964, but LBJ won in a landslide. Still, the LBJ years were rife with racial and political violence. Riots happened in many major cities, leading to deaths. It sounds like a rough time. | |
March 2nd, 2023 |
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism | Chapter 4 covers a lot of things. First it talks about retinues of Baal and Rephes or someone else and it was pretty boring. Military dudes or something. Then it talks about what may be a cult of the dead. The Rephaim may be dead spirits who are prayed to for help, and ancient Israel possibly also worshipped these same Rephaim. Later Israelite tradition would try to downplay this ancestor worship. Another item was the consort of Yahweh, which was mentioned earlier in the book. It’s kind of all over the place. |
March 1st, 2023 |
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism | The last section spent a significant amount of time discussing the whether the Ugaritic gods are “astral”, but it doesn’t look like there is much evidence they are. Probably they are, everyone saw planets and stars as gods. Even Yahweh freezes the sun in the sky and acknowledges the heavens. The key point was the Baal seems to be explicitly NOT an astral god, solely the storm god and thus terrestrial. This would play into his role as an outsider and his conflict with the brothers of the second tier. Though there are times where Baal is called a son of Dagon. There is also a story where he is a son of El through a concubine, who then married Dagon. Thus Baal is a son but on a lower level of acceptance. It is through his strength and ability that he gains acceptance among the true sons. |
February 28th, 2023 |
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism | The next chapter discusses the divine family. The council from the previous chapter is essentially synonymous with the royal family. The top tier is El, the father, and Asharath or something like that, the mother. The second tier is their children (or children-in-laws). Baal, Yam, and others are all their children and each has his own household. Baal, as eldest and heir, has the more stressful situation, especially if his younger brothers are more favored. I guess the Baal Cycle is about him taking care of business. The third tier is just that foreign smith god. The lowest tier is the household retinue. That’s pretty much all that was said. The Semites loved to use terms like father and brother in more broader meanings than strict family relations. |
February 27th, 2023 |
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism | The rest of chapter 2 discusses the Yahweh connection to the Semitic divine council. There’s really two concepts, the polytheistic (around 800BC and earlier) and the monotheistic. The polytheistic has many similarities to the Ugaritic texts. There appears to be a chief council at the first tier, possibly led by El, and then there is the second tier, in which it seems Yahweh is part of. It appears that Yahweh falls under the “sons of El” and, as royal descendants, receive a nation to govern. Yahweh receives the nation of Israel and is their patron god. There is also reference to some sort of consort or wife, Asherah, who is the consort of El. Therefore, there is some combination of El and Yahweh over time until Yahweh becomes the chief and sole god. The later period either removes this consort or rewrites it as something metaphorical. Once the region becomes unstable, the concept of “a god of each nation” falls apart. When the nation loses its definition, so does the god. In the late kingdom and captivity period, these divine councils turn away from a multitude of deities in which Yahweh is one, into a council in which he is the sole power and all else exists through him. Angels and all that jazz. So the council concept remains, but its constituencies change to enforce the sole god concept. |
| A Conspiratorial Life | The “rational Right” conservatives are turning against Welch. Buckley and his Nation Review launch an all out assault to try to push Welch out of the movement. His beliefs are alienating and his conspiracies take attention away from the real work that has to be done. That said, Buckley himself was more of an active racist than Welch. Welch seems more like the typical old-white guy racist. It doesn’t come from a place of hatred, but of ignorance and a lack of sympathy. The rest is about civil rights and colonialism. Again, Welch sees the Civil Rights movement as an attempt by Communists to create civil war. JBS and the ilk see the anti-colonial movement as racist, trying to remove minorities from the country/empire. The mental gymnastics are fascinating. Welch claimed pictures of riots and dog attacks were staged, or, as we now say, fake news. People are dumb. Always were, always shall be. | |
February 26th, 2023 |
A Conspiratorial Life | The one chapter I read is mostly about the JBS coming under attack from other journalists. They accuse JBS and Welch of being fascists or Nazis and racists/anti-Semites. It doesn’t seem like they are fascists. They likely lean towards the laissez-faire libertarian mode of thought. Judging them form modern eyes, it’s hard not to see racism in Welch’s beliefs. He though MLK was a Communist plant and that civil rights would come about naturally. He may not have hated minorities, but he was not on their side. As far as Jews go, he probably wasn’t an anti-Semite, but he did have some close relations to some. He expelled people from JBS for racist or anti-Semitic views, but slowly. Probably he was just more ignorant and blind to it than malicious. There were like 20 pages on all this. The next chapter was about a replacement for Welch, as people were seeing him as a liability for the Conservative movement. However, Welch was going nowhere. |
February 25th, 2023 |
A Conspiratorial Life | Lots of conservative types who were either in the conspiracy crowd or just bored joined the JBS. They were trying to save the country. Many of them did not buy that Eisenhower was a Communist, but Welch tried to distance his personal beliefs from the point of the society. Buckley's National Review printed a negative article about Welch and his society, but Buckley was not able to fully segregate his journal from the JBS crowd. In 1960, Welch did not want Nixon to run for president. He thought he was an opportunist, especially after Nixon wheeled-and-dealed for Eisenhower over Taft and made agreements over civil rights with Rockefeller. Welch claimed at this point there was no room for consersatives in the main parties, and that the differences between Republicans and Democrats was minimal. That’s definetly true today. Some of the far righters tried to organize a third party and get Barry Goldwater to run for president. Goldwater was a right-wing war-hawk who Welch adored. However, the third party gained no traction. Goldwater took his name out of the running for the Republican party, and Nixon was the candidate. Goldwater will run in 1964, however. |
February 24th, 2023 |
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism | The second chapter talks about what the author calls “the divine council”. In these Ugaritic and other Semitic texts, they often refer to the council or assembly of so-and-so god. Here, we see an assembly of El and an assembly for Baal, which seems to mean that these two chief gods have their own retinue in the pantheon. Possibly Baal’s council represents the entire pantheon, since his mountain of Sapan is the main divine location, while El’s is just his top tier family. El and his peers are the top tier, while the other powerful gods like Baal or Yam make up the second tier. This second tier tends to be the manifestation of natural forces or even things like fertility. The third tier is lesser and includes the smith god, I forget his name, who resides in Egypt or Cyprus. He is foreign, but provides useful weapons and tools for the higher gods. Then there is a fourth tier of minor deities who often go nameless, I think. Thus Ugarit. The next section will be discuss this concept for Israel. |
Februrary 23rd, 2023 |
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism | Read the rest of the first chapter. Right now I’m banking on not needing to read up on the Ugaritic texts, though maybe I will out of curiosity. I can’t imagine they are very long, if they are individual stories. The majority of it is probably not interesting. Some of the Bible references are also lost on me, not that I was ever a scholar of it. The rest of the chapter continues to explain what is meant by divine. Essentially, it is whatever is extra-human. The center of the universe is Baal’s holy mountain of Saapan. Home is blessed and protected, while enemies and those with destructive powers lurk afar. The home deities have power of the things that help man. The home deities are beautiful and are identified typically with domestic animals, while the peripheral deities are monstrous. Now the part I don’t follow is the “head” god. I assumed Baal was the most important, but I guess the supreme god is El. Baal (sky god) has his own cycle of stories where he fights monsters like Leviathan and some Tannin thing (serpents are bad guys), but also gods Yam (water) and Mot (death). El is the bull god, Baal is a calf, to show their domesticated animal form. El apparently favors Yam and Mot (his beloved) over Baal. These parallel the Bible, where the beloved of God is an important title for Solomon. Also a key difference is that Baal struggles with Yam (water) and Mot and the monsters. In Genesis, God simply arranges things effortlessly, showing his supreme power of all things before and after creation. |
February 22nd, 2023 |
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism | Finally slogged through the introduction and began the first chapter. I’m not sure what kind of background is necessary to read this. I’m pretty unfamiliar with Semitic and Mesopotamian mythology. I’m not sure how “full” these Ugaritic texts are anyway. Possibly they are like The Epic of Gilgamesh where huge sections are missing. Anyway, the first part tries to define the definition of “realms”. There is the home, the local, the near, which in Ugaritic appears to be called the “sown”. Then there is the periphery, the distant, the “unsown”. The sown is good, the unsown is bad. Gods live on there holy mountains in the sown, while monsters and malicious deities live in the unsown. |
| A Conspiratorial Life | The book talks about the founding of the John Birch Society but I feel like half the book has been talking about this. It hasn’t really gotten into what they do. It just sounds like a mouthpiece for Welch where he complains about Communists and says Sputnik isn’t real. I guess he was trying to educate the masses but I’m sure most people can smell a nutcase. | |
February 21st, 2023 |
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism | Still haven’t finished the introduction. The guy has a lot to introduce. It’s kind of more of the same as before. Nothing really worth noting. He’s just explaining some of the choices he will make, such as using “West Semitic” as opposed to “Canaanite”, which at this point don’t mean much to me. Maybe if I had more prior knowledge it would matter, or maybe it will matter after I read the book. |
February 20th, 2023 |
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism | I didn’t even finish the introduction. This is going to be some dense reading, I think. If I understand what I’ve read so far, then this is not really a book about where “Yahweh” comes from. It sounds like it will try to describe the time and place, the ideas and believes that allowed for a monotheistic religion to form out of the polytheistic. It will explore Semitic concepts of the divine and what type of pantheon may have existed. It will eventually get into what was the “chief deity” of Israel, and how Israel polytheism may have morphed from the worship of one of many to the worship of the one and only during the captivity. I could be way off, there’s a-whole-nother have to the introduction. |
| A Conspiratorial Life | About halfway through the book and it looks like Welch is now dedicating his remaining life to politics. He leaves the candy business and starts a magazine which sounds like a lot of rants about Communists. Seems like the only time he was right was about Castro. He saw a lot of false flags and staged scenarios. Pretty loony. I assumed that kind of crazy was modern. Yeah, I guess that’s it. It’s 1956, he’s 57 or so, and Eisenhower is running for president again. | |
February 19th, 2023 |
A Conspiratorial Life | I read some during the last week but haven't have a chance to write anything. I haven't felt the need to either. It is not a very interesting book. Up until Eisenhower's presidency, Welch is just a background character. The author is telling a very general US history with some commentary of what Welch and other Right wingers had thought. Welch was certainly a known person. He ran for Lieutenant Governor and lost. He worked with Senator Taft on the 1952 election. Taft probably would've won if Eisenhower had not stepped in. Taft was too old school isolationist for the modern world, so Eisenhower decided, or was convinced by Lodge and other Republicans, to run. Welch gains notoriety as a writer. He railed against socialism in his campaign and was more interested in fighting Communism in Asia than helping Europe. He would've let MacArthur nuke China to save Taiwan. Welch was a McCarthyist whacko who saw Communist conspiracy in everything. He wrote a book about John Birch, another whacko who was a Christian Missionary and also some sort of US or Chiang Kai-shek spy, and got KIA. The US said it was accidental to prevent an international incident, but really it was intentional. This somehow became a huge conspiracy and Welch wrote a book about it, making a martyr and saint of the man. It was a hit. He even went to Asia and was given a seat of honor with the South Korean president. He met Chiang Kai-shek and was somehow a big celebrity among the Asians. He also wrote a “private” letter that claimed Eisenhower was a Communist. Welch hates NATO and the New Deal, all things Eisenhower understood were necessary to continue. This is probably where the break with the establishment Republicans happens. McCarthy is already out of the picture and it seems like the alarmism is fading. |
February 13th, 2023 |
A Conspiratorial Life | The war years get a short chapter, and the author uses “belie” again. Welch joins the America First Committee and is a staunch anti-interventionist. There’s plenty of good reasons to not want to enter a war, but unfortunately many pro-fascists were part of the cause. FDR actively (or subversively) opposed the anti-interventionist and won the next election. Welch, despite adopting Boston as his home, was dependent on the midwest and south and very much disliked the east coast and Wall Street corporate types, which is another fair point. I don’t like the whole right-wing “America is a Republic, not a Democracy” garbage. The country has evolved and given more power to the people. To the chagrin of Welch, the Japs attacked and war was inevitable from there. |
February 12th, 2023 |
A Conspiratorial Life | Chapter 6 is pretty short. Welch’s investments in his business put him in lots of debt and he did not recover. Cocoa prices soared and the Depression hit; he was bankrupt. He had to work for his little brother, which was a huge humiliation. No surprise, Welch was very much against FDR and the New Deal. He was anti-union and against the social democratic policies. FDR’s economic reform put restrictions on businesses, which right-wingers can’t stand, yet they have no problem with restricting workers. Towards the end of the 2nd term, the New Deal started to fall apart and FDR gave in to party pressure as some Dixiecrats joined with Republicans, who gained in the Senate and House. This gave false hope to Welch, as the Dixiecrats joined FDR as war was on the horizon. |
February 11th, 2023 |
A Conspiratorial Life | Read two more chapters. We’re still on Welch’s childhood and young adulthood. He was a smart kid and went to college at like 12, graduating in 1916 or 1917. He joined the Naval Academy during the war, but it ended soon after America joined and he was disillusioned with the banality of military life. The author uses the word ‘belied’ too much. Welch bounced around for a while. He dropped out of the Academy and grad school and ultimately tried Harvard Law. Before this time, Welch had already shown his Republican conservatism by writing little rhyming articles for the newspaper. Harvard Law was a very progressive place at this time, and it disgusted a staunch conservative and Constitution originality like Welch. He was against all sorts of progressive policies like welfare and income tax. Despite his youth and intelligence, he was a dickhead. After floundering and being a disappointment to his father, he ended up pursing business in candy. He also married a rich girl who was apparently hot. He worked hard and seemed to find success in the candy business. He invented those nasty Sugar Daddy caramel stick things, which must still disappoint children every Halloween to this day. |
February 10th, 2023 |
A Conspiratorial Life | Read the first chapter last night. It was a family history of the Welches from early 18th century to 1899, when Robert Jr was born. They were colonial settlers in North Carolina, from Wales it seems, and then some generations went by. RJ’s grandfather fought for the Confederacy died young. His father Robert was a successful farmer in the post war years. They were baptists probably white supremacists. The second chapter goes over the first several years of Welch’s childhood. He’s some sort of boy genius whose mother doted on him to the chagrin of his brother. Seems like a nice kid. Shame he turns out so messed up. |
February 8th, 2023 |
A Conspiratorial Life | Read the introduction which gave a little background information on this guy. He’s a real whackjob. The book opens with the Trump election conspiracy and its popularity and says this conspiratorial mindset can be traced back to the Birch Society. This goes back to the McCarthy era where people were paranoid about communists infiltrating and ruining the country. They claimed Eisenhower was a communist and so was Marshall. Eventually they were kicked out to the fringes of conservatism, which paved the way for the Reagan types, but never truly excommunicated. This fringe conservatism, the author will claim, allowed for conspiracy theorists to stay relevant, even if cast aside. |
February 7th, 2023 |
Considerations on Representative Government | The final chapter is more or less Mill’s opinions on colonialism. It’s not specifically relevant to the modern world, but some points may be. He seems to approve the type of colonialism which is seem between England and Canada or Australia, where people are of the same “type”. He acknowledges that the inferiority of the colonies is not very fair and that is could be considered a one-sided federalism. He thinks ultimately, it should be dissolved, I believe. He spends a lot time complaining about the type of colonialism like England and India, of different peoples. Mill does not call this a government but a despotism, since people cannot be governed unwillingly. Not a shocking opinion there. So ends the book. Mill does not summarize and it seems all the books end abruptly. |
February 6th, 2023 |
Considerations on Representative Government | Coming to the end of things. The sixteenth chapter is about nationalism tied to a country. Essentially, Mill says it’s difficult to impossible for people who are too different to function under one government without turning on each other. It’s mainly language, culture, religion, etc, which I think becomes less true over time. He makes the point that federations are different, which is the next chapter. Quebec and the rest of Canada manage to make things work, while Spain struggles to keep a single identity. In America, there is obvious racial tension despite very similar cultures. In the seventeenth chapter, Mill talks about federations. He says there’s two types: one where the states are subordinate and one where the states have to give their consent to the federal laws. The latter, like the Articles of Confederation and pre-united Germany, are doomed to fail. The latter, like the US Constitution and Switzerland, can be successful. Especially so in Switzerland, which has diverse languages and religion, while the US’s common culture failed over the politics of slavery. I don’t consider the US a federation today, however. The federal government is much more powerful and the representation should be more democratic. Mill praised the House and Senate system, but it is outdated and gives small populations disproportional power. Mill prefers the single country to the federation, but whatever works in each scenario. I wonder how Mill would feel about the EU, which follows an Articles of Confederation type of system, I think. I guess the economic benefits make it worth it, and the halt to killing each other. |
February 4th, 2023 |
Considerations on Representative Government | I have been negligent in my reading. Chapter 14 takes an aside and discusses the executive. In short, Mill thinks that each responsibility to should belong to a single individual who can take all the credit or all the blame for his actions. This makes sense. He advocates advisory councils with no power, but a duty to speak their honest opinions, which would be public record. This system existed in British India, but was unfortunately considered by some to be a wasteful bureaucracy. Then Mill explains why he is opposed to the public election of the elective. In England, the PM is appointed by Parliament. The majority party chooses the best of their members and I guess can vote him out of office if need be. Mill believes the American system to be wrong because the candidates are usually the most unknown and least offensive candidate is chosen in order to avoid alienating the public. This may be so at the time, but it is certainly outdated. For the last century, presidents have been former senators, governors, or vice presidents, excluding Trump & Eisenhower. These are all experienced and well-known political individuals (or just well-known), and Trump proves that parties do not put forth the least offensive or most unknown. I also disagree with the appointing of the executive, a la the Royal Governors. They may be good individuals, but how can you get rid of a bad one, especially in a corrupt system? Public election is necessary. Same for judges. I allow that they may be appointed, but they should either be removable or impeachable by public vote. Only the public vote can stamp out corruption. The fifteenth chapter is about local representation and rather boring. I think the American system is good enough. Federal government for inter-state and foreign affairs, state government for state affairs, country government and town/city government for local affairs. Governors should be elected and then appoint their cronies, state should have a single house elected annually. Counties can have a board elected annually and towns should have their own government mostly independent from the county. Towns should follow the New England system of direct action. If you want to partake in governing your town, go to the town hall meetings. |
January 29th, 2023 |
Considerations on Representative Government | The 12th chapter is on the job of a representative. Specifically, are they meant to represent the exact wishes of their constituents, or are they supposed to act independently and do what they think is right? Mill, in his standard verboseness, really in the classic philosophical “say a little in a lot of pages”, backs the latter. Of course Mill thinks that a intelligent and worthy individual should be elected and thus act in no one’s particular interests, but do what is right and best for the nation. Acting like a foreign minister and waiting for instructions from home is a possibility, but Mill does not endorse it. I mostly agree. If people do not like the choices or actions of their official, they can elect someone else next year. However, I personally wish my elected officials would ask for my opinion. I’m certainly smarter than them. The 13th chapter is on the 2 Chamber system. Mill thinks it unnecessary. He acknowledges the usefulness of a second chamber that is designed to check the power of the other chamber. One chamber is much more likely to become tyrannical if a majority can grab hold of power. It is human nature. He does not think two houses that are both just clones of each other would be useful. The second chamber should be, for lack of a better word, the “ideal” senate. It would be a house of seasoned and worthy individuals free from constituencies and given the office for life for their merit. Mill of course rejects something like the House of Lords, based on aristocracy and has no power to challenge the Commons if something were to happen. I’m not sure what is best. In America, I understand why some consider the Senate archaic and anti-democratic. It is not representative of the population and thus has an unfair control over their lives. But historically, would the Terror have happened if there was a second chamber to challenge Robespierre? Who knows? I find a second chamber comfortable, but it is also what I’m used to. Obviously multiple European nations function with single chambers without slaughter. I just looked up and saw that Denmark even abolished it’s second chamber in the 1950’s. All the Scandinavians are unicameral. Must be good then. |
January 25th, 2023 |
Considerations on Representative Government | I forgot to write earlier in the week. I read the 10th and 11th chapters. The 10th was on the method of voting. It looks like Mill does not care for secret ballots. He has the fanciful notion that scorn from one's peers would force them to make good choices if they their vote was made public. I think it would do more harm than good. People have many reasons for voting for a certain candidate. A person can't always look at the big picture. This type of ostracizing would hurt the people who vote for minority candidates or “shameful” candidates, like socialists, or secular candidates in a religious region, etc. It could tear families apart or lead to targeted violence. You get the same terrorizing effects that secret ballots had in the 1800s. I'm going to have to strongly disagree with Mill on this. The 11th was on the duration of Parliaments. It was very short. I didn't really get it because I don't know all the rules of Parliament, but at least I agree with the US House of Representatives, where the slate is wiped clean annually. Abolish the Senate. |
January 22rd, 2023 |
Considerations on Representative Government | Read the rest of the 7th chapter yesterday, and it mostly continues to talk about RCV. Apparently the Danish had started using it in the 1860s. The 8th chapter is about suffrage. From an era of universal suffrage, it is hard to take arguments against it seriously. Mill seems to advocate a universal suffrage for anyone who could read, write, and do basic math, with state-owned institutions for one to learn these things if they did not get an education. Seems fair. He then goes on and says only tax payers and people who do not received aid should have suffrage. That is a little harder to swallow, but I am unfamiliar with the tax and welfare systems of 1860s England, so I will let it slide. I don't know if there was an income tax; I don't think the US had one except during the war. Mill then talks about, and possibly favors, giving certain people more votes instead of giving universal suffrage. The educated elite would get more votes to somehow have a fair sized representation. This would keep an antagonist group in the chamber and prevent a majority from taking full control and allowing the country to stagnate and decline. Plural voting or whatever you want to call it sounds stupid, and Mill himself acknowledges that most would favor universal suffrage. There's a nice quote where Mill says property should have nothing to do with merit or voting. ...accident has so much more to do than merit with enabling men to rise in the world. I think Mill's own quote should be an argument against his plurality and anti-welfare suffrage.Every one has a right to feel insulted by being made a nobody, and stamped as of no account at all. The chapter ends with Mill talking about how he didn't bring up women because they should by default be given suffrage. The 9th chapter was about multi-level elections, i.e., the nominal concept of the elector college. He thinks its mostly dumb to have someone vote for an elector and then that elector vote for the representative. Any person interested enough in voting already has a candidate in mind they want to vote for. That's why the electoral college fails, because we vote for “electors” who already pledged to vote for a candidate and are punished by law if they change. Abolish the dumb thing. Mill says it is only useful if the electors have other functions. Like in the early 19th century America where the state legislatures chose the US senators. In theory, a citizen votes for their state representative, who is then an elector for the senator. Clearly that wasn't satisfactory since that system is long dead. |
January 18th, 2023 |
Considerations on Representative Government | I forgot that the other issue mentioned in the last chapter was about the election of unintelligent or incapable people. That goes without saying. The 7th chapter is about true representation as a way to combat these problems. I only read half of the chapter, but it’s really good stuff. Mill advocates the system created by Thomas Hare, which is a proportional ranked choice voting system. I guess it is also a transferable system, which is something I still don’t fully grasp. I’m amazed by this progressiveness. I probably shouldn’t be, since it is John Stuart Mill, but I didn’t realize such systems were 160 years old. And America STILL doesn’t use one. I’m a big proponent of ranked choice voting and proportional representation. Essentially what they advocate is turning all of Britain into a single district. People would be able to vote for anyone running in the country and rank their choices. Once someone reaches a threshold, the excess votes are divvied elsewhere (this is the part I struggle with. How?) This way, someone is not restricted to the few candidates that are running in their district. People who would be unrepresented by this system would be able to pool their votes across the country and get someone of their ilk elected. Will America ever wise up and abandon it’s archaic and undemocratic system? No, but we can fight for it anyway. Tell your congressman to support the Fair Representation Act. |
January 17th, 2023 |
Considerations on Representative Government | Chapter 6 is on the weaknesses of representative government. Mill mentions that ideas discussed earlier, such as an unwilling population. There were really two big problems that he goes over. The first I guess I’d summarize as the frozen government. A bureaucracy that moves like an iceberg gets nothing done, where a king with much power can accomplish much. Mill claims that no such kings exist except in ancient times when the king was in constant conflict with lords and the local populace. The modern king as the lead aristocrat is generally indolent and accomplishes little. These kings have their own bureaucratic system, which may or may not be any different than under a democracy. The other problem is the classic “two wolves and a sheep” democracy, which is a true problem. Often a group or class will only look after their own interests, whether king, aristocrat, capitalist, or laborer. At a minimum, they will favor their class interest. This is human nature. This is not to say that they will be ruthless and without empathy for others. We’ve seen the wealthy pass laws for the welfare of the poor. Who knows how much self-interest is involved, but it cannot be assumed to be solely from that. Mill, worried about the capitalist vs laborer tension in a representative government, suggests that care be taken so that each group is allotted half of the legislature. That way one cannot overpower the other and some of the more rational members can cross the boundary when necessary. This is interesting, but not necessarily fair. The wealthy would get an unproportional representation, while the lower classes would be underrepresented. I think even with proportional representation, you would have enough rational men who would not destroy the country just because some people have more than others. Even so, the executive still has a veto. I don’t agree with Mills on his solution. It feels wrong. |
January 15th, 2023 |
Considerations on Representative Government | I read the fifth chapter but I don’t remember it much. The title is about proper functions of government, but it seemed all over the place. It railed against the spoils system for a while. It seems that in Mills ideal government, the legislative would solely vote on things. He believes that there is so much going on that the legislative could not very well be informed enough to draft laws as well as vote on them, even if drafted by small committees. His idea was a permanent law-making group, appointed by the executive for terms of a few years. Of course, an MP could still draft a law, but they would most likely favor using this group. It is an interesting idea and I wonder if it has ever been tried. Would he suggest the same concept in the US, where the executive leader is chosen by vote? I could see president’s trying to stack it like the Supreme Court, though it may be less effective if there are no life terms. Also, congress would still have to pass it through two houses. I imagine little would still get done. |
January 9th, 2023 |
A Critique of Democracy | Finished this little book today. The second to last chapter was okay and probably the only one I sympathize with. It discussed the problem with the average voter. There are a lot of issues with the average voter, but the mostly ignorance and bias. The majority of voters are easily swayed by propaganda. Even Winston Churchill famously said (I think), that a conversation with the average voter will turn someone off from democracy. However, voters are not voting on policy, they are voting for a person who will act with their interests. The ignorance of the voter is not relevant when someone in the State Department is conducting negotiations. The problem then becomes that voters choose poor representatives. In that case, I do not think the solution is a permanent representative who can be replaced by only one man out of 300 million. The solution is improving education of the majority so that they can make better decisions. I know, some people are only capable of absorbing so much education. This does not negate the right of man to choose his representative. It does not mean that an arbitrary individual and his arbitrary descendants should choose for him. The final chapter is on alternative systems, and thankfully these neoreactionaries are not libertarians who think corporations the free market should govern. They believe in smaller government, but privately owned. They don’t like fascism because it is state owned, but there is enough xenophobia and cultural fetishism that there are similarities. All these guys want is the archaic aristocracy. They fail to see why this system collapsed. Arbitrary absolute power failed to bring justice, peace, and prosperity. The majority of the people were reduced to slavey and they would be again. Most people are slaves to their jobs, but the author does not see the modern ruling class as a true “aristocracy” because they have no loyalty to anyone. The romantic view of lords and peasants is childish and any study of history will show its injustice. I sympathize with the lack of faith in democracy, but not in the naïve longing for the return of the king. That said, I’m going to read Fellowship of the Ring next. Not sure if I’ll write anything about it. |
| Considerations on Representative Government |
Mill gives us a short chapter on when representative government is not appropriate. It was sort of covered in chapter one. First, if a people are unwilling to submit to any authority, then it will not work. They are unwilling to be governed. Second, if a people are too passive, it will lead to despotism. They are unwilling to preserve it. Third, is when people are not willing to do as the government requires, such as participate in elections or pay appropriate taxes. Another is when people are unwilling to join with others. A village or group of villages may be completely used to voting or representative governments, but have no sympathy or interest in a neighboring region. They would not give one cent if it leaves their region. Mill says that most of this type of problem has been overcome, historically, but being subjected to a common central authority. For example, the Welsh and English can today live under one government, despite the history of different cultures. Even England itself was once many kingdoms. He also mentions people who sacrifice freedom for the ability to conquer, like a Prussian, and people who have no interest in governing but will fight to the death if someone tries to govern them, like a Frenchman. The second to last paragraph is very good and I will reprint it here. It is essentially akin to what I was trying to say in regards to the neoreactionary book, but much better written.
A hundred other infirmities or shortcomings in a people might be pointed out which pro tanto disqualify them from making the best use of representative government; but in regard to these it is not equally obvious that the government of One or a Few would have any tendency to cure or alleviate the evil. Strong prejudices of any kind; obstinate adherence to old habits; positive defects of national character, or mere ignorance, and deficiency of mental cultivation, if prevalent in a people, will be in general faithfully reflected in their representative assemblies; and should it happen that the executive administration, the direct management of public affairs, is in the hands of persons comparatively free from these defects, more good would frequently be done by them when not hampered by the necessity of carrying with them the voluntary assent of such bodies. But the mere position of the rulers does not in these, as it does in the other cases which we have examined, of itself invest them with interests and tendencies operating in the beneficial direction. From the general weaknesses of the people or of the state of civilization, the One and his councillors, or the Few, are not likely to be habitually exempt; except in the case of their being foreigners, belonging to a superior people or a more advanced state of society. Then, indeed, the rulers may be, to almost any extent, superior in civilization to those over whom they rule; and subjection to a foreign government of this description, notwithstanding its inevitable evils, is often of the greatest advantage to a people, carrying them rapidly through several stages of progress, and clearing away obstacles to improvement which might have lasted indefinitely if the subject population had been left unassisted to its native tendencies and chances. In a country not under the dominion of foreigners, the only cause adequate to producing similar benefits is the rare accident of a monarch of extraordinary genius. There have been in history a few of these who, happily for humanity, have reigned long enough to render some of their improvements permanent, by leaving them under the guardianship of a generation which had grown up under their influence. Charlemagne may be cited as one instance; Peter the Great is another. Such examples however are so unfrequent that they can only be classed with the happy accidents which have so often decided at a critical moment whether some leading portion of humanity should make a sudden start, or sink back towards barbarism—chances like the existence of Themistocles at the time of the Persian invasion, or of the first or third William of Orange. It would be absurd to construct institutions for the mere purpose of taking advantage of such possibilities, especially as men of this calibre, in any distinguished position, do not require despotic power to enable them to exert great influence, as is evidenced by the three last mentioned. The case most requiring consideration in reference to institutions is the not very uncommon one in which a small but leading portion of the population, from difference of race, more civilized origin, or other peculiarities of circumstance, are markedly superior in civilization and general character to the remainder. Under those conditions, government by the representatives of the mass would stand a chance of depriving them of much of the benefit they might derive from the greater civilization of the superior ranks, while government by the representatives of those ranks would probably rivet the degradation of the multitude, and leave them no hope of decent treatment except by ridding themselves of one of the most valuable elements of future advancement. The best prospect of improvement for a people thus composed lies in the existence of a constitutionally unlimited, or at least a practically preponderant authority in the chief ruler of the dominant class. He alone has by his position an interest in raising and improving the mass, of whom he is not jealous, as a counterpoise to his associates, of whom he is; and if fortunate circumstances place beside him, not as controllers but as subordinates, a body representative of the superior caste, which, by its objections and questionings, and by its occasional outbreaks of spirit, keeps alive habits of collective resistance, and may admit of being, in time and by degrees, expanded into a really national representation (which is in substance the history of the English Parliament), the nation has then the most favorable prospects of improvement which can well occur to a community thus circumstanced and constituted. |
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January 8th, 2023 |
Considerations on Representative Government | The third chapter has Mill explain why representative government is the best form. Mill believes that a government exists for the betterment, or to maintain conditions to allow the betterment, of man. He argues against the classic “benevolent dictator” concept. Mill does not believe such a thing can exist. Not because of the malice of a dictator, but because of the inability of any human to have all the information on all regions of a country and all public opinion, while making the correct decisions and choosing the correct people to fill the government. It would take god-like abilities and omnipresence. Man under such a system would be a passive cog of the economy and take no interest or have any responsibility outside of his own life. It would be a sad state for man, a pathetic shell. Once a man has the ability to alter his own course, he will (hopefully) take an active role. Even if he chooses not to, it may create a certain mindset in the citizens regardless. A man may not want to get involved in bettering his country, but maybe still his town, his home, or himself. There is less resignation to fate. I don’t know how true this all is, but it is an interesting point. I guess feeling that you can make a difference has a significant impact on one’s mental health and energy. I often wonder what I can do to make a difference, which is different than wondering how one can make a difference. I already am in a mindset that change is possible. It is hard to imagine otherwise. |
January 7th, 2023 |
Considerations on Representative Government | Given that man is able to choose government, the next chapter is on what makes a good government. First, we need to know why a government exists. It is an actor to achieve something, not an end in itself. He uses someone else’s terms of Order and Progress, though Mill considers Order a subset of Progress. Order being related to safety and the submission to law, rather than using private means of settling disputes. Progress being advancement, though Mill adds something to it that his contemporatres do not. Mill claims that without active effort, society not only fails to advance, but decays. Without active effort of the citizenry, we will go to a lower state. Active effort means participation, not allowing politicians or judges to be amoral and take bribes, etc. Though, as Mill says, Progress and Order and not necessarily tied to representative government. A monarch could, and some have, created governements that act in this way. The problem is a monarch is less incline to work for the citizenry and thus leads to corruption, lack of progress, and decline. Selfishness is encouraged. Then Mill talks about savages and slavery and it seems out of place and archaic. |
January 6th, 2023 |
A Critique of Democracy | The next chapter just discussed GDP between democracies and authoritarian governments and did not add much. The chapter after that got to the meat of things. Essentially, these guys think inequality is good. I hope that’s just a reactionary statement and not a true belief. Inequality is not good. Inequality is not bad. Excessive inequality is bad. No human should starve while another has two kitchens. No human should live in a condemned building while another has a tennis court. No human should drink lead poisoned water while another has a yacht. No doctor should make half a million while another can’t afford to see one. Wealth should be distributed so that all people have a comfortable life. Nobody is trying to make the poor millionaires, but they should have equal access to quality homes, medical care, and food. They should need to work two jobs and another man has some ancestor’s money. Ability, upbringing, and intelligence have something to do with it, but the people who support aristocracy downplay the large amount of luck related to success. A 130 IQ in Sudan isn’t going to make you rich. A 130 IQ in Detroit will hopefully get you an engineering job. A 130 IQ and a millionaire father will get you very far. When people advocate for equality, they really advocate less inequality. Democracy is necessary because history tells us you can not rely on the genetic lottery of royalty. To remove a bad king, many people must die in process, and more often than not they will fail. To remove a bad president, you have to wait 4 years. Even the crazy libertarians who want to run the country like a corporation, they fail to see how often the drive for growth and instant profits has tanked companies and caused long term problems. Idiots. |
January 5th, 2023 |
A Critique of Democracy | I read another 2 chapters and it’s not very good. A lot of it is the “decline of civilization” scare tactics that right wingers use when they see divorces and abortions rising. A lot of what is second is easily questionable and it is a stretch to blame things like the rise in antidepressant usage on the state of the union. The next chapter is about that damn book by Hoppe I couldn’t stand. Hoppe is an incredibly biased source who hates government because it interferes with money making. A lot of the “points” are nonsense that can be disproven by looking at history. For example, wars were a “king’s affair” that was not expected to use public money or harm innocents. Look at the Hundred Year’s War and how horrible it made life for the lower classes. Look at the slaughtering in the various crusades or the 30 Year’s War. He claims there was no conscription, but what do we call the Tsar’s conscription? Wars were for territory, then what why were Russia and Austria fighting during WWI? It’s all garbage. Then it goes on about Hoppe’s Austrian time preference garbage which assumes that private government looks to the future and public looks to the present. Compare Louis XIV and FDR and tell me who’s looking to the future. I can’t stand this nonsense. |
January 4th, 2023 |
Democracy: The God That Failed | He assumes that people act for more goods sooner. This is the fallacy that people act selfishly. It is idiotic to think that in all cases, instant gratification is more valuable. I quit. The man makes so many irrational assumptions in his "economic" views on man that it is painful to read. Horrible book. |
| A Critique of Democracy | This one might be a bit more readable, but already it is making bogus points. The author says public government has a "rob the future to spend on the present" effect. He is confusing democracy for capitalism. He says it breeds conflict, breeds bad "populist" leaders, have high debt, voters are irrational, and some other nonsense points. I'll give him the populism and dumb voters, but the rest are seen in any government. The guy is a whackjob. The 2nd chapter goes on about the habits of apes and then talks of hunter-gatherers, as if this will have relevance on modern government. Possibly on human nature, but nothing else. The rest of the chapter is about Indo-Europeans. That's insane. You cannot use horse people who are only known through archaeology as the basis of modern civilization. First, they are poorly understood because they left no writing. Second, it is a very Eurocentric view. Greeks are viewed as the "founders" of Western thought because they are the first to leave writing. Not only was it a high quantity, but we can also actually read it. Of course, Bronze Age cultures would have impacted the Greeks, but they left comparatively fewer writings, and we can read them with much less ease. So far it has been nonsense, but perfectly readable nonsense. That makes it scarier, but I'm already a fifth of the way done. Hopefully we are done with this idolizing the past wankery and we can get to the meat of it. | |
| Considerations on Representative Government | Moving back to John Stuart Mill. I'm not going to reread On Liberty, so this will be the last book. The topic is, obviously, on representative government. Knowing JSM, he will be for a fair, representative system. Probably one similar to the English Parliament, but, I hope, more representative. Also, this will be a bit dry and long-winded. That’s just Mill’s way of writing. I read the first chapter, and Mill considers two views of government. One, that it is a man-made institution and thus it is chosen by man for the situation they are in. The second is that government is a natural growth of a nation and thus one cannot transplant it elsewhere or significantly change it. Mill says both are extreme for the sake of contrarianism and nobody truly believes either, but that somewhere in the middle lies reality and their beliefs. That’s kind of all I remember. He goes on for another 10 page on the subject, but it wasn’t that interesting. Surely government has a “natural” start and grows based on the conditions of the culture, the region, and the people. But man surely can choose how he is governed. There was another bit about maintaining a representative government. People have to want it. For example, the Native Americans had no interest in being under the US government and fought to the death to be separate. Then people have to do what is necessary to maintain it. Things like follow the laws and pay taxes etc. Similar to this was the need to not misuse the system. Don’t sell your vote, participate in elections so that people can take over the country, stuff like that. Good points, John. I also liked this quote: “One person with a belief, is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.” Essentially, this is the person to make men move and to have power. Hence why one man can sway so many others, and we didn’t have democracies and republics for all history. | |
January 3rd, 2023 |
Democracy: The God That Failed | It is worse than I thought. The author is some sort of a neoliberal libertarian. I read the introduction and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to finish the book. It’s just shy of 300 pages, so do I want to lose 6 weeks to this? The idea is to compare the US as the ultimate democracy and the Austrians as the ultimate monarchy and to view monarchy as privately-owned government. The twist is there will be a third comparison to the “natural order”, which is some sort of stateless anarcho-capitalism. What a nightmare. I can smell the “taxation is theft” all over it. I thought it was going to be an interesting read about the advantages of monarchy, but it’s just an economic farce. |
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Updated 12/29/23