Recent Comments

1. about 13 hours ago on La Cucaracha

   Uh, where are you getting your history and shouting this is the ONLY reason? It was A reason. It was probably the main reason (even if most at the time denied it). But it had been simmering for years. Go back and look at something besides your propaganda. South Carolina was threatening succession back in 1828, and that sure as heck wasn’t over slavery.

   You really are proving my point. People get a POV in their head and refuse to accept that reality is a lot bigger, and more complex than the simple idea they want to hold on to. Your error is not looking beyond one item and in trying to make everything else fit into your box. You’re engaged in reductio ad absurdum and ad hominem by insisting I’m saying things I haven’t said and missing the point I made.

2. about 17 hours ago on Gil Thorp

   Not a limo, mom or dad drives her to school. And not a bus. Sears is taking the new subway extension in from Boston.

3. about 17 hours ago on Dick Tracy

   And we’re still left hanging on the point of all this. If it doesn’t matter if the body is “retrieved” or not why were they trying to retrieve it? It only draws attention to them – which I assume they should not want. If it matters… How about tossing us a clue why?

4. about 17 hours ago on Garfield

   Yeah, one wonders how he could have left them uneaten long enough to hide them.

5. about 17 hours ago on La Cucaracha

   What I reported was how the press at the time was presenting it, North & South. I indicated we moderns tend to over-simplify it – and you appear to be a good example. There were other factors, such the tariffs imposed on to aid northern industries. I won’t attempt whole list. If you think it was the only reason you need to read more. I said while slavery was probably the primary issue both sides deny it. You’re a good example of my original point, there is what really happened and there is how it is presented – both then and now – which over-simplify reality.

6. about 17 hours ago on Tank McNamara

   Are there endorsements being offered for best pickleball players over 70? If there are, Sid is interested.

7. 1 day ago on La Cucaracha

   And many from the Northern states imagine it was the only one. (It wasn’t. It was probably the biggest one, but that would probably have been denied by both North & South where it would have been seen as a war for the preservation of the nation against war for the preservation of states’ rights.)

8. 1 day ago on Wallace the Brave

   I don’t think this was the fault of a professor. The university, years before, had used the Cutter System, when a Public Library book, and a book from another college, both using the Dewey system were returned. In the confusion the other books were filed, wildly out of place in their Cutter location, and when the Cutter collection went into storage…

   Meanwhile, at the small school where I got my Masters… The official head of the library was usually too busy playing handball to provide oversight. His secretary ran the library. And, if a newer book was missing, she’d slip into his office and find it. Missing older books I went out to the stacks to find.

9. 1 day ago on La Cucaracha

   The Japanese have their own history of WW II. It differs greatly from how China, Korea, the Philippines, and the US remember it. During the filming of Tora! Tora! Tora! – a joint US / Japanese venture which tried to be scrupulously accurate Japanese film makers refused to participate unless they got to put in some of their “re-writes” of the truth.

10. 1 day ago on La Cucaracha

    We use history to mean what actually happened in the past. We also use history to mean the preserved account of what happened. Written history may differ significantly from actual history and, even if there are no factual errors in the written history the selection of which events to record (since it is impossible to record everything, and the perspective from which are seen and presented) it means that recorded history will always be subjective – sometimes wildly so.