Entries Tagged as 'History'
Absolutely the Funniest Item of the Day CLXXVIII
Times Online - Comment Central - Top Ten Communist Jokes
Congratulations Comment Central readers. The results of our Communist joke competition are in and you did us proud. A copy of Hammer and Tickle will shortly be winging its way to Tom Freeman for the following offering: 1) [...]
Categories: History
A Brief History of Jerks With T-Squares
The Times - Modern architects try to dodge the wrecking ball Past Notes: New brutalism faces the same fate as Georgian terraces, by Graham Stewart
Bastedds.
Modern architects have a tradition of being sniffy about the heritage industry. So it is entertaining to see them adopting the zealous language of tweed-jacket outrage when their own misunderstood [...]
Categories: History
Euro-Jeffersons
The Times - Jefferson: a lesson for Europeans The US Constitution is 221 years old… hard to see the Lisbon treaty being so successful, by William Rees-Mogg
After a rather fascinating tale of Jeffersonian correspondence on the subject of Napoleonic coup d’états…
Many European politicians have seen the EU as a future United States of [...]
Categories: History
A Brief History of Hebrew
The Times - Remember 1882, as the Cornish say Past Notes: if the Cornish are to revive their language, they should take a history lesson, by Graham Stewart
Apparently the Cornish want EU recognition of their language. Which, of course, I’m all for.
It is here that their ambition fails them. For, if the greatest modern [...]
Categories: History
A Man Who Goes Back to the Diggers is the Sort of Chap to Have By One’s Side in Times of Sitting Down and Drinking Tea
The Joy of Curmudgeonry - The Charmed Life of Communism
A single paragraph therein:
Before communism got its name in the 1840s, it was already linked to the ideal — sorry, the unfortunate “necessity” — of revolutionary terrorism, most notably in Babouvism; that is to say, even before Marx and Engels added to its legacy, [...]
Categories: History
Sarko and Me Both, Bébé
Telegraph - Nicolas Sarkozy blames the generation of 1968, by Henry Samuel
These same students erected barricades on the Left Bank to break free of buttoned-up patriarchal French post-war society. They were followed by up to 10 million striking workers in the biggest such mass movement the country has ever known. [...]
Categories: History
Wallowing in Godwin’s Law and Playing Splashy-Splashy
Macleans - Please send more complaints Otherwise how will our taxpayer-funded hate police manage to keep their cozy sinecure? By MARK STEYN
Indeed, the principal ingredient unique to the pre-Hitler era was the introduction of Jennifer Lynch-type hate-speech laws that supposedly protect vulnerable minorities from “unspeakable acts.” You might as well argue that Weimar’s “reasonable [...]
Categories: History
I’m Still In Maui, Day 20!
I just dropped Peter off at the airport. Well, I got up at 6.30, pulled staples out of the old chair upholstery till 7.30, got coffee at 7.45, tried to get in the hot tub at 8 but they were draining it, painted till 10, made some phone calls till 11, got in the hot [...]
Categories: History
A Brief History to Pass the Easter Vigil
The Times - Was God in the White House? Past Notes: we think of presidents as churchgoers, but 11 out of 43 were not members of a church, by Graham Stewart
“The White House is the pulpit of the nation,” the American journalist James Reston once claimed, “and the president is its chaplain.” No wonder, [...]
Categories: History
End of Empire Day
The Times - National Day: perfectly British Past Notes: the sneerers at proposals for a day of swearing allegiance have short memories, by Graham Stewart
Sad.
Categories: History
I Don’t. Maybe.
The Times - Guillotine Grandeur Frenchmen have found a new way to show they are a cut above the rest
Are you French? Did your ancestors get their heads chopped off around the end of the 18th century? They did? What a stroke of luck! Well, of sorts. For to have a relative whose twig [...]
Categories: History
I’ll Syllabize You, Old Boche
The Joy of Curmudgeonry - The Officially Forgotten Boche
“On 1st January, the last German veteran of the First World War passed away . . . and to official Germany this is worth not one syllable.”
That’s so sad.
Categories: History
Benedict the Magnanimous and Historic
The Times (yesterday) - Leading article: A Catholic Outlook The Vatican outlines three overdue and welcome initiatives
The initiatives could set a new framework for Catholic debate in three areas of political and spiritual importance, and where the Pope’s own position in the recent past has been much misunderstood: relations with Islam, ecumenism and the [...]
Categories: History
And Others’ Lives Again
RC2’s been watching The Lives of Others, and quotes a bit of a review from William F. Buckley as well. Which reminds me of story in last month’s Wired I forgot to link to: Piecing Together the Dark Legacy of East Germany’s Secret Police.
The whole thing’s worth reading, about the efforts to piece back together [...]
Categories: History
Okay: Liechtenstein Again
The Times (Saturday) - Beware the mighty Liechtenstein Past Notes: German anger towards the tiny principality goes back to the 19th century, by Graham Stewart
Although the allegation was false, Liechtenstein’s vote had been what tipped the curia’s casting vote for war [in June, 1966]. Playing up the absurdity of it, Bismarck was incandescent, accusing [...]
Categories: History
