(south)WESTERN CIVILIZATION» Pastiche

Minthe

admin — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 06:55:29 +0000

Mint is supposed to be named after an ancient nymph by the name of Minthe, who was the beloved of Pluto.

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Historical Fallacy

admin — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:37:26 +0000

Can you spot the historical fallacies in what is implied by the following “history lesson”?

Look what happens when a President gets elected in a year with a “0″ at the end.

1840: William Henry Harrison (died in office)
1860: Abraham Lincoln (assassinated)
1880: James A. Garfield (assassinated)
1900: William McKinley (assassinated)
1920: Warren G. Harding (died in office)
1940: Franklin D. Roosevelt (died in office)
1960: John F. Kennedy (assassinated)
1980: Ronald Reagan (survived assassination attempt)

And to think that we had two guys fighting it out in the courts to be the one elected in 2000.

You might also be interested in this. Have a history teacher explain this if they can.

Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.

John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.

Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.

John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.

Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.

Both wives lost their children while living in the White House.

Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.

Both Presidents were shot in the head.

Now it gets really weird.

Lincoln’s secretary was named Kennedy.

Kennedy’s Secretary was named Lincoln.

Both were assassinated by Southerners.

Both were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson.

Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.

Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.

John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839.

Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.

Both assassins were known by their three names.

Both names are composed of fifteen letters.

Now hang on to your seat.

Lincoln was shot at the theater named “Ford,”

Kennedy was shot in a car called ” Lincoln” made by “Ford,” Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.

And here’s the “kicker”:

A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland.

A week before Kennedy was shot, he was with Marilyn Monroe.

Creepy, huh? Hey, this is one history lesson people don’t mind reading!

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Phidias

admin — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:30:27 +0000

There once was a sculptor named Phidias

Whose manners in art were invidious:

He carved Aphrodite

Without any nightie,

Which startled the ultrafastidious.

August 28

admin — Thu, 21 May 2009 21:02:58 +0000

August 28, 430
As Vandals invade Roman North Africa and overwhelm Hippo refugees, Augustine dies of a fever. Miraculously, his writings, including City of God survived the Vandal takeover, and his theology became one of the main pillars on which the church of the next 1,000 years was built.

August 28, 1828
Leo Tolstoy, Russian novelist and social reformer, is born. Though the Russian Orthodox Church excommunicated him in 1901, his later works emphasized Christian love and the teachings of Jesus.

August 28, 1840
Ira D. Sankey is born in Pennsylvania. For 25 years he led the music when D.L. Moody preached.

Religion in Rome

admin — Thu, 14 May 2009 04:41:05 +0000

In Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon offers a cynical view of Rome’s attitude toward religion:

“The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true, by the philosophers as equally false, by the magistrates as equally useful, and thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence but even religious concord.”

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Robert Lewis Dabney on Historiography

admin — Thu, 14 May 2009 03:21:39 +0000

“De Quincey has said, ‘Two strong angels stand by the side of history as heraldic supporters: the angel of research on the left hand, that must read millions of dusty parchments and pages blotted with lies; the angel meditation on the right hand, that must cleanse these lying records with fire, even as of old the draperies of asbestos were cleansed, and must quicken them into regenerated life.’”
~ from Robert Lewis Dabney’s inaugural address as professor of ecclesiastical history
and polity at Union Seminary: Life and Letters of Robert Lewis Dabney, by Thomas Cary Johnson, p. 140

A Worker Reads History, by Bertolt Brecht

admin — Thu, 14 May 2009 02:42:10 +0000

Who built the seven towers of Thebes?
The books are filled with names of kings.
Was it kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone?
And Babylon, so many times destroyed,
Who built the city up each time? In which of Lima’s houses, that city glittering
with gold, lived those who built it?
In the evening when the Chinese wall was finished
Where did the masons go? Imperial Rome
Is full of arcs of triumph. Who reared them up? Over whom did the Caesars
triumph? Byzantium lives in song, were all her dwellings palaces?
Young Alexander plundered India.
He alone?
Caesar beat the Gauls.
Was there not even a cook in his army?
Philip of Spain wept as his fleet
Was sunk and destroyed. Were there no other tears?
Frederick the Great triumphed in the Seven Years War. Who triumphed with him?

Ancient Coins and the Stories They Tell

admin — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 07:49:14 +0000

Old money vs. new money? We are not talking about social status, but about ancient coins. Coins from the Roman Empire, Byzantine Era, and Alexandria, are invaluable for the stories and history they can convey of an ancient time. Richard Pearlman, specialist in ancient coins, talks with Dan Borsey, of WorthPoint, at the Baltimore Coin and Currency Convention about his collection of ancient coins.

Public Education – The Church of Humanism?

admin — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 22:23:00 +0000

“Education is the most powerful ally of humanism, and every American public school is a school of humanism. What can the theistic Sunday schools, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching?”
~ Charles Potter

Collapsing Western Culture

admin — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 22:20:00 +0000

“In the United States of America, our traditional, Western, Judeo-Christian culture is collapsing. It is not collapsing because it failed. On the contrary it hs given us the freest and most prosperous society in human history. Rather, it is collapsing because we are abandoning it.”
~ William S. Lind