caesar novus

Ahh, if only the Islamic world was half as self doubtingly reflective as the self demonizing western intelligencia. Well, it may be the west-electuals that are out of kilter; everyone should carry some minimal level of cultural self esteem, or else it would be logical for them to swap cultures. Imagine having a member of a counterpart culture always apologizing to you for everything... would smack of them being patronizing to you or feeling too superior to have to worry about their own valid interests. Me, I'm ready to show some solidarity with the neanderthal brotherhood by selling off my only non-nonfiction book "Andalusian Poems" (from the Arabic era). Wow, since I bought it long ago at a great translators reading, it got rapturous online reviews and skyrocketed in price http://www.godine.com/isbn.asp?isbn=0879238879 . Maybe I should have also grabbed that art book on Mughal architecture that seemed too big to lug home from my India pilgrimage. In order to provoke thought, let me continue to risk putting the wrong words into someone's mouth. Note you seem to be looking for a stereotypical conclusion of your own, as opposed to the facts which lead to their own conclusion. That is the achilles heel of some modern scholarly work... there is a conclusion based on faith (that the neanderthal sector of your culture is extremely wrong), then the facts are selected or falsified to the opposite-of-neanderthal in hopes of the culture drifting at least to a midpoint (that is more correct than EITHER endpoint). It's like global warming, where patently and obviously false facts are knowingly repeated by scientists... to pull the culture in the direction they want. The end justifies the means... if they think they can pull the neanderthals in the right direction by falsehoods, they will. Or the gasbagging about everything invented in China first... no matter that gunpowder and guns were nearly useless for hundreds of years until perfected by foreigners, or that other things were reinvented independantly. In the Iberian collision, I am very rusty but faintly recall some reviews of books along those lines which were not by Bernard Lewis or knee jerk chauvinists, but pointed out there were dynamics that gave the invaders ulterior motives to collude with Christians and Jews, and for the Spanish to be harsh and fearful even after reclaiming the land. I'm not up to speed enough to argue Iberian-specific points, but want to alert y'all that we neanderthals have antennae that pick up being manipulated. Just before 2001 and instead of enjoying the more typical rewards of free time I took a course on Islam by an Islamic professor. It was so achingly clear we were being patronized... everything was to prove that the Koran was the exact equivilant of not only the most heartwarming passages of the Christian bible, but of modern science itself! No admission of a bit of difference, which I would have grooved on due having an anthropology background, and certainly no admission of the truely ferocious passages in the hadith. Prefer the facts, and some trust that they will be digested towards reasonable conclusions. Let's recognize that all cultures have their neanderthals, and not demonize ours more than theirs (especially if their actions aren't demonic). And don't propagandize them out of their neanderthality, but shed light in terms of unadorned but contextualized facts rather than risking a blanket of political correctness which seems so everpresent.

I'm a bit worried about Hadrian's Villa, since Tivoli is straight toward the epicenter and also has precarious high features. That seems one of the few spots on the tourist radar much nearer to the epicenter I would guess; strange how close Abruzzo is to Rome but with quite unfamiliar town names. Of course most thoughts are for folks who may be trapped, with time running out. Or even the many more with upset stomachs, but no access to bathrooms with running water even in prospect. I don't know if the Italian "experts" being quoted are correct in saying all deaths were cheaply preventable, and all buildings should have stood with only cracks. I heard the same thing after the Assisi quake, but it could be exagerations. Of course the loss of an entire 1st grade class in Naples 2002 building collapse has been recently ruled criminal.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/...a-revealed.html shows work that is disproving the myth of Alhambra inscriptions being Koranic or poetry. It's looking that 90% are otherwise, mainly praising the mortals in charge. I love the physical Alhambra http://www.flickr.com/search/show/?q=alhambra but I think it also reveals nonsense in western politically correct thought. It is held up as a symbol of another cultures refinement and tolerance. But if I understand correctly, it was an exception group escaping to the fringe of a disapproving culture, sort of like Haight Ashbury hippies, or whoever in Las Vegas. I hear Alhambra was a luridly painted den of vice (illicit sex, alcohol?), although haven't been able to confirm it yet.

I remember a visit to Paestum (in Compania) where the site was choked with tall wildflowers baking in the sunshine and wafting their scent. Olive vendors lined the road, and visiting schoolchildren rang out in peals of laughter. But this had little to do with the site; it's a part of life that I could experience in other places; maybe even near home. I could hardly see any detail of the main temples, because you are not allowed close, the columns are very wide, and there is no elevated point to look within. Contrast this to a rerun I saw of "Visions of Italy", now on Hi Def tv. They do a helicopter survey from Rome to south of Compania, including looking down on those mysterious Paestum temple floorplans. Also Pompeii; it showed how common those weird narrow dead end passage ways were, and blocked up closets (to entomb a mother in law alive?). I remember some in person, but now get the big picture. Wow, what a documentary... look for on HDNET reruns. It is a long itinerary affected by hotel prices. Their bloated online rates are still ignoring the recession, which I had hoped to negotiate way down in person. But now I may be in competition with earthquake refugees. So meantime I expect to focus on virtual tourism, along with an excursion to the Roman Villa in Malibu CA (which is free if you arrive by public bus, with all the vagrants and bail jumpers). Good to see the collection before they give it all back to Italy, or before an earthquake catches it at either end. http://tuckerneel.wordpress.com/category/malibu-getty/

But pretty minor damage, right? Italians are quoted in http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/04/07...Italy.html?_r=1 as saying Roman and rennaisance buildings were constructed better for earthquakes than those that followed. If you can't read the link, it says medieval times were too poor to construct well, and that cultural reasons were the issue more recently. They say simple reinforcements like chains could have saved most of the old buildings and modestly better quality control should have saved many new ones... and muse why no action on this quake after quake. Hmmm, now I recall many Greek sites severely scattered by quake damage, but rarely Roman. I guess the Roman mortar is not only a help, but it is used with a rather extreme ratio of surface area on the brick. Ratio of mortar binding area per unit volume of (flattish) brick being higher than maybe anytime in later history?

And the estimates are escalating... 100k homeless and 50 dead at NYT report. I hope they carefully look for folks who are trapped in hidden places and savable with quick action; I heard mention of search dogs on the way. As for the amount of harm in surrounding areas... hopefully this is a "Californian" style magnitude which doesn't transmit strength very widely. The magnitude is posted for the epicenter, and quickly falls away in bedrock widely shattered by previous quakes like CA. Where quakes and cracks are rarer, the damaging energy is more efficiently spread wide IIRC.

Mein Kampf becomes more interesting when paired with the draft of it's sequel which has only recently been published in english: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zweites_Buch It's principles may not have changed, but the recommended strategy in some cases is reversed in Hitlers sequel (esp for USA, somewhat for UK). Suddenly the Nazi strategy and tactics become more clear in how they dynamically operate, if not at all the core motivations.

I found if I aim an external fan on my laptop, it can keep cool enough to battle my way with that simulator to the far end of Forbidden City (the north, NE, NW), which is just unbelievable in architectural and botanical detail. The southern entrance end has more of a vast, empty, Stalinist feel that needn't delay you (double click arrow key for speed). I also found that if I switch my vacation from Rome to Beijing, it actually cuts the price more within my budget. Is this so wrong (for a repeat Rome visitor)! Isn't Beijing in spirit like the Roman autocracy of the modern world? Maybe someone will write a simulator for the Roman sites I have missed... I can actually target a coming military parade (largest in communist history) for which they are already staffing up miniskirted combat squads... If Roman victory parades didn't do this, wouldn't they wish they had thought of it?

bent pilum by vroma at Budapest National Museum, 1st cent CE

Beware of such high minded, well meaning gestures in today's cutthroat, activist world. I know of one recent lending to an aggrieved would-be-owner group which turned out to be permanent. They claimed they reburied it where it was originally found, but there was evidence they sold it (I think they keep it on private display). Rush to appeasement can lead to cultural loss by both sides.

If you mean the viewcount in this thread, i'm sure it undercounts because I sometimes saw reply counts above 0 but with thread views still at 0. Anyway, hoping your blog might end up covering EUR - Museum of the Roman civilization, which I wonder how bad I should feel for missing.

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=roman+empire

Maybe pictures inside Paestum Museum, which is quite nice and not yet finished IIRC by my last visit. Also how about pictures of favorite local cuisine... like mild Sorrento lemons, Caprese salads/sandwiches, blood orange drinks, and smooth gelato:

I'd better stick to passing on choice opinions of others rather than my own, or someone may catch me contradicting my motto: A CNBC reporter suggested the AIG bonus issue was intentionally pumped up and then defused in order to divert attention from a potentially worse populist outrage against the gov't. Many zillions of tax money is going to foreign financial companies who took out AIG insurance on obviously risky and lucrative investments, and will end up the winners due to being made "whole" by the US. On the other hand, they were burned badly by the gov't takedown of Lehman, and opinions are split whether the kill-Lehman or save-AIG approach by gov't was the best or worst one. In http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/e...icle5821706.ece the Harvard Business School is portrayed as a typhoid Mary... at the center of most recent financial disasters. From Enron to Lehman to RBS, they pushed and participated in the very innovations that later lead to downfall, even recently praising them as the epitome of the way forward. Which brings to mind: An editorial from The Economist magazine claims we should appreciate this "bleeding edge" financial innovation from mostly the Anglo world, and tolerate a fair amount of stumbles. It's one thing for other countries to follow along and emulate the capitalist experiments that seem to work best. But the way forward to better well-being has to be blazed by people free to break the paradigms and smash entrenched interests holding things back. Some small tweaks to the notorious types of securitization may bring a lot of new opportunities. So the reins of regulation best be light and not presume too much. And our suffering may be like that of Roman warriors, hopefully civilizing the world albeit thru a certain amount of mayhem!

Interesting, although I cannot stand the oration style of almost any US president... to the extent that I still lunge for the mute button with a sense of desperation on any newsclip. It just seems blatant opiate for the masses, although maybe my nonsense radar is too quick to engage. I have only responded to oration from some almost evil figures, and one recent example must have been fictional where a BBC portrayal of Crassus explained to his troops why he had to decimate them. Wow... passionate about ideals, direct about his disappointment, and to the point about his gruesome solution. If I heard that I may have been mesmerized enough to not bring up the obvious point... "Sir, must it be every 10th man to submit to the hammer or every first out of 10"? Such oratory may be what is needed more than actual correct content right now. Just like FDR, who co-opted and kept at bay various populist rebellions with rhetoric and some pretty bad actions. It is increasingly recognized in the economics world that, unlike the myth, many of Roosevelt's famous actions stifled or reversed recoveries, that did actually work out in other countries without those steps. Anyway, here's some criticism about Obama CONTENT that has even led to a lot of known O. supporters in the financial world to repeatedly plead to him publicly along the lines of "please shut up!". His high toned but populist slant built up from mid Jan to mid March, and I think took a recent reversal which is reflected in this graph: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=PGF&t=...;q=l&c=^DJI The violent downdrafts in early March were directly tied to his loose-cannon statements about wiping out investors who were trying to help out troubled banks (pgf curve) or <<oops, this wrong example now removed>> . This was bad relative even to the well known Dow Jones disaster curve. His philosophy to punish some past scapegoat actually punished the folks coming in to carry the load of recovery (some wiped out forever; had to call it quits before partial rebound). Same thing with his recent call to arms to be ruthless about bonuses. Some folks that are giving up AIG bonuses were experts recently hired to untangle the mess, with a salary of only one dollar in addition to the bonus and have now quit (I earlier posted here about how populist outrage would make the turnaround experts stay at home). It's the height of idiocy to cause a brain drain out of this company that the taxpayers needs to sell back to the private sector to get their billions back (besides punishing employees not a bit to blame). So he soothes the masses with oratorical style while Rome burns. Well, after it got to the point where his oratory incited death threats against his targets, it appears he has stopped pandering to the populists and either found Clintonian pragmatism or else realized how well the financial world bankrolled his election. I'm not impressed, but didn't expect much from either him or his elderly opponent, neither of whom seemed to have the executive experience of even a child who has run a lemonade stand. Can learn on the job, but I don't see why this one has had the automatic benefit of doubt from the intellectual set. Maybe my oratory blind spot prevents seeing real aptitudes, though...

But there must have been a lot of misses where the pilum hits rocky ground. And there must have been pauses in some battles, where a bunch of unbent pilums laying about would be a temptation to an enemy who might be now low on weaponry and perhaps finding the Romans on the brink of defeat. At least this is what Romans might imagine when sitting around a campfire, and I imagine guys even back then liked technical "gimmicks" aside from their actual efficacy.

Found near Turkey... http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,510192,00.html

Heating should do the trick... of melding those stress fractures back to normal. Dunno what temp would be needed (and hammering, blowing bellows, etc?). Maybe someone could experiment by straightening a thin bent nail, then holding a lit match on it before reusing it. Could help me with home repair work if it works.

The above narrator seems to have a rare gift of very pleasing delivery - just click on one of the 128Kbps mp3 files. For more examples of free readings of Roman material of much more variable quality, check the beginning of http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=ro...dio_bookspoetry and towards the end of http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=ro...etry&page=2 Maybe the less good ones are worthwhile for listening during distracting environments like commuting. I think an ideal player for audio books is the Sansa Clip which has a tiny screen just big enough to navigate among books (and music, etc) yet is as little as a matchbook. I found a 8 gig (=20 books?!) one on sale for almost no more then the most entry level Apple ipod.

Pretty good one on Roman Civil War, huh? http://www.archive.org/details/Pharsalia . And check out various resource links from that page... wow.

Oh boy, some more pictures could soothe the ache of my May itinerary falling apart... Some ideas: - If admission fees are an issue, remember the third week of April being culture week with state museums free. I used to hit 5 smaller museums a day, commando style. They have disproportionately high fees, and some are only worth a brief walk thru anyway. But others would be worth skipping lunch for, and I remember encountering a 5 euro wine festival at the end of such a day with no food in my stomach - ouch! - Maybe download somewhat confusing directions and maps ahead of time for getting to Hadrian's Villa by public bus (looking forward to more of anyone's pictures of that place). - Career in flux? Maybe schmooze with various archeo groups in order to become a known quantity for hiring consideration. If not those Swedish societies in Rome and Anacapri, then how about some rich EU bureaucracy that prevents it's construction projects from damaging artifacts? At a book talk today I was once more reminded of the importance of showing up as opposed to applying thru channels for a job. The Army ordered the author to go home, but he sneakily went AWOL and hitchhiked to Nuremberg to join the prosecution team of WW2 Nazis (and go on to enough glory to rate a biography). BTW, he said what do you mean justice of the victors... Stalin and Churchill were telling them to drop the trials and shoot them all, although they did acquit 2 Nazi's he thought were among the worst. - Modest proposal: Isn't tiny Malta providing the head of the EU in June? Hop on over for a visit to, say, the bar frequented by the prospective president. Or find him on the beach or where ever and propose a role for you and archeology in the new regime. Like a plan for Turkey (and it's Roman sites)... bring them into the EEA rather than EU like Norway and Iceland. Not a marriage, just good friends, but I think with juicy subsidies for Turkey. I hear they have umpteen Roman sites that are threatened by construction or more often unauthorized visits or plunder. Map them out, protect them, plan their future on an EU budget?

I had also wondered about that, but think it may be the case of "Those Who Can, Do; Those Who Can't, Teach." Think of the folks who are fascinated by (or employed in) psychology or marital therapy... aren't they the ones a tiny bit unstable or with 4 ex spouses? If I look at my own talents, which are only about twofold but not too bad... almost all the success comes at a non-verbal, subconcious level. I don't mean artsy intuitive stuff; it is absolutely based on logic but the tactics transcend what can be itemized and organized into narrative. Contrasted to my vast shortcomings, where I can easily reflect and think of more logical ways to cope, partly because I keep falling short. Sort of like sports where at one time you may get in the groove and dominate effortlessly and mindlessly, or at another time mess up everything and rack your brains for explanations and ways out. P.S. I bought the new Hicks translation of Meditations and then heard it was a bit eccentric... anyone prefer another version?

Not exactly history, but it is a pretty regular demonstration on TV documentaries of recreating them and showing how they can bend after hitting shields, at least a shield being moved around in battle. A breakaway approach must have more to do with preventing the pila from being thrown back. Of course a victim can straighten out bends and rethrow, but unless hitting flesh it would probably just bounce off any obstruction. Anyone who has spent time trying to pound in a restraightened nail knows how severely weakened it can be.

True, even the historical geneology records should remain open to challenge since there may have been ulterior motives for pretending a certain ancestory. But based on measurements of a now vanished skull, and would one eighth ancestory or whatever have such a great effect on the skull? I've recently stopped following Egyptian archeology, but seem to recall various mummies with funny skull shapes being reasoned away by distortion pressures over the passage of time (I'm not just talking about that Akenaten-sp? oddball). Cleo's sister skull was measured a century ago when they probably didn't recognize when or where plasticity was possible in ancient skulls. I wonder what skull types they consider local for that time period. Maybe not the Egyptian arab kind, but Egyptian nubian (like in current Aswan) which may be more distinctive than arab compared to Greek? Well, anyway this is based on a chain of assumptions like this is really her full sister. I wish such key assumptions in social sciences could be flagged with explicit certainty factors. Too often we hear xyz is the most likely, not knowing whether the speaker means something like 5%, 50% or 95% likely... that is whether there are strong alternatives. When computers were young, there was a lot of excitement in modelling artificial intelligence by assigning certainty factors and doing the math when chaining them together. I think it came up with surprising and good results.