The Edge of the American West
"History can save your ass."
This blog is a blog about history, Yiddishkeit, and the Muppets, neither exclusively nor necessarily in that order. And as William Gibson said about this very blog (no, really), “History can save your ass.” Yiddishkeit and the Muppets are just extras.
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Posts from The Edge of the American West
The Forgotten War (aka Spot the Errors!)
Chillicothe, Ohio unveiled a memorial to the Korean War this last Memorial Day. Unfortunately, the creators do not seem to have had the best historical sense in the world:
Premature antiformalism
I checked out a study score of Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony from the local public library. It’s an early edition, maybe the first American one: © 1945, in the Leeds Music Corporation “Am-Rus Orchestra Scores series.” There’s an introduction by one Harold Sheldon, short but deeply bizarre.
Greatest
Michael Beschloss, criticizing the penchant for commemorating the D-Day anniversary, and talking about Eisenhower avoiding the 1954 anniversary, because:
The Day-to-Day Handshake of Empire
Imperial powers gain much of their strength from their global networks. The British - by owning the oceans in the 19th century - controlled how much of the world’s commerce moved. In that same century, much of the world’s information moved over British telegraph networks. They gave Britain power.…
Random Friday Notes: Jobs Report, Benghazi, and Evil Plane Seat Booking Behavior
In no particular order: Job reports. In the latest form of blog posts/newspaper articles, we have the “The jobs report is good/bad on the surface, but bad/good underneath” genre. We got a bumper crop of it after today’s release. Yes, I know that today’s report was not of unalloyed good cheer, but…
Putin and Rationality
Who’s a nice naval base, then? Shorter John Cassidy: Putin may have a set of motivations that are rational by his lights, but I think he’s crazy: Putin is a Russian nationalist[*] through and through, and, historically, an important part of Russian nationalism has been expansionism. When you are…
Signposts of the New Gilded Age, No. 309
The Department of the Navy is advertising a summer internship as a “Student Trainee Laborer.” It is paid, admittedly, but doesn’t strike me as a particularly educational experience: This position is that of a Student Trainee (Laborer) assigned to perform a combination of tasks requiring little or…
In A Continuing Series On Things That Might Still Go Boom.
World War II will not be entirely over for a long while:
Your Random Human Rights Reminder
Given today’s xkcd cartoon:
First Emoticon: 1648?
Everything is older than you think it is: