Penn State musicologist Marica Tacconi discovered the fakes on sabbatical in Venice. //
Penn State musicologist Marica Tacconi wasn't planning to discover forged music books when she started her sabbatical research at the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice in 2018. But when she encountered an embellished, leather-bound music book ostensibly from the 17th century, something about it struck her as off. Subsequent analysis showed that her instincts had been right: the book was an early 20th-century forgery, as were two other music books, supposedly from the same period, that she examined in the collection. Tacconi gives a full account of her investigations in a recent paper published in the Journal of Seventeenth Century Music.
The Marciana Library acquired the music books—catalogued as MSS 740, 742, and 743—in 1916 and 1917 from a musician and book dealer named Giovanni Concina. But before Tacconi undertook her analysis, the books had neither received much scholarly attention nor been studied as a set. //
david newallArs Scholae Palatinaereplyabout 9 hours agoReader Fav
I wonder why they were forged. Apparently not for financial gain as they sold for so little. Somebody went to a lot of effort and didn't receive fame or fortune. //
agkhayyamWise, Aged Ars Veteran about 9 hours ago
david newall wrote:
I wonder why they were forged. Apparently not for financial gain as they sold for so little. Somebody went to a lot of effort and didn't receive fame or fortune.
And now this feels like the beginning of a Dan Brown novel...
the Washington Post’s fact-checker Glenn Kessler really went over the slide in his “fact check” of her statement.
Kessler claims that the Nazis weren’t socialist and gave her four Pinocchios for saying they were. He even called her “ahistorical.”
Now, it seems farcical that anyone would argue that, given it’s in the very name of their party – the National Socialist German Worker’s Party, (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) or NSDAP -but it’s a common argument on the left. Perhaps it’s understandable that they don’t want to get tagged with that as part of leftist history. //
As the U.S. Holocaust Museum explains, describing the 25 points of the Nazi program:
The 25 points combined extreme nationalism, racial antisemitism, and socialist concepts with German outrage over the Versailles peace settlement following their defeat in World War I.
Now, what’s interesting is Kessler cites the first eight points, which tend to emphasize nationalism and racism. But he doesn’t include the remaining points of the program. Why would that be? He had to see all 25 if he saw the first 8 points. //
Here’s Hitler in 1931:
“To put it quite clearly: we have an economic programme. Point number 13 in that programme demands the nationalisation of all public companies, in other words socialisation, or what is known here as socialism… The basic principle of my Party’s economic programme should be made perfectly clear and that is the principle of authority… The good of the community takes priority over that of the individual. But the State should retain control; every owner should feel himself to be an agent of the State; it is his duty not to misuse his possessions to the detriment of the State or the interests of his fellow countrymen. That is the overriding point. The Third Reich will always retain the right to control property owners.”
Yet the creativity that the city is famous for does not extend to the government. They favor the generic and boring, and refuse to see the advantages of having two airports.
Now that BER is online, Tegel could be updated and resized to its original hexagon of 14 gates and 16 check-in counters to serve select airlines, the government or private jets willing to pay for the close access to the city. But once they rip up the runway there will be no going back.
History gave unified Berlin three functioning airports. One by one they have disappeared. When Tegel is gone, the jet age will be over for Berlin. Its BER replacement is far away and no new airport will ever be built in the city.
For 46 years Tegel was an eccentric and exceptional addition to Berlin. May it remain in our memories forever as the airport built around the idea that form should follow function — the one international airport where travelers came first.
In an interview in 2018, the economist Thomas Sowell had a concise answer when podcaster and commentator Dave Rubin asked what awakened him to the failures of Marxism, an ideology he had espoused in his youth.
“Facts!” Sowell replied.
In his decadeslong career, Sowell’s commitment to the facts at the expense of popular approval and, sometimes, career advancement has captured audiences young and old, black and white, rich and poor.
But Sowell isn’t much concerned with his fame, even if it is an encouraging indicator of how well his ideas have been received. //
To be a conservative who is black is to expose oneself to undue amounts of absurd criticism, and Sowell’s experience was no exception.
Riley writes that Sowell and the late economist Walter Williams, a protegee and friend of Sowell’s, used to joke that “they never flew together, because if the plane went down there would be no black conservatives left.”
But Sowell had “felt the pain and humiliation of racism firsthand throughout his life,” and “needed no lectures from anyone on the evils of Jim Crow,” Riley writes.
For instance, many claimed that Sowell’s book “Ethnic America: A History” argued that discrimination against blacks did not exist. But Sowell actually was arguing that “discrimination alone was an insufficient explanation of social inequality.”
Sowell, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution since 1980, certainly was not a pawn of white economists, even the ones he admired and learned from.
Milton Friedman, a friend and mentor, said that Sowell “has a mind of his own, insists on making it up for himself, and on getting the evidence necessary to form a valid judgment.” In fact, Sowell saw his views on racial matters as entirely in line with that of black civil rights leaders of the past.
“If anything,” Riley writes, “Sowell’s analyses are in the tradition of his fellow black forebearers, not his white contemporaries.” Black leaders of the past such as Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington, he writes, “shared Sowell’s deep skepticism of government benevolence and the lowering of standards to facilitate black advancement.”
So, yet again, America, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. has once again saved us from ourselves. I mean, one look at the declared purpose of the 1776 undertaking by commissioners tells you all you need to know about these very dangerous people:
“The declared purpose of the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission is to ‘enable a rising generation to understand the history and principles of the founding of the United States in 1776 and to strive to form a more perfect Union.
“This requires a restoration of American education, which can only be grounded on a history of those principles that is ‘accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling.
“And a rediscovery of our shared identity rooted in our founding principles is the path to a renewed American unity and a confident American future.” //
As reported by The Washington Examiner on Friday, the education advisory commission will resume operations, despite being disbanded by Biden — with the added objective of undermining the insanity of critical race theory now metastasizing in schools across America.
The 1776 Commission is scheduled to convene on Monday in Washington on the annex campus of Hillsdale College to plot its next steps. An agenda for the private meeting, which is closed to the media, was not available.
But in an interview with the Washington Examiner, Matthew Spalding, the 1776 Commission’s executive director, said the group sees a major role for itself in the explosive debate over the teaching of the history of the United States in public and private schools.
The battle lines are clearly drawn.
On one side, “traditionalists,” as described by the Examiner, who believe in de-emphasizing race and ethnicity. Spalding told the Examiner the commission doesn’t intend to “whitewash” America’s history slavery and racism, but wants to promote a curriculum that defines “racial equality” as an American “tenet”: — “the founding creed of the Declaration of Independence: all men are created equal” — and Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of a colorblind nation.
On the other side, critical race theory — the “decades-old academic study of U.S. history, more prevalent recently,” argues that racism remains deeply embedded in all aspects of American life. According to CRT, the only way to “unravel this systemic racism and bring about a just society” is for institutions, public and private, to place race and ethnicity at the center of policymaking, hiring, and how people are treated generally. //
Spalding then pointed to the obvious, unintentionally — meaning he precisely described the objective as an intended part of his comment.
“Current arguments about identity politics and critical race theory that … present themselves as merely responding to perceptions of their current assessment of American society, but do so by introducing as their principle that we should look at people based on the color of their skin, strikes us as a fundamental denial of the idea that all men are created equal.
“And that’s a problem for politics. That’s a problem intellectually and historically.”
CRT “teaches” — indoctrinates — that all “men” are not created equal. On the contrary, CRT contends that “white people” are born “racist,” and there is nothing “white people” can do about it, other than spend the entirety of their lives atoning for their “whiteness” and apologizing to “black people” for being “racist.” //
Martin • 3 hours ago • edited
Critical Race Theory is evil. The people who came up with it, are evil. The people who teach it, are evil. The people who believe in it or practice it, are evil. The people who enable it or defend it in any way, shape or form, are evil.
There should be no compromise with these people. You should call them evil to their faces with zero hesitation.
Again, they're not wrong; they are evil.
Two of her most famous quotes remain sourceless and bereft, despite the best efforts of The Jewish Press writer Harvey Rachlin. //
We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us
Golda Meir was Prime Minister of Israel from February 1969 to June 1974. The following is an op-ed she wrote for The New York Times in 1975.
To be misquoted is an occupational hazard of political leadership; for this reason I should like to clarify my position in regard to the Palestinian issue. I have been charged with being rigidly insensitive to the question of the Palestinian Arabs. In evidence of this I am supposed to have said, “There are no Palestinians.” My actual words were: “There is no Palestinian people. There are Palestinian refugees.” The distinction is not semantic. My statement was based on a lifetime of debates with Arab nationalists who vehemently excluded a separatist Palestinian Arab nationalism from their formulations.
When in 1921 I came to Palestine – until the end of World War I a barren, sparsely inhabited Turkish province – we, the Jewish pioneers, were the avowed Palestinians. So we were named in the world. Arab nationalists, on the other hand, stridently rejected the designation. Arab spokesmen continued to insist that the land we had cherished for centuries was, like Lebanon, merely a fragment of Syria. On the grounds that it dismembered an ideal unitary Arab state, they fought before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry and at the United Nations.
When the Arab historian Philip K. Hitti informed the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry that “there is no such thing as Palestine in history,” it was left to David Ben-Gurion to stress the central role of Palestine in Jewish, if not Arab, history.
As late as May 1956, Ahmed Shukairy, subsequently head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, declared to the United Nations Security Council, “It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria.” In view of this, I believe I may be forgiven if I took Arab spokesmen at their word.
Until the 1960’s, attention was focused on the Arab refugees for whose plight the Arab states would allow no solution though many constructive and far-reaching proposals were made by Israel and the world community.
I repeatedly expressed my sympathy for the needless sufferings of refugees whose abnormal situation was created and exploited by the Arab states as a tactic in their campaign against Israel. However, refugee status could not indefinitely be maintained for the original 550,000 Arabs who in 1948 joined the exodus from the battle areas during the Arab attack on the new state of Israel.
When the refugee card began to wear thin, the Palestinian terrorist appeared on the scene flourishing not the arguable claims of displaced refugees but of a ghoulish nationalism that could only be sated on the corpse of Israel.
I repeat again. We dispossessed no Arabs. Our toil in the deserts and marshes of Palestine created more habitable living space for both Arab and Jew. Until 1948 the Arabs of Palestine multiplied and flourished as the direct result of Zionist settlement. Whatever subsequent ills befell the Arabs were the inevitable result of the Arab design to drive us into the sea. Had Israel not repelled her would-be destroyers there would have been no Jewish refugees alive in the Middle East to concern the world.
Now, two years after the surprise attack of the Yom Kippur War, I am well aware of the potency of Arab petrobillions and I have no illusions about the moral fiber of the United Nations, most of whose members hailed gun-toting Yasir Arafat and shamefully passed the anti-Semitic resolution that described Zionism, the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, as racist.
But though Israel is small and beset, I am not prepared to accede to the easy formula that in the Arab-Israeli conflict we witness two equal contending rights that demand further “flexibility” from Israel. Justice was not violated when in the huge territories liberated by the Allies from the Sultan, 1 percent was set aside for the Jewish homeland on its ancestral site, while in a parallel settlement 99 percent of the area was allotted for the establishment of independent Arab states.
We successively accepted the truncation of Transjordan, three-fourths of the area of historic Palestine, and finally the painful compromise of the 1947 partition resolution in the hope for peace. Yet though Israel arose in only one-fifth of the territory originally assigned for the Jewish homeland, the Arabs invaded the young state.
I ask again, as I have often asked, why did the Arabs not set up a Palestine state in their portion instead of cannibalizing the country by Jordan’s seizure of the West Bank and Egypt’s capture of the Gaza Strip? And, since the question of the 1967 borders looms heavily in the present discussions, why did the Arabs converge upon us in June 1967, when the West Bank, the Golan Heights, the Sinai, the Gaza Strip and old Jerusalem were in their hands?
These are not idle questions. They go to the heart of the matter – the Arab denial of Israel’s right to exist. This right is not subject to debate. That is why Israel cannot by its presence sanction the participation of the Palestine Liberation Organization at the Security Council, a participation in direct violation of Resolutions 242 and 338.
We have no common language with exultant murderers of the innocent and with a terrorist movement ideologically committed to the liquidation of Jewish national independence.
At no point has the P.L.O. renounced its program for the “elimination of the Zionist entity.” With startling effrontery P.L.O. spokesmen admit that their proposed state on the West Bank would be merely a convenient “point of departure,” a tactical “first stage” and finally, a combatant “arsenal” strategically situated for the easier penetration of Israel.
I am often asked a hypothetical question: How would we react if the P.L.O. agreed to abandon its weapon, terror, and its goal, the destruction of Israel? The answer is simple. Any movement that forswore both its means and its end would by that fact become a different organization with a different leadership. There is no room for such speculation in the case of the P.L.O.
This does not mean that at this stage I disregard whatever national aspirations Palestinian Arabs have developed in recent years. However, these can be satisfied within the boundaries of historic Palestine.
The majority of the refugees never left Palestine; they are settled on the West Bank and in Jordan, the majority of whose population is Palestinian. Whatever nomenclature is used, both the people involved and the territory on which they live are Palestinian.
A mini-Palestine state, planted as a time bomb against Israel on the West Bank, would only serve as a focal point for the further exploitation of regional tensions by the Soviet Union.
But in a genuine peace settlement a viable Palestine-Jordan could flourish side by side with Israel within the original area of Mandatory Palestine.
On July 21, 1974, the Israeli Government passed the following resolution: “The peace will be founded on the existence of two independent states only – Israel, with united Jerusalem as its capital, and a Jordanian-Palestinian Arab state, east of Israel, within borders to be determined in negotiations between Israel and Jordan.”
All allied problems can be equitably solved. For this to happen the adversaries of Israel will have to stop devising overt schemes for her immediate or piecemeal extinction.
There are 21 Arab states, rich in oil, land and sovereignty. There is only one small state in which Jewish national independence has been dearly achieved. Surely it is not extravagant to demand that in the current power play the right of a small democracy to freedom and life not be betrayed.
I was shocked to find out on the 97th birthday of Kenneth Kaunda - Zambia's first president and a giant in the fight against colonialism - that some people had never heard of him.
I had posted my birthday greeting to the nonagenarian on social media on 28 April with the tag line: "The only African independence leader from the 1960s still alive."
Many celebrated. Other were astonished, saying: "I didn't realise he was still alive."
But to be honest, those under the age of the 30 were clueless.
He went on to become Zambia's founding president at the age of 40.
His wish, he said, was for Zambians to have an egg on their table for breakfast every morning, a pint of milk - and for every Zambian to have a pair of shoes on their feet.
Popularly known as KK, during his presidency he was a fierce critic of apartheid South Africa and white-minority rule in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe - and he allowed groups fighting these regimes, like the African National Congress (ANC), to make Zambia their base.
To begin with he made huge strides towards improving the lot of Zambians, but betrayed the promise of democracy by introducing a one-party state in 1973.
Mr Kaunda was the only candidate in elections in 1978, 1983 and 1987 - scoring more than 80% of the vote each time.
He must have been too embarrassed to register 100%.
Even within his own party, he changed the rules to keep getting selected as the only candidate.
Eventually, Zambians felt Mr Kaunda had overstayed his time in office and voted him out in 1991 after mass protests forced him to reintroduce multi-party elections.
In the three decades since the rush and joy of independence, the continent had become awash with dictatorships - which may explain why some of its post-colonial leaders are no longer remembered by a younger generation.
Some were assassinated or deposed in coups, others had forgotten the dreams of people and the promises made to them.
Africa still has leaders who have been in power for more than 20 or 30 years.
Some have been in power for almost 40 years, like Cameroon's President Paul Biya. He is only the second president Cameroon has had since independence from France in the 1960s.
Perhaps it is because of this legacy that men who should be lionised are largely forgotten.
And it makes me wonder what is taught in African history classes today.
Surely Mr Kaunda - who since leaving office has largely kept out of politics and has devoted much of his energy to fighting HIV after losing one of his sons to Aids in the late 1980s - is someone who ought not to be forgotten.
He is a living reminder of the continent's history - good and bad - and we can learn from both.
The DC-7 was the final propeller aircraft produced by Douglas. Despite it being the last of a generation, it caused quite a stir in the industry when it was introduced in the 1950s. The jet engine would enter the market in the same decade. However, before these turbines shook up United States aviation, the DC-7 opened up new doors for airlines in the country. //
American Airlines introduced this low-wing airliner on November 29th, 1953. The legacy carrier flew it on a route between New York and Los Angeles. With this move, the company became the first operator to offer nonstop transcontinental service in both directions. It was a massive deal to be able to fly westbound in the US against the prevailing winds. //
“The longer length of the DC-7 and DC-7B fuselage (over eight feet more than the DC-6), allowed room for an eight-passenger Sky Room, with facing seats, and a five-seat Sky Lounge, in addition to two main cabins. Delta’s DC-7 and DC-7B initially held 69 passengers in all first-class seating, except for four DC-7B which were delivered in 1957 with all-coach configuration for 90 passengers. Improvements in air conditioning and sound proofing provided additional comfort,”Delta Flight Museum shares. //
Boeing [Douglas] gave the DC-7C the title of Seven Seas, as it claimed it could transport 110 passengers “anywhere in the world.” Thus, SAS made the most out of its plane and launched its first “around the world” service on February 24th, 1957. Here, the airline was flying from Copenhagen to Tokyo via the North Pole.
Two DC-7Cs, Guttorm Viking and Reidar Viking, flew in each direction on the same day. By cutting through the Arctic, the carrier was able to shave 2,000 mi (3,219 km) off the journey.
Historical parallels are always there for the thoughtful. Consider a key turning point for each of two former US presidents.
Union General Ulysses S. Grant crossed the Rapidan River in Virginia on 4 May 1864 – 157 years ago this very week – to commence the Overland Campaign in order to engage and destroy Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in a series of bloody battles that ended on 12 June when the siege of Petersburg began.
With the stakes equally high for the country, Donald Trump crossed his own Rapidan to commence his version of the Overland Campaign when he started down that escalator on 15 June 2015 and declared his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president of the United States. This past Monday, that campaign continued with the latest battle as he labeled the 2020 election “The Big Lie.”
Some would say this is over-the-top hyperbole. I think not. Let us examine the parallels.
Grant developed a reputation for dogged determination and tenacity – honed in capturing heavily fortified Vicksburg, MS, in July 1863 and later at Missionary Ridge in Tennessee in November 1863 – but also for ingenuity in the use of maneuver warfare and op tempo, the delegation of authority to subordinates, battlefield improvisation, and a genius-level understanding of the strategic and operational levels of 19th-century warfare.
The Overland Campaign was his first major operation after having been appointed commander of all Union armies by President Lincoln in March 1964. The strategy he developed involved continually holding and engaging Lee’s sizeable but inferior army while Gen. William T. Sherman cut through Georgia (which eventually became the “March to the Sea”), and two other Union generals concentrated on the key Confederate port at Mobile, AL, and major railway supply lines in West Virginian. The strategic objective was to attrite Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia while destroying the Confederate army’s logistics resupply capability and ability to wage war.
Yesterday marked a significant anniversary in the domain of aerial circumnavigation achievements. Specifically, it was the 45th anniversary of Pan Am’s ‘Liberty Bell Express’ circumnavigation. This saw the airline fly a Boeing 747SP eastwards around the world from New York JFK in record time between May 1st and May 3rd, 1976. //
AlanF
20h ago
I believe on the DEL-HND leg they detoured so the flight would touch the equator. I think that was part of the official requirement to set a record for around the world. Otherwise you could just fly to the North Pole and do one quick loop around it and say you had been around the world. They subsequently flew a 747SP on a speed record flight that went over both poles. I forget the routing. //
BillyDolan
10 Points
15h ago
Another PanAm first was achieved between Oct 28-30 1977, probably with the same plane, B747SP Clipper New Horizons, when they circumnavigated the world over both poles departing SFO on Oct28 1977 over the North Pole to LON, then south to CPT,SA and over the South Pole to AKL, NZ, to arrive in SFO on Oct 31st 1977. Total miles flown 26,706 miles, total elapsed time 54h7m12s, avg air speed 494 miles/hr. Captain Walter H. Mullikin was the skipper of Pan Am flight 50. //
BillyDolan
10 Points
At one time SAA held the distance/time record on the delivery of their first SP, non-stop Seattle-Johannesburg... around 21 hours in the air.
Thirty years ago, Linus Torvalds was a 21 year old student at the University of Helsinki when he first released the Linux Kernel. His announcement started, “I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional…)”. Three decades later, the top 500 supercomputers are all running Linux, as are over 70% of all smartphones. Linux is clearly both big and professional.
For three decades, Linus Torvalds has led Linux Kernel development, inspiring countless other developers and open source projects. In 2005, Linus also created Git to help manage the kernel development process, and it has since become the most popular version control system, trusted by countless open source and proprietary projects. //
Regarding creating Git and then handing it off to Junio Hamano to improve and maintain, Linus noted, "I don't want to claim that programming is an art, because it really is mostly just about 'good engineering'. I'm a big believer in Thomas Edison's 'one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration' mantra: it's almost all about the little details and the everyday grunt-work. But there is that occasional 'inspiration' part, that 'good taste' thing that is about more than just solving some problem - solving it cleanly and nicely and yes, even beautifully. And Junio had that 'good taste'." //
I very much don't regret the choice of license, because I really do think the GPLv2 is a huge part of why Linux has been successful.
Money really isn't that great of a motivator. It doesn't pull people together. Having a common project, and really feeling that you really can be a full partner in that project, that motivates people, I think. //
I write very little code these days, and haven't for a long time. And when I do write code, the most common situation is that there's some discussion about some particular problem, and I make changes and send them out as a patch mainly as an explanation of a suggested solution. //
Because all my real work is spent on reading and writing emails. It's mostly about communication, not coding. In fact, I consider this kind of communication with journalists and tech bloggers etc to literally be part of my workday - it may get lower priority than actual technical discussions, but I do spend a fair amount of time on things like this too.
Beginning in July 2018, the Intelligence Community will begin its release of declassified documents related to the Tet offensive. These documents will be released in three installments over a period of 15 months. Below is a list of each document added. As documents are released we will include additional features and information to improve functionality and discovery. Please check back regularly for ongoing updates.
In recognition of the 50th anniversary of the Tet Offensive—which took place on January 30, 1968—Director of National Intelligence Daniel R. Coats directed intelligence agencies to review their holdings to reveal previously classified details to the public.
This page displays selected documents from the declassified volume as well as other contextual images, videos, and quotes which will be updated on a periodic basis. To view all declassified documents that have been released to date please click on the 'view documents' link. Additional items of interest can be found in the menu to provide greater context and insight into the Tet Offensive declassification effort.
Intel.gov will serve as the hub for the release of Tet offensive declassified documents. However, some agencies have dedicated locations for their corresponding documents:
Before the likes of the cancel culture rewrite the history of the Vietnam War, it is important to remember that US and South Vietnamese forces won virtually every major battle during the war, including the 1968 Tet Offensive, which wiped out the Viet Cong as an effective fighting force, but which the pro-Communist Walter Cronkite (and others) spun as a “strategic American defeat” to American television audiences. An excellent discussion of how Tet was falsely spun by the North Vietnamese Communists and their sycophants in the American media and anti-war movement (which was possibly the most successful information operation in history) can be found here entitled “Tet Declassified.” That Communist info op convinced Americans that the war was lost, which led to the “Vietnamization” of the war effort, to the Paris Peace Accords, to the American withdrawal from Vietnam, and ultimately to Operation Frequent Wind.
Why was the war lost? A tragedy of bad decisions and strategic errors. That the US evolved ridiculous Rules of Engagement but no mission success criteria doomed the American effort to failure. Body counts, aircraft sorties and bombs dropped, artillery rounds fired, etc. The US “counterinsurgency strategy” was completely wrong, given the overwhelming military superiority of the US versus the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. And LBJ’s management of the war effort from the Oval Office severely constrained commanders in the field. Allowing unfettered access by the American news media to unit-level operations was a strategic mistake, which led to the likes of Cronkite falsely spinning the reality on the ground to Americans watching the “television war.”
By 1971 or 1972, the war was essentially won in South Vietnam, and after the Christmas bombing of Hanoi in December of 1972, North Vietnam’s will to continue had been broken. However, it was the Democrat majority in the US Congress who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, and who deliberately forfeited the war after all US forces were withdrawn for US political reasons, as well as suspended military aid to the South Vietnamese. That latter perfidious act was the coup de grâce. Funny how nobody mentions that these days as the DC Democrats push their Communist agenda down our throats. Some things never change. //
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/tet-offensive-halted
https://www.aim.org/aim-column/the-terrible-truth-about-walter-cronkite/
It’s been nearly 10 years since I first visited the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It was a great experience for me. I could finally see the place I’d previously only known from books and TV and the tart taste of the Lugol’s iodine I had to drink a few days after the disaster. After many visits to the plant, I was finally even allowed to enter the damaged Reactor 4 and see the notorious control room. It was here that the failed experiment resulting in the reactor exploding and the uncontrolled emission into the atmosphere of terabecquerels of radioactive isotopes was conducted.
I prefer much more to get to know history by going to museums, watching old documentary films, listening to direct reports of the witnesses of events. It is much easier and more pleasant to absorb the information when you are closer to these events. It is much easier to form your own opinion, having a greater and fuller image of the reality that surrounds us. This must be where my interest in diving in shipwrecks comes from. Located several dozen metres under the surface of the water, the wreck of a military ship is nothing if not a living museum. Additionally, one in which you can touch all the objects without worrying, not receiving strict reprimands from the museum guards. Recent diving in Narvik in wrecks from the Second World War taught me the history of these events much better than many lessons in school.
And it was no different during my last trip to the closed zone in Chernobyl. This time, thanks to obtaining special permits, I was able to get to the area of block 4 of the nuclear power plant, in other words, where everything began.
Ben begins by pointing out that a nation is far more than just a random selection of people sharing a geographical space. Rather, our shared values and a respect for the rule of law have bound us since our founding. What followed was a brief mention of that founding, including the incredible bravery and spirit of those who crossed the Delaware River, beaten and nearing defeat at the time, and ended up changing the world in the process.
Contrast that with what we have today in what Ben describes as self-proclaimed “happy-warriors.” These are the Republicans who are more than happy to fight any number of foreign conflicts or for Amazon to pay less in taxes, but when the true cultural battles present themselves, they run away, hiding behind supposed principles that only serve as an excuse for their weakness.
Ben goes on to note that someone is going to rule, whether it be race radicals, big tech, Hollywood, or something else. The other side isn’t looking to lay down their arms. The only question is whether Republicans and lovers of freedom, in general, are willing to actually fight.
Dean Alfange, a “progressive” of his era and a labor activist, wrote 163 words, in the form of a letter, 70 years ago that was first published in Reader’s Digest in 1952.
“My Creed”
“I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon.
“I seek to develop whatever talents God gave me—not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me.
“I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia.
“I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any earthly master nor bend to any threat.
“It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations and to face the world boldly and say – ‘This, with God’s help, I have done.’
“All this is what it means to be an American.”
A plaque of Alfange’s words, unattributed, and confusingly misnamed — as I explain below — in Hagerstown, Indiana.
Alfange’s “My Creed” should not be confused with “The American’s Creed,” written by “American public servant” William Tyler Page, (1868 1942) — who worked in the U.S. Capitol for 61 years — in 1917 and accepted by the U.S. House of Representatives on April 3, 1918, which also stands as a reverend testament to American patriotism — and against the clear and present danger posed by the radical left, who is determined to steal from us our country as we know it.
“I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed, a democracy in a republic, a sovereign Nation of many sovereign States; a perfect union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes.
“I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it, to support its Constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its flag, and to defend it against all enemies.”
Approaching history with condescending arrogance, as the woke movement does, merely highlights the smallness of the examiners. //
Clearly, the political left has a significant problem with our national story. They don’t understand history, either the actual developments that made the United States or the field of study that seeks to make sense of that process.
Historians try to understand how and why human beings acted the way they did in the context of their circumstances and possibilities. But social justice warriors know better. For them, the past is a convenient arena in which to practice the latest exercise in cancel culture.
The shocking ignorance of the past many social justice warriors display is all too evident. The 1619 Project overflows with untruthful assertions and gross distortions, beginning with its ludicrous claim that the American Revolution was launched to protect slavery. A clueless woke mob in Madison, Wisconsin dismembered a statue of an outspoken abolitionist and pulled down another symbolizing the advance of women’s rights.
One of the most egregious errors committed in San Francisco concerned poor Paul Revere, who was unhorsed from his midnight ride because he participated in the Penobscot Expedition of 1779. The school board decried this as a campaign to capture American Indian land when, in fact, it was a failed assault on a British fort during the American Revolution.
While this disdain for historical facts is distressing, even more troubling, however is the woke movement’s profoundly wrongheaded approach to history itself. Sometimes, they simply seek to abolish it.
Leftist disciples shrewdly sense (and fear) that history tends to create a sense of attachment and perspective, qualities that blunt efforts to remake the world anew. Revolutionary zealots have always targeted historical symbols as a key enemy in their crusades for purification. In the French Revolution, Jacobins sought to erase the centuries-old influence of Christianity by installing the Cult of the Supreme Being to harness religious feeling without the danger of religious content. //
The awakened believe that the past is just like the present and its inhabitants should be judged by contemporary standards. This is mistaken. Early on, the student of history learns to beware of “presentism,” or judging the past by the standards of the present. If not, you end up condemning Charlemagne for not endorsing women’s rights or Susan B. Anthony for insensitivity to transgenderism. The awakened believe that the past is a pantheon of heroes and villains to be lionized or condemned. //
The awakened believe that the past is a morality tale to be ransacked for lessons illustrating good and evil. Yet even a cursory look at past events discloses a whirl of motivations, often conflicting or ambiguous, at work in shaping outcomes. Henry Ford’s adoption of the assembly line in 1911, for instance, a move that reshaped the modern world, combined idealism (lowering costs to make the automobile available to average people), interest (boosting profits from an increased volume of sales), and unforeseen developments (such as overly repetitious labor workers often resented or rejected).
The awakened, however, believe that an overarching theory — class conflict or modernization not long ago; whiteness, the patriarchy, heteronormativity, intersectionality currently — offers a tidy explanation for everything. This is mistaken. The incredible complexity of human history demands multicausal explanations and vigorous debate among competing interpretations, not a conga line of liberationist theorists sent snaking through the past shimmying and shaking to the rhythm of revolution.
‘Interrogate the Past, But Don’t Bully It’
Judicious students of the American experience steer clear of these mistakes and approach it cautiously, seeking wisdom, not weaponization. They understand that history does not repeat, but instead unfolds as a process that produces the present. They understand that historical facts matter to provide credible evidence in support of reasonable judgments along with all the facts, not just those cherry-picked for ideological reasons. //
Edmund Burke observed that human society is a contract between “those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born,” and urged citizens to beware those who “should act as if they were the entire master.” In that spirit we should ponder American history as a pursuit of political participation, individual equality, constitutional order, social opportunity, and economic freedom, however imperfectly realized and full of ambiguities it has been.
We should celebrate what is worthy in our past and chastise what is reprehensible. We should submit our history to rigorous, fair-minded analysis and see what it can tell us about the human condition and how we got where we are.
This important task demands thoughtful examination and nuanced judgments, not a frenzied kangaroo court convened by wokesters jacked up on ideological amphetamines and spouting slogans. Confronting the imperfections of the past — as well as the human beings who inhabited it — should heighten an awareness not of our superiority but our shortcomings. In the end, such a careful investigation of history can provide the key inspiration for us to overcome them.