Imperial decadence -- the Fisher King bleeds

I have been trying to keep most of my political commentary off this blog (by putting it on the even more ephemeral Facebook) but sometimes, like Sir Percival, you have to say something about an event that seems to indicate what direction things are going. Why is the Fisher King bleeding? Better find out!The event today is about Today -- the US TV news show. It has just hired...

Afghans speak about the Afghan election

In an amazing good piece from the New York Times' blog At War, Afghans (men, no women) express their various opinions about the recent election and the country's situation in general. And various those opinions are. If your country has troops in Afghanistan, you owe it to yourself...

A big Viking hoard may rewrite the history books

This post from the Independent (UK) has two very interesting points. First, the discovery is being called the "largest and most important" Viking hoard found in Britain since 1840, which is a long time. Second, responsible metal detectorists found and properly handled the discovery....

"A sad cemetery of depressing clutter"

A modern Russian characterizes Soviet-era "interior design" AKA "dying for the unavailable K-Mar...

A depressing but detailed British evaluation of the situation in Afghanistan...

...from Prospect Magazine.It's like the Vietnam war -- either one of them -- never happened.An excerpt:Britain’s new Afghan war began shortly after 9/11, with the deployment of special force units to support the US campaign against al Qaeda. But it was a Nato plan to extend the writ of the Kabul government across the country that brought Britain to Helmand, Afghanistan’s largest...

Ramadan crescent moon, Amman, Jordan

From The Big Picture Ramadan 2009 collecti...

A turning point in terrestrial history, a la George Ade

And then there was the day that those apes, who had never bothered anyone much except other scavengers, came over the hill with their burning torches and their packs of dogs.The other animals and the brighter plants looked at each other and those who could lit out for the territories...

Medieval attitudes and their depiction in -- or absence from -- historical novels

Over at Magistra et Mater:My post on historical novels (and the responses to it) have got me thinking a bit more about the difference between modern and medieval mentalities, or rather, the differences that historical novelists need to contemplate and possibly find ways to express. This is my first attempt to say what I think the most important differences to note are (please join...

The *new* menace of Wikipedia!

Over at Wormtalk and Slugspeak, Michael Drout, who has recently been a TV talking head, drops this alarming observation:What I could glean of the script [for Clash of the Gods] from the questions made it seem pretty decent (which has been borne out so far). The writers/producers had done good work tracking down reasonable information. However, it was a little surprising how much...

M42, the Great Nebula in Orion

Plus M43 and NGC 1977.Thanks to Astronomy Picture of the Day.Click for a larger ima...

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War and American society

Wonder of wonders, a substantial piece on a meta-question of public policy in the New York Times (not of course written by a staff writer). Army captain Timothy Hsia writes on the place of war in American society, and civil-military relations, and his readers respond with not...

Thoughts of Wednesday won't go away

This is all people in Baghdad can think of. Has there been any discussion on your news outle...

Rowing to democracy...

...is the title of a New York Times book review of John R. Hale's Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy and the Birth of Democracy. I've speculated on this myself in this blog, so I'm interested.An excerpt from the review:Mr. Hale’s thesis in “Lords of the Sea” is that the construction of the mighty Athenian navy, composed largely of lightweight warships known...

Freelance

Michael Quinion is a freelance etymologist, whose entertaining and learned e-mail newsletter on word origins and word usage I've read for years. I hope he won't mind this extensive quotation from this week's issue:Q. A Web site says: "Freelancers can trace their job title back toSir Walter Scott, who introduced the term in his 1819 novel,Ivanhoe. His 'free-lance' characters were...

Defenders of the Faith: Charles V, Suleyman the Magnificent, and the Battle for Europe, 1520-1536, by James Reston, Jr.

James Reston, Jr. has written a number of histories of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, but till now I have never read any of his books. So when The Penguin Press asked me if I'd like to review Defenders of the Faith for this blog, I said "yes."Reston states in his Foreword that...

Blogging, especially medieval blogging, is a dangerous occupation

Witness I Have Consumed and Excreted Your Blogger.As another medievalist blogger, at least part of the time, I have to call this an impressive performan...

Dixie down

I feel compelled to post most of the material following from Brad DeLong's blog, because "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" is the only depiction of the Civil War, historical or fictional, that has ever made me feel any sympathy for those who fought for the Confederacy:Thus Robbie Robertson [member of "The Band" who wrote the song in 1969] incites the ire of Ta-Nehisi Coates,...

Birther conspiracies of yore

I can't bring myself to get into the details of the nutty and alarming American "birther" delusion, but if you already know about it, this may amuse you... Thanks to Brad DeLong.Image: a bed warming p...

Historic Ordnance seminar, 2009

Explosives and incendiary devices from medieval recipes, as tested at the Medieval Centre in Denmark. Could be called "Boys with their Toys, Medieval Scholar Edition," if I was one to talk, that is.Thanks to Kelly DeVries for posting th...

"Modern" to "Islamic" in just a few years

From the New York Times "At War" blog:She said: “Abeer you know me, we used to wear such clothes in college.” I told her: “Things are very different now.” Then I showed her a picture on my mobile phone of me wearing an abaya. She was shocked and said: “I heard about it, but I can’t...

Scholarly authority

Jonathan Jarrett has a good post on how scholars of the Middle Ages (and other subjects, too) base themselves -- or don't -- on the authority of earlier scholars. Some excerpts:One of the things I find oddest, and least enjoyable, about working on Spain is the peculiar persistence...

Pirates of New York City

Pirates today are generally associated with Captain Morgan, Jack Sparrow, or for the more serious, the Horn of Africa.The fascinating blog Ephemeral New York tells us of a time when it could be associated with the rivers of New York City. This should be early history-- maybe the 1600s -- but it's long after my usual dividing line, the invention and use of railways:That’s one type...

The realities of space travel today

Pictures from English Russ...

Proud of our Masters students in History

In common and especially journalistic speech, an awful lot of things are called "historic," and so I am reluctant to use that description just because this is a "first" for Nipissing University and the Department of History. But this is important to university, department, and me. School year 2008-9 was the first year for our Masters of Arts program in history, and we pulled in...

Robot in Helmand Province, Afghanistan

Click for a bigger image.More robots at the Big Pictu...

Greenland today

Another photo collection on one of the wilder parts of the world -- less population than the Nipissing Distri...

Back

I spent two weeks at the SCA's Pennsic War 38 near Pittsburgh. Due to scheduling conflicts I did not participate in the Passage of the Beautiful Pilgrim (see below), nor see the first Pennsic re-enactment of the Combat of Thirty against Thirty to actually include 60 participants.Fortunately,...