Category: articles
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A lot happens in five years
A lot has happened since the last time I actually blogged. I am no longer in Ireland. And after four years back in the United States (first in Ohio and then New York), I found myself relocating to yet another island. However, this time I would travel to a place more than halfway across the…
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Lazy Mexicans
Between 1836 and 1848, Mexico would lose 55 per cent of its territory to the United States. According to Engels, the entrepreneurial Yankee had struck a blow for civilization and human progress against the “lazy Mexicans.”1 The wealth of California would be developed and the Pacific would finally be opened up to mankind. While California…
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something something something
I wrote something and decided it was either too personal or of absolutely no consequence and therefore deleted it. This is all that’s left. A sign of something that was and is no more.
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On the bearers of civilization of the Hellenistic world
The conquests of Alexander the Great opened the nations of the ancient east to the Greeks, however, these Greeks were no Platos, Herodotus or Sophocles. They were your garden variety Greeks. In their footsteps came a mixed company from every corner of Greece: mercenaries, peasants, traders and undefined persons without fixed occupations, sometimes also adventurers…
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The Industrial Military Complex
At the conclusion of World War II, the economist John K. Galbraith was appointed director of USBUS — United States Strategic Bombing Survey — which was tasked with assessing the effects of Allied aerial bombing on German industry and military. He summarizes the board’s findings: In Germany the strategic bombing, that of industry, transportation and…
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ου φροντις ‘Ιπποκλειδη
Random, occasional thoughts Disconnected from life. Unencumbered by identity; schizophrenic ramblings. Echoes growing fainter, Incomprehensible, Disconnected, Absurd, Mutilated. Nota bene: For a more prosaic biography, please point your browser to kreis.su and visit the about section there.
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Ancient Greeks vs Byzantines
It seems that my opinion of the Byzantines was shared by Arab scholars. Al-Jahiz in his al-Radd ‘ala al-nasara says: The Rum subsequently attributed to themselves some of the books of the ancient Greeks. Since the Rum could not change the names of the most famous Greek authors, they ended by claiming that the Yunan…
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Then and now
Anatole France, Revolt of the Angels: he saw that this country, under the name of a republic, was constituted a plutocracy, and that under the appearance of a democratic government, high finance exercised sovereign sway, untrammelled and unchecked. Turn of the 20th century France resembles present-day America.
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Jenni Vartiainen – En Haluu Kuolla Tänä Yönä
Jenni Vartiainen – En Haluu Kuolla Tänä Yönä (I don’t want to die to-night) http://twitter.com/jennivartiainen
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Insignificant snapshots
“But the time will come when it will all turn into a memory, and you’ll reason coldly and regard it as completely trifling…” — Anton Chekhov, Three Years. When I look back at the imbricated memories of my life, in one instance I envisage a small boy of eight with branch-like arms, emaciated almost diaphanous,…