Hard Learners

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.
—    Aldous Huxley
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On This Day In:
2015	Goals
2014	Switch To Dogs…
2013	Times Change
2012	Ashes Not Dust
2011	A Handful From Saudi
	None Of This Happened
	Take Responsibility

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I Like Dreaming

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
―    Thomas Jefferson
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On This Day In:
2022	Support For Ukraine Independence
2021	Right Up Until Armed Insurrectionists Attack Congress
	No Time
2020	Sometimes Human Nature Stays The Same
2019	Sometimes Too Subtle
2018	A Lot Like Teaching
2017	Wake Up
2016	I Like Dreaming
2015	Importance
2014	Unearned Humility
2013	Science Is Trial And Error
2012	Franklin’s Creed
2011	First Steps
2010	Home Ill…

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I Am Lucky And I Am Grateful

History shows us how to behave.  History teaches, reinforces what we believe in, what we stand for…  History is — or should be — the bedrock of patriotism.  Not the chest-pounding kind of patriotism, but the real thing:  love of country.
At their core, the lessons of history are largely lessons in appreciation.  Everything we have, all our great institutions, hospitals, universities, libraries, this city, our laws, our music, art, poetry, our freedoms, everything is because somebody went before us and did the hard work, provided the creative energy, provided the money, provided the belief.  Do we disregard that?
Indifference to history isn’t just ignorant, it’s rude.  It’s a form of ingratitude.
I’m convinced that history encourages, as nothing else does, a sense of proportion about life, and gives us a sense of the relative scale of our own time on earth and how valuable it is.
What history teaches it teaches mainly by example.  It inspires courage and tolerance.  It encourages a sense of humor.  It is an aid to navigation in perilous times…  Think how tough our predecessors were.  Think what they had been through.  There’s no one in this room who hasn’t an ancestor who went through some form of hell.  Churchill in his great speech in the darkest hours of the Second World War, when he crossed the Atlantic, reminded us, ‘We haven’t journeyed this far because we are made of sugar candy.'[…]
But, I think, what it really comes down to is that history is an extension of life.  It both enlarges and intensifies the experience of being alive.  It’s like poetry and art.  Or music.  And it’s ours, to enjoy.  If we deny our children that enjoyment, that adventure in the larger part of the human experience, we’re cheating them out of a full life.
There’s no secret to making history come alive.  Barbara Tuchman said it perfectly: ‘Tell stories.’  The pull, the appeal is irresistible, because history is about two of the greatest of all mysteries — time and human nature.
How lucky we are.  How lucky we are to enjoy in our work and in our lives, the possibilities, the precision and reach, the glories of the English language.  How lucky we are, how very lucky we are, to live in this great country, to be Americans — Americans all.
—    David McCullough
Speaking at the 1995 National Book Awards.
[This quote was fount at one of the blogs I follow:  “The Bully Pulpit“
The specific post can be found at:  http://jrbenjamin.com/2014/07/12/why-history/
The site is well worth a visit…    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2021	Unnoticed Perfection
	You Just Don’t Realize
2020	Maybe After A Couple Of Hundred Years I Think About It
	Worth The Time I’ve Waited
2019	Courage Facing Temptation
2018	I Can’t Laugh At #45
2017	Release, Harmonize, Illuminate
2016	One Trouble With Television
2015	I Am Lucky And I Am Grateful
2014	Future Envy
2013	We Do Not Want To Learn That
2012	Social Inhibition
2011	Studying Chinese Food
	Are You Bored, Too?
2010	Rant, Pant, Deep Breath – Reality

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A Terrifying Cycle

Much of the population is desperately trying to educate its way out of a terrifying cycle of downward mobility.  But students are fighting strong structural shifts in the economy.  While technology-driven productivity used to be what economists said would save us from jobless recoveries, technology these days removes jobs from the economy.
—    Rana Foroohar
From her editorial / commentary column (“The Curious Capitalist“):  “The 3% Economy“
Appearing in:  Time Magazine;  dtd:  October 6, 2014
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On This Day In:
2014	Rights
2013	Do Bold Things
2012	Seven Causes
2011	I Feel A Tingle Coming On

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Three Roars

The most fundamental problem of politics is not the control of wickedness but the limitation of righteousness.
To seek to achieve [American values] by military occupation in a part of the world where they had no historical roots, imbued the American endeavor in Iraq with a Sisyphean quality.
Long ago, in youth, I was brash enough to think myself able to pronounce on ‘The Meaning of History‘.  I now know that history’s meaning is a matter to be discovered, not declared.
—    Henry Kissinger
The three quotes are from the article:  “The Lion in Winter“
Written by:  Walter Isaacson
Appearing in:  Time Magazine;  dtd:   22 September 2014
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On This Day In:
2014	Be R-E-L-E-V-A-N-T
2013	Lacking
2012	So Small A Thing
2011	Is Your Time Valuable?

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And So I Blog

The story of History is properly more than a succession of dates and events, of crisis and controversy.  It is illuminated, at its best, by the acts and words of its participants.
—    Robert F. Kennedy
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On This Day In:
2014	Take Flight
2013	Contributing Joy
2012	More Than A Race
2011	Institutionalized Leadership

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Or Increasingly Unwilling To Pay For…

As long as war or threat of war existed, the professional mystique sufficed to provide cohesion within the profession and rationalization for institutional peculiarities and privileges.  But problems emerge when wars cease or when people perceive that wars are unlikely or unnecessary;  or when society becomes increasingly egalitarian and democratized – or when all of these occur.  Then the moral and ethical values of society may change and the worship of the military hero ceases.  Society may demand a new justification for the military institution.  It is just such an environment that has emerged in the post-Vietnam era.
—   Sam C. Sarkesian
From his book:  “The Professional Army Officer In A Changing Society“
[Or until such time as the cost of retaining a modern fighting force and its surviving veterans overwhelms the price the society is willing to pay.  After two “mostly” successful Gulf wars, the cost of peace has vastly outstripped the cost of battle and American society – at least the top 1% financially – are increasingly unwilling to pay the costs of the later, and seem equally unwilling to pay the costs of the former.  Of course, “mostly successful” refers to the actual military results, and not the political and economic destabilization which has followed our military “victories”.    —    KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2014	Returning Time
2013	Gentle Invitation
2012	Pleading The Insanity Defense
2011	Graduations And Conservatives
	The Big Sin

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Liberty Is Extravagant

History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.
—    Thurgood Marshall
Justice, U.S. Supreme Court
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On This Day In:
2022	Or The Day After
	9 (40) Redux – And Tips To Make It Through The Day
2021	And Yet I Still Pray
	I’m Still Listening To It
2020	What Am I Missing?
	If Only
2019	For Most #IncompetentDonald Followers
2018	I Dare You
2017	To Republicans Who Choose Party Over Country
2016	All About Control
2015	Liberty Is Extravagant
2014	Always Remember To Reach
	Have You Registered To Vote Yet?
2013	Ripples From The Water’s Edge
	Because I Was Alone
2012	POI vs Reality
	Dear And Sacred
2011	Chilled Again

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Fiction Leading To History

“Whatever happens – and I know now that this thing can only end one way for me – I think I won, I still think I won.  Because up until all of this, you know, even escape into death was an impossibility for me.  It was like that crazy riddle they ask you in school.  You know the one:  ‘If a tree falls in the forest, but nobody’s there to see or hear it happen…  how can anybody know for sure that the tree really fell?
Well, that was sort of the way I felt about dying.
After all, how can you die if nobody knows you’re alive?”
—    Closing lines from the journal of Lars Colonius
—    Excerpt from the novel:  “The Voice of Armageddon“
Written by:  David Lippincott
[This quote is from a book I read back in the 1970’s about a guy (Lars) who decides the way to fame is to commit a “perfect” and well-publicized act of terror.  Very much the “scream at sky” call for help we’ve heard about from so many killers in the last few years.  Killing and suicide as a means of self-expression to “promote” one’s existence in a world which ignores you.  How small and lazy do you have to be to take the lives of others to gain status as a footnote in a news article or history book.  How much better to die (or more correctly, to live) in acts of daily service to others and thereby live on in their memories and in the stories they tell their children.     —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2022	Remember
2021	Now You’re 31…
	Versions: (Father And Son)
2020	Make A Fuss
2019	Hopefully, You’re Learning To Forgive
2018	Enjoy The Sunsets As Well As The Sunrises
2017	Enjoy
2016	I Got A Feeling
2015	Fiction Leading To History
2014	A Self-Correcting Process
2013	None But He Knows
2012	99% Are Demanding
2011	All In The Family
	Take Your Pick

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Absorbed And Civilized

[On China in 1935…]  No victory of arms, or tyranny of alien finance, can long suppress a nation so rich in resources and vitality.  The invader will lose funds or patience before the loins of China will lose virility;  within a century China will have absorbed and civilized her conquerors, and will have learned all the technique of what transiently bears the name of modern industry;  roads and communications will give her unity, economy and thrift will give her funds, and a strong government will give her order and peace.
—   Will Durant
From his book:  “The History of Civilization:  Our Oriental Heritage“
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On This Day In:
2022	Until Something Better Comes Along
2021	Facing The Headwinds
	Still Thankful, Still Don’t Read Well
2020	Write For Yourself
2019	I’m Actively Irresponsible
2018	I Will Love You… Forever
2017	Pebbles In Your Shoe?
2016	Resolute Will
2015	Absorbed And Civilized
2014	Relax And Lead
2013	Location, Location, Location
2012	Are You Really Good?
2011	Relatively Objective, Anyway

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A Roman Rome

If Rome had not engulfed so many men of alien blood in so brief a time, if she had passed all these newcomers through her schools instead of her slums, if she had treated them as men with a hundred potential excellences, if she had occasionally closed her gates to let assimilation catch up with infiltration, she might have gained new racial and literary vitality from the infusion, and might have remained a Roman Rome, the voice and citadel of the West.
—    Will Durant
From his book:  “The History of Civilization:  Caesar and Christ“
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On This Day In:
2022	A Clear View Of #45
2021	Not Here, Not Again
	Will The Senate Convict An Insurrectionist?
2020	Senate Perfidy
2019	Contributing To Congress
	Yellow Signs Of Spring
2018	But Take Heart
	Poetic Marker
2017	The Few, The Many, The Most
2016	To My Brother
2015	For Junior
	A Roman Rome
2014	Hmmm
2013	What’s A Motto With You?
2012	Worthy Companions
2011	Bourne Again
	Which Ten Are You In?

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Old Math

Mathematics is an ancient discipline.  For as long as we can reliably reach into the past, we find its development intimately connected with the development of the whole of our civilization.  For as long as we have a record of man’s curiosity and his quest for understanding, we find mathematics cultivated and cherished, practiced and taught.  Throughout the ages it has stood as an ultimate in rational thought and as a monument to man’s desire to probe the workings of his own mind.
—    Mark Kac
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On This Day In:
2021	Is Too
	Food For Thought
2020	Says Every Generation Since Schools Were Invented
	Chokin’ My Thoughts Away
2019	Dance The Night Away
2018	#45: The Poorest President In History
2017	Bull’s Eye
2016	Gifts
	Jacked 3
2015	I’d Settle For Interesting
2014	Old Math
2013	Adequate Explanation
2012	Superior Discovery
2011	Welcome Home And Thank You!!
	Two Heritages

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Agreed

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.
—    Napoleon Bonaparte
[And normally about greed…     —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2021	I’ll Keep Trying To Anyway
	She Knows
2020	Respond
	Still Trying To Adjust
2019	The Limits Of My Knowledge
2018	Even Tiny Progress
2017	Real Conservatism
2016	The Business Of Life
2015	Alone Again, Naturally
2014	Agreed
2013	Smile From Your Heart!
2012	Like You
2011	Got Days?
2010	K9 Humor – Has Anyone Seen My Setter?  (Must read!!)
	A Longer Blog Than You Want To Read (Probably)
2009	Back and Forth and Round Again…

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Penalty Period

No period of history has ever been great or ever can be that does not act on some sort of high, idealistic motives, and idealism in our time has been shoved aside, and we are paying the penalty for it.
—     Alfred North Whitehead
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On This Day In:
2021	Dreaming Of You
	Sweet Memories
2020	He Ought To Be Unemployed
	May I Have A Little More, Please
2019	Cash Only, Please
	Day 14: End Of Week 2
2018	House To Home
2017	Got Education?
2016	Necessary Company
2015	Reality Vs Imagination
2014	Penalty Period
2013	Theft
2012	Cranky Old Man
2011	A Man’s Got To Know His Limitations

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The History Of Warriors

The history of war is the history of warriors;  few in number, mighty in influence.  Alexander, not Macedonia conquered the world.  Scipio, not Rome destroyed Carthage.  Marlborough, not the allies defeated France.  Cromwell, not the roundheads dethroned Charles …  Truly in war:  “Men are nothing, a man is everything” …  the leader must be an actor …  he is unconvincing unless he lives his part …  The fixed determination to acquire the warrior soul and having acquired it to conquer or perish with honor is the secret of victory.
—    General George S. Patton, Jr.
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On This Day In:
2013	A Cult Of Ignorance
2012	Counting Valor
	Understanding Faith
2011	I Can Hear You Now
2010	Inception

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