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One source quoted Polish Foreign Minister Colonel Beck in 1937: “If the German want to give us trouble, we'll ride into Berlin with our sabres.” The author added, “Unfortunately, when the Poles rattled sabres they meant exactly that.” The Poles were said to have had the finest cavalry on the eve of WWII, and unless it was doctored, I saw a WWII film showing their cavalry attacking the Panzer unit.
When I was stationed in Germany, 1955-56, it was common to see parents hold infants in front of a building wall so they could pee. We were told not to eat vegetables off base because the Germans used “night soil” to fertilize them.Slightly off topic regarding hygeine. One of the GI's asked an attractive “B” girl ( encouraging guys to buy the drinks but getting only tea or colored water) why she did not shave her legs and under her arms. She replied, “Because God gave me hair.” He replied, “But you tweeze your eyebrows.” She then displayed the classic deer in headlight expression. In Rome, my upper class Italian date arranged by an expatriate cousin of mine had more hair under her arms than I and most of the guys I served with.
Anything on Masterpiece Theater and Masterpiece Mystery. Law and Order UK. NCIS. Also following Homeland on Showtime and American Horror on FX. History Channels of course. Plus series such as the Tudors, the Borgias, Pillars of the Earth. One guilty pleasure is Revenge.
There's a 17th century Spanish saying: What one shits in winter one drinks and breathes in summer. Remember, chamber pots as well as horse and other animal droppings littered the streets of Madrid and other large cities throughout Europe. One source I read ca. 1860s said he could smell Berlin ten miles out. Natural pollution as opposed to man made smog and such — the burden of living. :'(
We tend to forget how valuable and ubiqiuitous horses were. Hundreds of thousands of them, perhaps up to half a million, died in WWI. Large cities like New York were said to be covered in a golden mist during summer from accumulated dried manure.
Many companies have contingency funds to pay off sexual harrassment charges even if unfounded because defending them in court costs much more plus the negative publicity. One I know of told the attorneys to pay as little as possible but the max would be $250,000. Now, if that CEO/founder had run for President, you can imagine the type of questions he would have been asked. “Sir, is it not true you paid off X number of women?”
First you wonder about my english, then about my moslem name and finally you call me “academic snob” and paranoid … Out of two things, one : or good manners are vanishing, or you're not really a gentleman…Anyway, since you admitted to be biased and according to your contempt to provide evidence about your judgment on historical facts, therefore whatever you can write or think here is irrelevant. 8)
Reread your posts in the context of my answers. You like to dish it out but cannot take it and whine. Yes, you attacked and dismissed me as a writer of Historical Fiction, which does qualify you as an academic snob.One last time, my questions about your language and name were not attacks, so I guess from my perspective you are paranoid.Not once did you refute my posts with scholarly rebuttal.You are the one who has shown bias against my posts and me personally. I do not know your age, gender,the quality of education or level you reached or what biased books you have read and lectures you have attended. I sense an emotional maturity problem.I am not ashamed to say where I come from, my religion, or anything else about me. Can you say as much?You are the one who launched personal attacks.I shall no longer respond to any more of your drivel, and I have reported you to the administrator.
A novelist isn't an historian : you can't qualify what happened in the past with what happened in present time; your”Nazi-like” term is biased and subjective. You still avoid to answer about your “more vicious Portuguese”stance.You still didn't tell why you're so suspicious about my muslim backround …
Now you are becoming rather hostile. I must be touching a nerve somewhere.Ae you an academic snob? A novelist can be an historian, especially if one has made a study of History from childhood and has majored in the subject and taught it — as I have. My historical novels are based upon meticulous research. Biased? During my tome at the University and after, I never encountered a professor who was unbiased — history and any other liberal arts subject. Surly, you accusing me of bias means I have gone against your own biases.One can very well “qualify” or equate what happened in the past with what happened subsequently and to the present time; otherwise, the study of History has little use except to study it as gossip. Regarding my “Nazi-like” term is biased and subjective. It is based on fact and objective by quantifiable measurements of documents. You are wrong.I have explained more than once the difference between the Portuguese and Spanish Inquisitions at the specific time I mentioned. Are you paranoid? Take my word as I said before, I was curious not suspicious about your name as I am about many names and I gave the reason why. I often ask what a given name means or its origins. It is called curiosity.
There you go again, Omer.Am I biased? X% of the human race is; those who say they are not are liars. Upbringing, life experiences, and study create biases. FACTS: the Visigoth clergy and their kings were determined to eradicate first Judaism through forced conversion and then eradication of all Jews from Spain when that failed — which was repeated during the Inquisition regarding “race” except for the brief few decades in the 17th century I mentioned before — and done with more efficiency by the Nazis and their collaborators throughout Europe who omitted conversion and went directly to extermination. That is a thread of historical continuity. If you disagree so be it. If there is inaccuracy, prove it.As for my query about your name Omer, nothing sinister intended, merely curiosity since you brought up the Moriscos whom Spain ethnically cleansed in 1609, to use a modern term. I use don for Donald and roc for the title of my novel Rocamora.
Yes, I was referring to those of Jewish origin specifically because from the fifteenth century when they were the main target of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, first religiously and then by “blood.” Descendants of conversos were viewed as new-Christians, 1/4 and 1/8 new-Christian and partial new-Christian, similar to the Negro Mulatto, Quadroon and Octaroon in old New Orleans. They were exclided from the military, government service, and the high Church. Forged limpiezas de sangre, certificates of blood purity untainted by Jew, Moor, or recent converts, were common during the era of the Inquisition. There is a clear line of Nazi-style bigotry against Jews from the moment the Visigoths of Iberia accepted Roman Trinitarianism to their ascendancy during the reconquista.Moriscos, descendants of forcibly converted Muslims, were ethnically cleansed, aka expelled, as you probably know for two, reasons in 1609: They had the potential to be allies of another Muslim invasion from North Africa and their birth rate far exceeded that of the Christians, especially after Castile was decimated by plague around 1600.By the way, Omer, what is your first language? And may I also ask why my first post seemed to annoy you? May I make an assumption from your name and “assume” you come from a Muslim background? Also, have you made a thorough study of Spain, Portugal and the Inquisition, or have I disturbed certain assumptions that we all often make through superficial reading of certain eras of History.Speaking of assumptions, despite my Celtic-Germanic name, I am not as you said Anglo-Saxon. My Jewish family comes from the pre-revolution Tsarist Empire, one side from the Polish-Prussian border region and Warsaw and other other from the Black sea, both sides emigrating to the USA before WWI. At least a half-dozen times in my life I have been mistaken for Iranian, including when I was very fit in the year 1959, for a bodyguard of the Shah when he was visiting San Francisco.
So both the Portuguese and the Spanish Inquisitions were relentlessly chastising people of “suspicious origins”, “haredims, moriscos, hags, adulterers, blasphemers, sodomites and heretics, etc.”Why the Portuguese Inquisition was the worse ?
Yes, both were relentless, but as I mentioned in my post, there were periods when the Spanish Inquisition was more quiescent. I explained that as clear as I possibly can in my post. I am amused by your choice of the word hag, use of the arcane haredim and misapplication of the word chastising in the context of interrogation, torture, auto de fe and quemadero. Of course if English is not your first language, that is another matter. Also, continue to feel free to disagree, of course.
Oh really ? How more vicious ??
In the context of the OP, I said “at times.” From research for my novel Rocamora, I learned the Portuguese Inquisition was consistently relentless toward those suspected of Judaizing. In fact, during the reigns of Philip III and Philip IV a flood of Portuguese of “suspicious origins” came to Madrid and other parts of Spain after the unification of the two kingdoms in 1580 and thrived while the Portuguese Inquisition burned members of their families. During the tenure of Inquisitor General Antonio de Sotomayor, 1632-1643, when there was no Auto Generale in Madrid after one ordered by his predecessor July 4th, 1632. Also, Philip IV's chief minister, 1622-43,the Count-Duke de Olivares did succeed in limiting many excesses of the Inquisition toward those suspected of Judaizing. Things did change after Sotomayor retired. The biographer of his successor Diego y Arce Reynoso claimed 15,000 new-Christian families left Spain during his tenure as IG. In the 18th century the Portuguese Inquisition was still relentless towards suspected Judaizers while in Spain the victims were mostly those accused of sorcery, bigamy, blasphemy, heresy, and homosexuality. Both had equally active Inquisitions in the New World.The Portuguese Inquisition operated independent of Spain's.
Looks, speeches, and persona matter with some more than competency. Back in 1948 when I was 16, I remember otherwise relatively sane ordinary New Deal dem. adults who loved aristocratic, well-spoken FDR hating Truman because he was so vulgar and common, too undignied to be POTUS, and instead voted for Henry Wallace (supported by Eleanor) in protest — not because of HST's policies with which they generally agreed. Only Strom Thurmond's Dixiecrats saved the dems from a Republican victory.
Remember, it will be the GOP candidate against Obama and his lying surrogates and the mainstream media. As for candidate flaws, egregious ones can cause too much focus on them by Obama's surrogates and the lying media — especially near the end of the campaign. Remember the Times' garbage about McCain's alleged affair?
