WCF

History, politics, and culture articles and forum discussions.

Phidippides

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I have a lizard for a neighbor

Here he is resting on my bonsai drip trayAt the end of last summer I saw that we had a lizard living out on the porch. Since I didn’t grow up with these things living outside my house as a kid, I am intrigued by seeing them in my urban surroundings now. In recent weeks as the winter weather has given way to the Spring warmth, I have seen not one, but two of these lizards spending time on the deck, often times running to and fro, and at times even climbing around my bonsai tree. The larger photo you can see was taken after he was hiding in the drip tray underneath my tree.

anole photo
Photo by Santiago Ron

Although I like to consider it a “gecko” or “chameleon” (those names are just kind of cool-sounding), I have determined that it is likely a brown anole (anolis sagrei).  It looks like they feed upon insects, which is a good thing for me since I had an ant infestation in one of my porch plants last year.  I have noticed that at least one of the anoles outside occasionally puffs out its pinkish-red throat (similar to the smaller photo).  Perhaps a sign of mating?

Strangely enough, the lizard activity on my porch seems to have abruptly ceased about two days ago.  Before that, they were quite active outside, but then they seem to have disappeared.  Did they get poisoned?  Move camp?  My hope is that they are camped out somewhere in the equivalent of a lizard birthing hospital.  That’s right – I’m hoping that I will see them again with a larger family.  Who wouldn’t want to see cool baby lizards out and about?

My fascination continues.

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George Washington’s “vision” at Valley Forge

I read an email yesterday which contained a reference to an apparition by an unknown being to George Washington at Valley Forge who revealed to him the future course of the new nation, using words like “Son of the Republic, look and learn!”  I had never heard of this account before, so I was intrigued by the idea of such a vision.  I did a search for a longer account discussing the vision, and it seems to have originated in the mid-nineteenth century.  It begins:

This afternoon, as I was sitting at this table engaged in preparing a dispatch, something seemed to disturb me. Looking up, I beheld standing opposite me a singularly beautiful female. So astonished was I, for I had given strict orders not to be disturbed, that it was some moments before I found language to inquire the cause of her presence. A second, a third and even a fourth time did I repeat my question, but received no answer from my mysterious visitor except a slight raising of her eyes.

By this time I felt strange sensations spreading through me. I would have risen but the riveted gaze of the being before me rendered volition impossible. I assayed once more to address her, but my tongue had become useless, as though it had become paralyzed.

You can keep reading the whole account.

The story was apparently told by an old veteran of the American Revolution and recorded by a man named Wesley Bradshaw.  I did a search in Google Books for the earliest reference to this story, and it came in a book published in 1861. I would have put a link to the exact book here but for some odd reason, Google does not want to show me the book I was able to pull up just yesterday(!).

Anyway, the Snopes article puts the vision as purely false.   It says that the story was written by Bradshaw as a kind of “patriotic fiction” (my words, not theirs) and that the author wrote other pieces of a similar type during the Civil War.  It pointed to the references to the Union in the account as helping to essentially place it as a piece of Civil War propaganda.  Here is one such reference in the Washington account:

Then once more I beheld the villages, towns and cities springing up where I had seen them before, while the bright angel, planting the azure standard he had brought in the midst of them, cried with a loud voice: “While the stars remain, and the heavens send down dew upon the earth, so long shall the Union last.” And taking from his brow the crown on which blazoned the word “Union,” he placed it upon the Standard while the people, kneeling down, said, “Amen.”

I did notice that the Snopes story got at least one aspect of the story factually incorrect when it put the age of the veteran storyteller, Anthony Sherman, as being 99-years-old at the time of the telling.  In the source from 1861 that I read just yesterday, it clearly said he was 91-years old.  This is only mildly material but it may suggest that there were some incorrect re-printings of the account somewhere along the line.

Searching around the internet, there seem to be people who give this account credibility.

Anyway, has anyone else come across this account before?

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Qualities of the best history lectures

I like lectures when they’re done right.  Over the years I have watched over 100 lectures on DVD given by the Teaching Company where they select 1 out of 5000 professors to teach.    The topics that I was able to cover included archaeology of the ancient world, Rome, the Early Middle Ages, great works at the Louvre, the Italian Renaissance, and more.  I often watched these while eating lunch or dinner and I know these can be quite entertaining (in the academic sense) even though they’re still lectures.

For me, the qualities of the best lectures are:

  • Context – sufficient background is given before getting to the “meat” of the matter
  • Thematic – only a few themes are discussed in any one lecture
  • Paced – ideas are presented at a pace which allows the audience to digest them
  • Clarity – ideas are presented in a way that is straightforward
  • Organized – this captures many of the above qualities

By the time a good lecture is done, you feel like you’ve learned something new, something useful to remember, something that you might want to review again just to make sure you understand and remember it.

Now it’s your turn.  Are there any other qualities that you think should be added to this list?

Incidentally, if you’re interested in watching some history lecture online, check out this site.  I can’t vouch for their quality, but I assume they’re informative (and I can only assume they are placed on the site legally).

WCF