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As to Civil War, I would not count it out. In fact, if I had to lay odds, I would guess the chances of Civil War in the next 10 years to be somewhere around 3 for 5. … What I think will happen is that the tyranny loving libs will overreach and provoke a reaction. I also think any civil war will start at the State level and not among groups of individuals. The federal government is it’s own worst enemy right now and it is busy going out of its way to anger the portion of the population that knows how to fight and be productive. Very smart that. All America needs right now is a charismatic person willing to stand up and say enough.Yes, I think Civil War is a distinct possibility.
Kind of crazy that you made this prediction back in 2013 and eight years later, we are nearing that exact civil war. You also astutely said that the left will “overreach and provoke a reaction”, which seems highly likely now that Biden has taken over the the left is encroaching more and more on basic rights.
I was reading through this thread again and it raises an interesting point about whether Greek city-states were exclusive in their cult worship of particular gods. I know of nothing that would support such a claim about exclusivity. I did find a source which suggested exclusivity was not practiced in Greece, and it even mentioned that both Athens and Sparta shared a common patron deity – Athena.
Also, if the practice of Rome were any indicator of the way it was done in Greece, cities would have had a variety of different god-cults. Rome itself pointed back to Mars (father of Romulus and Remus), as well as Venus (mother of Aeneas), but of course dedicated perhaps its major temple to Capitoline Jupiter. So it seems based on this that god-cults and geographic regions in the ancient world were probably more fluid than exclusive and rigid.
Well, I decided to rejoin Gab after a long hiatus. The site content has definitely gotten better and has grown with several million users added to the platform. It still has its limitations, but I have been enjoying it more than Parler so far.
I guess I need to update my workout journal. We moved into a new house about a year ago, so I had to stop working out at my old gym and it was about five months before I found another one to join. I finally joined around March of this year, but then a few weeks in the pandemic hit and so it closed, and it was back to doing no exercising for me.
When it reopened around May, I was able to start my workouts again. This was from scratch, so my bench press was down to its bare minimum. My max bench press at time was around 200 or so. Eventually I worked up, and I am now able to bench 295 (if I tried with a spotter, I might be able to bench 315 or so). I can do 100 lb. dumbbell presses six times, and I can do cable rows of 200 lbs. probably 6-7 reps.
The thing is, I’m typically only working about about 35 minutes per session. Years ago I would work out for an hour or so at a time, but since my gym currently closes at 10 p.m. on weeknights, I’m getting there shortly before 9:30 p.m. While I could probably make greater gains if I worked out longer, I think it goes to show that you don’t need to have bomb sessions at the gym in order to make gains.
…for Josephus, he was writing for the legacy of his people in the wake of Roman oppression.
Apparently, Josephus had a double angle. While a Jew, he was also writing his account of the siege of Jerusalem at the behest of the Flavian family (he became sponsored by the family) which wanted to establish legitimacy in the wake of this new dynasty (Vespasian was the first after Nero’s death ended the Julio-Claudian dynasty). Making the Roman war against the Jews as monumental as possible would have enhanced the might of the Flavians in the eyes of Roman readers.
Josephus was one of the leaders of the provisional government the Jews had set up after defeating the Roman provincial force. His territory was in the northern section of Israel territory, and so when Vespasian came through, beginning from Antioch in the far north, Josephus’ territory was one of the earlier places to be taken. Josephus was holed up in one of his fortresses, I think, and it was there that the Jewish soldiers he was with arranged a pact (obviously, Josephus didn’t go through with it).
So basically, this didn’t take place at Masada. After Josephus was captured but not killed after he predicted that Vespasian would go on to be emperor. Instead, be went with the Romans at the siege of Jerusalem and actually tried to persuade the Jews to give up.
After the fall of Judea, Josephus went back to Rome and basically worked for the Flavian family (hence the name Romanized name, Flavius Josephus).
That’s true – I remember that part of the video from the 1990s. But are we really to believe that that video launched an accessory to Victorian futurism costumes?
Lol, I’ll forgive you this one time for not answering my question twelve years ago. 😉
However, if I had to guess, I’d have a hard time imagining there would by any prehistoric civilization (or equivalent thereof) that did not engage in warring activities at least to some degree (and by “warring activities” I’m including the creation of arms for self-defense). It’s reasonable, though, that some groups did not engage in extensive military activities.
I have an even harder time believing that such civilizations did not have some sort of structured religious belief system. Even the presence of basic shamanism, which seems to date back tens of thousands of years to the Paleolithic period, signifies a kind of religious hierarchy, so religious structure is a pretty basic component of early communities.
The time came for me to revisit this topic yet again, and unfortunately, I was still unable to find references to the song much earlier than I found before. However, I did find a few additional verses to the song in a collection of Percy Grainger from 1915.
As you can see from the notes, Mr. Grainger added two of these verses himself, and the rest was supplied by “Miss Mason’s ‘Nursery Rhymes and Country Songs'”.
While I could not find the actual text of Mason’s publication, I did see a reference to it in The Illustrated London News in November 1877. I also found an interesting article on the life of Miss Marianne Mason which was published in 2014. It gives a good background on her life, including how she helped get a law passed in England which helped protect adopted children in the wake of the Amelia Dyer “baby farm” scandal (which I had not known about).
Anyway, the 2014 article happened to include what appears to be an appendix from the Mason song book, which included this noteworthy comment about “There Was a Pig Went Out to Dig”:
This tune is sung in Lancashire. There are no words, properly speaking, beyond the first verse, bin rhymes were invented according to the pleasure of the singers. The melody is that of an old Christmas Carol, ‘There were three ships came sailing by’.
If you are wondering, the song, “There were three ships came sailing by,” was a related tune to the more popular song, “I saw three ships come sailing in,” which seems to have some similarities to other Christmas songs going back at least to the mid-sixteenth century. In 1861, Joshua Sylvester said about the tune, “It has always been a great favorite with the illiterate, and from its quaintness will be found not displeasing to the more refined.”
If I had to synopsize, “There was a pig went out to dig” probably originated as a folk song on the Western coast of England by the mid-1800s, borrowing a melody from an existing Christmas song, with the possible function of an amusing and nonsensical ditty that can be expanded on demand through improvisation. In essence, it was kind of like an “Old MacDonald had a farm” song for the Christmas season with no real deeper meaning.
Hitler had a close kinship with his architect, Albert Speer, and their friendship which seemed to be in part due to their shared interest in architecture led to the belief that Speer may have been Hitler’s only real “friend”. Hitler’s esteem for his friend likely caused him to promote Speer to the position of Reich Minister of Armaments and War Production.
That is true. Someone like Reinhard Heydrich could have ascended to control and potentially been worse than Hitler, or perhaps someone with experience in logistics or wartime strategy. I think it was Goring who didn’t like the fact that Germany was invading Poland because it would awaken Britain. In fact, Hess tried to persuade the British to back off. It was Hitler’s folly to do that.
After Hitlers death at the end of April 1945, Germans started getting rid of Hitler paraphernalia, I guess as a way of disassociating themselves with him. They must have known what was coming when the Soviets and Allies were marching through Germany. They probably had three choices: die fighting, flee, or pretend like you weren’t a supporter of the regime.
I heard that when the Soviets were closing in on Hilter’s bunker in Berlin in April 1945, the people left defending the city were generally people from the Hitler Youth, so 15-year-olds. I wonder if any of them survive today. If so, they would be approaching 90-years-old. I’m sure they would have some gripping stories to tell.
It’s kind of preposterous to think that the real Hess didn’t land in Scotland. Given Hitler’s reaction when he heard about Hess’ plan, it came as a surprise to the Fuhrer (and presumably to the others in the inner circle). Furthermore, at Nuremburg, Hess sat next to Goering. You would think that Goering would have spilled the beans.
Besides, what would be the point of sending a fake to Scotland, only to have him masquerade (basically for the rest of his life) as Rudolph Hess? I can’t really see the purpose of it.
