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It's okay… just an Ansel Adams thing to me. He used b/w more because he could avoid people getting hung up on the colors, he cared more about the tonality. Said the colors got in the way sometimes; people saw the scenery not the scene. I agree.
Gonna try this again.Not racist, just monochrome 😉 ;take a look are the polychrome version... we're all there!
Sorry about that. 🙁 If that happens to me I click "back" on my browser (Firefox) and my post is normally still there, and I can click "post" again. Another thing - if you make a lengthy post, you can highlight it all, right click, and copy it all before clicking post. That way it will be saved in cast the server does hiccup.
With IE it goes back to the original quote of the post to be answered (at least it did yesterday) and must start again.... ::)Guess I will cut and paste the next rant... 8)
.... one of the overwhelming threads is this notion that the bourgeois instigated the Fr and freed the oppressed masses from the heel of the nobility on their collective neck.
The French Revolution was truly revolutionary; turning the social order over totally. Lately I have come to understand our revolution was a motivation to the French, less for our change of control and more for the money pickle they were in for bank-rolling us. To common was more, or less along to the ride.
This is at odds with what I know of the FR. Yes, most of the leaders were solidly middle class if not lesser nobility. Yes, they spouted platitudes about liberte, egalite, and fraternite, but their actions certainly did not live up to their ideals. They swept away all the old institutions of France and replaced them with a system that was at least as oppressive as the old. In fact, in some ways life was harder in the Republic than during the monarchy for the common man. Conscription alone was enough to cause some revolts, while the suppression of religion in the early Republic caused violent upheavals that were not fully settled until Napoleon signed a new concordat with the Pope.
Leaders were from all estates; many of the clergy were "younger sons" of lesser nobility, many of the "failed nobility" had bones to pick, the middle class saw the American colonists taking charge of their own destiny. That left the ones to riot in the streets... the common man.
I just find the Marxist or neo-Marxist interpretation of the revolution unconvincing. The FR was not so much about class as it was about power and privilege, class was only a secondary concern for the great mass of Frenchmen. The bourgeois were concerned about class but only to the extent that they wanted to be ennobled and felt cheated that there were not enough ways to become so. The great mass of peasant farmers and artisans wanted to be free of onerous taxation and for artisans to be free of the influence of the guilds. They rode the coattails of revolution in hopes of seeing their desperate situation bettered.
The easy way out, that; if you can get people into the class / race / gender /cultural conflict mentality, they will fill in the gaps without any great amount of facts needed. The basic reality is that it was about power for a certain group (hidden behind the liberty issue). Same as the Magna Carta being the thing that gives us our rights... yeah, right... it was for the barons, only much later relating to the commoners.I've always thought it interesting that the French found things so bad that they spent 10 years killing anyone that didn't agree that they needed to kill anyone that didn't agree they should get rid of an over-powerful devine right king...only to need an over-powerful self-appointed emperor to straighten them out. ::)
I'm going to say very important but (mostly) not for the reason of religion; religion was the means to an end though.Folks were challenging their church leadership both domestic and across the pond... it was a real grass roots movement with folks all more or less on the same page... allows for the beginnings of committees of corespondence (though not called that). I(f)
fhtesthese folks would challenge the church they weren't gonna be timid about standing up to government.On this date (22-Sept) in 1827 I discovered a ?treasure? that became the basis for a religion. What was it and who am I?
Page 26 in Castles of the British Islesby Plantagenet Somerset Fry; indicates that one of the first acts of William was to build a motte castle. He also speculates that the wooden components may have been pre-fabbed in Normandy and transported in with the invasion (citing evidence as early as the 12th century of pre-fab towers). He also cites the Bayeux Tapestry as illustrating the construction.
Quite likely that we will all renew our acquaintance with this story again and soon. Heard that the details are worked out for Peter Jackson to produce (not sure who will direct; Del Toro?)… a live version of The Hobbit.Mark Twain is Lit, and very good to my taste. Also to many Tolkein blurs the line between lit and sci-fi, methinks. Cheers to all.
Heritage and everyday culture are two entirely different animals. A society has to share the same basic moral framework to function, diversity and multiculturalism destroy that.
Point well taken. This is what leads some historians (Degler as I remember) to propose the "salad bowl theory"... rather than a melting pot where all trace of your previous culture is lost various traits remain as heritage but there is an over riding factor that unifies (the rights and liberties protected by our Constitution and democratic traditions) that makes us a nation state. Just as a salad is unified by the dressing (while retaining individual tidbits) so are we (or at least should be).
