poukledden

I just know that Andrew Weil is going to try to revive this in his next book: Europe's 'Medicinal Cannibalism.'

John Adams on Alexander Hamilton:  a "bastard brat of a Scotch pedlar," who had a "superabundance of secretions which he could not find whores enough to draw off."

That's gotta leave a mark.

via Dispatches from the Culture Wars


(am I the only one loving ol' Adams even more after reading that?)

September 29, 1920: the first commercially available radios go on sale. (November saw the launch of the first commercial radio station, which supplanted a homebrew geekcast. Go geeks!)

I love Geek history. Read up on the telegraph sometime, too -- the operators were major geeks in the modern sense, and there was a whole online community, complete with online chats, games, and even a marriage.

I have a thing for old recordings, and the debate tonight got me pondering presidential history, which I always find interesting (in, it must be said, an often sordid way).

I love the Internet Archive:

Listen to Taft! 1909! You know you want to. First whale to be president. (ooo, cheap shot)

Listen to Grover Cleveland! 1892! Named after a muppet, the only bachelor to ever be elected, and the only man to serve non-consecutive terms. Married in the White House.

What, that's not old enough for you? How about 1889?  Benjamin Harrison, who was probably the first president to be recorded (though I'm holding out hope for the fabled possible just maybe happened recording of Lincoln on a very very early sound recording system).

And don't forget Teddy Roosevelt. I love that man's voice. The page says 1901. But if it's about the Progressive Party, I think it must be much later, ie, 1912?

The astute among you may notice that they all are basically talking about the same crap we're still talking about today. I can't help but think that has something to do with the fact that people have always had the same basic buttons to push by those seeking power.

Yeah, I've been a bit quiet. Just been that kind of week, storms in the head that can't be translated, right at this moment at least, into words. In the meantime: LInkage!

True Colors: an archaeologist brings the colors of ancient statues to life. Nifty.

Head Fake: the common idea now is that depression is a matter of chemical imbalances. New research is showing the story is far more complex and interesting.

A country is made by the efforts of heroes that often end up forgotten. I'm not talking about the sorts of heroes we generally see, the ones who find clever ways to kill many enemies and/or die themselves in imaginative and gory ways. I'm talking about the sort of heroes that do the hard work, challenge the deeply ingrained assumptions of their society, and in so doing push society just a little bit further. The Rosa Parks sort of heroes, in other words.

Go read about one of them, John Mercer Langston.