July 13, 2007

• The Fall of Rome & News Oddities

  Not much to write about tonight.  I was down in Laguna all day, and then had dinner with Lisa and the boys.  Gosh I miss my camera.  I really need to start looking for a new one.  I’m so lost without it. 

  I’m in the middle of reading this really good book:

  

  “Are We Rome?”  The title is fairly self explanatory.  I’ve always been fascinated with Roman culture.  I’ve read countless books on Roman civilization, the Fall of Rome and Roman Catholicism.  I was raised a Catholic and my Grandmother taught high school Latin for 50 years. 

  Interesting sidenote:  When she retired, many of her past students raised money to send her to Rome.  She had never been out of the country.  While there, at the Sistine Chapel, she was staring up at the ceiling and she fell and broke her ankle.  It made the front page of the Chicago Tribune when I was a kid.  How weird is that?  Anyway, I digress.

  The “fall” of the American “empire” has been predicted for decades.  There are always alarmists who throw up their hands to say the sky is falling.  We must remember though that the Fall of Rome took place over centuries.  America is barely two centuries old.  Still, the author raises some fairly interesting points including our:

  • Imperial arrogance
  • Military strength and the risk of overstretching resources to pay for it
  • The fairness of society and concern for all citizens (i.e. New Orleans)
  • Immigration policies
  • Moral and spiritual decadence (“why they hate us so much”)
  • Privatization of power (i.e. Haliburton)

  Now, lest you think the whole book is a diatribe against our current president, the author recently stated:

  “I deliberately tried to keep “Are We Rome?” from being a screed against the Bush administration—the characteristics of Rome and America that I focus on go much deeper than the policies of any one President or any one Emperor. And I recognize that America’s role in the world has been substantially to the good—it has shouldered responsibilities that someone had to take on, when often there was no one else. That said, the thinking that lay behind the invasion of Iraq—the notion that we could transform a society more or less overnight, and in the process “jumpstart democracy” in the entire Middle East—was a colossal act of hubris. And it was essentially a Roman act. It was undertaken with America-centric motives, and with little understanding of the people on the receiving end, or of their ability to oppose us. Those haunting words from Velleius—“as if on a picnic”—pretty much sum up our approach to this and to too many other things.”

  That said, we still have many things going in our favor.  Sometimes I look at the news though, and I wonder.

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  Speaking of news, here are some stories that recently caught my eye:

  Methane Gas Accident Kills 5 on Virginia Dairy Farm - On a Mennonite farm someone fell into a manure pit and another person tried to rescue them by jumping in. Then a third person tried to rescue both of them, and then a fourth…  You get the picture.  Apparently the 6th person got the hint.

  Nineteenth Century Harpoon Found in Live Whale - A 50 ton bowhead whale caught off the Alaskan coast last month had a weapon fragment embedded in its neck that showed it survived a similar hunt – more than a century ago.  (Am I the only person surprised by the fact the whaling still continues on this planet??)

  The Japanese Female Body Plate Gone One Better – In more weird Japan news the practice of serving sushi and sashimi on a woman’s body has now turned to “Operation Table” eating.  So maybe it’s not just America that’s falling.

  

  

   

  

  Daniel Radcliffe and Freddie Mercury Share Stylist! – Dirty Harry Potter??

  

  What’s Really Inside Red Bull – Meat, Sugar, Caffeine and Bile!

   

  A Cats Only Exclusive Retirement Community – A new concept in life long care for your cat after you can no longer care for them.

  HIV Positive Toddler Banned From Pool – A story that could only come from a trailer park in Alabama.

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  Song of the day

   

  • 2:30 am
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