Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche
"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier
"Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas
"Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex
Sounds like an interesting book and equally interesting investigation. I sometimes wonder what characterization the current age will receive several hundred years hence.
I am sure it sat on the editors desk awhile until they discovered they couldn’t blame it on Bush.
Lex,
It’s a fascinating read, to be certain. There is also a great many scientists who are questioning whether the “Plague” was entirely Bubonic-related, or perhaps another disease, or a combination of diseases. Certainly there are aspects of it which closely mimic, if they are not in fact, Anthrax, and others which are quite similar to a hemmoragic disease such as Ebola. Combine any or all of those with a population that has a large portion dealing with suppressed immune systems (for whatever reasons) and you havea recipe for disaster.
adding to all of this is the possibility of hallucinations and other diseases brought on by molding grain which was quite common in this period. Lovely.
Oh,
Forgot to mention. If you get the chance, look up a documentary entitled “The Skeletons of Spittlefield”. Really interesting look at the archeology of a local English parish crypt.
Plague, which is endemic in the ground squirrel population here on the west coast, has three main forms, bubonic, septicemic, and pneumonic. The latter is relatively rare now, about 2% of cases, but it spreads like burning gasoline without needing any arthropod vector to push it.
We get a few cases every year out here, and veterinarians are at high risk of contracting it. Fortunately, standard antibiotics work pretty well if you start early.
Some of the old records of the plague outbreaks in Europe come across like the pneumonic form in terms of rapid spread and lethality; victims can die within 48 hours of showing their first symptoms. (Septicemic plague can kill someone within 24 hours of showing first symptoms, untreated, it’s probably the most-lethal form of plague. Fortunately, it doesn’t usually spread nearly as fast as pneumonic plague.)
But the Black Death wasn’t the first time something like this hit Europe.
The first time that measles showed up, almost one third of Rome died.
Historically, we are overdue for a good plague. News outlets today noted that the AIDS epidemic affects fewer than 1%, oddly enough. Sheer coincidence, I’m sure.
Somewhere, long ago, I saw a T-shirt with the image of a rat crawling across a skull on the front, emblazoned in Olde English script “The Black Death”.
On the back, like a rock band concert shirt, it said, “Black Death European Tour”
Dec 1347 Constantinople
Dec 1347 Marseilles
June 1348 Naples
June 1348 Rome
Dec 1348 Bristol
and on and on and on… (dates snagged from Wikipedia, they might have been different on the shirt.)
The amazing thing is that we’ve avoided a plague for so long. Polio, smallpox, bubonic plague, anthrax, anybody else remember when ebola was going to wipe out half the world only a decade or so ago?
It’s amazing what happens when a market is presented and businesses target that market.
– Max
I’m going to have to read this. It is morbidly fascinating and a topic that comes up frequently around here, in particular at dinner. (No joke.) I have a 5th grader and he’s been learning about everything this year (I suspect someone has a 5th grader in Hollywood, hence that show) and of course all good conversations happen at supper.
I agree with Bou – our dinner conversations are running the spread from math to history to the existance of God these days. Our 5th grader has endless questions and her 2nd-grade brother is not far behind. Keeps me on my toes, that’s for sure. Good times.
Also – on the subject of history and hard times, I just finished “The Worst Hard Time” which is an outstanding true account of the dust bowl area from its settlement through 1940 (by Timothy Egan). I found it compelling (to my surprise) and an excellent lesson in what real hard times are like. It also gives one yet a new appreciation for what that “greatest” generation endured and why they are so aptly named. An excellent read on US history.
What IS it about dinner that spurs such conversations? Just last night, our dinner conversation ranged from why God created mosquitoes to whether spiders have eyelashes. Somewhere in there was a question about where babies come from and whether WE were going to have another one. (my kids are 6 and 4).
Oy.
That shirt referenced above can be seen here:
Got lots of odd comments when I wore it to a Gwar concert. Apparently people thought it was a real band. . .
See also the Great Famine of the early 14th Century caused by climate change, and not an SUV to be seen.
Heh,
There was a similar T-shirt that had a skull & Cross bones on the front with the slogan “2nd SS Panzer Division, Tour of Europe, 1940-45″ On the back, it had numerous dates and place names, with everything from June1944 to May 1945 crossed off with the word “Cancelled”.