March 12th, 2007 by lux
From The Washington Post:
All memory is selective, for nations as for individuals. The year 1620 is etched into Plymouth Rock and the minds of most Americans as the birth date of this country. We hallow austere Pilgrims with a day of national gluttony. The Mayflower is iconic — the name of a moving company, a luxury Washington hotel and a recent best-seller.
But can you name the three ships that landed English colonists 13 years before the Pilgrims? Identify one person aboard, other than John Smith? Explain why they came and what happened to them? Jamestown’s 400th birthday arrives this year with a fleet of books to stir Americans from their historical amnesia. This awakening should be a snap. The saga of early Virginia has knights, knaves, shipwrecks, naked Indian dancers (cooing to sex-starved Englishmen, “Love you not me?”), and plenty of smoking and drinking. It’s pulp fiction compared to the family-friendly tale of pious Pilgrims dining with gentle Indians.
More here.
Originally from 3quarksdaily on March 11, 2007, 7:19am
Posted in History, ReBlog | 
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March 1st, 2007 by lux
Douglas Martin in the New York Times:
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., the historian whose more than 20 books shaped discussions for two generations about America’s past, and who himself was a provocative, unabashedly liberal partisan, most notably while serving in the Kennedy White House, died Wednesday night in Manhattan. He was 89.
His death, at New York Downtown Hospital, was caused by a heart attack he suffered earlier during a family dinner at Bobby Van’s Steakhouse, his son Stephen said.Twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, Mr. Schlesinger exhaustively examined the administrations of two prominent presidents, Andrew Jackson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, against a vast background of regional and economic rivalries. He argued that strong individuals like Jackson and Roosevelt could bend history.
The notes he took for President John F. Kennedy, for the president’s use in writing his history, became, after Mr. Kennedy’s assassination, grist for Mr. Schlesinger’s own account, “A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House.” It won both the Pulitzer and a National Book Award in 1966.
More here.
Originally from 3quarksdaily on March 1, 2007, 6:05pm
Posted in Books, History, People, Political, ReBlog | No Comments »
October 25th, 2005 by lux
Something culturally bizarre is going on in Hong Kong and from what I haven’t read in the western media (with the exception of a 2003 post on Boing Boing)… either the topic is still too taboo or most people aren’t paying attention. For times like these you can count on Asian Sex Gazette to cover the story (again).
To many Hong Kongers, Nazis represent the epitome of desirability. Their tanks were made by Mercedes and Porsche; their uniforms were original Hugo Boss.
Twenty years after the last British skinhead tired of the joke, it’s still not unusual to see a Hong Kong teen in an Adolph Hitler European Tour t-shirt.
Posted in Culture, History, People, Sex | No Comments »
