 |
| Connectography cover illustration |
Old Line
This Is No Tall Tale
It's not that we Americans are shrinking, according to the authors of this book. It's that the citizens of many other countries have caught up to and passed us, height-wise. from delanceyplace.com:
Today's selection -- from American Amnesia Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson. Americans are no longer the tallest people in the world:
"For much of US history, Americans were the tallest people in the world by a large margin. When the thirteen colonies that occupied the Atlantic seaboard broke from the British Empire, adult American men were on average three inches taller than their counterparts in England, and they were almost that much taller than men in the Netherlands, the great economic power before Britain. Revolutionary soldiers looked up to General George Washington, but not, as often assumed, because he was a giant among Lilliputians. David McCullough, in his popular biography of John Adams, describes Washington as 'nearly a head taller than Adams -- six feet four in his boots, taller than almost anyone of the day.' Those must have been some boots, for Washington was six feet two. At five foot seven, Adams was just an inch below the average for American soldiers and significantly taller than a typical European soldier. Americans were tall because Americans were healthy. 'Poor as they were,' notes the colonial historian William Polk, 'Americans ate and were housed better than Englishmen.' Sickness and premature death were common, of course, especially outside the privileged circle of white men. Still, European visitors like Tocqueville marveled at the fertility of the land and the robustness of its settlers, the relative equality of male citizens and the strong civic bonds among them. J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur wrote in 1782 of the American settler in Letters from an American Farmer, 'Instead of starving he will be fed, instead of being idle he will have employment, and there are riches enough for such men as come over here.'
"The cause of the American height advantage could not have been
income alone. According to most sources, the average resident of the
Netherlands or England was richer than colonial Americans but also
substantially shorter. Indeed, as the United States matched and then
surpassed Europe economically in the nineteenth century, the average
height of American men actually fell, recovering back to colonial levels
only around the dawn of the twentieth century. These ebbs and flows,
which
Today's selection -- from American Amnesia Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson. Americans are no longer the tallest people in the world:
"For much of US history, Americans were the tallest people in the world by a large margin. When the thirteen colonies that occupied the Atlantic seaboard broke from the British Empire, adult American men were on average three inches taller than their counterparts in England, and they were almost that much taller than men in the Netherlands, the great economic power before Britain. Revolutionary soldiers looked up to General George Washington, but not, as often assumed, because he was a giant among Lilliputians. David McCullough, in his popular biography of John Adams, describes Washington as 'nearly a head taller than Adams -- six feet four in his boots, taller than almost anyone of the day.' Those must have been some boots, for Washington was six feet two. At five foot seven, Adams was just an inch below the average for American soldiers and significantly taller than a typical European soldier. Americans were tall because Americans were healthy. 'Poor as they were,' notes the colonial historian William Polk, 'Americans ate and were housed better than Englishmen.' Sickness and premature death were common, of course, especially outside the privileged circle of white men. Still, European visitors like Tocqueville marveled at the fertility of the land and the robustness of its settlers, the relative equality of male citizens and the strong civic bonds among them. J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur wrote in 1782 of the American settler in Letters from an American Farmer, 'Instead of starving he will be fed, instead of being idle he will have employment, and there are riches enough for such men as come over here.'
 |
Words on the Mind
Lemons, Spit, and the Sensitive Soul
20,000 Saints on an Island
All roads do not lead to Bardsey, as it is an island, but it was once known as the Rome of Britain. This, according to the Book of Llandaff, written between 1120 and 1140, which chronicles the early history of the diocese of Llandaff, Wales. It was so called, the Book says, "for its sanctity and dignity, because there were buried therein the bodies of 20,000 holy confessors and martyrs." Which is rather stunning when you think that the island measures one-and-a-half miles by a half mile. The locals ~ all four of them who live there year-round ~ claim that if you dig anywhere on the island, you'll find a body. So what made this windy, rather isolated little island so popular at one time? And for that matter, what makes its current residents and 80 or so summer visitors willing to live there without running water, paved roads, or an electric grid?: http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20160411-the-tiny-island-of-20000-graves
 |
| llyn.info |
Knock Knock Neoliberalism ...
 |
| Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, two early faces of neoliberalism |
If Memory Serves
And speaking of memorization, a while back I posted a great little poem used to help English children learn the names and order of their monarchs: http://somanyinterestingthings.blogspot.com/2012/12/royallist.html
One thing leads to another, and as the above-referenced poem starts with William the Conqueror, who won the throne in 1066 (remember the Battle of Hastings?), I am reminded of the famous but unfinished Bayeux Tapestry, made in his honor. There is a beautiful animated version of it, and a group of dedicated embroiderers led by an American expat living in England spent a year completing it: http://somanyinterestingthings.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-final-chapter.html
The Widow and the Sea-Monkeys
Gaudy (in a good way) Gaudí
 |
| Casa Vicens set-travel.com |
The Background Front and Center
 |
| J. Scott Applewhite/AP |
Down in the Mouth
The dentist may be our new best friend. Heart disease, arthritis, Alzheimer's, cancer ~ all could be linked to oral bacteria. As with most new theories, experts have lined up on both sides of the debate, but a growing number of tests seem to be showing a connection. Oral bacteria, for example ~ and there are many kinds ~ are being found in all sorts of unexpected areas of the body, including the brain: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/gum-disease-opens-body-host-infections?utm_source=Society+for+Science+Newsletters&utm_campaign=aa1264b189-SN_Editor_s_Picks_April_4_20164_8_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a4c415a67f-aa1264b189-104586561
Just Because: 'Evicted'
1.
THE BUSINESS OF OWNING THE CITY
Before the city yielded to winter, as cold and gray as a mechanic's wrench, before Arleen convinced Sherrena Tarver to let her boys move into the Thirteenth Street duplex, the inner city was crackling with life. It was early September and Milwaukee was enjoying an Indian summer. Music rolled into the streets from car speakers as children played on the sidewalk or sold water bottles by the freeway entrance. Grandmothers watched from porch chairs as bare-chested black boys laughingly made their way to the basketball court.
Sherrena wound her way through the North Side, listening to R&B with her window down. Most middle-class Milwaukeeans zoomed past the inner city on the freeway. Landlords took the side streets, typically not in their Saab or Audi but in their "rent collector," some oil-leaking, rusted-out van or truck that hauled around extension cords, ladders, maybe a loaded pistol, plumbing snakes, toolboxes, a can of Mace, nail guns, and other necessities. Sherrena usually left her lipstick-red Camaro at home and visited tenants in a beige-and-brown 1993 Chevy Suburban with 22-inch rims. The Suburban belonged to Quentin, Sherrena's husband, business partner, and property manager. He used a screwdriver to start it.
Some white Milwaukeeans still referred to the North Side as "the core," as they did in the 1960s, and if they ventured into it, they saw street after street of sagging duplexes, fading murals, twenty-four-hour day cares, and corner stores with WIC ACCEPTED HERE signs. Once America's eleventh-
A Bachelor By Degree
Today's selection -- from Medieval Christianity by Kevin Madigan. Universities were one of the key contributions of the Middle Ages to the advancement of Western civilization. The university as we know it today evolved from guilds or unions. Men studying at universities who reached a middling level of competence were known as "bachelors", since, though they had some ability, it was not enough to support a family:
"Universities, which evolved from the cathedral schools (particularly those concentrated on the left bank and on the Île-de-France of the Seine in Paris, like that at Notre Dame cathedral), originated in the late eleventh century. By the dawn of the early modern period, three hundred years later, perhaps seventy or eighty universities existed. This remarkable institution had multiplied and spread across Europe. A combination of adventitious factors, such as geographical locus and the specialization of a master or group of masters, resulted in certain cities achieving distinction in certain of the professions. Thus (as noted), for theology, Paris and Oxford were preeminent, as was Bologna for law and Montpellier and Salerno for medicine. These institutions were originally called 'totalities of scholars' or 'universities of masters.' Why?
 |
| A university class |
"In order to comprehend the academic and economic structure of the medieval university and of the professoriate, we must appreciate some of the features of medieval guilds, to the characteristics of which the new universities and their academic leadership would closely correspond. Medieval guilds were first and foremost organized, much like unions today, for the common profit of their members. Our term 'university' actually derives from the Latin term for guild (universitas). In the Middle Ages, a 'university' simply meant the totality of something -- in this case, of men organized to protect common economic interests and to treat with political authorities. Thus there were 'universities' of, say, smiths or shoemakers and other makers of goods and those possessing particular skills. Such
One Man's Mud-Brick Paradise
 |
| the roof of New Gourna's mosque |
Fathy engagingly recounts his own circuitous route in Architecture for the Poor: http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/fathy.pdf
Mr. Wang's Canal
 |
| Pacific entrance to Panama Canal and expansion KW |
The Big Leak
 |
| Arnulfo Franco/AP |
The story according to Süddeutsche Zeitung: http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/articles/56febff0a1bb8d3c3495adf4/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)