New York City Love Letter
Sunday, my wife and I introduced a Connecticut friend to the main branch of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue. Of course, one must see the Rose Main…
Constitutionality
Donald Trump's continual declaration of national emergencies that he uses to declare executive orders of dubious legitimacy harkens back to similar usage in Germany following World War I. This was…
Random Learning #65
From the book Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World by Malcolm Harris I learned the etymology of the term redlining: In his acclaimed 2017 book, The…
Random Learnings #64
In 2016, the government of the Czech Republic declared that Czechia is the country's short name in English. Yes, Czech Republic remains the country's official name and yes, Czech Republic…
Unexpected Continuity
From the Brittanica Book of the Year 1968, p376: Another in a series of legislative measures designed to establish the separate statehood of East Germany was passed by the People's…
Oh What A Year: 1933
[Nothing like spending a Sunday reading undigitized, bound periodicals at your local university library...] Time Magazine began 1933 by declaring Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the president-elect, as Man of the Year.…
BITE Model of Cults
In Project Mind Control: Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA, and the Tragedy of MKULTRA, the author John Lisle describes the worldview and culture of the CIA that led to unstructured and…
The New Penny Normal
For decades, amusement parks, gardens, museums, zoos, boardwalks, and anywhere else offer - for a price - to commemorate your visit by embossing their logo or image onto a penny,…
Sint Paulus, Antwerpen
Saint Paul's Church in Antwerp dates from the seventeenth century, built after Calvinists destroyed a former Dominican order church. St. Paul's has been owned by the city of Antwerp since…
Random Learnings #63
I happened upon this article in a 1949 issue of International Conciliation (sorry, didn't note which issue, the name of the article, the author): The North Atlantic Pact is a…