The Virtual Stoa

I HAVE, I hope, raised a prima facie presumption that the Times was labouring under some delusion. It had omitted some element from its calculations, sufficient to distort the whole history of the struggle. The story, to use its own words, was “a mystery and a marvel;” it was a mystery and a marvel simply because the Times was not in possession of the one clue which led through the labyrinth. A foreigner looking on at a cricket-match is apt to think the evolutions of the players mysterious; and they will be enveloped in sevenfold mystery if he has a firmly preconceived prejudice that the ball has nothing whatever to do with the game. At every new movement, he must invent a new theory to show that the apparent eagerness to pick up the ball is a mere pretext; that no one really wants to hit it, or to catch it, or to throw it at the wickets; and that its constant appearance is due to a mere accident. He will be very lucky if some of his theories do not upset each other.

As, in my opinion, the root of all the errors of the Times may be found in its views about slavery…

From “The Times on the war: a historical study“, by Leslie Stephen (London: William Ridgway, 1865), pp. 18-19.

You promise, in your letter of Octob 23. 1787. to give me in your next, at large, the conjectures of your Philosopher on the descent of the Creek Indians from the Carthaginians, supposed to have been separated from Hanno’s fleet during his periplus. I shall be very glad to receive them, & see nothing impossible in his conjecture. I am glad he means to appeal to the similarity of language, which I consider as the strongest kind of proof it is possible to adduce. I have somewhere read that the language of the ancient Carthaginians is still spoken by their descendants inhabiting the mountainous interior parts of Barbary to which they were obliged to retire by the conquering Arabs. If so, a vocabulary of their tongue can still be got, and if your friend will get one of the Creek languages, the comparison will decide. He probably may have made progress in this business: but if he wishes any enquiries to be made on this side the Atlantic, I offer him my services cheerfully, my wish being, like his, to ascertain the history of the American aborigines.

[Letter of 18 July 1788 to Edward Rutledge, full text over here]

Happy birthday, Woody Guthrie, 100 years old today.

Since private security men are back in the news–as well as economic Depression–I thought we might have “Vigilante Man” to mark the occasion.

The film’s from the 1975 documentary, “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?”, and Mike Davis has a long essay [77 pp.], ‘What is a Vigilante Man?: White Violence in California History’ over here [pdf], in case you want to read more.

Over here.

I missed this one earlier in the Summer (I was on holiday). From the FT:

Since arriving at Harvard in June last year, he has been consultant to several members of Barack Obama’s administration, including Hillary Clinton, and is a member of Richard Holbrooke’s special committee for Afghanistan and Pakistan policy. “I do a lot of work with policymakers, but how much effect am I having?” he asks, pronging a mussel out of its shell.

“It’s like they’re coming in and saying to you, ‘I’m going to drive my car off a cliff. Should I or should I not wear a seatbelt?’ And you say, ‘I don’t think you should drive your car off the cliff.’ And they say, ‘No, no, that bit’s already been decided – the question is whether to wear a seatbelt.’ And you say, ‘Well, you might as well wear a seatbelt.’ And then they say, ‘We’ve consulted with policy expert Rory Stewart and he says …’”

[via]

Over here.

I’ve just heard the sad (but not unexpected news) that the beat poet Harold Norse has died aged 92. I spent the Summer of 1999 living in an apartment on Albion St in San Francisco’s Mission District, Harold lived around the same building, and we’d run into him from time to time when he was collecting his post.

Click here to hear the President of the United States say something you probably didn’t expect him to.

[Thanks to the hard work of the Boston Phoenix, and with explanation here. Via.]

The nuclear option is still on the table, over here [via].

Why do Americans have to queue for so long to cast their votes? Is it just another aspect of the general American concern to make it tricky to cast a vote that’s been kicking around for quite a while now, or is there something else going on that I don’t know about? Or do the press just pick up on the long queues in some particularly inefficient parts of the country, even though most Americans can just pop along to the local polling station and cast a ballot in a minute or two, as in the rest of the democratic world? From my memory of living over there ten years ago, Americans don’t much like queuing. Not like us Brits, anyway.

Here, and here.

Maureen Dowd does Latin; Mary Beard comments [via PR].

Get your cards over here! [thanks JQ/DA]

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. You may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transaction is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully
Minister of Treasury Paulson

[via]

Full story, over here [thanks, RCP]

There’s a lot wrong with Sarah Palin, who continues to make me laugh, but if President McCain snuffed it and President Palin took over, I’d reckon that the world would, on balance, be a safer place, so I’m struggling to see why everyone’s quite so anxious about whether she’s competent to govern. However much “experience”, etc., John McCain has, it’d be a bit of a surprise if he manages to get through a presidential term without recklessly starting at least one needless war, given his fondness for advocating the use of military force to solve foreign policy problems. Is there any good reason to think that President Palin’s likely to want to drop bombs on people? I’m not sure that there is, though I might be missing something. The great American republic of theirs survived J. Danforth Quayle as V-P, and I think it’s going to cope with Sarah Palin — and if she does succeed to the top job, it’s hard to see how she could be less fit for high office than either of her two predecessors.