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Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Today In History: Kids these days.
On this date in 986AD began the reign of the last Carolingian king of France: The dynasty that started out with guys nicknamed "The Hammer" and "The Great" went out with a whimper under the one-year reign of a kid known as "the Do-Nothing".
Man, I sure could go for a couple terms of do-nothing president.
"Adelaide was thirty-three and on her third marriage—and they had no children together. She soon divorced him and fled his house in 982 to Arles."
Fled his house? What the hell kind of divorce lawyer did she have? Did she at least manage pack up her favorites from Hot Topic and her Maybelline 'Hollow Eyes' kit?
(As a bit of an aside, now I'll end up calling someone a sluggard today.)
It's a little known fact that Charles Martel was the first rapper. He perfected the first "gangsta" hold-the-bastard-sword-sideways move, the better to bust a cap in the saracens. HAMMERTIME!
Actually, if they taught history like that in Middle school, more kids would probably learn it.
OA took the words straight from my noggin: give us a Do-Nothing, please!
We had a good one not long ago, coming after the long-term application of Uncle Ronnie's good-for-what-ails-you elixir. Tasted nasty, but it was truly a magic potion.
That set up a decade as has been rarely seen; a functioning capitalist economy relatively free of internal restriction and external threat, while the seat-warmer sang over and over "come and ring my beh-eh-ell, ring my bell!"
We sure fucked up when we went back to the Do Something, Do Anything, As Long As Its Stupid School of POTUS, but even that strategic move pales when compared to the destructive forces that make up the current Do Everything As Long As It's Socialist regime which is right now most certainly NOT Doing Nothing.
Speaking of medieval history, just read Battalions of God, by stark.
Nice short read defending the crusades and putting them in context of the times. and defending them against the lies and misconceptions that have been spread.
i.e. the Crusaders were not savage barbarians, were not particularly anti-jewish (it happened, but was relatively rare, and not encouraged by management), was not a colonial movement. Muslims were far more "civilized" - not so you'd notice. And mostly the local muslims were not terribly traumatized about the crusades until 600 years later.
He makes some minor errors : plate mail armour (for combat) was "so heavy it took a wince to put the knight onthe horse" NOOOO! No no. NOT.
Sigh.
Ok ,good read, nice antidote to all the crap that "europeans and americans by extension are uniqyely awful people"
Indirectly, the Carolingians gave us the modern world, primarily through their incompetence in the latter part of the dynasty.
The Vikings kicked their collective butt, and were rewarded for it by getting title to Normandy, leading to William The Conqueror.
The Bretons kicked that same collective butt, developing, by the time of the battle of Jengland, the hit and run tactics that, combined with their dragoons, would put William on the throne of England after his Norman cavalry broke at Hastings.
Picture an England without a Norman aristocracy, a squabbling collection of Saxon, Cornish, Mercian, and Cumbrian warlords. Nasty enough to eventually run out or absorb the Vikings, but wasting all their potential chopping each other up.
The Norman expansion ran out of steam in Ireland, basically sending pseudo-normanized Welsh mercenaries and watching them intermarry and disappear with their cousins, but they organized England into the third wealthiest country in Europe, gradually suborned the Scottish nobility, and basically hired the Welsh to do most of their dirty work.
Throw in the Magna Carta, the British navy, and an economy rebuilt from the ground up as the greatest export oriented culture in history, and you end up with the roots of America, four plus centuries before Columbus got here.
A strong Carolingian France would have continued to pat the neighboring savages on the head, considering them nothing more than a reliable source of mercenaries, no threat as long as they stayed disorganized.
Again,Jengland equals Hastings. Sometimes the losers create as much history as the winners.
Man, I sure could go for a couple terms of do-nothing president.
ReplyDelete"Adelaide was thirty-three and on her third marriage—and they had no children together. She soon divorced him and fled his house in 982 to Arles."
Fled his house? What the hell kind of divorce lawyer did she have? Did she at least manage pack up her favorites from Hot Topic and her Maybelline 'Hollow Eyes' kit?
(As a bit of an aside, now I'll end up calling someone a sluggard today.)
Given she was 33 and he was 13, that must've been some fascinating dinner table conversation.
ReplyDeleteOr the fights over the remote: He wants to watch SpongeBob, she wants to watch Sex in the City.
"Those aren't radio knobs!"
ReplyDeleteIt's a little known fact that Charles Martel was the first rapper. He perfected the first "gangsta" hold-the-bastard-sword-sideways move, the better to bust a cap in the saracens. HAMMERTIME!
ReplyDeleteActually, if they taught history like that in Middle school, more kids would probably learn it.
OA took the words straight from my noggin: give us a Do-Nothing, please!
ReplyDeleteWe had a good one not long ago, coming after the long-term application of Uncle Ronnie's good-for-what-ails-you elixir. Tasted nasty, but it was truly a magic potion.
That set up a decade as has been rarely seen; a functioning capitalist economy relatively free of internal restriction and external threat, while the seat-warmer sang over and over "come and ring my beh-eh-ell, ring my bell!"
We sure fucked up when we went back to the Do Something, Do Anything, As Long As Its Stupid School of POTUS, but even that strategic move pales when compared to the destructive forces that make up the current Do Everything As Long As It's Socialist regime which is right now most certainly NOT Doing Nothing.
Ah, the good old days of benign Liberalism.
AlTerego
Speaking of medieval history, just read Battalions of God, by stark.
ReplyDeleteNice short read defending the crusades and putting them in context of the times. and defending them against the lies and misconceptions that have been spread.
i.e. the Crusaders were not savage barbarians, were not particularly anti-jewish (it happened, but was relatively rare, and not encouraged by management), was not a colonial movement. Muslims were far more "civilized" - not so you'd notice. And mostly the local muslims were not terribly traumatized about the crusades until 600 years later.
He makes some minor errors : plate mail armour (for combat) was "so heavy it took a wince to put the knight onthe horse" NOOOO!
No no. NOT.
Sigh.
Ok ,good read, nice antidote to all the crap that "europeans and americans by extension are uniqyely awful people"
Indirectly, the Carolingians gave us the modern world, primarily through their incompetence in the latter part of the dynasty.
ReplyDeleteThe Vikings kicked their collective butt, and were rewarded for it by getting title to Normandy, leading to William The Conqueror.
The Bretons kicked that same collective butt, developing, by the time of the battle of Jengland, the hit and run tactics that, combined with their dragoons, would put William on the throne of England after his Norman cavalry broke at Hastings.
Picture an England without a Norman aristocracy, a squabbling collection of Saxon, Cornish, Mercian, and Cumbrian warlords. Nasty enough to eventually run out or absorb the Vikings, but wasting all their potential chopping each other up.
The Norman expansion ran out of steam in Ireland, basically sending pseudo-normanized Welsh mercenaries and watching them intermarry and disappear with their cousins, but they organized England into the third wealthiest country in Europe, gradually suborned the Scottish nobility, and basically hired the Welsh to do most of their dirty work.
Throw in the Magna Carta, the British navy, and an economy rebuilt from the ground up as the greatest export oriented culture in history, and you end up with the roots of America, four plus centuries before Columbus got here.
A strong Carolingian France would have continued to pat the neighboring savages on the head, considering them nothing more than a reliable source of mercenaries, no threat as long as they stayed disorganized.
Again,Jengland equals Hastings. Sometimes the losers create as much history as the winners.
What are underwear?
ReplyDelete